Revisiting History

A summer Sunday drive a few weeks ago found my husband and me on a back, back, way back mountain road in Madison County, North Carolina. We weren't alone. Riding shotgun (literally, only it was a pistol) was the coauthor of one of my books, Jasper Reese. We had attended the yearly Spring Creek School reunion and were on the way home, or so I figured. "I sure would love to see my old homeplace one more time," this nearly ninety year old hinted. Off we went with his navigating, down an isolated road off state road NC #209 in western North Carolina.

Bluff Mountain Road. It's on the cover of our book, Back in the Time. Take a look at the picture of the road set back in the forties.

That's twelve year old Jasper in his homemade wagon
driving on the Bluff Mountain Road

Jasper described it as a major thoroughfare. Look at it nearly seventy years later:

Still a major thoroughfare, can't you tell! If you stay on it far enough, you'll intersect with the Appalachian Trail and then go on to the backwoods of eastern Tennessee. But to get to Jasper's homeplace, we had to turn off this road onto a much minor thoroughfare that had grass and foot high weeds growing between the ruts. That minor.

Jasper navigating

My thoughts as we inched along? "We could fall off the side of this mountain and no one would ever find us. They wouldn't even know where to begin looking!"

Best part of this side trip was his joy at seeing his old house (even better than my joy when we emerged from the wilderness back onto the major thoroughfare). The driveway was above the house, and he pointed out spots where he carried water from the spring, and where his family fled the night of the 1940 flood, and where he worked the fields that were now overgrown with tall pine trees. His memories were triggered and they flowed joyfully, like pent up children on the last day of school. Celebrating. Free. 

Sad, however, that in the front yard was a "For Sale" sign. Not the sign. His reaction. His mood turned to melancholy as we drove away. "If only I was twenty years younger. I'd buy that on the spot."

Catch of the day,

Gretchen