Safety
Are we ever really safe? What is safety, after all? Hiking my favorite North Carolina mountain trails last week renewed many memories. One particular incident occurred so long ago I don’t know exactly where it was (possibly Linville Falls) or my age (maybe six or seven.) It was a damp trail, dropping off to a river on one side, but with a rock wall rising on the other. Water seeped from the wall, making muddy, damp sections along the way. It was a perfect environment for salamanders, and I saw several scurrying nearby. I have always loved reptiles and amphibians, an interest that was nurtured by my father. Whenever he found a creature in our garden, he would show it to me with such delight that I began to delight in them as well. Frogs, snakes,...
Mica
During a hike on Whiteside Mountain in Highlands, North Carolina, the mica I saw shining from rock after rock along the trail brought back sweet memories. My family camped on vacations when I was a child, exploring hundreds of trails in the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains along the way. I was always dazzled by what seemed to be diamonds in the rocks but which, at some point, I grew to know as the mineral mica. The mica specks were flat and smooth and, if you found a large enough piece, you could pull off flakes, in perfect, smooth little sheets. Fascinating stuff. Endless treasures along the trail. I often tried to take some of the beauty home with me, slipping the most striking rocks in my pockets as we walked. I would arrange these on a shelf in my room, be...
Confirmed
My oldness is confirmed. I played the piano for old people at Morningside Assisted Living this morning. My friend, Lori, and her two little ones, Lucas and Anna, joined me. One-year-old Anna got a bit fussy so, in an effort to cheer her, I smiled and waved each time she looked in my direction…just like the hundred-year-old women sitting on the couch to my left. Smile and wave. It’s what old folks do.
Wallenda
Though I visited the circus as a child and saw all sorts of acrobatic stunts, the first time I remember hearing the name Wallenda was in 1972. I was with a group of college friends, roaming the North Carolina mountains. Somehow we descended from Highlands, North Carolina, and ended up at Tallulah Gorge, an enormous chasm carved into the earth. The Great Wallenda, a well-known circus performer, had done a high wire walk there two years earlier, but the cable remained, stretched from one tower across the gorge to the other tower. A chain-link fence and strongly-worded sign warned people away. I had an idea of the deepness of the gorge from seeing the movie Deliverance and had absolutely no interest in living that dangerously, but I was amazed and mesmerized by...
Guns
As a child, when given the choice, I would always play cops and robbers rather than with baby dolls. I liked the good guy/bad guy scenario—as long as the good guy prevailed, that is. And in those early games, the good guy always won, just as he did in my favorite television show, The Wild, Wild West. The triumph of law and order struck a chord with me. I was in college when I finally touched a real gun. I was dating another student, Doug, who was from a small mountain community where guns were a part of life. We went out in the woods one winter to find mistletoe which, I was surprised to learn, had to be shot down from trees. Doug fired his .22 rifle a couple times and got a few sprigs, but when I took aim and fired, a huge clump came tumbling down....
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