Cataloochee Reunion

  Today Cataloochee Valley is part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Prior to the Park’s formation in 1934, the valley was occupied by more than a thousand people in several communities who were subsistence farmers.

In the Great Depression many of them had sold their land to several lumber companies, which had almost clear-cut the land, and were desperate to find ways to survive the hard times.  As the creation of the Park progressed, all the land was eventually bought and all the people, some life lifetime tenancy, gradually moved away.

Every year (except for COVID 19) on the second Sunday in August, descendants of those settlers gather in the old Palmer’s Chapel Methodist Church to worship, visit, eat, and remember.   Dinner on the grounds follows the service. My Uncle Gudger Palmer was born and raised in the valley.  His childhood home is currently being repurposed as a National Park visitor center here.  He died in 2012 at the age of 103.

Only about 150 people can squeeze into the little church building.  Others look in the windows or just visit outside saving up for the picnic time.

This year’s preacher was The Rev. David Russell. David and I went to WAYNESVILLE Township High School together and both played in the band.

The organizer and presider at each reunion for many years is Steve Woody.  Steve’s father, Jonathan was born in the valley. Later he was President of First National Bank in WAYNESVILLE and my father worked there with him for nearly thirty years.

A great feature of this year’s gathering was that North Carolina Secretary of State, Elaine Marshall, came for the Governor to present Steve with membership in the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest civilian order that can be bestowed in a citizen of North Carolina.  Elaine is a frequent attendee at the reunion.  This puts Steve in company with the likes of Andy Griffith, Dean Smith, Maya Angelou and many other stars in the North Carolina galaxy.

Before the service ends, the names of descendants who have died during the pats year are read and the church bell is tolled for each of them.  In the afternoon people revisit their ancestors’ home places and many take home jugs of water from the same source as that used by those ancestors.

It is a deep time of memory and we shall return next year.

Boyd Mountain Cabins

 We are back on the road for a six-week trip that links storytelling engagements with lots of fun on the way.  After a stop in Greensboro to see Kahran, Jonathan, and Cash, we came on up to WAYNESVILLE ahead of a Sunday event nearby.

We are staying at Boyd Mountain Cabins, a wonderful collection of restored and enhanced log cabins built (along with their Christmas tree farm) by my high school classmate, Dr. Danny Boyd and his wife Betsy.

This time we are staying in the Long Branch cabin where we have been joined by our son, Doug, his wife, Jill, along with our son, Kelly and his wife, Erin, and son Frank.  This cabin sleeps eight people.

The cabins are almost all out of sight from one another and arranged throughout beautiful landscaped mountain land that includes flowers, trees, two little lakes, and waterfalls.

If you need a quiet place to relax and hide out, you might like this place as much as we do.

The “New” Variety Store

 Many people who have not been to the island ask us, before they come, whether they need to bring all their groceries with them.  The answer is: no.  We have, maybe a quarter mile from our house, the Ocracoke Variety Store.  Tommy Hutcherson and his crew work very hard to keep us stocked with an always growing inventory of grocery and hardware items.

During Hurricane Dorian the Variety Store was flooded.  But, through working day and night, they were back up and running in less than a week.  The hard thing was getting delivery trucks to come over to the island at that time.  Then one day an entire tractor trailer truck loaded with goods arrived.  It had come out of the stock of Conner’s Grocery on Hatteras Island.  They had generously come to our rescue and even sent staff to help get things stocked.  We are community.

This past winter a wholesale remodeling and enlargement of the store was undertaken.  It was fascinating to go in each day and see the overnight progress while at the same time they were open to customers.  Now the reworking is almost finished and we have a totally new store with greatly increased capacities especially in areas such as frozen foods, meats, and produce.

While there is much more stock variety, things seem to still fly off the shelves during tourist season and stocking goes on constantly.

The hardware side is also totally reconfigured. Yes, we have a real old time hardware store where you can buy one screw at a time along with tools to borrow for your own plumbing fixes.  We could not get along without it.

If you need it, the Variety Store almost always has it.  Thanks to Tommy!

Ocracoke Sunset

 On most evenings we check out the time for sunset and then look out from our house to see whether the sky looks promising.  If it looks clear and probably good we then put the top down on the convertible and ride down to the “sunset place” at the edge of the Pamlico Sound to watch the color show.

There may be more than two dozen golf carts and an equal number of cars here with gatherings of families and friends for the show of the day.  It is lovely to see how happy people are in having a good time on our island.  There are always residents as well as tourists.

Everything from colors to brightness changes as the sun descends toward the water.  We always try to guess whether it will make it all the way in clarity or perhaps a previously invisible cloud will catch it and hide its last appearance.  It is always unique and different.

When the finale comes, we do not leave quickly.  There is always a very different afterglow that lights clouds and different parts of the sky with such a variety of colors.  This is an ending of our day for which we are always thankful.

Ocracoke Fig Festival

 This past weekend we have enjoyed the Annual Ocracoke Fig Festival here on the island.

The first event of the Festival which Trish and I attended was a Porch Talk at the Ocracoke Preservation Society Museum given by Chester Lynn.  Chester’s family has been on the island for more than ten generations and two of his ancestors were on Blackbeard’s crew.  He knows more about the island figs, how to grow them, what’s wrong with them, and their unique history than anyone on or off the island.  Each year Chester propagates about 750 fig plants to be sold and planted.  He is a library of fig history and knowledge.

We then spent Saturday morning time at the Berkeley Center where there were booths for artisans with fig related products.  There was also the fig cake contest featuring both traditional and contemporary recipes, the fig preserve contest, and fig cake tasting all around.  There was a special fig recipe dinner with James Beard Award Chef Ricky Moore of the Saltbox Seafood Joint in Durham.

We do have lots of festivals on the island and the Fig Festival is one of our favorites.

Books To Be Red

 When Leslie Lanier was growing up, her dream was to own a bookstore.  For more than two decades those of us who live on Ocracoke Island have been glad that her dream came true.

It is our privilege to get to shop at Books To Be Red located at the corner of Irvin Garrish Highway and Schoolhouse Road. The name came from Leslie’s long RED hair!

A visitor to the store, who happened to be a book reviewer from a Midwest once stated that he had never seen such a wide selection of books in such a small space.  Once you visit there, you will learn that this is certainly true.

One side of the store is Deepwater Pottery, filled with island themed gifts and memorabilia.  But, there are appropriate book titles located even there.

The rest of the store is a wonderland for dedicated readers of all ages.

These is even a large children’s section in the back hallway.

If you are in the island, don’t miss a stop at our treasured independent book store.

Fig Season

 When the first English explorers came to Ocracoke in the 18th century, they found fig bushes in abundance everywhere.  Down to this very day figs grow happily all over the island.  We have four fig trees in our yard and they are just coming into the beginning of their long season of ripeness.

There are about a half-dozen varieties of figs that grow on the island.  All of ours are Brown Turkey figs and they grow into huge and abundant trees.

Trish and I pick them about every other day.  We are getting about a peck with each picking but this amount will rapidly increase over the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday was fig preserve day.  Trish made 14 jars of preserves as well as boiling down some fig syrup for eating on everything from ice cream to French toast.  They will be delicious in times to come. And this is just the first batch!

This coming weekend is the Ocracoke Fig Festival.  There will be fig preserve contests and fig cake contests along with other recipes and lots of music and dancing.  If you like figs, this is the place to be!