Funny how time slips away...

That song came to mind when I checked on my last entry. That’s a thing about blogging. Hard to keep at it, especially when it’s more of a personal journal, than anything else.

But time does slip away until you realize it’s gone. Thirty one years ago this weekend the eldest of our children was born, at home in our log cabin in these Tennessee hills. Back in those days we were still fresh from the city, enamored with a lifestyle that was more like camping than anything we’d experienced.

By the time our son arrived we had electricity in the house, a bulb and an outlet in each of the four rooms. We still drew our water from a well with an old windlass and bucket. And the boy, like all of our children, was delivered by a midwife. My wife’s decision, home birth,

The birth of any child is a magical moment, one of life’s simple and essential miracles. The first time you experience it completely overwhelms you with emotion and appreciation of the ones you love.

It was a cool night in May, much like we’re having now. My wife was overdue. The daughter of the neighbor up the road had delivered her baby a day earlier. They shared with my wife a bit of their womanly wisdom: if the baby’s ready, a little castor oil will bring it on.

At 9 my wife took a tablespoon or two then lay down.‘ Around midnight her water broke, and then began our wonderful ordeal. She suffering the pain leading to the miracle event, helped by her mother, sister and our midwife. I was more or less the amazed bystander. At 3:15 our son officially arrived.

I came away convinced that if it were up to men to have babies there wouldn’t be any. There’s nothing in our life histories to prepare us for that kind of pain.

But what a reward motherhood must be.

I can still hear the first scream of our newborn son at this world. And I can still see the shriveled old man in the new born babe fresh from the womb, a life of possibilities.

We had five more children, all at home. Four of those six were born here in our log cabin in the woods.

31 years later the youngest is just about to enter eighth grade, his nearest brother graduating high school Friday night.

31 years raising children. It makes a house a home.

And it’s funny how the time slips away.....

An Easy Hike to Burgess Falls

My hiking buddy and I spent a rainy Sunday afternoon at Burgess Falls, a state natural area bordering Putnam and White counties near here. It’s a great place fora family trek to the outdoors any time of year, but because of the weather we had it to ourselves. Passed only one other hiker during our three hours there.

There’s a couple of short trails. The main trail, mile and a half loop, winds along the Falling Water River and three small water falls. The main event is Burgess Falls itself, a picture perfect waterfall. You can climb an enclosed stairway along the bluff, then a rocky trail down to t the base of the falls. In summer, it’s a great place to swim, or just get cooled in the refreshing mist.

We hiked the river as far down as we could and past the remnants of two hydro-electric power plants which once provided electricity for nearby Cookeville. The first of these, nearest the falls, is pretty dangerous as the concrete floor ahas rotted through. Stay on the trail. The foundation of the second, further down stream nearby, is still intact, and there’s odd pieces of high equipment lying around for your speculative pleasure—try and figure out how they were used.

Back on top, you can follow the service road back, and there’s a ridge top trail look that leads you to some nice vistas of the gorge below.It’s a flat run through the woods. Both the river trail and service road trail have one steep climb, otherwise it’s a n easy jaunt in the woods for hiker’s young and old.
At the parking lot there’s picnic shelters and a children’s playground.
All in all, Burgess falls is a nice place to spend an afternoon, with some great scenery, in any season.

The Thaw....

Finally a day that feels like early March. Actually it’s been warming a few days now but we’re finally hitting stride after what has been an unusually cool winter. Not that we had a lot of snow, but the two small snows we had lingered for days as temperatures barely pushed past freezing.

In the woods, I’ve got my sap buckets set out on the maples. Been making syrup for more than a week now, we probably have a solid quart of maple syrup— that would mean I’ve gathered at least 40 quarts of sap. There’s a 40 to one ratio of sap to syrup, so that means we’ve been doing a lot of boiling.

Process pretty easy: bore a hole into maple tree about two inches, insert some sort of spigot or pout to catch and direct the sap into a bucket. gather sap at the end of the day and boil it down.That’s all there is to making maple syrup. This year I tapped five or six trees.

Over the weekend the ground actually thawed enough that I could fire up my old tiller and turn my garden sports. Not much of a gardener really, but it gives me a real sense of reward to sow a few seeds each spring, then watch the grow. And the harvest — no matter what it is, when you grow something yourself — it always tastes better.

Ghosts of the Morning

ghosts of the morning
dance lightly from the hills
weaving in the shadows
of yesteryday's dreams

on a lone country road
I go stalking the promise
that led so far from my home

through the dewdrops and drizzle
no echo or thunder, just an isolated storm
and the sound of my footsteps
over gravel and stone

In the pluck of the banjo, the harmonica note
there’s a sadness within every song
though I sing out the glory
praise and thanks to my maker
I realize, too, I’ll be leaving one day
and there’ll be a ghost of the morning
rising from the valley for me

now, in the autumn of years
how golden the springtime, how precious the summers,
all my life’s moments, so dear
but when my rapture comes
I’ll gladly surrender
the sorrows and joys that carried these bones

as this morning awakens
and in all days that follow
there’ll be deer in the meadows
birds in the trees
sunshine, flowers, rain and release
for a lifetime spent chasing
the ghosts of the morning
for some hint of what it all means

off the beaten path....

For the past 10 months, in my capacity as a writer, I’ve been working with a group of local artists to promote their activities and annual fall tour, coming up this weekend, the Off The Beaten Path Studio Tour.

Aptly named, by inference it also describes the lifestyles they and we have chosen by living here in rural Tennessee. I guess to some our landscape of deep woods, hills and hollows, creeks and dirt roads might sound idyllic. It’s a way of life, like any other with its own challenge and rewards.

I think, though, there’s something we all draw from our surroundings, an abiding peace against the chaos that so often seems to define modern life. Sure it intrudes this far, but then there’s the landscape, and buckets of stars at night to re-orient our personal compass.

We chose to be here, accepted the good and bad of rural life. And though we all aspire to the financial rewards success in our respective arts may bring, there’s a success we already enjoy in choosing our way and making a life on our terms. I guess that’s the most important thing to be found by those who wander “off the beaten path.”

I’m getting older now, and over the past summer I’ve done a lot of reflecting on the life we’ve made for ourselves here. It’s not been easy, and economic hardship is one of the realties of trying to make your way in a creative endeavor so far removed from the maddened crowd.

But there’s a personal Utopia that can be realized in places like this, as well. As long as you don’t infringe on your neighbors, you’re free make life on your terms, whatever they be, wherever you see North.

For those who follow their hearts, a fulfilling proposition

Motor City

I’ve been lax this summer about writing. My mind has been elsewhere, preoccupied.

When we first moved here we heard a lot of talk about Detroit and Michigan from the locals. Most of them had family up there, or had migrated there for a spell themselves and returned. Before during and after World War II people from here left the farm for the promise of factory jobs in the north. Any way to make a living seemed like the promised land for those who’d grown up poor and could only look forward to more prospects f the same. Those who left were either ambitious, or had no land and no options other than moving away from here.

We learned, too, Tennessee never was far from their heart. These folks would return yearly in many cases, just to be back home, sit in a familiar porch swing and look out on a vista they knew as well as the back of the hand. When they reached retirement age many turned South for the lifestyle which no longer existed. It had changed with them, some remained others eventually decided they liked the life they found up North better, and returned to it. A few never truly found a sense of pace. They longed for they old homestead, but they couldn’t stand to be away from the excitement and choices of the city life for too long.

In its day, though, the good thing about Detroit was it was a place to dream to. This year, with unemployment high, there are no Detroits. People are getting by, and it’s somebody else’s problem until you’re out of work.

The 49ers, and friends

Went to a “49ers” party” the other night, the honored host being one born that year and turning 60 a few weeks back. Seems like that’s nice way of casting that milestone event.

The party was also a reunion of sorts, gathering of locals and a coming home for many people who used to call this area home, and retain some nostalgic attachment to the area. A few guests traveled a long ways to be here.

Back in the early 1970s this area, which had remained pretty true to its Appalachian roots, saw the beginnings of a wave of immigration unlike anything that could have been expected or seen before.

Young kids with long hair and a heartfelt commitment to live a more independent lifestyle than what they’d brought up in, close to the land, started buying up old farms to make their homes. The honored guest of the party and his wife were among the very first, if not the original of what became know as the Dry Creek hippies. And whether or not young people who moved to the area through the rest of the decade were truly hippies, they were regarded as such.

When we arrived here in 1977 from NYC, I remember how startled I was when somebody asked me if I was one of “them hippies”: To him, I fit the part: long hair and a beard, young wife in tow, her long blond hair parted down the middle, with fashion sense leaning toward blue jeans and overalls, flannel and L’il Abner boots..

But when the question was putto me, I had to ask “What’s a hippie?” to find out what he meant. To me, from NYC, the hippies were a fad and fashion which had run its course years earlier.

”You know, one of them people that all lives in the same house, none of them takes no baths nor goes to work.” the old man explained.

That’s the idea some people had about hippies—any young person who came here with a bit of an education, it seems— for a while, And some still use the term, sometimes with implied derision.

Had they looked at crowd gathered at this party, though, they would discover those same kids have grown into outstanding citizens who have enriched the area in many ways. Many are involved in the arts, all work and are responsible citizens, They take great pride in their children and if they’re lucky enough yet, grandchildren, and the wonderful part of Tennessee where we’ve made our homes and lives.

And forget all the free love stuff: at one point I was standing with two other guys, including the host, and collectively we had more than 100 years of married life, each with his wife more than 30 years.

We’re all part of the landscape now.