Thoughts on 2020

The overwhelming majority of people will not write one word about this year. The memories will fade and we will all fall into a collective shared fable of what this life was like. Of the writings of my grandparents and great-grandparents, not one reference to the Spanish flu of 1918 has survived. I have no idea what that time was like for them. So this is for posterity, my thoughts on life during the China flu of 2020. 

As I write this it is about one year since the flu virus first arrived in the US. It is about one month since the vaccine was approved by the FDA. It is about ten months since the government started imposing restrictions on public gatherings, masks, etc. 

For the most part, things were not that bad for me. Actually they were quite good. I welcomed two new grandchildren into the world, saw the Cardinals and Twins in Spring training, boated a lot, read many good books, learned a lot about the geography of Africa, prayed much more than in the prior year, saved some money, drove from Victoria Minnesota to Roan Mountain Tennessee, and welcomed a future son-in-law into the family circle, witnessed the entry of my son into the Catholic Church. I went to the dentist twice, the dermatologist once, my eye doctor once and my family doctor once. I got good reports from all of them. For those of us who are retired, and who planned well for retirement, things were pretty darn good.  We finished an addition on to our house. I got all of our old VHS tapes digitized. My children did not lose their jobs and my youngest successfully got a better job and launched her career in physical therapy. I wrapped up most of my responsibilities as trustee and executor of my brother Kevin's estate and trust. 

I think that day to day our lives were not as bad as we pretend them to be. Apart from those who actually got the virus and suffered through all of that, all of my friends had a pretty good year. We had some inconveniences, but in the span of human history they were very very very minor. We did not get to see relatives and friends as often as we would like, but go back in time 150 years and you will find that your great-great grandparents spent much of their lives in relative isolation, working 12-14 hour days. I did not get to be at the hospital when my grandsons were born, which I would have so loved, but turn the clock back a few dozen decades and there would have been no hospital and men would have taken no break from work while the women anguished in childbirth. I had visits from friends cancelled but I had the ability in my home to see them live on a screen like a television. 

There will be lots of whining and second guessing about what the government did or did not do. A few thoughts on that. It is surprising that we have a vaccine as quick as we do. Some credit should go to the current president for clearing the path for companies and scientists to make this happen. He threw a lot of money at the problem. In time we will see that much of it was wasted, but a lot of it was not and that helped get the vaccine out quicker. 

It appears that the president, who is a very combative person, did not do enough to clear a path to distributing the vaccine once it arrived. He was not nice to people who disagreed with him. He left too much to individual states. The government had a full year to figure out how to get this distributed and has not done very well so far, or so it seems. There are stories as I write this about vaccines sitting in cold storage awaiting use. Perhaps that is true, perhaps not. 

The next president will do much better. He believes in the federal government and will take more of a hard line to make people take the vaccine. He will compromise, cajole, bend and twist arms and get this thing taken care of. He will push a federal plan and will stop the silliness of states like Minnesota that have advisory panels to advise the governor on why their favorite disadvantaged group needs the vaccine the most. He will do it in a way that causes us to think collectively, as fellow citizens, about how to solve the problem, and not as individuals entitled to some special treatment. We will like it. 

There were some minor personal impacts. We were made to wear masks in public. I did not like this but went along with it. (The President did not like masks and set the example that people should not wear them. Some people said the mask came to be seen as a political sign. If you wore one it meant that you did not like the president. This is myth, in my view. Most people simply believed the President's opinion was wrong and chose to play it safe and wear a mask. Most of his supporters ended up wearing masks and were somewhat irritated that he chose not to). I spent the night in only three states: Minnesota, Missouri and Tennessee. Normally I would travel to a dozen or so. I stocked up on a few things that I would normally not have around, bullets and whiskey. You never know how crazy things are going to get. 

We did not get to go to church as much as we would have liked. Initially here, services were limited to around 10-25 people. That did not last long as the Catholic Church made it clear that they would not abide by so severe a restriction on worship. Most protestant churches agreed with the Catholic Church on this. Distribution of the Eucharist was changed drastically, with the precious blood of Christ restricted to the priest and deacon only, in many churches. While receiving the body alone was wondrous, and no less miraculous, it still did not seem the same. Priests were behind plexiglass walls for distribution at some churches. It was pretty weird. There were lots of outdoor services, which I did not like and did not attend. 

At my gym I tried to find times to go when no one else would be there. But when they changed the rules to make people stay 12 feet apart and wear a mask while exercising, I gave up. No way you can run laps around a track or on a treadmill with a mask on. Can't get enough breath, just bad in every way. 

Professional and college sports were severely curtailed. No crowds in the stands, coaches wearing masks, etc. Made the whole spectacle much less interesting. I watched sports much less. Many events cancelled. 

It was a year of racial strife, a topic outside the scope of this blog. I have nothing more to add to what has already been said. I do not have any insight that would be of any help to the reader. My opinion on what transpired is evolving.    

As we enter the second year of this lockdown I will read a lot and work on some other hobbies. I have a couple of projects to consider. Perhaps 2021 will be better in some ways, but in may others ways will be hard to beat. Don't think I will be getting two new grandchildren this year but it's only January. If I can get all the current crew to Roan Mountain in September, that will be good indeed. 

Roan Mountain Shopping list 2012

This is the shopping list for the annual family trek to Roan Mountain, Tennessee. It's not all the groceries, just what my family needs to navigate through the meals supplied by others. While most years I buy from the local "American Owned" Ingles grocery in Newland, NC, this year I went to Walmart in Columbia, SC. Why I had those two to choose from is for another posting.

Bacon

Bananas

Bath Soap

BB Cards

Biscuits

Bread

Buns

Cereal

Charcoal

Cheese - Wisconsin

Cigars

Coffee

Condiments

Corn Chips

Crackers

Crystal Light

Dr Enuf and other sodas

Eggs

Esquire, etc.

Flour

Foil

Fruit

Hamburger for 8

Lighter Fluid Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies

Lunch Meat

Margarine

Matches

Milk

Mt Olive Bread and Butter Pickles

Onion

Paper Plates

Paper Towels

Peanuts in Shell

Pinto Beans

Pork Roast

Potatoes?

Potted Meat

Pringles

Salsa

Salt and Pepper

Sausage

Sugar, SweetLo, etc

Tabasco

Tomatoes

Vienna Sausage

Wasp Spray

Wood Chips

The things scratched out will remain on the list for next year, we didnt need them this time, but you never know when we might. As usual we had too many condiments, too much charcoal, not enough margarine, just enough cigars. In addition to buying this stuff, there were numerous trips to Jacks grocery for more ice, more tomatoes, more onions. The mysteries surrounding the closing of the Davis Girls Peach shed in Roan Mountain and the unusually hard peaches at the Hump Mountain Produce Stand will remain unsolved until another year.

It was another weekend well spent. Included a nice drive with Mom from Columbia, SC to the mountain. A trip to my grandparents gravesite. A minor league game between the Elizabethton Twins and the Burlington Royals. Rain delayed the game but we got to walk around the park and get some souvenirs. A drive with cousins Becky and Barbara to Fred's General Store in Beech Mountain. Lunch at Bob's Dairyland for bbq sandwiches. The best steak dinner of the year. Hiking around Carver's Gap and the torturous jog up to the Miller homestead. Sunday morning sermon at the campground, a bit rambling but heart-felt and full of truth. Kevin's story of Inez and Aunt Bill at Harry's wake, which seems to get funnier and weirder each time I hear it. Numerous games of dominoes. NT's passion for Moose Tracks ice cream. And no gathering is complete without a few heated family arguments about things important and things trivial. A good time.

As we head to the mountains one more time

“The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.”


― Madeleine L'Engle

 

Monday at Carver's Gap

This is where I spent last Monday, hiking around Carver's Gap, along the Tennessee/NC border. I had a meeting in Knoxville on Tuesday and decided to go a day early and roam some old haunts in Carter County. I flew in to Johnson City on Sunday, spent the night there and spent Monday night at Beech Mountain.

All in, it was a wonderful day. I spent about two hours here, up and down hills, an hour out and back. Some of it I walked and some I ran. Odd to be there by myself, as I'm always here with family. The day included a drive through Roan Mountain State Park, the villages of Roan Mountain, Banner Elk and Beech Mountain. Breakfast in Elizabethton and a drive down Main Street. Lunch at Bob's Dairyland in Roan Mountain, a treat I waited too many years to enjoy.

It was election day in Elizabethton and for an hour or so the tea party was out in full force at the Monument, protesting the latest proposed tax increase. Benny was on the porch, but I didn't stop to chat. I should have.

At Beech I stayed in a non-descript little motel called Archer's Mountain Inn. Nice views, nice rocking chairs on the porch, and good neighbors in the other rooms.

Top Five Hikes

Hiking in the Black Hills of SD this past weekend caused me to think about the best hikes of my life. Here are the top five.
1) Pinnacle Mountain - Pulaski County, Arkansas. Not the most scenic but the hike I've done the most with my family. A store of good memories.
2) Sunday Gulch - Black Hills, near Lake Sylvan. Fresh in my mind, hard not to put it on the list.
3) Blue Mountains - Katoomba, NSW, Australia. Echo Point, near the Three Sisters formation. Like being in another country. (I know this sounds pretentious but its my one and only hike outside the US and really is beautiful)
4) Carver's Gap - Roan Mountain, Tennessee. You can just bury me here.
5) Crabtree Falls - near Steele's Tavern, Virginia

Other great ones that my wife says are not hikes because they don't go up and down... Exit Glacier in Seward Alaska, The Grand Canyon - south Rim, Central Park to Times Square, the refrigerator to the couch, Mackinac Island loop.

Roan Mountain II

I spend a part of each summer in Roan Mountain, Tennessee. Roan Mountain State Park to be exact. You can travel all around this country, and the world, and find few places to spend a weekend better than this. The most recent stay was a collection of events that made for another memorable trip...

Thursday - A beautiful drive from Charlotte, up one side of Jonas Ridge and down, driving to the cabin.  A special afternoon to cherish with my mother and later share over coffee that evening with two of my dearest cousins. Grocery shopping for the weekend at Ingles in Newland, NC, which sounds routine, but never is.

Friday - Another year and another grueling run up to Miller's Homestead and back. A prayer of thanks at the top that I have lived to return to this spot one more time. Creating my annual version of breakfast, complete with grits, biscuits, my amazing sawmill gravy, eggs and bacon.  Hiking the beautiful Balds at Carver's Gap, which straddles the NC/TN border. For the second year it includes Laura, this time her status elevated from my son's girlfriend to his fiance.

Saturday - A picnic at Elizabethton's Covered Bridge over the Doe River with the four main women who watch over me - my wife, my daughters, my mother. Can't leave out a special niece, the only one on this side of the family who will ever call me "Uncle". Watching my brother assemble one of the best meals of my life. The greatest steak in the world from the worlds greatest family chef. His is the only cole slaw that you can make a meal of. His baked beans could almost be served as dessert.

Sunday - This day begins with a sermon from a local minister shared at the park with fellow campers and believers. Hiking Linville Falls and losing three of our party who were in search of a bathroom. Missing the goodbyes to relatives who left before we returned. A hilarious re-telling of Aunt Bill's reaction to Aunt Inez' experiences in the death of Uncle Harry Goforth.  Finally, a Sunday night gathering of all the leftover kin and leftover food for one last feast and sharing of memories.

Along the way there were games of Scrabble, Dominoes, Catch Phrase, and Take One. Discussions of wedding plans that finally get my attention as they have something to do with my family. Empty bottles of Dr. Enuf rattling around in the bottom of the trash. The morning clean up of trash cans attacked by raccoons. Nights spent staring up at the Milky Way, which you never see in the city. Frosty mornings that really do call for a roaring fire in the stove.

In a flash it was over. In a wink, it will be back.

Roan Mountain I

 Every year I travel to Roan Mountain, in present-day Tennessee, in the former State of Franklin.

I have blood here that flows throughout the valleys and hills, around the creeks and hollows. Like the reliable Doe River that gathers hundreds of tiny streams, it emerges in present life from thousands and thousands of days past.

They gather names known and unknown from the cities like Elizabethton, Johnson City and Bristol to the hamlets of Sinking Creek, Stony Creek, Banner Elk, and Hampton to place names like Sycamore Shoals, Powder Branch and Whitehead Hill; they collect the blood and toil of generations. Each year around this time, the land calls our family back.

Here our ancestors first came, for free land and independence. Before there was a Tennessee, we were here. Proud and independent subjects of Kings George II and III.

You will find us buried both in places still marked and in places forgotten. The strongest of us, who made it to age five, had a good shot at living to adulthood. The weak and sickly but a few days. Our mothers often joined the children in the grave as death hovered over childbirth and snatched the weakest whether the one delivered or delivering.

We gather and think about those we recently lost. Grandfathers and great-grandmothers, aunts and uncles, the ones we knew. The ones whose accent and mannerisms and smell we still hold vividly in our memories. But we also think a bit about those we never knew, but whose names still trickle down through time, such as Hans Michael Hyder, the original settler from Germany via Pennsylvania.

Rueben Brooks, the ardent supporter of the Confederacy and slaveowner, whose homestead still stands. Six years after the end of the Civil War, his daughter Margaret married LF Hyder, a former Sergeant, Fourth Regiment, Tennessee Infantry, Union Army. This story was no doubt repeated in countless weddings in the border states of the conflict, eventually bringing a tiny bit of healing to a torn land.

Floyd Blevins, the uncle we miss but never knew, and whose violent death is still a mystery.

We also do the things that bring families together in the best way. We play with the new arrivals, those most recently landed on this earth. There are no infant deaths to mourn, only births to celebrate. We also stare at those who have recently joined us in marriage, or are thinking about it, and judge whether they will make it as one of us.

We eat, too much. Our ancestors could survive for weeks on an array of dishes based on bacon grease, corn meal, buttermilk and beans. If they could sit at our tables they would still recognize the food as theirs. Cornbread, sliced tomatoes, blueberries, gravy, soup beans, grits, baloney, cole slaw, and steak, all adorn our weekend feast.

They climbed the top of mountains and forded streams to get to this place. We repeat these acts because we are drawn to walk where they did. We stand at the High Bald at Carver's Gap and on top of Roan Mountain. We wade the Doe River in the shadow of Elizabethton's Covered Bridge, grateful for every one of them, for what they did, what they dreamed, what they passed on to us.

Passed on are bits and pieces of stories. Tales of success and also of plans that were surrendered to death and hardship. We honor them for both. We have a treasure of stories of cunning and luck and pluck that we pass on and that bring laughter and wonder still. Most of all, we are thankful for the faith in Christ that was handed to us and the "thousand tongues" of our people and our people's people that in this valley have sung "our great Redeemer's praise" for centuries.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, they looked up in a night sky undimmed and dreamed. Those dreams were about us.

A summer without Churchill

My family and friends know this image. The Onyx Churchill cigar. Linked to me and my summers for the past ten years or so. Not this year. Of the physical things that bring pleasure to life... food, clothing, and other comforts, I would put this cigar at or near the very top.

In order to get back on the non-smoker rate for my company life insurance I am enduring a year without this old friend. There is no middle ground with my company's insurance provider, Minnesota Life. You are either a smoker or you aren't. Any use of tobacco of any kind during the year and you are a smoker. A few more months to go.

I haven't been a habitual cigar smoker but have been a long standing one of some twenty years or so. I never had a problem setting it aside when the weather turned cold and it was impolite to bring the use indoors. Generally something for the summer months. A good cigar is a great pleasure and must have been what God had in mind when he invested tobacco. Not a constant habitual use, but the occasional hours long indulgence that clears the mind, brings friends together, seals important life events. Similar to how the indians used it.

Most notably this year it has been absent from my yardwork. I used to joke about how the lawnmower wouldn't start unless I had a good cigar going. It will also be absent from our family gathering in September in Tennessee. At least one neighbor has noticed and commented that it doesn't seem the same for me to be mowing the yard sans cigar. Tell me about it.