Getting a Feel For the Place

It will take me a while to get a true feel for this place. All I have at this point are random observations.

People sure are friendly here. They wave at you as you drive by. They smile and say hello. They chat with you when you meet them. They freely offer a helping hand. They hope you have a good day when you leave. I feel like I’m in a 1950’s TV sitcom. I keep waiting for Aunt Bea and Opie to show up. I have yet to meet an asshole. I guess that means I have a real opportunity to stand out in this community.

The friendliness seems genuine, though I am suspicious. I figure everyone has a bad day now and then and gets a case of the ass. Maybe people here are conditioned not to take it out on others like people do elsewhere. What would get you a “fuck off” in Florida gets a polite “no thank you” here.

You’d think it would be great to live in a place where everyone is good natured and neighborly, but it has its drawbacks. I’m no good at making small talk, and that’s what you have to do in a friendly place. I don’t care whether Uncle Charlie bought the same foot powder. You want to talk about the amount of rain recently, and I want to talk about the development of Neolithic culture after the last great ice age.

The smiling offer of assistance from every Home Depot employee gets old after a while. I know where the hardware is, and I want to get on with my business. Instead I have to pause and say something polite. What is even more irritating is that I find myself adopting this counterfeit southern accent and sounding like Andy of Mayberry. The other day I almost tipped my hat to the lady in the paint section.

All this affability is wearing on me. I’m not used to people treating me like I’m a guest at Disney World, and I feel obliged to respond in kind. I’ve spent my entire adult life developing this glowering scowl that says, “Fuck you. Go away.” Now I have to feign a smile, and it’s not pretty. I’ve seen pictures of myself when the photographer has asked me to smile for the camera. My fake smile is best described as a rictus grin. I look like Fess Parker as Davy Crockett trying to grin down a bear. I’ve seen more convincing smiles on ball players who have been hit in the nuts and are pretending it doesn’t hurt. My fake smile may be more horrifying than my scowl.

Still, I suppose there are worst things than living in a friendly place.

Maybe this general conviviality accounts for another phenomenon here in north Georgia: Georgia time. Everybody warns you about it, and it’s true. Life is much slower paced here than in Florida. No one is in a rush to get things done. When the refrigerator repairman says he’ll be out to fix your fridge next Wednesday, the odds are 9-5 that he’ll be there on Thursday or Friday. I’m told there is no cure for this, so I’m just going to have to get used to it.

On another note, Meredith and I stopped off at the small Mineral Bluff Post Office. It’s like something out of the movie “Abe Lincoln in Illinois.” I was expecting a Ben Franklin stove and a cracker barrel. Then I met the Postmaster. She’s in her late thirties, chatty, and friendly as hell. She was wearing tight jeans with holes in them and stitched patterns on the rear pockets, a low cut blouse, and sporting a couple of large mail bags, if you know what I mean. I thought post office employees had to wear uniforms. I wonder if she wears Daisy Dukes in the summer. Through sleet, wind, hail, and snow, to the post office I shall go…often.

The police report in last week’s edition of the News Observer shows there were four recent arrests for the sale of methamphetamine. I’ve heard that there are a number of meth labs tucked away in these mountains. Some make the analogy that meth is the modern day moonshine, but I reject that. Moonshine has an honorable tradition dating back to the highland people of Scotland and Ireland. In the early days of this country it was the only way that the back country pioneers could convert their corn into a transportable cash crop. When George Washington was president he led an army against those pioneers (who were protesting a tax on distilled spirits) in the Whiskey Rebellion. I doubt there will be a Meth Rebellion.

Last weekend Meredith and I met this attractive young couple while eating dinner at the Blue Ridge Brewery. The young woman had grown up in Blue Ridge, then moved away and worked for several years in Savannah. She recently returned to Blue Ridge to live and work. She was well dressed and well spoken without the north Georgia twang that you encounter so frequently here. There was nothing about her to suggest she had grown up in a small rural town. I think it’s a good sign that at least one young person is returning to Fannin County after experiencing life in the big city. Of course, for all I know, she could be the methamphetamine queen of Appalachia, the Pablo Escobar of mountain meth.

This weekend we tried another place called The Boro Inn and advertised as an Irish pub. What attracted me to the place is that it’s located on the west side of the railroad tracks that split Blue Ridge and had a sign outside that said, “Westies Rule.” I thought it might be a place where true locals go, and it appears to be. The place is not fancy, just a large room with a bar, tables and chairs, and a pool table. The walls and ceilings are decorated with a variety of odd items. The food sucks, but the beer is good. Turns out that the proprietor is a middle-aged former Catholic priest with a slight Irish lilt to his voice by the name of Brendan Doyle. Half the patrons call him Father. He is a very friendly guy, and he sat and chatted with us for a while. What a surprise−a friendly, chatty person in Fannin County. At any rate, I thought it was interesting to encounter a former priest running a bar. It’s just another unexpected discovery in my new home.