You probably know the old saying that you can take the boy out of the hills, but you can never take the hills out of the boy. Of course if you're a flatlander (like Tam, who's from Nebraska) you may not fully understand that. The other question is what happens when you put the boy back in the hills.
I've been back in the hills for several days now, since we ascended the Blue Ridge Parkway on Friday; today, several days of the Great Smokies and their outliers, receding in wave after wave like a sea of mountains, has brought it really home. My blood pressure must be better than ever.
In Washington, it's easy to confuse what you do with who you are. I have been the editor of the Middle East Journal for nearly ten years, and whatever my future in that position, I've had the second longest editorial tenure in its 62 year history. Sometimes in Washington it's easy to think I am the Editor of the Middle East Journal. That's how we think in Washington. But that's what I do, not who I am. Sure, it's part of who I am, being my professional identity for the last ten years, out of my 60, a major piece of my life. But it's only eight or sometimes fewer hours of my day. It's too easy to forget that.
Who I am is another matter entirely. I'm Tam's husband, I'm Abu Sarah as the Arabs would name me, and I'm an Ozark boy who still feels at home in the hills.
Woodrow Wilson is actually not one of my heroes. His famous idealism and democratic views do not sit well with the fact that he introduced segregation to the federal government and was personally profoundly bigoted on race. Nor do his 14 points seem to have accomplished very much except to guarantee the failure of the Peace of Paris and Treaty of Versailles, and his strict Presbyterian uprightness kept the Senate from ratifying the treaty or joining the League of Nations, dooming the league. Nor can I refrain from quoting Clemenceau's famous alleged quote when told of the fourteen points: "Quatorze points, mais cela est un peu fort. Le bon Dieu n'en avait que dix." (roughly: "Fourteen points, but that's a bit much. The Good Lord himself only had ten.").
By now you're wondering, if you're actually reading this, why I dropped a paragraph about Woodrow Wilson into my musings about the mountains. Because I'm fond of a quote Wilson used somewhere in the South during the 1912 campaign. I've google-failed in finding it so I'm probably remembering it wrong, but Wilson, born in Staunton, Virginia and raised in Augusta, Georgia was the first southern President since Andrew Johnson, though his being President of Princeton and Governor of New Jersey has muddied that in the historical memory. Somewhere in his campaign he said something along these lines while campaigning in the South: "When I'm in the South, it's the only place I don't have to have to have things explained to me."
I don't feel that way about the entire South certainly -- the baroque weird cities like New Orleans, Savannah and Memphis are wonderfully enjoyable but I'd never claim I don't need explanations -- but the upland, mountain south, the Scotch-Irish highlands, is the place I know, the place I come from. The Ozarks may or may not be the South, but they are culturally so close to the Southern Highlands of Appalachia, that I know where I am. Carl Bridenbaugh, the great colonial historian, once called the whole southern backcountry "Greater Pennsylvania" because it was settled down the Great Valley system by Scotch-Irish and Germans from Pennsylvania, and I've driven around in the Laurel Highlands of western Pennsylvania and felt that I was in north Georgia or the Ozarks, even to the names on the mailboxes. Do a geographical distribution of the surname "Chastain" sometime. And that's just an example.
Oh, you may wonder what we did today. Let me try to summarize quickly. This was our day in Franklin. We started downtown, given Sarah's interest in gems and gem mining. Our intent was to start with the local gem museum but that not opening till noon, we started first at a great local bookstore (bought too much as usual) and then went on to Ruby City Gems where Sarah picked up a few things for her rock collection. By then the more official Franklin Gem and Mineral Museum, which we'd visited before and expected only information and a few exhibits, ended up spending nearly an hour talking to an elderly volunteer (Jan something) who not only bonded great with Sarah but helped her and Tam pick out some great bracelets and necklaces (Jan's own handiwork as it turned out) and gave us lots of other advice and at least some New Agey-lectures about the power of crystals.
We ate at a hot dog joint -- not in retrospect the best choice since Tam had had diarrhea the night before. Then on to do some gem mining. Franklin calls itself the "Gem Capital of the World" and its various ruby mines (though their "rubies" are purple, lavender and such, neither red rubies nor blue sapphires) are a major attraction: here's the Chamber of Commerce's introduction. We had gone four years ago to the Sheffield Mine and went there agian today. Serious gem hunters use the "native" buckets, but those with kids use the "rainbow" buckets which have been salted with semi-precious pretties like quartz and such, and in our case one or two arrowheads.
Sarah loved it again: a chance to get muddy and find pretty stuff for her rock collection. The downside was that by the time we finished, Tam was feeling rather poorly. Either from the diarrhea the night before, the heat of working in the open sun for the gem dig, or something else, we got her back to the hotel. She's still a bit under the weather tonight, and I hope this doesn't augur a problem like last year when we all had pinkeye and other stuff during our Hampton Roads vacation. We scrapped a few possible plans, let Tam rest while Sarah and I made a grocery run, got ice cream (and a smoothie for Tam), and I took Sarah to the pool but she declared it too cold. (This one is an outdoor pool and the mountain air can cool it down.) Then we ate at Lucio's, the best and/or only decent Italian place in Franklin, and came home.
Because Tam was still feeling poorly I read Sarah a story while she took a bath -- haven't done that in some years as she'd demanded Mom normally -- and I read her a kid's book on the Trail of Tears. (Really cheering, I know, but she really got engaged with it.) As we put her to bed I explained our own personal family connections to the trail of tears, including the fact that she had cousins on it, and I think got her even more engaged. Let's say she's ready to take Andy Jackson off the $20 bill, and leave it at that. She's the only rising third grader in Washington with a firm personal opinon on the Ross-Ridge political feud over Cherokee leadership.
Okay, I weighted the story a bit.
There's much more to say, but it's late, and we all have been short of sleep for one reason or another despite this beinhg our vacation.
.
I've been back in the hills for several days now, since we ascended the Blue Ridge Parkway on Friday; today, several days of the Great Smokies and their outliers, receding in wave after wave like a sea of mountains, has brought it really home. My blood pressure must be better than ever.
In Washington, it's easy to confuse what you do with who you are. I have been the editor of the Middle East Journal for nearly ten years, and whatever my future in that position, I've had the second longest editorial tenure in its 62 year history. Sometimes in Washington it's easy to think I am the Editor of the Middle East Journal. That's how we think in Washington. But that's what I do, not who I am. Sure, it's part of who I am, being my professional identity for the last ten years, out of my 60, a major piece of my life. But it's only eight or sometimes fewer hours of my day. It's too easy to forget that.
Who I am is another matter entirely. I'm Tam's husband, I'm Abu Sarah as the Arabs would name me, and I'm an Ozark boy who still feels at home in the hills.
Woodrow Wilson is actually not one of my heroes. His famous idealism and democratic views do not sit well with the fact that he introduced segregation to the federal government and was personally profoundly bigoted on race. Nor do his 14 points seem to have accomplished very much except to guarantee the failure of the Peace of Paris and Treaty of Versailles, and his strict Presbyterian uprightness kept the Senate from ratifying the treaty or joining the League of Nations, dooming the league. Nor can I refrain from quoting Clemenceau's famous alleged quote when told of the fourteen points: "Quatorze points, mais cela est un peu fort. Le bon Dieu n'en avait que dix." (roughly: "Fourteen points, but that's a bit much. The Good Lord himself only had ten.").
By now you're wondering, if you're actually reading this, why I dropped a paragraph about Woodrow Wilson into my musings about the mountains. Because I'm fond of a quote Wilson used somewhere in the South during the 1912 campaign. I've google-failed in finding it so I'm probably remembering it wrong, but Wilson, born in Staunton, Virginia and raised in Augusta, Georgia was the first southern President since Andrew Johnson, though his being President of Princeton and Governor of New Jersey has muddied that in the historical memory. Somewhere in his campaign he said something along these lines while campaigning in the South: "When I'm in the South, it's the only place I don't have to have to have things explained to me."
I don't feel that way about the entire South certainly -- the baroque weird cities like New Orleans, Savannah and Memphis are wonderfully enjoyable but I'd never claim I don't need explanations -- but the upland, mountain south, the Scotch-Irish highlands, is the place I know, the place I come from. The Ozarks may or may not be the South, but they are culturally so close to the Southern Highlands of Appalachia, that I know where I am. Carl Bridenbaugh, the great colonial historian, once called the whole southern backcountry "Greater Pennsylvania" because it was settled down the Great Valley system by Scotch-Irish and Germans from Pennsylvania, and I've driven around in the Laurel Highlands of western Pennsylvania and felt that I was in north Georgia or the Ozarks, even to the names on the mailboxes. Do a geographical distribution of the surname "Chastain" sometime. And that's just an example.
Oh, you may wonder what we did today. Let me try to summarize quickly. This was our day in Franklin. We started downtown, given Sarah's interest in gems and gem mining. Our intent was to start with the local gem museum but that not opening till noon, we started first at a great local bookstore (bought too much as usual) and then went on to Ruby City Gems where Sarah picked up a few things for her rock collection. By then the more official Franklin Gem and Mineral Museum, which we'd visited before and expected only information and a few exhibits, ended up spending nearly an hour talking to an elderly volunteer (Jan something) who not only bonded great with Sarah but helped her and Tam pick out some great bracelets and necklaces (Jan's own handiwork as it turned out) and gave us lots of other advice and at least some New Agey-lectures about the power of crystals.
We ate at a hot dog joint -- not in retrospect the best choice since Tam had had diarrhea the night before. Then on to do some gem mining. Franklin calls itself the "Gem Capital of the World" and its various ruby mines (though their "rubies" are purple, lavender and such, neither red rubies nor blue sapphires) are a major attraction: here's the Chamber of Commerce's introduction. We had gone four years ago to the Sheffield Mine and went there agian today. Serious gem hunters use the "native" buckets, but those with kids use the "rainbow" buckets which have been salted with semi-precious pretties like quartz and such, and in our case one or two arrowheads.
Sarah loved it again: a chance to get muddy and find pretty stuff for her rock collection. The downside was that by the time we finished, Tam was feeling rather poorly. Either from the diarrhea the night before, the heat of working in the open sun for the gem dig, or something else, we got her back to the hotel. She's still a bit under the weather tonight, and I hope this doesn't augur a problem like last year when we all had pinkeye and other stuff during our Hampton Roads vacation. We scrapped a few possible plans, let Tam rest while Sarah and I made a grocery run, got ice cream (and a smoothie for Tam), and I took Sarah to the pool but she declared it too cold. (This one is an outdoor pool and the mountain air can cool it down.) Then we ate at Lucio's, the best and/or only decent Italian place in Franklin, and came home.
Because Tam was still feeling poorly I read Sarah a story while she took a bath -- haven't done that in some years as she'd demanded Mom normally -- and I read her a kid's book on the Trail of Tears. (Really cheering, I know, but she really got engaged with it.) As we put her to bed I explained our own personal family connections to the trail of tears, including the fact that she had cousins on it, and I think got her even more engaged. Let's say she's ready to take Andy Jackson off the $20 bill, and leave it at that. She's the only rising third grader in Washington with a firm personal opinon on the Ross-Ridge political feud over Cherokee leadership.
Okay, I weighted the story a bit.
There's much more to say, but it's late, and we all have been short of sleep for one reason or another despite this beinhg our vacation.
.
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