Cold Weather

According to the almanac, the official start of winter is on the solstice which happens on December 21 at 12:11 p.m. this year. If that’s true, then winter has been practicing for opening day here in Fannin County.

It was below freezing and windy the day I started writing this post. The wind chill factor was 17 degrees. It did not get into the 40’s all day. The next day the morning temperature was 23 degrees. There were snow flurries and sleet on the day before Thanksgiving. As far as I’m concerned, that’s winter.

Winter weather means two things to me: cold and snow. I know that north Georgia experiences real winter weather. The average temperature in Fannin County in December and February is just above 30 degrees. The locals tell me that there have been winters when the temperature has dipped below zero for several days and there has been more than two feet of snow on the ground. By my definition, that’s real winter.

I lived up north until I was 22, so I know about snow, blizzards, cold, and ice. I went to college in Pennsylvania, and I remember weeks of frigid cold and lingering snow. I recall one bitterly cold day in January when a large group of us left the fraternity for early morning classes. Two or three fell on the ice on the porch and walkway and turned back before we got to the sidewalk. We lost another two or three climbing over the mounded snow left by the snowplows on our side of the street. A couple more abandoned the quest after falling on their asses crossing the icy street. Climbing over the mounded snow on the other side of the street took a similar toll. By the time we reached campus, a distance of a hundred feet or so, half the group had returned to the warmth of the frat house. It was like storming Omaha Beach. Casualties were high.

To people who live in the Northeast, the Midwest, or the Rockies, winter in the southern Appalachians must sound like a piece of cake, and I must sound like a big weenie for even talking about it.

But it’s what you are used to that matters. I lived in Florida for the last 40 years, and I’m not used to living and working in the cold. I’m used to balmy weather and wearing shorts and flip-flops in the winter. My body is good at sweating, not shivering. I’m also not as young, hardy, and bullet proof as I was in my college days. I’m sure I will adjust to cold weather, but it will take time.

The transition will be tougher for Meredith. She has lived in Florida all her life and has never been through a real winter. In her lifetime it has snowed a handful of times in Pinellas County, and what snow there was melted in minutes or hours.

Until I do adjust to the cold in these parts, I’ve got to be honest−it sucks.

My oldest son, Jake, drove up from FSU this weekend. On Sunday morning, the thermometer read 27 degrees, and the wind was blowing. Jake and I are early risers, and he headed out to the workshop before the sun rose to work on our dune buggy. I had no legitimate reason to be in the workshop that early, but I went with him. I think it was herd instinct on my part. I went because he went.

The workshop is not heated, and after five minutes my hands were so cold they were like clubs. The last thing I wanted to do was take my hands out of my pockets and touch a cold metal tool. My fingers were frozen claws. I don’t think I could have wrapped them around a tool even if I had wanted to. I bet that if I had picked my nose, my index finger would have frozen there. Try explaining that to the emergency room physician.

You know how when you are really cold you scrunch your neck down and try to cover your ears with your shoulders? That’s what I looked like. I could have booked myself in the freak tent on the county fair circuit as Jimmy, The Neckless Wonder.

At some point I couldn’t feel my toes, and I wondered whether there had ever been a reported case of frostbite in Georgia.

After a few more minutes I abandoned the idea of doing any work in the shop and started a roaring fire in the burn barrel next to the shop. I spent the next hour huddled next to it sucking down hot coffee like it was free beer at a frat party.

I tried to justify my discomfort as a bonding experience with Jake. Here we were, father and son, huddled around a fire on a frigid morning. It was so primal. I bet Neanderthal dads shared moments like this with their sons during that last great ice age. Then I recalled that the Neanderthals succumbed to the Cro-Magnons. It probably was because the Cro-Magnons were smart enough to stay in their warm shelters when it got cold.

Fortunately, it warmed up enough to be tolerable after the sun rose.

The whole experience has caused me to reexamine what my parental bonding obligations are. I’ve concluded that my obligation to bond with my sons diminishes in direct proportion to how cold it is.

The worst thing about the cold is peeing outdoors, at least for men. It’s like that classic thought experiment in physics where you contemplate an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Peeing outdoors requires you to contemplate ice cold fingers touching warm object. That is if you can find it under multiple layers of clothing.

My hope is that I will adjust to the cold quickly. I will need to if I get chickens, rabbits, or other critters that have to be fed and watered daily.

Learning to deal with cold weather is just another part of the experience of Yacavone in Georgia.

An Assessment of Retirement

I have been retired and living in north Georgia for two and a half months. When I left Pinellas County it was 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity. As I write this in the pre-dawn hours, it is 28 degrees and 35 percent humidity. We’ve already had one morning when it was 15 degrees. Certain parts of my anatomy are debating whether to go south for the winter or just grit it out here.

Fall is over. The oaks continue to cling to some of their leaves, but it’s a losing battle. The bare, angular branches of the trees against the sky make the woods look skeletal. There is a sense of impending winter in the air. It is a good time to assess what I’ve learned so far about retirement, country life, and rural Georgia.

I’ve learned that Chapstick is my friend. The low humidity, wind, and cold have turned my lips into beef jerky. I’m told I will adjust to the lower humidity. I hope so. I feel like I’m walking around with big, pouty, shiny lips after I smear on the Chapstick. That’s a great look if you’re Mick Jagger, a kissing gourami, or a chimpanzee, but not so great when you’re standing in the tool department of Ace Hardware, and the local boys are wondering whether you’re wearing lip gloss. Can you say, “Squeal like a pig?”

I’ve learned to tell the temperature without a thermometer. If it’s 40 degrees or colder, my nose starts to run. I wear work gloves much of the time when I am outdoors, and I swipe constantly at my dripping nose with my gloved hands. My nose is now red and chapped. I look like a rummy. I imagine W.C. Fields’ nose looked like mine. With my red nose and big pouty lips, maybe I should get big flapping clown shoes and complete the picture.

We have been using our wood stove to heat the cabin. I’ve learned that if I want to wake up to a warm cabin in the morning, I’m the one who has to get out of bed in the middle of the night to add wood to the stove. Meredith isn’t going to budge from her toasty bed.

I am becoming a maestro of the wood stove. I can nurse a load of wood into eight hours of steady heat. Now if I can only remember that the handle to the stove gets hot enough to brand cattle. I try to be quiet when I stoke the stove in the wee hours of the morning but I frequently forget that the handle is hot and burn my fingers. I bellowed so loud the other night that the neighbor’s dogs started barking, and they’re over a quarter of a mile away. It certainly startled our cat; we had to pry her off the ceiling.

I’ve learned that overalls are functional garments, and I wear mine all the time. They have plenty of pockets, keep the dirt out, and are warm. A lot of men here wear them, especially the old timers, so you don’t feel like a rube.

I do have a suggestion to improve them. They have a button fly. When you really have to pee and your hands are cold, it’s a bitch to unbutton the buttons. If you’ve ever worn a snowsuit you’ll know what I mean. I’d replace the buttons with a giant zipper and attach a strong rip cord to the zipper pull. I’d put a patch next to the fly that said, “Pull only in an emergency.” I know it would look odd having a giant string hanging down over your crotch, but it would be practical and prevent accidents. It may even become a fashion statement. Imagine brightly colored tassels fluttering around down there. I’d call it the ripper zipper look.

There is a drawback to overalls. They trap gas. Wearing them can be dangerous after an evening of Mexican food and a few beers. I was wearing overalls the other day with the legs tucked into my boot tops, and I let one rip. I thought my boots were going to fly off. I think overalls should have emergency blow out vents in the back.

I’ve learned that making cheese is not as easy it looks. Mozzarella is one of the easiest cheeses to make. I’ve tried to make it twice and failed both times. It is humbling to realize that a Sicilian goat herder with a third grade education living in a stone hut can make cheese, and I can’t. It’s the same feeling you get when your kid can turn on the disc player and you can’t. I need to locate someone around here who knows what they are doing cheese-wise and get some hints.

I’ve learned that there is a big difference between the little backyard garden I had in Florida and the big, serious garden I’m planning to have here. The time and effort I’m spending just to get rid of the rocks is way more than I anticipated. The local gardeners tell me that I will never get all the rocks out of this soil. They say that every year more rocks will come to the surface. In a way, that relieved me. I was beginning to believe that the number of rocks in my garden was divine punishment for my sins. I haven’t kept count of my sins over the years, but I did not think there were that many. Maybe working 37 years as a lawyer added to the count. It’s been a long time since I read the Inferno, but I would not be surprised if Dante placed lawyers somewhere in the lowest levels of hell just above politicians, parking meter readers, and daytime television programmers.

I’ve learned that you are more aware of earth’s other creatures when you live in a rural area: hawks and crows, hummingbirds and woodpeckers, deer and raccoons. In my case the list includes infestations of limping daddy long legs, weather predicting wooly caterpillars, zombie squirrels, and swarming ladybugs. I can’t wait to see what’s next−singing dung beetles, belching toads, kamikaze cicadas, farting stink bugs?

More than anything, I’ve learned that retirement is great. I do not miss work one bit. When I said I was retiring, some folks told me that I would miss work and go crazy with nothing to do. Let me get this right. I’m going to miss dealing with cantankerous judges, opposing attorneys who are jerks, Tampa Bay traffic, deadlines, working on weekends, stress, and pressure. Are you nuts?

I know that some people take so much enjoyment in their work that they cannot conceive of doing something else. There are probably long time trial attorneys who still find the practice of law enjoyable. Hell, there are people in India who take great pleasure in driving nails through their nipples and hanging heavy weights from their scrotums. But I suspect that for most of us the profession that we’ve chosen eventually grows wearisome. The exception may be operating a strip club, but I digress.

I don’t think not having anything to do will be a problem. I start every day with a list of things to accomplish, and by the time evening rolls around, I find that I have not made it through the list. Part of the reason for that is because I keep getting sidetracked on spur of the moment whims like making a walking stick or seeing if I can convert an old piece of metal into a Viking axe or learning to sharpen a saw that I will probably never use.

These side ventures are not significant accomplishments or even useful on the grand scale of things. Some would say they are a childish waste of time. But that’s the secret and the joy of retirement: I have the time to indulge childish urges. When people say to me that I will go crazy for things to do in retirement that tells me they have lost the playfulness and imagination they had as a child and forgotten the childish pleasure of doing something just for the hell of it. This may be selfish, but I view retirement as my time of life, a time to indulge childish pleasures, do foolish things, and smell the roses.

Lost and Confused

I thought I had a good sense of direction, but driving around here in Fannin County is convincing me otherwise. In Florida I always had a sense of where I was in relation to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s easy to orient yourself when you have a huge body of water to the west. It also helps that most roads in Florida run north and south or east and west.

My sense of direction seems to have deserted me here in Fannin County. There is no large body of water to provide orientation. The most significant geographic features are mountains, and there are a lot of those in all directions.

The cabin faces some large mountains. When we first started coming up here I thought the cabin faced north because I assumed that any mountains had to be in the direction of North Carolina and Tennessee. It took me seven years to realize that there were mountains between here and Atlanta and that the cabin faced south. You would think that at some point I would have realized where east and west were based on where the sun rose and set. Sometimes I can be such a Danny Dumbass. Obviously, I'm no Daniel Boone.

Of course it doesn’t help your sense of direction when the roads twist and turn in all directions. Even if you are oriented when you start, after a few turns you’re lucky if you can point to your ass.

Even when I know where a particular route starts and ends from studying a map, I’m often amazed at the result. Maybe there is an unusual space/time warp around here that does strange things to the geography.

Sometimes I get confused even after studying a map. There are a lot of roads that have an “old” version of the road. For instance, there is Dial Road and Old Dial Road, Cashes Valley Road and Old Cashes Valley Road, and Field Road and Old Field Road. Sometimes the “old” road is not located in the same part of the county as the “new” road at which point it’s a mystery to me why they named the new road after the old road. Maybe the roads are not named after each other but rather after people. Maybe there was a Mr. Dial and an older fellow by the name of Dial; hence, Dial Road and Old Dial Road. Whatever the reason, it’s confusing as hell.

Adding to the confusion are the areas of the county that are not even marked on a map but are well known to locals, like Epworth and Hemptown. One old fellow told me he lived in Hemptown. I could not find Hemptown on a map of the county. I finally figured out where it was when I got lost (imagine that) one day.

There are three areas in the county known as Booger Hollow, Hells Hollow, and Snake Nation. As you have probably deduced, you will not find them identified on a map. According to one source, Hells Hollow got its name when a family saw a man stagger out of a hollow. When they asked him where he had been, he replied, “Hell.” Snake Nation allegedly got its name from a Cherokee clan that lived there. I have no idea how Booger Hollow got its name, and I am almost afraid to ask. I was told that there was an area known as Mule Shit Hollow, but the name was changed for obvious reasons. I’d have given anything to have Mule Shit Hollow as an address.

I have always had a fascination with place names. When I travel I like to peruse a map for unusual or descriptive names for cities and towns, roads and streets, and geographical features. Fannin County has its share of interesting place names.

There are a lot of hollows and hollers. There’s Channing Hollow Road, Gork Holler Road, Happy Hollow Road, Hidden Hollow Drive, Hillbilly Hollow Road, Misty Hollow Road, and Old Hollow Road. I suppose Possum Hollow Road was inevitable, but I am surprised there is no Sleepy Hollow.

Roads with the name “bear” in them are popular. There’s Bear Claw Road, Bear Cub Trail, Bear Den Road, Bear Track Trail, and Bear Walk Road, to name some of them. I assume someone was trying to be clever or was a lousy speller when he or she named Bear Foot Drive. My favorite is Bear Walks Medicine Path.

If you’re into cheap wine and lousy hangovers, there’s Boons Farm Road. Keeping with the theme, Fannin County has Boot Legger Road, Bourbon Street, Moonshine Mountain Road, and Moonshine Ridge Road. There is also Wild Turkey Lane, but this could have been named for the bird rather than the bourbon.

I’d like to know the story behind Bushy Head Gilmer Road. Was it named after a man with a full head of hair? There’s also a Bushy Head Lane, Bushy Head Road, and Bushy Head Fannin Road.

I’m not sure I want to visit Chigger Ridge Road, Critter Road, or Blue Tick Road, and it’s probably better to stay away from Shotgun Alley and Cops Road.

Roads with names that appear to be from the old days are Coon Gap Road, Cut Cane Road, and Hardscrabble Road. I particularly like Lickskillet Road.

I pass Trotsalot Road when I drive into Blue Ridge. I speculate that the person who named it rode horses a lot or had a recurring stomach ailment.

You can stroll down Memory Lane and visit Dew Drop Lane, but I recommend you avoid The Forest Has Eyes Road.

I don’t know what to think of Elvis Presley Boulevard. From what I’ve seen, there is not a road in the county that deserves to be called a boulevard.

I intend to find out how Black Ankle Creek, Hot House Creek, Fightingtown Creek, and Crusher Creek got their names.

The bottom line is that if you come to Fannin County be prepared to be lost and confused. Bring a GPS device, a map, and a compass. An emergency radio and signaling flares may be in order too. Otherwise, you may get lost on the back roads and never return.

Driving The Back Roads

The back roads here are really something. They are not flat and straight like the roads in Florida; rather, they go up and down and turn left and right, often all at the same time. This is not the place for you if you get car sick or have trouble with roller coasters or state fair rides. They don’t need to warn you about the dangers of texting while driving in this county. It would be suicidal to try it on the back roads. Besides, it’s impossible to text and drive with both hands gripping the steering wheel in terror.

Around here, when they put up a sign that says “Dangerous Curve”, they really mean it. I went around one curve the other day and almost ran into myself. I don’t know who decides whether a curve merits a “Dangerous Curve” sign and I don’t know what the criteria are, but the standard must be high. I think the county road department has to be convinced that death is almost certain if a driver doesn’t slow down before it will put up a warning sign. That means that curves that will only cripple and maim you are routine and unmarked. Comforting thought.

Not only are the back roads meandering, but most of them are so narrow that two cars can barely pass. Some are even narrower than that; they are basically paved wagon paths. Most of the back roads do not have a line down the center to distinguish your lane from the oncoming lane. I think that’s because there is no distinction. It’s first-come, first-serve around here. They say that possession is nine-tenths of the law; the same is true of the country roads in this area.

Most of the back roads have ditches and steep drop-offs on both sides. People up here favor large pickup trucks, often with dual rear wheels. It’s a butt-puckering experience when you encounter one of those road hogs coming the other way on a narrow country lane. I had to use a crowbar to pry my ass cheeks apart after one recent drive. I’m thinking of adding a change of underwear to my vehicle emergency kit.

Even when the lanes are marked, people here have a disconcerting habit of cutting the corners. You haven’t lived until you’ve almost died when a utility truck comes around a corner on your side of the road. My theory is that the number of close near death experiences on the back roads accounts for the number of churches in this area. There is a small Baptist church every mile or so around here. I bet every one of them has a person on his knees thanking the Lord for allowing him to survive a trip to get a loaf of bread. A good name for a local Catholic church would be Our Lady of the Close Call. They say there are no atheists in foxholes; I suspect there are few atheists on Fannin County back roads.

Because the back roads are the only way to get to most properties it is not uncommon to see large service and delivery trucks and even larger tractor-trailers hauling logs on them. One of them could snuff out my little truck in a heartbeat. If that should ever happen, my hope is that I’m taken out by a truck hauling Moon Pies or RC Cola. I’d hate to have my obituary read that I was crushed by a septic tank pumper (“You Dump, We Pump”). My friends, who lack any degree of sensitivity, would have a field day with the jokes.

The scenery is a distraction. Most everywhere you look around here is a scene that could go on a post card or a cheesy calendar. The problem is that you don’t dare to take your eyes off the road to take in the view. They should add a feature to car GPS systems that describes what you would see if you are courageous enough to look. It would say something like, “Off to the right, if you are foolish enough to look and do not mind ending up in a ditch, is a quaint babbling brook.” Better yet, it could say, “You are passing a classic Appalachian barn on your left. Based on your speed, I estimate that you have a forty percent chance of surviving if you want to take a peek.”

Another complication is the wildlife. You never know when you’re going to encounter an animal on a back road. If you follow this blog, you know about the squirrels. There are other critters as well, including deer, possum, raccoons, dogs, and cats. The squirrels are the most prevalent and the worst. They are either fearless, stupid or possessed. I saw one leisurely crossing a busy four lane divided highway the other day. Several people have told us that when you come up on a squirrel in the road you can speed up or slow down, but you should never swerve. I can’t figure out whether this advice is to prevent you from going into a ditch or to keep the squirrel from getting confused.

Driving around here at night can creep you out. There is nothing lonelier than a back country road at night. It brings out your primal fears of the night time. There are no street lights, and there is little traffic. Your headlights eerily illuminate the trees and bushes on the side of the road as the road twists and turns. You start to wonder what lurks at the edge of the light. Every urban myth comes to mind, especially the one about the high school couple necking in a car on a rural road who encountered an escaped madman with a hook on one arm. I’ve made it a rule never to stop on a back road and make out with a high school girl.

I’m always on the lookout for a pair of eyes staring back at me from the edge of the road or a deer jumping in front of me when I drive at night. And in the back of my mind there is the “I know it doesn’t exist, but please don’t scare the shit out of me” chance of encountering the large, hairy shape of a Bigfoot crossing the road. I’m not even going to talk about the possibility of being abducted by a UFO and being probed by aliens. That stuff never happens in the city. It’s always in a rural area on a back road. It takes some cojones to drive at night on the back roads around here.

I drove on country roads in Pennsylvania and Kentucky as a young man so I’m used to them. Meredith has lived all her life in Florida and is only familiar with flat and straight roads. She’s not exactly an adventurous driver under the best of circumstances, but get her on a back road, and she turns into Ma Kettle. I never noticed how cautiously she drove in Florida because it is impossible to go anywhere fast in Pinellas County.

To be honest, it drives me nuts to drive with her on a country road. A couple of weeks ago she drove as we explored some of the back roads. At first I thought she was joking with me. Then I thought she was trying to piss me off on purpose. We were being passed by wooly caterpillars and crippled squirrels. The fall foliage changed in the course of that drive. I’m fairly certain that wagon trains and cattle drives moved at a faster pace. I kept my mouth shut which shows that I learned something in my thirty plus years of marriage. Now I bring something to read whenever she drives the back roads. I read three chapters of Moby Dick between here and Blue Ridge the other day. I dread driving with her when the roads to get icy in a winter storm. I’m going to bring a change of clothes and a book of crossword puzzles. I may be able to learn another language before we arrive at our destination.

I shouldn’t complain. Instead of boring drives to the store, I get heart-pounding road adventures every time I go somewhere. It adds a little zest to your life. Driving the back roads is one more thing that makes living here a different experience.