Coyotes and Homeless Men

I heard howling in the nearby hills late at night a few nights ago. I’m told there are plenty of coyotes prowling around the North Georgia mountains. That may explain why there is no feral cat problem around here.

It sounded like there several of them, and the sound was enough to cause me to pause from what I was doing and listen. I have to admit that the sound was chilling and a little scary.

This was the first time I heard coyotes howling. They did not sound like the ones you hear in the soundtracks of those old westerns when everyone is laying around next to a campfire near a saguaro cactus leaning on their saddles and bed rolls eating beans off a tin plate with a large spoon. (As a kid I always wondered whether cowboys ever used knives and forks. The movies always showed them using a large spoon. It must have been a bitch to eat a large piece of meat with a spoon.)

The coyotes in those westerns sounded almost comforting like they were calling out a friendly nighttime hello. The coyotes I heard the other night sounded like they belonged in a Dracula movie set in Transylvania. In my mind’s eye I could picture a creepy forest of gnarly trees under a full moon obscured by clouds with tendrils of low-lying fog twisting among the tree trunks. Holy crap! Now that I think about it, that describes what it can be like around here at times.

It occurs to me that I may be confusing coyotes and wolves. Were they coyotes or wolves howling in the old westerns? Do they even have coyotes in Transylvania? Anyway, the sound of the coyotes set off every dog in a five mile radius, and if you've ever been to North Georgia, that's a lot of dogs.

It didn't help my sense of unease that there was a sliver of a moon, and the night was dark as a serial killer’s soul.

It also didn't help that there is a homeless man wandering around the neighborhood. It seems he has moved into the abandoned house over the ridge. We refer to it as the old meth lab though we have no basis in fact to call it that. It’s probably just a foreclosure situation but describing it as an old meth lab conjures up the right image. The roof is falling in and most of the windows are gone. Small saplings are growing through the abandoned tires and debris surrounding the place, and vines are growing up the rotting walls of the house. It looks like it belongs on the set of a movie like “The Hills Have Eyes.” All in all, it's a creepy place, and your first reaction is to steer clear of it.

The homeless man wanders the gravel road that leads to the gravel road that leads to our property. He always carries a walking stick. We have taken to calling him the thin man because, well, he’s thin and tall. Duh. I know that’s not very creative on our part, but it fits.

I do not really know that this guy is homeless or that he lives in the old meth lab. Meredith heard it from the lady who lives a quarter of a mile down the road from us. Who knows how she came by the information. For all I truly know, this guy could be John Muir or some nature lover out on a daily stroll. Put a beard on him, and he could be Gandalf.

The few times I’ve seen him on the road, I’ve given him a little wave as I drove by (it’s what one does around here), and he’s waved back. I sure as hell have not stopped and talked to him out of fear that he really is homeless and would take it as an invitation to stop by the house for a meal and a beer or to murder my family. (I mean, you never really know about these things, do you?)

I suppose I could go on a little recon and crawl over the hill to covertly observe the meth house, but that sounds like a lot of work and a great chance to get to know Mr. Chigger, Mr. Poison Ivy, and Mr. Bramble.

A couple of nights ago Meredith was on the porch in the dark talking on her cell phone. When she came in she said she saw a distant glowing red ember moving about the field in front of our house. She thought it may have been the glow of a cigarette or a cigar. I rushed out on the porch in the typical male display of protective bravado, but saw nothing. Now Meredith wonders if it was the thin man spying on us.

His presence in the vicinity has set us all on edge a little, and we've taken to locking the workshop door at night. When I’m working outside, I will look up unexpectedly and scan the wood line to make sure that he’s not hanging around the property.

It’s funny how the sound of coyotes howling in the distant hills or the presence of a stranger in the area can rouse certain fears and concerns in you. Reading this post in the safe comfort of your home, you may think that we’re overreacting and that our fears are irrational. But let me get your ass out here on a dark night with the howls of coyotes in the background and the knowledge that there may be a homeless man prowling around, and I bet you won’t be wandering around in the dark.

Am I truly concerned? No, not really. Cautious and alert is probably the better way to describe my feelings. But then I have numbers on my side. Those numbers are .357, 9 mm, 12 gauge, 20 gauge, .308, 30-30, and .223.

There were coyotes and homeless men wandering around in Pinellas County, and the real question is whether my level of concern is any greater or lesser here in the mountains than it was in suburbia. The answer to that is no, though it might be nice on a dark night with coyotes howling in the background if there was a streetlight or two closer than ten miles away.

The Coming Storm

There’s a tempest coming to Fannin County … or at least a lively squall. And it will cross the boundary between newcomers and old-timers and divide the county into two camps. The dispute will be over progress, commerce and development. If you spent the last 35 years living in Pinellas County on the west coast of Florida as I did you would recognize that the first signs are already here.

Forty years ago the development in many of the small beach towns in Pinellas County consisted of mom and pop tourist hotels and lodgings. Most of these were one- or two-story buildings. The residents of these towns lived in modest houses in small residential neighborhoods.

As tourism developed and more and more people decided they wanted to live on Florida’s Gulf Coast, demand for land near the beach increased and property values started to rise in the beach communities. Developers decided there was money to be made in building large multi-story hotels and condos. When beach land values reached a certain point, many property owners cashed out and sold their land to the developers who proceeded to develop the properties in the most profitable manner possible. Never mind that their developments destroyed the old-time beachy character of Pinellas County.

Conflict developed between those who wanted to retain the old look and flavor of the beaches and those who favored development and what they considered progress.

Those on the development side had a lot of arguments going for them. Most of these arguments came down to money. Development would bring more tourists and residents, more jobs and more business opportunities. The sad thing is (depending on your perspective) that all these arguments were true and irrefutable.

What was interesting is that the division between the two camps did not rest on whether you were a newcomer or an old-timer. Many newcomers wanted to preserve the old ways, and many old-timers were in favor of development.

Inevitably, great pressure was brought to bear on local elected officials to change local zoning and building codes to facilitate this development. When the backlash against development started, great pressure was brought on them to change the codes to limit or control growth. Some of the ugliest politics I ever witnessed as a city attorney arose out of this conflict between the proponents and opponents of development. There was mud-slinging, name-calling, litigation, threats of litigation, and all the other nastiness that can occur when people feel deeply about the future of their community.

Eventually, those in favor of development won. The truth is that development almost inevitably wins. Money talks. The allure of new jobs and new business is irresistible. As land passes from one generation to the next, the younger generation has less attachment to the old ways. Furthermore, developers usually have the law on their side. This country was founded on the concept of protecting life, liberty and property, and, as a general proposition, the law favors the free and unrestricted development of property and disfavors governmental restrictions on property rights.

The developers won in Pinellas County. The beaches are now lined with high-rise condos and hotels. Traffic is unbearable. The beach is still lovely … if you can get to it. If you want to see this at its worst, just visit Clearwater Beach. It is a classic example of a blivet―ten pounds of traffic and tourists crammed into a five pound sack.

So what does this have to do with Fannin County? Well, Fannin County has a tourist-oriented economy. Every year hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Fannin County to spend the day in the City of Blue Ridge or vacation in the beautiful mountain countryside. Many persons have second homes here. This is a desirable spot for retirees. The Wall Street Journal just included Blue Ridge on its list of the ten best small towns in the United States for retirees.

At present Blue Ridge has a quaint small town feel. The fast food chains and stores like Home Depot and Walmart are located just outside town along the one major highway that runs through the county. There are only a few crowded subdivisions in the countryside.

But as the economy improves and more people move here to retire and live, the demographics will attract more chain retailers and restaurants. There is a reason a new Walmart opened outside of Blue Ridge, and it’s all about the numbers.

There have been signs already of friction between those in favor of development and those who want to retain the small town flavor of Blue Ridge. There’s talk of placing parking meters or a parking garage in downtown Blue Ridge. This sparked a lively debate at a Blue Ridge City Council meeting and in the letters to the editor sections of the local newspapers. The downtown merchants are trying to create a downtown development authority. A recent letter to the editor bemoaned the possibility of having chain stores and restaurants in downtown Blue Ridge.

It is impossible to predict when this battle royal will start, but if Fannin County and Blue Ridge remain an attractive tourist and retirement destination, it is inevitable that it will occur. It is also inevitable that development will win out in the end. That’s just the American way. 

I Go to a Folk Festival

A couple of weekends ago, Meredith, Mike and I went to the annual fall festival fall at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. The school is 40 minutes up the road from here.

I have been hearing about the school for several years, and a friend of mine taught blacksmithing there in the past. Since I’m interested in the old ways of doing things, having a widely renowned folk school in my vicinity is a good thing.

I’ll be honest. I was a disappointed in the festival. It turned out to be a big arts and crafts fair, and the arts and crafts being sold were not much different than those sold at any other arts and crafts festival that I’ve ever been to. There were artsy things and crafty things made of wood, stone, clay, fiber, glass and metal. Don’t get me wrong. Many of the wares were quite clever, and I appreciate the talent required to make them, but how many walking sticks, wooden cups, clay bowls, alpaca knit shawls, troll carvings and dream catchers do you really need?

To be fair, I’m not really an arts and crafts festival type of guy (as you may have guessed). But then I also hate petting zoos and baby panda exhibits. Furthermore, I’m not very artistic. The fact is that I’m challenged to sharpen a pencil. Every project I ever tried to make in high school shop class ended up as an ashtray. Even my project in the electronics shop class ended up being an ashtray. I’d like to think that shows a lot of creativity on my part, but what it really shows is that I have the artistic talent of a banana slug. So before you get upset by this post, consider the source.

Part of my disappointment was that I was expecting something more pioneer-ish and less artsy-fartsy at the fall festival. I was hoping to see demonstrations on things like hog butchering, flint-knapping, skinning and tanning, barn building, and making snares and traps. You know, mountain man-type stuff.

All fun aside, the John C. Campbell Folk School is a great asset and resource to have in this area. It’s another one of those things that make this neck of the woods unique. The school offers hundreds of classes throughout the year. Some of them are more to my taste like blacksmithing, woodworking, and working with leather. You owe it to yourself to check out the following link to find out what the school has to offer. https://www.folkschool.org/

While at the festival I saw a lot of people walking around who looked and dressed like old hippies. It was like one of the lost tribes of Timothy Leary or the Woodstock Re-enactors Club had descended on the festival. I assumed that most of them were exhibitors, but some of them may have been folks who came to see the festival. The sight of them was causing me to have flashbacks to my flashbacks of life in the late 60s. You just don’t see a lot of tie-dyed shirts these days. It was groovy, man. I don’t know whether some of these people were original hippy-generation hippies. I do know that there were several women who should reconsider their decision to burn their bras.

I also saw a number of people walking around who looked like they wandered over from a renaissance fair. I have no idea what that was all about. I’m pretty sure that the original pioneer folk in this area did not dress like peasants, wenches and jesters from the Middle Ages.

We wandered behind one of the buildings and came upon a parking area where many of the exhibiters parked. Almost every vehicle had one or more stickers on it urging people to save the whales or stop fracking or coexist. I think I may have even seen an old McGovern sticker.

Permit me the following aside. While I appreciate the sentiment behind a coexist bumper sticker, I think the message is unrealistically idealistic in this age of terroristic ideologies and mostly wasted here in the United States. I suggest that whoever hands those stickers out needs to go over to Iraq and try to hand out a few around a mosque or, better yet, go to the northern provinces of Pakistan and distribute some of them at the first madrasas school they come to. That may cause a quick reassessment of the message. I’d love to live in a world where all coexist, but until that happens I’m more of the waste ‘em all school of thought.

Anyway, back to the bumper stickers I saw at the folk festival. I got to wondering why artsy/crafty people always seem to be into peace, love and organic foods. How come you never see a Prius with a bumper sticker that says “Support Big Oil” or “Eat More Meat” or “The U.S. Needs Nuclear Energy” or even “Romney/Ryan?” I think the next time I go to a folk festival I’m going to wear a t-shirt that says something like “I work at Monsanto and I’m proud of it” or “Bring Back Profiling” just to see what sort of reaction I’ll get.

Maybe I’m stereotyping the arts and crafts crowd. Patton, one of the most aggressive military commanders we ever had, wrote poetry and had an artsy/fartsy side to him. One of the best city commissioners I ever worked with was an artist by trade. Maybe the fact she was originally from Texas has something to do with it. It’s something worth pondering.

Well, there you have it―my visit to the folk festival. I’m sure that was exciting. Maybe in the next post I’ll regale you with an account of my visit to Walmart.

Country Smarts

I read an interesting statistic the other day that 17 percent of the people in this country live in 50 percent on the area of this country. I think that means that most of the people in this country live in urban areas. That’s too bad.

It’s always dangerous to generalize based on your experiences, but after a year spent in Fannin County I believe that the United States would be a much better place if the majority of the population lived in small towns. I have found the vast majority of the people in Fannin County―natives and newcomers alike―to be decent, friendly, caring, honest, tolerant, smart and hard-working. They value community and family, believe in their country and possess the traditional values that made America great. They lack the cynicism, coldness, and isolation that I saw all too much while living in the Tampa Bay area.

The perception that people living in rural areas are unsophisticated and uneducated rubes is completely wrong. The belief that people in urban areas are smarter and more sophisticated than country people had its start in a bygone era when rural life was much more isolated than it is today. But that was 100 years ago in the age of steam trains and the telegraph. After World War II the isolation of rural America was largely a thing of the past.

Today I can hop in my car and be in downtown Atlanta in two hours. I have access to the same movies, books, and newspapers that people living in a city have. In this age of cable television, the internet and mass media, people in the country are no more isolated from world events, modern culture and contemporary ideas and mores than people in suburbia or the inner city. The fact that they may not embrace some of the ideas and behavior that pass for normalcy in urban areas does not mean they are backward. It means they have chosen a different way. Personally, I think it means that they are smarter. 

Let’s look at education. Students in Fannin County have to attend 12 years of primary education just like students elsewhere. The textbooks they read and the core courses they take are the same as in urban counties and, I suspect, pretty much the same as those used by students in most other states. Their teachers have to possess the same degree of education (a college degree) and undergo the same certification process as urban school teachers. I recently heard the statistics about the number of teachers in Fannin County who have or are seeking advanced degrees. I don’t remember what the percentage was, but it was impressive. Rural students have to take the same tests as urban students to get into college. Most urban schools would kill to have the graduation and college placement rates that Fannin County High School has.

Even for those students who do not go on to college, I would argue that they derive more benefit and knowledge from their education than urban students do, and I attribute this to the traditional values which so many possess in this area as well as to the quality of teaching here. So the idea of that people living in urban areas are sharper and smarter than people living in rural areas is hogwash. And if you’re from the city and don’t understand that word, it means the idea that you’re smarter and better than country folk is bullshit.

Also hogwash is the idea that people living in urban areas are more sophisticated than people living in rural areas. I can’t prove it but I suspect that the percentage of people who do not appreciate “high brow” art and culture is the same in urban areas as in rural areas. Most people in the city do not listen to classical music, attend the ballet or read poetry. Nah, they watch wrestling, football and reality TV, eat barbeque and drink domestic beer and root for their home teams just like folks in rural areas.

I hesitate to even use the concept of “high brow” art and culture. The idea that some art and culture is superior to other art and culture is pure crap. The fact that you like classical music and I like bluegrass or you go to the ballet and I watch clogging competitions doesn’t mean that you are more sophisticated or more intelligent than me. It simply means that we have different tastes. I’ll go further than that. The fact you don’t appreciate a tight four part harmony over a bluegrass banjo means that you’re the one with the problem, not me.

Even the idea of sophistication is bogus. The primary definition of sophistication refers to character, ideas, tastes and ways that result from education and worldly experience. So that means that sophistication is simply a lifestyle. I’m not sure why anyone would want to be sophisticated when you look at the secondary definitions of the word: (a) a change from the natural character or simplicity; (b) complexity, as in design or organization; (c) impairment or debasement, as of purity or genuineness; and (d) the use of sophistry as in a sophism, quibble or a fallacious argument. Let me get this right. To be sophisticated means I’ve changed from my normal character, abandoned simplicity for complexity, become impaired or debased in purity and genuineness, make false arguments and quibble a lot. Boy, I think that from now on I’m going to stay the hell away from sophisticated people. They sound like they’re a pain in the ass and not a lot of fun.

So if you’re from somewhere else and you think you’re better than the folks around here, you’re not only wrong, but you’re an idiot and we don’t want you here because you’ll bring down the class curve. Just keep on driving through and look for your little slice of heaven in Detroit or Compton or Jersey City. Just leave us country folk alone.