First Winter Storm

Some of you will be glad to hear that we survived the first winter storm here in the mountains of Southern Appalachia. Compared to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States the weather we received was minor. In fact, compared to just about the entire world the weather we received was minor. You might say it was a non-event. There was a dusting of snow, almost no ice to speak of, a night of gusty winds, and temperatures in the teens.

Regardless of the actual weather, the mere threat of the storm was enough to get everyone in the north half of Georgia excited and disrupt almost all activity for two days over the weekend. A lot of folks around here reacted to news of the storm like the next great ice age was coming. For others the alleged storm was more of a benefit than an inconvenience—it gave them an excuse to avoid going to church on Sunday.

It appears that I’m going to have to get used to the fact that word of an impending snow and ice storm is enough to cause a major hullaballoo in these parts. I suppose that’s understandable given the infrequency of winter storms and the nature of the roads in this area. Still, I can’t help feeling that folks around tend to overreact and hyperventilate when a winter storm is threatened.

If this storm is any example, part of the reason for the excitement is the way news organizations and state and local governments reacted to the storm when it was still days away. They treated it like the End of Days was coming.

As the storm approached the TV screens were filled with images of government emergency management staffs bustling into action at emergency operation centers. On second thought, bustling may be too active a verb. The television broadcasts mostly showed a bunch of government employees sitting in swivel chairs and staring expectantly at monitors like they were waiting for a major catastrophe to erupt in the next few seconds. It reminded me of the early days at Mission Control at Cape Canaveral. I strongly suspect that the EOC staffs assumed those poses only when the TV cameras were on them and that the rest of the time they were standing around shooting the shit and waiting for something to happen.

Just the fact that that emergency management staffs felt the need to gather in anticipation of the storm suggested that a genuine emergency was in the offing. (Look, Thelma, the emergency management people must think it’s going to be a bad one; maybe they know something we don’t.) It would probably help to calm the public’s nerves if they called the centers something like minor inconvenience processing centers.

The local weathercasters, the national weather channels and the National Weather Service contributed to the general sense of anxiety by advising us over and over that we were under a winter storm warning and painting the area under threat in lurid colors on their weather screens. The weather maps with their defined frontal boundaries and arrows showing the direction of the storm reminded me of a military map depicting the route of Sherman’s march on Atlanta which is not a good memory in these parts.

Of course, the local TV stations seized upon the opportunity to break from their normal broadcasts for “extended storm coverage” from their “weather action centers” to give their weathercasters the chance to repeat endlessly the same forecasts and to remind us every few minutes to watch out for possible (and the operative word is possible) hazardous driving conditions. The minute there was a little bit of snow in some high mountain town, television crews were dispatched in their “storm chaser” vehicles to photograph the scene. Maybe they were trying to remind the rest of us what snow looked like so we would recognize if it happened to come our way.

Of course the inevitable 100 year old tree fell on the inevitable house narrowly missing the inevitable sleeping family so that TV crews could broadcast the inevitable interview so that the inevitable words “It was a miracle” could be uttered.

It didn’t help the public’s apprehension over the storm when notices started going out over radio and TV and through emails and texts telling us that every school, college and government office in a 200 mile radius was being closed. It was like watching a stampede. All it took was one government office or school to decide to close and every other one started jumping in on the action.

The Weather Channel’s irritating practice of naming winter storms only heightened the public’s sense of foreboding. I’ve bitched about this before. It’s bad enough knowing that a winter storm is bearing down on you but to give it a name—particularly a name like Jonas—makes it sound even more threatening. Jonas sounds so biblical and apocalyptic. It’s no wonder people got alarmed and acted like Armageddon was upon us. If The Weather Channel is going to continue this obnoxious habit of naming winter storms then it should be compelled to give them names that don’t get people so riled up. I’m sure people would react more calmly and rationally if they gave winter storms names like Mr. Magoo, Elmer Fudd or SpongeBob SquarePants.

Not wishing to miss out on the excitement, the Governor and the Mayor of Atlanta used the occasion to call news conferences to assure the public that all resources had been mobilized to deal with the storm. In both press conferences the Governor and Mayor were flanked by all the top officials whose job it was to actually deal with the impending emergency. That got me to thinking that if it was a real emergency wouldn’t it be better if those officials were at their posts doing something rather than standing around like stooges?

As I said, the storm itself proved to be non-event. When Monday came people emerged from where they had hunkered down to ride out the storm and went about their business like nothing had happened. That’s probably because it’s true. Oh well, winter’s not over. Maybe we will get a real storm before spring. I’ll just consider the last few days as a test run.

Winter Woes

If you are from a warm clime like Florida and are thinking about retiring to this area or to someplace even farther north you need to think about what you are going to do during the winter months.

What brings this to mind is that it’s finally gotten cold here after an unusually warm November and December. We have had a couple of mornings where the dawn temperature was in the teens and never rose above 40 during the day, and the weather forecast is for even colder weather with the possibility of snow flurries and freezing rain. It is 17 degrees outside as write this late in the evening.

I have concluded that winter is my least favorite time of year here. It was fun the first year and still something of a novelty the second year but now it’s just a giant pain in the ass. I view it as period of time to hunker down and just get through—kind of like a trip to the dentist but way longer. There is nothing to do in the garden, and on many days it’s too cold or wet or both to work outside. At least a couple of times each winter there is snow or ice, and I can’t get out of my driveway because I bought a light two-wheel drive pickup instead of a heavy four-wheel drive pickup like my kids told me to. Winter might be okay if there was enough snow to go skiing and there was a convenient slope nearby but that’s just not the case.

Winter means that I’m forced indoors a lot of the time and that means I have to find multiple entertaining indoor activities to avoid going crazy with boredom. Unfortunately I get bored easily and have the attention span of a gnat. I’m just not very good at patiently waiting things out like a bored dog is. I suppose the good news is that I have a lot of things on my plate this winter so maybe I won’t go stir crazy.

As I wrote in a recent post, one of my new activities is being a college student. I am now officially a student at the University of North Georgia. Go Nighthawks! I have student ID number and a student email. I received an official letter of admission from UNG congratulating me on my admission to “the University of North Georgia’s Bachelor’s Degree program on the Blue Ridge Campus as a post-baccalaureate student.” I thought I was just auditing a course but now it seems I’m in the bachelor degree program and destined for a college degree. Just think. I could be the first person in my family to retire with a college degree and receive a second college degree after retirement. I’m a potential American success story. I could go on to a second career and a second retirement if I live to be 120.

I had intended to take a sophomore political science course entitled “Global Issues” but scheduling conflicts forced me to sign up for a freshman level introduction to political science course. If I can't pass this class then I'm going to enroll in a GED program.

There are about ten people in the class. Eight of them are true freshman. I estimate they are between 18 and 20 years old. It’s a little weird knowing that I own shoes that are older than most of my classmates.

There’s one other older guy in the class. He tried to cozy up to me after the first class but I was having none of it. There’s no way I’m getting friendly with him. I figure he’s my only real competition. There is a cute little girl in the second row who I wouldn’t mind having as a study buddy but I think there are laws that prevent me from even talking to a woman that young.

Another activity that has been keeping me busy is the men’s group at the church I go to. They have been active doing helpful things for older parishioners like cleaning roofs, clearing tree limbs and doing carpentry work and home repairs. We did one project last week that consisted of refurbishing a deck and some outside stairs. Unfortunately we had our first real cold snap just as the project started. I, for one, froze my ass off. One morning it was 20 degrees when we started. My hands were so numb from the cold that I could drive nails with them. I think my toes took a side trip to Florida.

Let me say that these are really good guys as witnessed by the fact they are willing to take time to help others. They are educated, well read and had an accomplished career before they retired. It’s just that, like me, they are getting older and that adds a little extra something to the work effort. Drop a screw, and we all stand around looking at each other to see who is going to make the attempt to bend down to pick it up. To paraphrase that country song, we’re not as good as we once were, but we’re as good once as we ever were—only for a much shorter time and with the necessary naps.

I wish I had a video of the project. I would entitle it “Retired Men at Work.” Everyone in the group is handier than I am when it comes to tools and home repair stuff. They would say things like “make sure you cut the kerf” and “we may need to chamfer the edge,” and I would just nod my head pretending I had a clue about what they were talking about. After a while I got the impression that it had become a typical male competition to see who could sound more knowledgeable and use the most obscure woodworking term. I was thinking about throwing in a few legal terms like “I wish I had my mandamus miter” or “I left my quo warranto saw at home” but I figured someone in the group would call my bluff.

Half the group is hard of hearing so there were a lot of conversations like this (the names have been changed to protect the innocent):

Bob: Hey, Jeff, would you grab my four-square framagadget?

Jeff: Yeah, it is cold this morning.

Tom: Okay, Jeff, I’ll get you another cup of coffee.

Harry: What?

Fortunately, my hearing is okay so I served the role of translator in which case the conversation would go like this:

Bob: Hey, Jeff, would you grab my four-square framagadget?

Jim: HEY, JEFF, BOB WANTS YOU TO GRAB HIS FOUR-SQUARE FRAMAGADGET.

Jeff: What?

Hey, at least I tried.

So the bottom line is that between my class, men’s group projects and all the other stuff that I’m involved with maybe I’ll be able to stay busy this winter and avoid a bad case of cabin fever.

Living in a Small Community

As I have said before, my primary purpose in writing this blog is to record my experiences moving to rural Fannin County in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North Georgia after working for 37 years as a busy trial lawyer in crowded and hectic Pinellas County, Florida. While this blog is a personal narrative my life in retirement, it is primarily the narrative of a being a stranger in a strange land—not quite Green Acres or The Innocents Abroad but close.

There was little in my background to prepare me for life in a county in North Georgia with a population of 24,000 where the largest city boasts about 1,300 residents. I grew up as an Army brat moving from place to place every two or three years and thus had no exposure to small town life. Following college and law school I lived and worked in Pinellas County, Florida, which ranks 54 on the list of the 100 most densely populated counties in the United States. Hillsborough County, across Tampa Bay from Pinellas County, is number 30 on the list. Aside from the difference in population, it is fair to say that the climate and geography of Florida’s Gulf Coast is vastly different than the climate and geography of the Southern Appalachians.

I have lived in Fannin County for a little over two years now. In that time I have experienced and written about many of the differences I have encountered.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been trying to put my finger on the one big difference between where I used to live and where I live now, and I have concluded that it’s not the weather, the roads, the terrain, the wildlife, the distance to the nearest movie theater or the lack of Greek, Thai or Cuban restaurants. Rather, the big difference—the one that has taken the most to get used to—is the size of the community.

Well over 4 million people live in the Tampa Bay area. Over 900,000 of them live in Pinellas County. There are 25 cities and towns in Pinellas County ranging in size from St. Petersburg with a population of over 250,000 to Belleair Shore with just over 100 inhabitants. By contrast, the population of all of Fannin County is only slightly larger than the population of Tarpon Springs, Florida, the sixth largest city in Pinellas County. The population of Blue Ridge, Fannin County’s largest city, is smaller than 24 of Pinellas County’s 25 cities and towns.

In my opinion, it is the small size of the Fannin County community that accounts for the fundamental difference between living here and living in Pinellas County. I suspect it is the universal difference between life in urban and suburban America and life in small town America.

In Pinellas County, except for a small circle of friends, everyone was a stranger. If you didn’t seek out your friends your chances of accidentally bumping into them as you went about your daily activities was minimal. In Fannin County the odds of running into someone you know on a daily basis are pretty good. After all, there are only five primary shopping destinations in Fannin County: Walmart, Home Depot, and three grocery stores.

One ramification of living in a place where there is a good chance of meeting someone you know every time you venture out is that you feel some compulsion to be on good behavior all the time. In Pinellas County you can safely pick your nose or scratch your butt walking across a parking lot with the reasonable assurance that no one you know will see you doing it. Here, you need to be discrete about such things.

In Pinellas County you can make a quick run to the store looking like a slob knowing that there was little likelihood you will meet someone you know. Here, you feel compelled to make sure you look halfway decent or, at the very least, not ridiculous when you go out. I have said this before: you do not see weirdly dressed people in a country Walmart. That is an urban phenomenon.

The last example is tempered by two facts. First, looking decent in Fannin County is not that tough—bib overalls and work boots will do just fine. If your jeans are dirty you can always say that you were working in the garden or cutting fire wood. Second, unless you are one of the few people who actually live in town, there is no such thing as a quick run to the store. We live about ten miles from Blue Ridge and have to travel over hill and dale to get there.

Make an ass out of yourself in a public place in Fannin County, there is a fair possibility that the entire county is going to know about it in a few days. Make an ass out of yourself in Pinellas County and you fit right in—everyone thinks you’re just another tourist from up north.

Another thing that’s different about living in a small community is that strangers tend to show up again. If you’re rude to a stranger in Pinellas County you’re probably never going to encounter that person again. If you’re rude to someone you don’t know in Fannin County there is a fair chance that you will run into that person again and, just possibly, that person could be a clerk at the motor vehicle department or a sheriff’s deputy or someone else whose cooperation you need. The saying is that what goes around comes around. In Fannin County it has a tendency to come around quicker and more often.

The other thing that’s different about living in small community is that the degrees of separation are fewer. They say that every person in the world is separated from every other person in the world by only six degrees of separation. In Fannin County that number is probably three. Everyone seems to be related to or at least know everyone else. It’s a tight knit community and that means that word gets around. You need to remember that.

So, what does all of this mean? It means that it’s pretty hard to feel like an anonymous, isolated, unconnected speck of humanity in a small community because you are constantly reminded of your connection with others. It means that when you live in a small community (unless you really don’t give a damn) you feel some pressure to conform to the mores and folkways of the community. It means that you need to be sociable to at least some minimal degree if you are to have any hope of fitting in. If you’re a crabby ass son-of-a-bitch who constantly treats people like crap you probably should not move to small town America.

Living in a small community is not for everyone. Some may find it too close and confining. Others may prefer the anonymity and diversity of an urban environment. I’ll be honest—it took me a little while to adapt and shed some of the attitude that I brought with me. The good news is that if I can do it anyone can.

Welcome to 2016

I’m afraid I missed last week’s post. I was too busy with the holidays to find time to write one.

We certainly had a great time over the holidays at the Yacavone household. It may have been the best Christmas ever. Jake and Mike were able to be here for a long time, and that’s about all it takes to make it a wonderful Christmas for Meredith and me.

I wish the two boys could be here longer but I’m thankful the holidays are over. I’ve reached the point where I’m looking forward to returning to a normal weekly routine. I’ve imbibed too much holiday cheer, eaten too much rich food, nibbled on too many sweets and spent too much time on the couch watching too many football games. I feel like giant three-toed sloth. A return to normal eating and sleeping and a regular routine will be good for me.

This is my third Christmas in the country. There is something different about spending Christmas in the country. The most obvious difference is that you cannot hop into your car and conveniently do last minute shopping at a nearby mall. The nearest mall to us is over an hour away on the outskirts of Atlanta. This means that you have to plan ahead to do your holiday shopping. You also spend a lot of time waiting for the UPS or FedEx truck to come down the gravel lane.

The great thing about living in the country is that you can give gifts that might not be useful or appropriate in the city or the suburbs—things like rifles and handguns, ammunition, survival gear, work gloves, more ammo, large knives, hand warmers, thick socks, camouflage clothing and more ammo. Imagine Ted Kaczynski sitting in front of a fireplace playing an album of Christmas songs sung by the Branch Davidian Boys’ Choir entitled “A Ruby Ridge Christmas”, and you’ll have the general idea. 

But for me the real difference between spending the holidays in the country versus the city or the suburbs is the weather. I am more aware of the weather here than I ever was when I lived in a suburban Pinellas County. One obvious reason that’s true is because I spend a lot more time outdoors now, and thus the weather has a greater effect on my daily activities.

But another reason I am more aware of the weather now is because I can actually see more of it. When I look out my front window I’m not looking at the front of my neighbor’s house across the street. I’m looking across a wide field at mountains that are miles way. That means that I have an unobstructed view of weather conditions. When it snows I see acres of white stuff. When it’s windy I’m watching an entire hillside of tall trees bending and weaving in the wind. When it rains I can hear it beating in the woods and see the sheets of rain blow across the fields. If the saying “out of sight, out of mind” is true, so is the converse.

Whatever the reason, Christmas in the country feels less commercial and superficial and more genuine.

Speaking of the weather, it was not that good this holiday season. Like most everywhere else in the southeastern United States we’ve received an excessive amount of rain in the last month. The ground around here is soaked. It squishes under your feet. There have been a number of mudslides off steep road banks. The creeks, streams and rivers have been running full and dirty, and some of them have overtopped their banks. I spoke to one old boy who has lived here all his life, and he told me this this is the most rain over the longest period of time he has ever seen. I’m just thankful we have not had a big wind storm. When the ground is this soaked it doesn’t take a lot of wind to topple large trees.

It has  been an unusually warm winter so far. No one is complaining about that but we’re all worried that the temperature will plummet in January and turn the county into one giant ice ball from until spring. The rain is miserable but ice storms are horrible. Maybe I’ll get to ride out a blizzard this winter. I haven’t done that since my college days in Pennsylvania.

Thanks to one of my Christmas presents I don’t think I will be having a deer problem in the garden anymore. I received an electric fence charger that’s rated for 50 miles of wire. There’s a little over one mile of wire around my garden so it should have enough juice to make a deer think twice about entering the forbidden garden zone. I was apprehensive when Jake and I hooked the new charger up and turned on the power. I was half expecting a giant bolt of electricity to spark out from the wire and fry me on the spot. If this doesn’t keep the deer away then it’s time to throw in the towel.

I also received a trail camera. I can mount it wherever I want, and it will take photos of creatures that come within its range. I think I’m going to mount it in the garden first to see if the new electric fence charger is effective. If I don’t get any photos of deer or find charred deer carcasses on the fence perimeter then I’ll know the deer problem is solved. After that I’m going to mount it somewhere near the house to discover once and for all what sort of critter comes creeping around in the night.

That’s all there is to report this first week of 2016 so I’ll sign off for this week.