Mountain Rocker

 My Raleigh back porch rocker has now become my mountain patio rocker.  I suppose it sits about the same as it did in Raleigh, but here in Candler, N.C., it seems to catch more cool breezes. Actually, today it’s catching cold breezes, cold at least for May 30, at sixty degrees with mountain winds swooping down with gale force gusts. No exaggeration!  Memorial Day in Raleigh is usually hot and humid, or rainy and monsoon-like.  Whatever the temperature and weather, the rocker does not seem to mind.  It rocks on and doesn’t fret that its oak wood is aging in the rain, sun, snow, or whatever comes its way.  It’s as if it has a will of its own which unconditionally offers itself to anyone and in any circumstance.  Such graciousness cannot be found in a satin sofa, or even my den lounge chair which visitors avoid as they seem to know it belongs to me. 

I love my rocker enough that I once entered it in a contest: “Most beautiful back porch.”  You send in a photo of your rocker on the porch and someone in New York judges it and then awards first place to someone in Manhattan whose “porch” looks like a French country home parlor.  Madison Avenue has no idea what an oak rocker in the Appalachians feels like.  They just cannot imagine rocking to the sounds of the goats bleating across Dogwood Road, or the occasion braying of an old donkey over the ridge. They might even turn up their noses at the faint and familiar barn scents occasionally wafting their way to my patio. And they would certainly cower under their futon if they heard one of the blasts from what sounds like a Civil War re-enactment in the Hominy Valley (I hope it is a “re-enactment.” Some of those pickups with confederate flags seemed pretty menacing during the last election). 

But my sturdy oak rocker knows none of this.  It is unimpressed by the pretentiousness of the elite or the intimidation of any self-proclaimed militia (aka, “terrorists”). It would probably welcome either of them to sit awhile with its oaken arms accepting and supporting them, even in all their ignorance or arrogance. 

I know this is true of my rocker. That’s exactly what it has done for me all these years. And I am hopeful it will stick with me in all that is ahead as well.  I know it will.  That’s the way it is with good ole rockers. They are just so full of grace.

Metropolitan Candler

 A lot has happened since my last blog post, some seven years ago! Last year, we moved from "the place I thought we'd live till death," Raleigh, North Carolina.  I often boasted, "Raleigh has it all:  medical centers; concerts; sports; retirement communities; shopping; art museums, amusements ad nauseum.

In our retirement years, we moved on April 15 in the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic to, of all places, Candler, North Carolina. Try to find it on map.  Good luck.   Candler is not your Raleigh.  It is not Asheville, either, though we are only three miles from the Asheville city limits.   

Downtown Candler, if you can call it that, is a strip of Smoky Park Highway consisting of used car lots, service stations, tire repair shops, and a couple fast food joints.  It is noisy and congested with dump trucks and service vehicles, but just off the highway are quiet spots and a townhome community called "Vistas" of some sort. While we do have a view of a bucolic hillside and a goat farm, we cannot see a single mountain until we walk to the upper tier of the community where a gazebo allows views of Mt Pisgah, the highest mountain in Buncombe County.  It's worth the climb, though.

I suppose by this point you are thinking I don't much like it here.  On the contrary, I think I am as happy here as any place I have ever lived.  I don't enjoy the sounds of weapons firing on Saturday afternoon, though.  Some neighbors seem to enjoy their firearms a lot.  When I hear the gunfire,  I call it the "Buncombe County militia," but there is no such group to my knowledge (but I would not doubt their existence). The traffic is not as bad as Raleigh, but as tourist season starts and the pandemic ends, there is considerable traffic congestion down "main street," elegantly called Highway 23.

But I am willing to suffer the changes because of the smile of a two-year-old granddaughter who lives just a ten minute drive away.  My wife and I moved thinking we would be her "back up" daycare giver, then the pandemic came and we volunteered to be her primary daycare until the pandemic ends.  

We now know how the aged Abraham and Sarah felt with a toddler: tired. But what a joy one smile, one hug, one laugh brings to this old man.  I wouldn't trade it for a hundred days of solitary Raleigh retirement, no matter how badly my back aches after yielding to her, "hold me, Grandpop" pleas.

So it doesn't get much better than that. But if we  somehow could get some gun silencers for the local militia, things would be just about perfect.