Worst Book of the Year

I was born in Johnston County, North Carolina, and lived there continuously until I left for college. Although I have not lived there for many decades, I still feel an attachment to the place and take pride in its celebrities. As best I can tell, the county has four major celebrities, living and dead: film star Ava Gardner; pop band The O’Kaysions; country musician Jim Thornton, the Barefoot Boy from Broadslab; and Percy Flowers, distiller and purveyor of quality, untaxed spirits.

Type “Ava Gardner” into the Amazon search bar under “books” and 16 web pages full of books on various aspects of her life appear. A similar search for “The O’Kaysions” yields no books, but three web pages of their music. Jim Thornton, who had a regional following, has no biography as best I can tell. He deserves one. He was an original.

That leaves Percy Flowers. Amazon shows two biographies of Flowers: a 2013 paperback from author Perry D. Sullivan (which must be out of print, given the $99.20 price), and the more recent (2024)  J. Percy Flowers: The Master Distiller, by Oakley Dean Baldwin, and priced at $15.99. I bought it. I read it. I regret it. It is my candidate for the worst book that I have read this year.

I could say I knew Percy Flowers, but a more accurate description is that I saw him once when I was a young lad. He was in my father’s television shop, either buying a television or getting one repaired. I had a brief conversation with his brother Jimmy (or Jimmie, if the author of this book is correct) sometime during my late teens or early twenties. I was driving to Kenly one night on Highway 42 when my 1966 Rambler Rebel crapped out. I threw it in neutral and aimed for the nearest driveway, coasting to a stop in front of a nice brick home owned by Jimmy Flowers. He let me use his phone to call my father and was a gracious host while I waited for my father to arrive and sort out my car problems.

I was hoping that the Baldwin book would be an informative biography. It is not. It is, at best, a 50-page manuscript padded and stretched into a 200+ page book. The fact that it received a review in the Raleigh News and Observer is surprising: the book is self-published, and most newspapers do not have the space to review self-published books. I should have read the review a bit more carefully. The review features snippets from Flowers’ life, as recounted in the book, but refrains from passing judgment on the quality of the book.

One of the reasons the book needs padding is that there are few details about Flowers’ early life. The introduction to the book starts on page 11, and the first several pages focus on Flowers’ ancestors and transfers of deeds to land, and a brief history of moonshining in the colony and state. Percy Flowers makes his first significant appearance on page 18, as an eleven-year-old. By the end of that page he is sixteen years old, and running from his father’s wrath. He escapes into the woods, encounters a moonshiner, and begins to learn his craft. This ends on page 20, where we learn that it takes him a year to perfect his craft. But the very next paragraph takes us to several years in the future, after Percy has given up farming as his major source of income and has replaced it with moonshining. He now has employees in the business. That is too great a leap for a biography. What I wanted to know is, did his daddy whup the tar out of him when he came home that night from his first moonshining experience? 

The lack of detail and the absence of some sort of chronological order make this book hard to enjoy. The lack of detail inspired the need to stretch the manuscript out. One of the devices that the author uses is double spacing between lines. I have no problem with that: my eyes are old. I do have a problem with triple - to - quintuple spacing between paragraphs. It was rare to encounter a page that had three full paragraphs. This gives the pages an amateurish look, which is fitting. One chapter was eight pages long, and was nothing more than a listing of Percy’s “rap sheet,” his adverse encounters with the law. The author admits the listing is probably incomplete. The author did not admit up front that the rap sheet included offenses by his relatives. 

Speaking of relatives, the author includes information on the next generation of relatives and their misadventures and brushes with the law. All interesting to the Flowers family, I’m sure, but not to one looking for a biography of the King of the Moonshiners.

And, of course, what better way is there to fill up printed pages than by recounting the history of moonshining that the author (a West Virginia native) had in his family, on both sides. That is probably of zero interest to anyone looking for a decent biography of Percy Flowers.

We humans are complex characters, and Percy Flowers was as complex as any of us. I knew him by reputation, and that was mixed. A few people I knew really didn’t like his vocation, but many people I knew considered him a bit of a Robin Hood. He deserved a better biography than this.

Now if I could only find a cheap, second-hand copy of the Sullivan biography.

Reflections on a Stapler

I earned my PhD in August of 1978, and began my professional career in October of that year. My first job was with a company that no longer exists, Westvaco Corporation. Among the office supplies issued to me was an ACCO 30 stapler. It was a heavy piece of steel, with a strip of tape on the top that said “DO NOT REMOVE FROM ROOM _ _ _” (I forget the number of the room). I never had heard of ACCO, only Swingline Staplers. Interestingly, ACCO owns the Swingline brand.

A few years later I was promoted and transferred to another laboratory. When I moved, I took the ACCO 30 with me. I justified this simply: Westvaco owned that stapler, and I was just moving from one Westvaco location to another. That’s not stealing. The interesting part of this story is why I had become so attached to that stapler. That, too, is simple: it never jammed. It may be that there was so much steel in that machine that a puny staple just had to succumb to the stapler. Whatever the reason, I had no intention of parting with that stapler.

A few years later I changed companies, joining the chemical division of Georgia-Pacific, which was incorporated at Georgia-Pacific Resins, Inc. By this time I had no reservations about taking the ACCO 30 with me. Surely it was fully depreciated by now, and of no value whatsoever to my former employer.

The stapler settled into my home office. I had one problem with it: the strip of tape that said “DO NOT REMOVE FROM ROOM _ _ _” (I still do not remember the number of the room). I thought it time, after 11 years, to remove that piece of tape that reminded me of my crime. Unfortunately, or perversely, fortunately, that tape was manufactured back in a time when tape adhesive actually adhered. The paper delaminated, but the adhesive held. To this day, there is a strip of delaminated paper firmly adhered to the back of the stapler. It will be there forever.

The ACCO 30 has been in every one of my home offices since 1989. It outlived the two companies I mentioned. Westvaco merged with the Mead Corporation, forming MeadWestvaco, which did not last very long. The combined company sold off the papers business group, forming a new company called NewPage. The linerboard and saturating kraft mill in North Charleston, SC was sold to Kapstone Paper and Packaging. The chemical division in North Charleston was sold to another company, which also acquired the paper chemicals portion of Georgia-Pacific Resins, Inc., my second employer! What was left of MeadWestvaco merged with Rock-Tenn, forming the company that sends me my pension check: WestRock.

The really interesting thing, to me, is that in 2012 ACCO bought MeadWestvaco’s Consumer and Office Products business. Hence the company that once owned my stapler is now partially owned by the company that produced my stapler.

I have to stop now. I can’t keep up with who owns what without a scorecard.

Cup Culling Time

Kathy and I are in our retirement home, even though I have not yet fully retired. We’ve both lived in smaller houses, and we’ve both lived in larger houses. This house is a bit like the final choice of Goldilocks: it is just right. Three bedrooms (one of which functions as Kathy’s office), two baths, and a half-finished basement that is my domain (office and workshop): I think it is perfect.

Kathy disagrees. She has two problems with the house: both the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen were last updated in the 1980s, and the kitchen is too small. Now, the 80s was a great decade, so I vote for not upgrading either bathroom or kitchen. (A funny thought just occurred to me. It seems the decades I really enjoyed were 30 years apart: the 50s, 80s, and the 10s. I need one more data point to confirm this trend.) As to the kitchen’s size, well, she may have a point.

I guess you would call it a galley kitchen, which isn’t large to begin with. One of the points that attracted me to the house was the booth built into the kitchen. We eat most of our meals in that booth, and I am sitting in it now while typing this screed. It is a great feature. But having a booth in a kitchen cuts out valuable counter and cabinet space. That is Kathy’s major complaint.

That does not worry me, for two reasons. First, during my single years I became accustomed to eating out, and it wouldn’t hurt my feelings a bit if the kitchen served only to warm up a breakfast or a lunch, with the major meal prepared for us (and the dirty dishes cleaned up for us) by someone else. Second, it was never my intention to spend my retirement years slaving over a hot microwave oven. The kitchen is big enough.

The cabinet space is becoming problematic, though. Which leads me to believe it is time for another coffee cup cull.

Ah, coffee cups. Companies give them away as promotions, friends give them as gifts, we pick them up because the graphics on the cups strikes our fancy. I remember, 30 or so years ago, donating a specific amount of money to a public television station just so I could receive a TARDIS thermochromic cup. For those of you not in the know, a TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) is a time machine employed by the Time Lord known simply as the Doctor, from the television show Doctor Who. A thermochromic mug changes colors depending upon the temperature. The TARDIS cup had a TARDIS painted on it, with thermochromic pigments. When the cup was filled with a hot liquid, the TARDIS disappeared. As the liquid was consumed and the cup cooled, the TARDIS would materialize, just as it did in the television show. I loved that cup. Unfortunately, someone put it in the dishwasher one night, and the heated drying cycle zapped the thermochromicity right out of the cup. It never changed colors again, and eventually ended up (as one of my 1980s icons would have put it) on the ash heap of history.

We last had a coffee cup cull when we moved into this house, two and one-half years ago. With limited cabinet space, we felt we could devote only one cabinet to coffee cups, and the result of that decision was that both Goodwill and the Habitat for Humanity Restore ended up with a surfeit of very fine cups and mugs. I have not performed an accurate count, but my estimate is that we now have something in the ballpark of way over yonder too many cups and mugs.

The two cups you see at the top of this post are mine. (I actually have a third, a purple mug with the letters “NOC” in black imprinted on the mug, but Kathy is the one who uses that mug, even though she has her own mug from the Nantahala Outdoor Center.) I like the one with the owl on the bare branch, a full moon behind him, and it used to be my daily cup. It has a Halloween feel to it, but without the orange-colored theme. I still use it, from time to time, when the Grrrrumpy mug is in the dishwasher. The Grrrumpy mug is my current every-day mug, for a specific reason: Grumpy is the name my grandchildren have given to me. (Actually, my children gave it to me when they became parents, and it does seem to fit.) Every time I drink from that mug I think of my grand kids who are scattered quite literally around the globe.

The other 30 or 40 mugs in the cabinet are Kathy’s. And that, of course, is the problem with cup culling time: it is my idea, but Kathy’s cups. That doesn’t always work out well.

The best argument I can put forward is that culling the seldom-used cups is cheaper than a kitchen make-over. Methinks Kathy prefers the make-over.

Bah, Humbug!

This is normally the time of year that I give my “Book of the Year” award, which seldom goes to a book published in the same year. Unfortunately, it is not possible for me to do that this year. I read pitifully few books this year – eight in all – and all of them in the first half of the year. For the first time in my teaching career I am not teaching any mathematics courses. I am the new chemistry teacher at the school, and the latter half of the year has been devoted to getting up to speed with my four chemistry classes. Most of my reading this year was devoted to chemistry.

The book that I found most enjoyable this year was The Sky Club by Terry Roberts. Roberts is a local writer. The book was set in the late 1920s – early 1930s in Asheville, and the Sky Club (a real place) has since been converted into condos. We drove by it a few times, as it is near Helen’s Bridge, but there is not much to see, except for the massive gate that protects the inhabitants.

During the latter half of the year the thing I missed most was satellite radio. My old F-150 had its satellite dial set to channel 71, 40s Junction, a channel devoted to late 1930s and 1940s big band music. Hurricane Helene destroyed my truck, and while the radio still worked, it was no fun sitting in a seat covered with little glass fragments while listening to my jams. I do have a small satellite radio designed for use in a house, but I canceled the subscription to that years ago: radio really is for the car.

I bought a new F-150 in early November, and while it was definitely nice to be sitting in a vehicle that was designed for someone taller than 4 feet 11 inches, my major excitement was directed at the Sirius XM radio. 40S Junction, here I come! So you can imagine my disappointment at finding Christmas music oozing from channel 71.

They do this every year: they dump the good music on channel 71 and replace it with Christmas music. It used to be that they waited to do this until after Thanksgiving. Then it was the week of Thanksgiving. Now, it appears that they do it on November 1.

Don’t get me wrong: there is nothing wrong with Christmas music, other than the fact that I don’t particularly like hearing it over and over and over again for two months. They just start way too early. It is overkill.

But wait, because I have bad news and good news. The bad news is that I was not able to sign up for my old Sirius XM plan at the old price. Surprise, surprise! Apparently, they ditched my plan some time ago, and I was grandfathered in. Now that I have to choose a new plan, I find that the selection of channels is expanded, including many channels I never listen to. (Baseball on the radio is fine, but I don’t need all those other sports channels that I now find I am paying for.) And along with an expanded selection of channels is an expanded monthly fee. (Which is another thing I don’t like. I used to pay annually and save a little money. Now it is a monthly charge, with no discount that I could find for paying up front.) Inflation did not pass Sirius XM by.

The good news? Way up in the expanded channels, channel 296, to be exact, I found 40s Junction! That is its new home until the Christmas music nonsense ends.

I am so happy! I will not have to give up Guy Lombardo for New Year’s Eve!

The Proof Is in The Pudding

I admired the late James Jackson Kilpatrick. He led an interesting life. He began his career as a newspaperman after earning a journalism degree from the University of Missouri in 1941. By 1950 he was the editor of The Richmond News Leader, succeeding the sainted Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman. A conservative, Kilpatrick was strongly opposed, on constitutional grounds, to the US Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. He laid out his arguments in his first book, The Sovereign States: Notes of a Citizen of Virginia (1957). He advocated for the doctrine of interposition, which he traced back to Jefferson and Madison, in 1798.

In 1964 he began his syndicated column, A Conservative View, and he gave up his editorial duties in 1966. From that time on until his death in 2010, he earned his living as a man of letters, writing columns and books, appearing on television, and giving lectures.

If you are a certain age, you remember his television appearances during the point-counterpoint segment of 60 Minutes. This was always the last segment of the show, pitting the conservative Kilpatrick against the liberal Nicholas von Hoffman, and more memorably, the liberal Shana Alexander. And if you do not remember the show, you may well remember the parody of the show that was a regular skit on Saturday Night Live. Jane Curtin played the Shana Alexander role (“Dan, you pompous ass!”) while Dan Aykroyd played the James J. Kilpatrick role (“Jane, you ignorant slut!”).

I once attended a Kilpatrick lecture, and he commented on the point-counterpoint segment. He said that he despaired of ever convincing Alexander of the superior characteristics of the capitalist system. Then, one day, he found that he had, indeed, convinced her: she left the show for a higher-paying job!

Towards the end of his career, Kilpatrick devoted his columns to only two topics: the courts, and the English language. In the mid-1980s he published a book entitled The Writer’s Art that provided a catalog of his insights on writing well. One of the chapters was entitled “My Crotchets and Your Crotchets” and consisted of a compilation of mistakes writers made in the choice of specific words. One example was the confusion surrounding “affluent” and “effluent”. I was working at a paper mill at the time: I knew the difference. Another was the frivolous way that “absolute” words were treated. For example, “unique” means one of a kind. Something is either unique, or it is not. To this day, my skin crawls when I hear someone refer to a thing as “very unique”. “Unique” does not admit of a modifier.

I have a couple of crotchets that Kilpatrick did not include in his book. Sadly, I acquired these crotchets after repeated exposure to mid-level and senior-level managers of corporations who really should have known better, but for some reason did not. These two phrases were at one time trendy, and we all know managers tend to be trendy. But they drive me bananas. The phrases, that is. And, come to think of it, the managers as well.

The first is “walk the talk”. Taken by itself, the phrase is meaningless, a sure sign of a modest if not a poor education. Or it could be a sign of terminal trendiness. The phrase should have been written as “he can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk?” Even this sounds silly. What it refers to is a fellow who is pretty glib when it comes to bragging about his abilities, but a fellow about whom we have doubts as to whether he can deliver on his promises. (I prefer the more succinct “Put up or shut up.”) Apparently “he can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk” became too much of a chore for mid-level and upper-level managers to handle, so these captains of industry chopped the phrase down to something they could remember.

As aggravating as that phrase is to me, it pales beside “the proof is in the pudding”. This is total nonsense. Imagine Euclid beginning his proof of Book I Proposition 15, that vertical angles are congruent, with “We begin with a plum pudding.” The original sentence was “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” That does make sense. Is the pudding I made tastier than the pudding you made? We can answer the question with a few bites of each. This phrase is historical, and today is never used to judge the quality of puddings. Is the automobile that I designed superior to last year’s version? Let’s take it out on the track and find out. It is an argument against theories and an argument for hands-on testing. So why did this reasonable phrase get reduced to the nonsensical title of this post? See the paragraph above.

I am not happy about the extent to which our language is being corrupted. I have learned, however, that the world is largely indifferent to my unhappiness. And that applies doubly to mid-level and upper-level managers, to whom I am equally indifferent.

Well, That Certainly Was Exciting

Kathy and I are not preppers, but we do take certain precautions. We keep a few gallons of bottled water on hand at all times. We keep a reasonable amount of cash in the safe. And, when we bought this house in Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina, I had a Generac whole-house generator installed, powered by natural gas. These were reasonable preparations for the standard natural disasters that I figured we might face.

Then along came Hurricane Helene.

We had warnings. School was canceled Thursday, the day before the storm hit. I looked at our preparations and decided that my only additional preparation was to fill the F-150 with gasoline, just in case we had to evacuate. That was somewhere in the ballpark of $85 worth of gasoline. I’m telling you, that F-150 has really improved with age: four years ago it only held $60 worth of gasoline.

The storm hit Friday morning. I got up around 5 AM and checked the house. All was well. No water in the basement, no water on the ceilings, just noise from the generator. I went back to bed. When I checked the house again at 7 AM, I had about 2 inches of water in the basement, leaks in the living room ceiling, a broken window (double-glazed, so it still kept the rain out), and the furious noises of a generator running and a storm such as I have never seen.

Kathy saw it first. A huge tulip poplar tree in the front yard had toppled. I do not know just how tall this tree was, but I know that when it fell over, going from east to west, it took out one of the handrails on the first set of steps from the driveway. But that wasn’t all it took out. After the handrail, it crushed Kathy’s car (which she had owned for just under a year), then totaled my beloved F-150, finally coming to rest on the trailer. The trailer also was totaled, but that was due, I think, to the massive limb that fell from the other tulip poplar tree, the one under which the trailer was parked, and coincidentally, the tree that the arborist had thinned out in the summer of ‘23.

We had coffee, waited for the storm to subside, and then assessed the damage.

We do not live in a floodplain. According to my handy dandy iPhone altimeter, we live at somewhere between 2100 and 2200 feet above sea level. (It has problems making up its mind.) The closest river, the Swannanoa River, is perhaps a quarter mile away, but at least 100 feet below us in altitude. The water in my basement was not due to any flooding. It was instead due to the fact that the storm circulation piled up water against the east side of the house, which is where the water entered the basement. Nothing I can do about that, other than eventually installing a French drain. Likewise the ceiling in the living room: the water seemed concentrated on the west end of the house. That is where the chimney is located. A roofer should be able to fix that. So the really big problem is the damage to vehicles. And before we can do anything about that, we have to remove a massive tree from all three.

We had electricity, courtesy of the Generac, but the water pressure was very low, and in fact, soon there was no water at all. That led me to recall the 3-3-3 rule which states that on average a human can survive without shelter in hostile weather (think Siberia) for about three hours, without water for about three days, and without food for about three weeks. Our shelter was secure, and we had food in the fridge and the freezer. Water would be the problem. We had less than 10 gallons potable on hand, and the normal human uses about 3.5 gallons per day.

Ah, the hot tub, which holds somewhere in the ball park of 300 gallons! We can use that to flush, and bathe.

And so we were set for survival. Various places around town were offering free food. When this mess is over and our restaurants are back in full swing, I am going to eat at Thai Kitchen and leave a healthy tip. We were offered free food there just in passing. The Apollo Flame Bistro uses natural gas for its stoves and ovens, and thus was able to offer healthy portions of lasagna for a very reasonable price. They were probably trying to sell all their food before it spoiled due to lack of refrigeration. We live near the hospital and visit it twice a day to download emails and check text messages. (Of course the internet was down, as were many cell towers). We had a very nice hot dinner there one evening, just before curfew, provided by some nice folks from down in Saluda.

And then, on Sunday, the generator stopped working. The repairman didn’t get it up and running again until Wednesday. In the interim, I borrowed an inverter from my stepson, connected it to a deep-cycle marine battery, and managed to keep cell phones and computers charged with it. Remarkably, it ran the fridge and freezer for another day before it finally overloaded. It really wasn’t designed to run appliances.

Even with the electricity restored, Kathy decided that playing pioneer woman was not for her. She visited friends in the Atlanta area, and had the luxury of taking a shower. (I have been getting along with dousing myself with a bucket of hot tub water. It works, though the water is no longer warm.) Kathy was able to get away courtesy of her daughter, who loaned us two cars. I am now keeping tabs on a half-dozen houses belonging to those who evacuated. The gasoline situation is no longer tight, so (thankfully!) I no longer need to siphon gasoline from the lifeless carcass of the F-150. My palate really isn’t accustomed to 87 octane.

Friday’s briefing by county and city officials, carried on Blue Ridge Public Radio, featured a PowerPoint presentation on the progress the city has made in restoring the water system. Yes, I know, a PowerPoint presentation is useless on a radio program, but then again, so is much of our city government: useless, that is. The fellows working 12-hour shifts around the clock are providing a great service, but there is no estimate as to when the water supply will be restored. Lucy and I are just taking it day by day.

There is one big takeaway for me from this disaster, aside from the note to myself to sign up for Starlink Internet. I haven’t seen a single government official or agency on the ground. Rumor has it that FEMA sent four managers here, but couldn’t spare any more from border duty. That is fine: the last thing we need is more managers. The people here have been helping themselves, and helping each other. And that is the takeaway: you are not on your own, if you have friends or a real community. But you are in deep doo-doo if your plan is to have the government help you. It can’t.

Our first indication that we might have a problem.

Kathy’s car.

The F-150 is under there, somewhere.

There it is!

Reflections on Fifty Years of Membership

Back in January of this year, I received a letter from the American Chemical Society (hereafter, the ACS) congratulating me on fifty years of membership. That was a bit of a shock. True, some fifteen years ago they sent me a congratulatory letter celebrating my 35 years of membership, and a nice ink pen. I remember thinking then that the numbers did not quite add up. Soon I discovered the reason why: I was counting my years of full-fledged ACS membership, while the national office included my years of membership in the student affiliate chapter at Wake Forest University. That was a nice touch: I helped found that chapter, and was a charter officer (secretary, I think).

The big question remains: where did the time go? Was it really fifty years ago, during my junior year, that a handful of us were scurrying around, lining up a faculty advisor, filling out paperwork, and waiting for our student affiliate charter?

I remember the night we received the charter, at a local section meeting. I had been up late most of the nights during that week, and the meeting, held on a Thursday night, featured the late Dr. Ernest Eliel, world-renowned stereochemist. He was German and had a magnificent deep, monotone voice. Unfortunately, he had an impressive nose to go with it, and the deep voice seemed to amplify in that spectacular resonating chamber of a nose. The long and the short of it is that I fell asleep during his lecture to the sound of his mellifluous voice. This was somewhat embarrassing, as I was seated in the front row.

A little more than a year later I was reminded of that evening. I was sitting at the end of a long table, with Dr. Eliel at the other end. It was my first meeting with my temporary graduate committee (temporary until I found a research advisor), and Dr. Eliel was its chairman. I remember thinking that I really hoped he didn’t remember my snoozing at his lecture.

The good news is that now I am an Emeritus Member of the ACS. In plain English that means I no longer have to pay dues, which are currently running at nearly $200 per year. I also get into ACS national and regional meetings for free. This is not too exciting, as I have not attended that many of these meetings over the years. I have attended more local section meetings than anything else, and was, during the late 1980s, a local section chairman.

The ACS provides a fair number of benefits. The first is the weekly magazine, which used to be named Chemical and Engineering News. A little bit ago, the brain trust at the Washington,, DC office decided to pull a Kentucky Fried Chicken on its members. Kentucky Fried Chicken used to be the name of a company, but the company decided to change its name to KFC. (I think it was the word “Fried” that caused the change.) For whatever reason, the ACS decided to change the name of the magazine to C&EN. I have no idea why. Could it be that the general public was frightened of the word “Chemistry”? Either way, I read every issue. Which means that, over the years, I’ve read at least 2,600 issues of the magazine.

The ACS provides me with discounted insurance, a discount at FedEx (which really helps Kathy’s chile pepper sauce business), discounts on rental cars, and several free episodes per year with SciFinder, a program that searches out papers in the chemical literature. There are other benefits, but these are the ones I am most familiar with.

This past Thursday evening I drove down to Furman University, the site of the September Western Carolinas Section meeting, and was treated to a free dinner. Each of the honorees (which included 60- and 70-year members as well as us 50-year babies) was given a few minutes to recount the highlights of his or her career. They gave me a nice certificate, took my picture, and welcomed me back to attend future local section meetings.

You know, I think I will do just that.

The Vein Mountain Road Tunnel

As a rule, I am not usually interested in tunnels. They are simply holes in the sides of mountains or beneath bodies of water. They are usually fairly short, and given the sad state of engineering these days (think The Big Dig in Boston), they may or may not be safe to traverse. True, I did write about the Swannanoa Gap Tunnel last September, but that tunnel had some history behind it, and it was quite difficult to find, two things that made it interesting. To be perfectly honest with you, I really do not know why the Vein Mountain Road Tunnel grabbed my attention.

Both the Swannanoa Gap Tunnel and the Vein Mountain Road Tunnel are located in McDowell County, North Carolina, the next county over to the east. The former is the longest hand-dug tunnel in North Carolina; the latter, a one-lane tunnel that sees traffic of approximately 600 vehicles per day. The little hill that the tunnel disembowels can hardly be called a mountain. The top of the hill sports train tracks running at a right angle to the tunnel. I do not know if the tracks are still in use. I can report that no train ran across the tunnel while we were there.

What originally caught my eye was the fact that this is a one-lane tunnel, with traffic lights on either end. The tunnel is so short that I am not really sure that the lights are necessary, but there they are. What caught my eye when we finally arrived at the tunnel was the fact that a creek runs through it. There was no time, or no money, or no reason to put a second lane of roadway through the tunnel, but the builders found it necessary to build a concrete channel to divert the creek through the tunnel. I believe that is the first time I have seen that.

The tunnel is otherwise unremarkable. During our brief visit several vehicle traversed the tunnel, so I believe the 600 vehicles per day number. The photos below show the tunnel from both sides, and the creek flowing through it.

Kathy tends to enjoy these little outings, but there is no doubt in my mind that the thing she enjoyed most about this trip was lunch at the Black Mountain Bistro in nearby Black Mountain, North Carolina. Lucy seemed to enjoy that stop, as well.

Postscript: The “vein” in the name of the tunnel refers to a vein of gold.

Our view of the tunnel, looking towards the east.

A clear view of the tunnel, looking towards the east. The creek is on the right.

A close-up view of the creek.

A view of the tunnel from the other side (towards the west).

The creek enters the tunnel towards the west, while one of those 600 vehicles per day enters the tunnel towards the east.

At the Black Mountain Bistro, Kathy eagerly anticipates her lunch.

Lucy enjoys being adored, and she is practically everywhere we go.

The Shell Parade

Asheville has a homeless problem, and I have a sweet tooth.

While we generally refer to it as a “homeless” problem, it is more than just a lack of low-cost housing. Based on my few interactions with some of these folks, I conclude that a good part of the problem is undiagnosed or untreated mental illness. And while I have no data to back up my opinion, I would guess that drugs are contributing factors to some of the mental issues.

How to treat the mentally ill? We used to have hospitals for that purpose, but many are closed down now. In Georgia, there was a mental institution in Milledgeville that once housed about 12,000 patients but now serves around 200. Its 2,000-acre campus has shrunk, and many of its buildings are no longer in use. It stopped accepting new patients in 2010. Soon, I suspect, it will go the way of Dorothea Dix (Mental) Hospital in Raleigh. Opened in 1856, Dorothea Dix Hospital shut its doors in 2012. It is now Raleigh’s largest park.

Our mental institutions are not surviving for a variety of reasons. I have never seen the inside of one (despite the urging of various friends and relatives), but if the portrayals in the movies are anywhere near to the truth, these are miserable places. Think of the insulin shock treatment scene in the movie A Beautiful Mind, or just about any scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I certainly would not want to be there voluntarily. And involuntary commitments to mental institutions became much more difficult to achieve in part due to several US Supreme Court rulings.

Three Supreme Court rulings stand out: O’Connor v. Donaldson (1975); Addington v. Texas (1979); and Olmstead v. L.C. (1999). These decisions made involuntary commitment a much more difficult process. Specifically in the Addington case, the burden of proof for involuntary commitment was raised from “preponderance of the evidence” to “clear and convincing evidence”. The Georgia case of Olmstead v. L.C. used the Americans with Disabilities Act as a basis for requiring community care, where appropriate, as opposed to institutionalization.

Budget priorities also played a role in the death of our mental institutions. A $3.5 - $4 billion shortfall in North Carolina’s 2010 budget almost guaranteed the end of Dorothea Dix Hospital. Advocates for the mentally ill are earnest, but they need bigger megaphones.

Thus many mentally ill people end up on the streets as part of the homeless population. This does not mean that all those folks on the street corners asking for money are mentally ill: some of those folks are wearing pretty expensive tennis shoes, trainers, or whatever tennis shoes are called today. They may have read the Sherlock Holmes short story about The Man with the Twisted Lip. But many need help managing their mental illnesses.

A fellow I know, a very successful businessman, once took his management team to Asheville as a reward for a very good year. They stayed in the Grove Park Inn and availed themselves of the best restaurants that Asheville has to offer. He told me that he would never do that again. He saw no reason why he should have to step over a homeless person sleeping at the entrance of a restaurant in which he was going to drop several hundred dollars.

The city fathers (or, in this case, mothers) have taken a few steps to improve the situation. The homeless person has a constitutional right to stand on a street corner and ask for money. The city mothers did not infringe on that right. They have, however, made it illegal for a driver to give money to a homeless person from their car. I do see fewer homeless people on the street corners, but they have not disappeared. Some are risking serious injury by standing in the streets in between traffic. The real solution to the problem is institutionalization, but the city mothers do not have that kind of authority nor that kind of cash.

The street corner panhandlers generally disappear after dark. But I know where to find them after dark. Just check your local Shell station.

A quick DuckDuckGo search turns up 18 Shell stations in the metro Asheville area. There is one about a mile from my house, with a convenience store and an excellent candy aisle. As I may have mentioned, I have a terrible sweet tooth, and I try to keep a variety of sweets on hand. I buy them at the local Ingles, a mile and a half from my house. But then there are nights, such as occurred this past week, when the sugar craving hits, I am out of snacks, and the Ingles on Tunnel Road has closed. When that happens, the Shell station gets a visit from me. And it is always an interesting sight to behold.

The homeless are there, of course, asking for money. Folks getting off work stop for gasoline, smokes, and beer. The prostitutes stop by for a little pick-me-up between clients. Teenage boys who shouldn’t be out are there, as well as teenage girls who shouldn’t be with those teenage boys. A mother-daughter combo stopped by the other night, both in cowboy boots, both in short skirts that did not flatter them.

I have worked nights before, and my problem was always boredom in the middle of the night. The poor cashier behind the counter had no time to be bored. Every time I stop there, be it night or late night, there is a line. It is quite the parade.

It would be nice to think that, sooner or later, we will figure out how to serve those with mental issues. When we figure that out, let me know, and I will take you to them after dark.

Spam, spam, spam I am

I have been teaching high school now for a few years, and I have learned that having a laptop, cell phone, or iPad in the classroom is essential. There are no paper grade books anymore: attendance and grades are kept somewhere up in the clouds or des nuages, for those of you who speak French. (I know that only because it happens to be the title of a beautiful tune written by Django Reinhardt.) On the days that I do not bring an iPad or laptop into the lecture room, I use my cellphone.

Given that there are few things as aggravating as having a phone ring in the middle of class, I acquired the habit of keeping my phone on “silent” and “vibrate”. And I never acquired the habit of turning the ringer on at the end of class. As a result, my phone always has the ringer disabled.

These days I find that to be a blessing. Every weekday (and occasionally on the weekend) I receive an average of 13-15 calls by telemarketers and scam artists. My very intelligent phone identifies these as “potential spam,” which I believe insults the canned meat product with the original title. These callers have area codes from all over the United States, although I am not sure that the area codes are real. Recently I have received potential spam calls from Kingston, Surrey, Jamaica, so the spammers are spreading their wings. They never leave a message, with one exception.

I have received three calls, from three different area codes, voiced by non-native English speakers, who leave messages. The line “I am calling from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” is clear enough, as is the telephone number I am asked to call. The caller begins with the reason for the call: a loan I have allegedly taken out with someone. It is at this point that the message begins to get garbled. The speaker decreases his volume and mumbles the words. Not even my voice-to-text feature can figure out what they are saying. I believe this is intentional, a ploy to get the sucker (me) to call the scammer/spammer back. The Bureau sounds official, but you should know that the Federal government does not do business over the phone. You will always receive a letter from them.

My colleague at work tells me that I am a target for spammers because of my alleged demographic: a baby boomer with money, probably inherited, who is retired, not familiar with technology, and easy to scam.

My way of dealing with this nonsense is by not answering the phone. Legitimate callers leave messages. There is a fellow by the name of Tom Mabe who has figured out another way of dealing with spam telephone calls. Fortunately, he keeps a recorder by his telephone (yes, he still has a landline) and he records some of his misadventures. What follows is my favorite conversation.

How to deal with a Telemarketer by Tom Mabe - YouTube

Cured

One of the math courses I taught at my former school was a course in probability and statistics. Any course in probability eventually leads to a study of the probability of drawing the various poker hands. A study of those probabilities leaves one with the conclusion that poker is a mug’s game. That is one of the reasons why I don’t play poker. (Another reason is that I don’t really know the rules. Yet another reason is that I am not good at bluffing.)

But a study of the other games of chance left me with the conclusion that the very best game to play in a casino is roulette, where one gambles on whether the ball will fall on a red or black slot in the wheel. This game gives you the highest chance of winning, a healthy 47.37% chance. (The reason the chance of winning is not 50% is because of the two green slots on the wheel. There are 18 red, 18 black, and 2 green, so the probability of the ball falling on a red or black slot is 18/38.) If the casino offered any game where your chance of winning is 50%, the casino would eventually go out of business, so 47.37 % is really good for the gambler.

Most of my visits to casinos were pleasant experiences, as I walked away from the tables with winnings in my pocket. That was true again last summer when we visited Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort in Cherokee, NC. Don’t get me wrong: I am not Bret Maverick. I gamble with small stakes, and I set a loss limit. But for the most part, these occasional outings have been fun. It is always fun when you leave a casino with more money than when you entered. And winning always plants a seed in your mind: I could come back here and make more money. That is a dangerous seed.

Last weekend was Kathy’s birthday weekend. We celebrated with her family here in town on Friday, the actual date of her birthday. Saturday we traveled to Bryson City to stay in an AirBnB cleverly named The Digital Disconnect. It is so named because there is no internet service there, no cable or satellite for television, and no cell phone reception. It was a very relaxing stay: we opened the windows, bathed in the fresh mountain air, and listened to the sounds of nature.

But before we made it to Bryson City, we made a stop in Cherokee, to have lunch at the casino. And, of course, to try our hand at making a little money. Things did not go well.

The minimum bet for each roulette table was too rich for me, so we drifted over to what I thought was a rack of one-armed bandits. In my excitement at the prospect of winning a little money, I failed to note that the machine was not a one-armed bandit, but a poker machine. I discovered that after shoving a $5 bill into its maw. Did I mention that I don’t know the rules of poker? That was $5 just thrown away.

We did eventually find the one-armed bandits. We had some wins, but we had more losses. After a while, we called it quits, had our lunch at the casino, then headed to The Digital Disconnect.

Dinner was nice, and expensive, but we were lucky to get reservations. The stay at the bungalow was refreshing, and we returned home Sunday.

I am now cured of the desire to visit a casino ever again. I love the town of Cherokee, and I will visit there again to see its attractions. Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort will not be one of them.

Old Scarface

I have always believed that sharp kitchen knives make the chore of cooking a good bit easier, so I have tried always to keep my kitchen knives sharp. Back in the 1960s I learned to sharpen knives using an Arkansas stone. I still have that stone, and it has ground the edge of innumerable knives. One side of the stone is a bit coarse, and the other quite fine. But I learned a few years ago that technology had passed the Arkansas stone by.

The grit equivalent of the course side of the stone is about 1200, while the fine side is probably in the 2300 to 2500 range. On the other hand, the Japanese water stone I bought a few years back has a “coarse” side with a 5,000 grit and a fine side with a 10,000 grit. This stone gives a very fine edge to any knife.

Putting a blade to the stone is a time-consuming business, so I tend to use alternatives when available. My son once gave me a Kitchen IQ knife sharpener which suffices for daily use in touching up a blade. It contains V-shaped ceramic pieces, one coarse and one fine, and is very simple to operate: one just drags the blade through the pieces and, voila, the blade is sharpened. When the blade is in too rough a shape for the Kitchen IQ sharpener, but not bad enough to need stoning, I use a similar device that I keep on my workbench. It is a Zwilling V-Edge sharpener, which has longer ceramic pieces that can be replaced when they are completely worn. These devices keep my blades sharp. If I ever neglect a blade to the point where it needs stoning, I begin with the Arkansas stone, working my way up to the Japanese stone, and then finishing it off with the Zwilling. I no longer use the pressed silica rods I mentioned in a prior blog post.

In 2019, when I switched to shaving with a straight razor, I added the leather strop to my list of knife sharpening devices. I generally use a powder or paste stropping compound on the rough side of the strop, and nothing but knife or razor on the smooth side of the strop.

These devices generally keep my blades in good shape.

Last summer we took a cruise to Alaska. The cruise left from Seattle, and since we had to fly to Seattle I decided that perhaps I should not bring my straight razor with me, to avoid problems with the airline. And then the thought hit me: I would be away from the house for a couple of weeks. Why not use this time to have Cutco do a professional (and free) job of sharpening my kitchen knives? By the same token, why not send my straight razor off for a professional (but not free) sharpening? At that point the Cutco knives were three years old, and the razor was four years old. So I sent them all off, and took my trip.

I have been very pleased with the results, and I have made an effort to keep all the knives and the straight razor as sharp as they were when I received them back from the professionals. But there is always a hazard associated with very sharp cutting instruments. I discovered that hazard with my kitchen knives back in October, when I received four stitches in a finger. This week I was reminded why the successor to the straight razor was named the “safety razor”.

It does not pay to get careless when shaving with a straight razor. Five years ago, while learning to use the straight razor, my face suffered a variety of (usually painful) cuts. With practice I got to the point where I could shave without looking like a victim of the Jets or the Sharks. But yesterday my concentration slipped, and I managed to cut myself. The odd thing is that I didn’t bleed, so the cut did not go very deep, but it is there.

Since this cut is not as deep as the ones I suffered in my early days, it should heal very quickly. In the meantime, just call me Old Scarface.

The Judaculla Rock

The more I learn about Andrew Jackson, the less I like him. He was one of three presidents born in North Carolina. (James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson are the other two.) Curiously enough, all three were elected to the presidency while living in Tennessee, so Tennessee claims them. Of the three, James K. Polk is the only one the state of North Carolina should claim proudly, and even he had his problems. Still, Polk has the distinction of not sending the Cherokee Nation on the trail of tears (Jackson), and of not having been impeached (Johnson).

As a young child, I learned that Jackson’s stance on tariffs was extremely harmful to the South. The tariffs of the period were designed to foster manufacturing in New England, and not to raise revenue. That made them unconstitutional in my book. I further disagreed with his views on nullification. To me, nullification was just a logical extension of Jefferson’s and Madison’s doctrine of interposition. All that, of course, is water under the bridge. The major sin that Jackson committed which has not been atoned for sufficiently is his treatment of the American Indians, especially the Cherokee.

Thanks in part to the martyrdom of Tsali, a small group of Cherokees were allowed to remain in western North Carolina. This Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) ended up in the Qualla Boundary, which today is a portion of Haywood, Swain, and Jackson Counties in North Carolina, with non-contiguous bits of the Boundary located in Cherokee and Graham Counties. The capital city of the EBCI is the town of Cherokee, which straddles the border of Swain and Jackson Counties.

A bit to the east, also in Jackson County, is the town of Cullowhee, NC, home to Western Carolina University. This town was once a Cherokee settlement, but the Cherokee were forced to give up this town in the early 1800s. The name “Cullowhee” is taken from a Cherokee name that I cannot pronounce, but which translates roughly as “Judaculla’s Place”. Cherokee legend has it that Judaculla was a giant, slant-eyed warrior.

A bit to the south and east of Cullowhee is a soapstone boulder known as the Judaculla Rock, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Kathy, Lucy, and I visited the Judaculla Rock on New Year’s Day, 2024.

The archaeologists tell us that this stone was quarried to produce bowls, probably from about 2000 BC to 1000 BC. In addition, there are three lines that suggest that the stone was quarried to make pipe stems. I suppose this makes the stone interesting to the archaeologists. What makes the stone interesting to those of us who are not archaeologists is the massive number of petroglyphs covering the stone. In fact, it has more petroglyphs than any other boulder east of the Mississippi River: more than 1500. The archaeologists suggest these were etched during the period of 200 AD to 1400 AD. Even if the archaeologist’s estimates are wrong, it is clear that the carvings were added after the boulder was no longer used in producing bowls and pipes. The carvings are so densely packed that there is some overlap, making it difficult to separate one from another. The carvings include stick figures, concentric rings, deer tracks, claws, a cross in a circle, and a winged creature. The other carvings appear almost to be writing in some strange alphabet. I doubt this was actual writing: Sequoyah developed his syllabary in 1821. Before then, the Cherokee had no written language, as far as we know.

But what is the purpose of this boulder? A very good question, and one I cannot answer. There are several good theories as to why the boulder is there. The boulder is on an old trail that links Judaculla’s Place (Cullowhee) to Judaculla’s townhouse on Tanassee (or Tannassee or Tennessee) Bald, some 25 miles east of Cullowhee, and thus may be a marker of some sort. Another theory has it that the petroglyphs represent a type of map, a representation of the entire region occupied by the Cherokee. One theory relates the boulder to a representation of Judaculla and his relation to the surrounding land. We will never know for sure what it represents if the markings are never decoded.

We do know that the Cherokee, both the EBCI and the Oklahoma Band, attach a spiritual significance to the boulder. Both bands include the Judaculla Rock in their oral histories.

Jackson’s treatment of the Cherokee was shameful. We have not done much better. Cherokee mounds have been looted for artifacts, and the mound on the Western Carolina University campus was bulldozed in the late 1950s to make way for new buildings. But the Judaculla Rock has been preserved, thanks to a joint effort of the EBCI, Jackson County, Western Carolina University, the NC Department of Cultural Resources, and other organizations. You can see from the photos that the rock is partially surrounded by a raised walkway made of boards. We were close enough to see the rock, but far enough away to prevent any contact with the rock.

Perhaps a good bit of the success in the preservation of the Judaculla Rock is because it is in the middle of nowhere, near Caney Fork Creek, which feeds the Tuckasegee River.

State of North Carolina historical marker.

The people and organizations that are responsible for the preservation of the site.

A view of the rock. A bit of the wooden walkway is visible in the background.

Another view of the rock.

Requiescat In Pace

Jeanne Louise Smith Batten

September 14, 1953 – January 1, 2024

On the river Nile, ca 2000

School photo, 2009-2010 school year

The 1980s, in Virginia

Mother of the bride (Katie), 2010

Mother/son dance (Jason), 2010

College graduation, 2002 (Brigid)

Reilly’s high school graduation, 2010

The big island of Kona, September of 1991, two months before Reilly’s birth

Rhododendron

Black Mountain is a small town some 16 miles east of Asheville. Even though it has a greater population than nearby Montreat (8,426 vs. 723), it is not as well known. Montreat has a popular conference center that stays fairly busy, and its most famous resident was the Reverend Billy Graham. Black Mountain has its share of famous people, depending on how you define the word “famous”. Roberta Flack was born there but grew up elsewhere. Artimus Pyle, drummer for Lynyrd Skynyrd, lived there for a while. I had never heard of the other five musicians. The town’s Wikipedia page notes that three authors are associated with the village: I had never heard of any of them. I recognized the names of the four famous Black Mountain athletes, the major one (in my estimation) being Roy Williams, who took over the UNC basketball coaching reins when Dean Smith retired. I did recognize the name of the one actor (Matt Lutz) but drew a blank on the two religious figures and the two politicians/diplomats.

The Wikipedia article listed one other category: Architecture. That category had only one entry, Rafael Guastavino. He is the subject of this discourse.

Most of the material that follows is taken from the website of the Guastavino Alliance and a September 30, 2023 article in the Asheville Citizen-Times that was reprinted in a Newsbreak article. I am grateful to all three sources.

The basics are as follows. Guastavino was born (1842) in Valencia, Spain, and studied architecture in Barcelona. At age 17 he impregnated his 16-year-old cousin (she was adopted, thus not a blood relative), and married her. He eventually had three sons by her. He achieved the title of “master builder” and executed several high-profile commissions, which secured his status in Spain.

Unfortunately, he had a roving eye (and hands, and other things) and had an affair with his sons’ nanny, Paulina. His wife Pilar took the sons and moved to Argentina, in part to be away from her Casanova husband (Paulina was not his first affair), and in part to help her sons avoid the Spanish draft. By this time Paulina had delivered Guastavino’s fourth son, Rafael Guastavino Jr. She moved in with Guastavino Sr. with the title of “housekeeper.”

The new world beckoned, and Guastavino, Paulina, and Junior moved to New York. Here commissions were hard to find for a newcomer, so he worked with fireproof tiles, founding the Guastavino Fire Proof Construction Company. He was an inventor and held two dozen patents on tile manufacturing and construction innovations. One of his key inventions was a self-supporting arch or vault consisting of terracotta tiles and mortar. The Boston Public Library was interested in the fireproof aspect of his work (books and paper are flammable), and as a result, he landed a commission for the Boston Public Library, which enhanced his reputation in America and was the real start of his career in the United States. He eventually had projects all over the East Coast. The Dakota apartments, home of John Lennon, had Guastavino as the contractor responsible for the fireproof tiling in the building. Architects have identified some 400 structures he worked on in New York City alone.

Unfortunately, during the construction of the Boston Public Library, while commuting between Boston and New York City, he met Francesca Ramirez, 18 years his junior, fell in love, and had her move in with him and Guastavino Junior, posing as his daughter. What became of Paulina, I do not know. At any rate, the charade – Francesca as daughter – was difficult to maintain. A change of scenery was in order.

At this time George Vanderbilt commissioned Guastavino to do the tile work at the Biltmore House in Asheville. Guastavino was quite pleased. He purchased a tract of somewhere between 500 and 1,000 acres just outside Black Mountain, and built a house that the locals referred to as the Spanish Castle on the estate Guastavino named “Rhododendron”. He also built a tile plant, complete with kiln. And Francesca was no longer posing as his daughter, but as his fiancee.

Interestingly enough, because Guastavino was in a hurry and was a bit pressed for cash, he built the Spanish Castle out of wood. The master of fireproof tile construction built a house that burned down in the 1940s.

Guastavino considered himself a good Catholic, so marriage to Francesca was out of the question unless he could determine that Pilar was dead. He placed a few ads in Argentinian newspapers requesting information on her whereabouts. Hearing no response, he declared her dead and married Francesca in 1894. The 1895 Argentinian census listed a 56-year-old Pilar Guastavino, a woman who had been married for 36 years. The numbers don’t quite add up, but it is entirely possible that this was Guastavino’s first wife. Oh, well.

By 1903 Guastavino was semi-retired. He devoted himself to one last project, the construction of the church of St. Lawrence, now the Basilica of St. Lawrence. Guastavino thought that the Catholic population of Asheville, though probably less than 2% of the total population, deserved a proper church building. He had nearly completed the project when he died, in 1908. His son completed the project. Guastavino is buried inside the church in a vault designed and constructed by his son. Francesca never remarried and wore black until her death in 1946.

The property is now owned by the Christmount Assembly and is the conference center for the Disciples of Christ. Admission is free, though they do accept donations, and the walking tour is self-guided. The house is gone, of course, but the stone foundation still exists, as do bits of the kiln and the chimney.

The wine cellar was the only part of the house that survived the fire. There must be a moral or a sign in that, but I can’t quite divine it.

Original Guastavino brick

The stone foundation of the house

Another view of the stone foundation

Wine cellar plaque

Entrance to wine cellar

“National Register of Historic Places” plaque, and my two co-conspirators

Chimney and remains of kiln

Black Mountain rocks!

Merry Christmas, 2023

My Book of the Year

Back in my bachelor days, when I was unable to watch television because I did not have cable, I read in the evenings for entertainment. In those years, roughly from 2005 until 2013, I averaged one book per week.

I haven’t managed to read 52 books per year since then. Last year, for example, I read only 19 books, and that was a pretty good year for me. This year I did better than that, finishing 27 books, as of this writing.

I have mentioned some of these books in previous posts (for example, here, here, here, and here). The death of Kay Parker prompted me to read her memoirs, as well as a couple of volumes by a colleague of hers, Hyapatia Lee. It appears that one can live a meaningful life after a career as a porn star. A visit to Clingmans Dome sent me to a book on Clingmans Dome and a book by the celebrated Horace Kephart on the eastern band of the Cherokee Indians. And although I had not read it at the time we visited the birthplace of Zebulon Vance, I did manage to read his most famous work, The Scattered Nation.

I read, yet again, a couple of “day by day” books of meditations. It takes an entire year to read each book, given that you read only one page per day. The book Permission to Dream by Chris Gardner and Mem Rivas is a book by a fellow who came from nothing to make it to the big time. Why we think that the reflections of a successful fellow who has pretty much no really useful advice to offer are important enough for a book is beyond me. A much better book was The Boys, by Ron and Clint Howard. It was simply a nice tale of growing up as child actors.

I had time to enjoy a little fiction this year. Birds of Prey by Wilbur Smith was a swashbuckling tale that was thoroughly enjoyable. Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories was a really good read. Back in the dark and dismal days of my youth I and every other student in my class had to read her classic “The Lottery.” Her other works were not quite as dark as that one, but she was a real talent. You Can Go Home Now by Michael Elias was surprisingly enjoyable. The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri was the very first of the Inspector Montalbano mysteries. This was possibly the second-best work of fiction I read this year.

I read four biographies, or possibly 53 biographies. I had a copy of Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This, by Marion Meade, on my bookshelf for decades. I was prompted to read it when I learned that the author had died either this year or last year. My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir, by Katherine Johnson, was a nice, light autobiography of the primary mathematician featured in the movie Hidden Figures. The major biography, or perhaps 50 biographies, that took a couple of months to read was The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, by Plutarch. Taken in small segments, this is an enjoyable work that could probably double as a history. But it was longer than War and Peace. To Rescue the Republic: Ulysses S. Grant, the Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876, by Bret Baier with Catherine Whitney was the best biography that I read this year. And since I don’t exactly know where to place The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, I will place it here with the biographies.

In the category of history, I read 1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder, by Arthur Herman. I never did think that Wilson was a very good president, and after reading this, I think even less of him, if that is possible. The better book in this category that I read this year was JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, by James W. Douglass. I have been a lone-gunman magic bullet believer ever since the Warren Commission produced its report - no more. I’ve read a good number of books that I easily dismissed as the work of nut cases. Douglass has now convinced me otherwise.

I believe that takes care of 25 books, leaving only two. The Concealed Handgun Manual, 7th Edition, by Chris Bird, was a game changer for me. I have a concealed handgun permit, which I think is my third such permit, and have taken a fair number of gun safety and training courses over the years. Yet this book gave me new information and considerably improved my accuracy. It also changed my perspective on what constitutes a good way to fire a revolver when under duress (hint: double action, not single action). It would probably have been a good idea to have read this book before undertaking the effort to get a concealed handgun permit. Still, it was worth the price. It’s never too late to learn.

Finally, my selection for My Book of the Year. I threw in the qualifier “my” because the winner of my award was actually published in 1956. I have heard the phrase “This is just a little Peyton Place” for a good number of years. There was the movie and a nighttime television soap opera loosely based on the book. These added to the mystique of Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious. Well, finally, I’ve read it for myself. It is a romping good read, and I can see why, despite the critics, it sold a gazillion copies. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Zebulon Baird Vance

For nearly 40 years I have been a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV). It is a heritage organization open to descendants of Confederate soldiers or members of the Confederate government. When I applied for membership in the 1980s I did so on the war record of my paternal great-great-grandfather, Ransom Batten, who lived a long post-war life, dying some 17 years before I was born. (Leroy Batten, my great grandfather, born in 1866, also lived a long life. I attended his funeral when I was 10 years old.) Over the years the organization has had members from all walks of life. If you look up “List of members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans” on Wikipedia, you will find a whole slew of politicians, state house members, members of Congress, members of the Senate, governors, at least one president (Harry S Truman), lawyers, writers, and even the odd actor (Clint Eastwood).

Two of the names on that list pop out at me. The first is Nelson Winbush, a fellow I met at a national reunion in Murfreesboro, TN, a few years back. He is a Real Grandson, meaning his grandfather served during the war. He is also black, as is H. K. Edgerton, the other name on the list that jumps out at me. H. K. happens to be a fellow member of our local group here in Asheville. He was at one time the president of the Asheville chapter of the NAACP.

The SCV works on heritage issues, and these days we end up spending a fair amount of time on the issue of the removal of Confederate memorials, statues, and the like. Those who never learned history seem to be intent on obliterating all the history they never learned. But every now and again a reporter will refer to us as The Sons of the Confederacy and imply that we are a racist or white supremacist organization.

Once I was contacted by a reporter from the Texas Tribune who asked me about my membership in the Sons of the Confederacy. Well, as it happens, I had done an internet search on this Sons of the Confederacy group and found nothing. Apparently that organization does not exist, or, if it does, it is a clandestine operation. It doesn’t have a website that I could find. So I informed the reporter that I was not a member of that organization, and that to the best of my knowledge that organization does not exist. Further, if he had been even a half-assed reporter, he would have known that, given that Google is available for reporters to use.

He had no further questions for me.

Every local chapter of the SCV, or camp, has a name and a number. The local Asheville camp is the Zebulon Baird Vance Camp 15. This essay is about Zeb Vance, a fellow H. K. refers to as the most renowned statesman that the state of North Carolina ever produced.

I have taken a good bit of the information that follows from the NCPedia article on Zebulon Baird Vance. The NCPedia article was, in turn, taken from a six-volume work, Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, edited by William S. Powell. The article on Vance was authored by John G. Barrett, in 1996.

He was born (1830) on the family homestead at Reems Creek in Buncombe County, NC. The log cabin, still standing, is approximately 12 miles north of Asheville and about five miles south of downtown Weaverville. He enrolled at age 13 in Washington College (near Davy Crockett’s birthplace), but left the school after a year due to the death of his father. After the family’s finances were placed on a better footing, he studied law in Asheville (by reading law under a practicing attorney), and at the University of North Carolina. He was not fond of the law as a profession, but saw it as a stepping stone to his real interest, politics. According to Barrett, “Success in the courtroom was usually the result of wit, humor, boisterous eloquence, and clever retorts, not knowledge of the law. He understood people better than he did judicial matters.”

It did not take Vance long to get involved in politics. He was admitted to the bar in Asheville in 1851, and was immediately elected solicitor for Buncombe County. He was elected to the North Carolina House of Commons in 1854, and to the Congress of the United States in 1858. He remained a member of Congress until the end of the 1859-1861 term. We all know what happened in 1861. Well, maybe the folks who pull down statues don’t know. There was a war.

He turned down the opportunity to become a member of the Confederate Congress. He was an interesting fellow: he owned slaves, but did not believe secession was in the best interest of the state. But when the state did secede from the Union, he became first a captain, and then a colonel, in the Confederate Army. But in 1862, the Conservative party nominated him as candidate for governor, and he won the election against a Whig candidate and a Confederate party candidate.

(Vance’s party affiliations are varied. He began his political career as a Whig, then affiliated with the Know-Nothing party, then the Conservative party, which eventually became the Democratic party. His postbellum offices were held as a Democrat.)

His work during these first two terms as governor (from 1862 until his imprisonment at the end of the war) focused on raising and arming soldiers, and seeing to their supplies, as well as minimizing the suffering of his citizens to the extent possible by supplying them with food, clothing, and other supplies. He was very often in conflict with Confederate president Jefferson Davis. According to Barrett, “Vance objected strenuously to the Confederate conscription and impressment of property laws, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, discrimination against North Carolinians in the appointment and promotion of commissioned officers, and the use of Virginia officers in the state.” His devotion to the people of North Carolina made him the most popular politician in the history of the state.

After his release from prison in 1865 (a curious episode: he was never charged with a crime nor tried), he returned to North Carolina to practice law. He could not, however, stay away from politics. He was elected governor again in 1876, elected to the United State Senate in 1879, and reelected in 1885 and 1891. He did not finish that last term as senator, as he died in 1894.

He held no bitterness to the North, and worked as a senator to reunite the two nations that had recently been enemies. But he was in the opposition, and his list of legislative accomplishments as a senator is slim. Clearly, his greatest service to the state was as governor.

Herman Blumenthal, chairman of The Blumenthal Foundation, had this to say: “The memory of Vance would have faded wholly into oblivion were it not for Asheville, North Carolina, which had dedicated a towering monument in the center of the city to him and annually conducts a memorial ceremony on his birthday. A museum containing his memorabilia is located nearby.” He wrote that in 1995. As you can imagine, nothing in that statement is true today. He has been canceled by the modern Know-Nothing party. The obelisk that Blumenthal referred to has been disassembled and is stored somewhere. I believe the removal is the subject of ongoing litigation.

Every state in the country is allowed two statues in Statuary Hall of the Capitol building in DC. North Carolina has one for Charles B. Aycock, the “education governor” (1901-1905). My understanding is that his statue will be replaced with one of Billy Graham, as soon as the new work is fully funded and completed. The other is Zebulon Vance. I have not heard of any plans to replace this statue.

On a recent fall day we drove a portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway, enjoying the display of colors. We noticed an exit from the Parkway that led to the Zebulon B. Vance birthplace, and on a whim, we took the exit. The photos on this post are from that visit.

The cabin in which Vance was born.

A very old photo of the Vance birthplace.

This monument has now been removed.

The birthplace from the back, showing some of the outbuildings.

Slave quarters on the grounds.

Fuel for the smokehouse.

Like many North Carolina notables, Vance is buried in the Riverside Cemetery, in Asheville.

Helen's Bridge

Major William J. Brown and his wife Ann Marshall Evans, from Lewiston, PA, had three sons. The one that interests us is John Evans Brown. At the ripe old age of 22, John Evans Brown became a Forty-Niner and headed to California to seek his fortune. Gold mining did not work out, so he found work as a surveyor. After a few years of surveying, he decided to head to Australia, where he became a sheep and cattle farmer in New South Wales. The government asked him to serve as US Consul, and he agreed. In 1859, he married wife number one, Theresa. He managed to accomplish all these things in the ten years since he left Lewiston, PA.

A bit later he eyed greener pastures in New Zealand. He bought a farm near Christchurch, which he named Swannanoa, helped build a Methodist church there (also named Swannanoa), and then moved again. At this juncture, he began to move away from farming. He became the general manager of the Christchurch Tramway Board and began a career in politics. Unbelievably, at least to me, this American Yankee who moved to New Zealand by way of Australia somehow managed to be elected to the New Zealand parliament not once, not twice, but three times. Unfortunately, in 1880, his wife Theresa died at the age of 42.

Brown married wife number two, Jane Emily Martin, in late 1883, and in 1884 called it quits in New Zealand. That was the same year his father died, leaving him a large parcel of land, assumed to be worthless, in Asheville, NC. Brown discovered mica on the property and mined it. At the same time, he began to build his dream home, a castle, on the top of Beaucatcher Mountain. He named the castle Zealandia. The castle was completed in 1889, a bit before the Biltmore House, and Brown enjoyed it for a mere six years before passing away. Eventually, the house was acquired by Sir Philip S. Henry, an Australian, who doubled the size of the castle, work which was completed in 1908.

Sir Philip was apparently quite wealthy, as he owned another huge house but a short distance from Zealandia, named Beaumont. To facilitate travel between the two properties, he had the architect of the Biltmore House design and supervise the construction of a bridge between the two properties, which spanned the Beaucatcher Gap. (As you can see, there are quite a few “Beau” names in the area.) The bridge was constructed in 1909 and went by the official name of Zealandia Bridge.

Then something happened, and it became Helen’s bridge. And therein lies a tale.

What I am about to relate is all urban legend. There are several variations on the theme. None can be identified as the truth. There is a good bit of evidence that the name Helen was grafted onto this urban legend as the result of the death of a nineteen-year-old woman, named Helen Clevenger, who was murdered in room 224 of the Battery Park Hotel in Asheville, in 1936. Here is the first version of the story that I heard.

A young employee at Zealandia was going about her chores when she became aware that the library caught fire. Her child was in the library, but as the room was filled with all that flammable paper, she was unable to rescue her child. Despondent, she ran to the bridge and hanged herself from it.

The problems with this version are at least two-fold. The first problem is that there are no records of a fire at Zealandia. Once during a dinner party, a female guest moved too close to one of the fireplaces, and her dress caught fire. But the fire was quickly put out, and the young woman did not commit suicide. That event is the closest anyone can find of a fire at Zealandia. The second problem eliminates death by hanging, at least in my mind. I have walked across that bridge: there is nothing to which a rope can be attached.

Another version is similar, but it has the young lady brooding for weeks or months before throwing herself off the bridge. Death by falling from the bridge seems more likely. Unfortunately, nothing in the records of Zealandia backs this up.

Yet another version has the young lady pregnant, presumably by the master of the castle or one of his male relatives, unmarried, and unable to bear the shame.

Let’s just assume that someone did die, for whatever reason, on or near the bridge. We now get to the ghost tales.

Many people report seeing a wraith-like apparition on or near the bridge. Reports vary: there are reports that the apparition is crossing the bridge and other reports that the apparition is hanging from the bridge. Some even say the apparition waves them down and asks if they have seen her child. The part I find most interesting is the part that people claim happens during good weather or bad, during daytime or nighttime. I am talking about the wrath of Helen.

According to the stories, people who try to summon her to appear suffer from a variety of problems. They hear noises, of course, as one would expect from just about any ghost. But they also experience car troubles: cars that will not start, electronic door locks that cease to function, dead car batteries, and things of that nature. Some say their cell phone batteries drain almost instantly.

Kathy and I took the pictures on this post recently. Zealandia is privately owned, and very well marked with “no trespassing” signs, so the pictures of the mansion that you see were taken at a distance. The bridge has graffiti on it, a modern curse. You can see from the photos of the top that hanging oneself from this bridge would be problematic. The photos of the underside show that the bridge was well-designed and well-constructed.

We live on the southern slope of Beaucatcher Mountain, and Helen’s Bridge is less than two miles from our house. I asked Kathy if she would like to return to the bridge on Halloween night, to see what we could see. She mumbled something about being with granddaughter Emma that night, so, NO!

Oh, well. Maybe some other Halloween.

The bridge, viewed from the east, at a distance.

The underside of the north end of the bridge.

The bridge from the top.

The view from the top of the bridge to the east.

The view from the top of the bridge to the west.

Along this overgrown path, horse carts carried The Master of Beaumont and Zealandia back and forth between his mansions. I have been unable to locate any of the remains of Beaumont. There are some very pricey homes in the area where Beaumont must have stood. My guess is that Beaumont was torn down a very long time ago. I will continue the search to confirm this.

The Zealandia Castle. (Photograph reproduced on a post card of the day.)

Zealandia today.

Zealandia today.

We are fairly convinced that this path leads to the bridge, but to confirm that would require trespassing, and I am too young to go to prison.

The Battle of Bentonville

Back in the 1960s, I was a member of Boy Scouts of America Troop Number 24. At some point during my membership in that troop (and I am guessing that it was 1965), a bunch of troops from the Tuscarora Council ended up at a massive camp-out at the Bentonville Battleground, in North Carolina. I did not know much about that battle in the War for Southern Independence. I knew it took place in my home county, Johnston County, and I knew the house on the property, the Harper House, served as a hospital for injured Union soldiers (and was thus most likely haunted). I did not know who won that battle. I do know that it rained for nearly the entire weekend of the camp-out, and the remains of the breastworks were still visible. I considered the battle to be a minor, insignificant skirmish from late in the war.

I was wrong.

Recently I read Last Stand in the Carolinas: The Battle of Bentonville, by Mark L. Bradley. The book came out in the mid-1990s, but it took me a while to get around to reading it. I do not believe that there is any aspect of this battle that Bradley did not cover. It is a large book, documented with hundreds of footnotes, and sporting maps specially created for the book by cartographer Mark A. Moore.

After the fall of Atlanta, Sherman sliced through Georgia, then turned northward, wreaking havoc through South Carolina. General Robert E. Lee asked General Joseph E. Johnston to stop Sherman from reaching Goldsboro, NC. That attempt happened near the small town of Bentonville, NC. According to Bradley, this was the only significant opposition Sherman had faced since Atlanta. The battle lasted three days, from March 19 through March 21, 1865. A good bit of the fighting took place in the rain.

Johnston was not known for taking chances: he was a cautious and calculating man. At Bentonville, though, he broke from his past pattern and displayed a talent for flexibility and risk-taking. (Perhaps he should have done this earlier in the war.) It is because of this that he was able to hold off a superior force of Union men for three days. The Union army had about 60,000 men under arms for this battle, while the Confederate army clocked in at about 22,000 men. The fighting was intense. Veterans of the Gettysburg campaign found the fighting to be as fierce, if not more fierce, at Bentonville. My childhood notion that this was a skirmish has been disabused.

There were significant losses for both sides. The Union army suffered 1,527 casualties (194 dead, 1,112 wounded, 221 missing or captured), while the Confederate army suffered 2,606 casualties (239 dead, 1,694 wounded, 673 missing or captured).

Who won? That depends upon what you define as a win. In my opinion, it was at best a draw, and more realistically a loss for the Confederates, though that army could look upon the battle as a successful stalling tactic. In the end, Johnston staged a retreat towards Raleigh, and Sherman decided not to pursue him. He moved on to Goldsboro, as per his original plan. Johnston’s letter to R. E. Lee laid out a realistic assessment of the situation: “I can do no more than annoy [Sherman].”

Nineteen days after Johnston’s retreat, Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Seventeen days after Lee’s surrender, Johnston surrendered to Sherman at the James Bennett house, near Durham.

During my visit to Bentonville, all those years ago, the most prominent reminders that this had been a battlefield (aside from the markers, and the mass grave of Confederate soldiers) were the remains of the breastworks. The Union soldiers threw these up hastily to provide some protection from the Confederate fire. They chopped down trees, piled them one on top of the other, then covered them with dirt. According to Bradley, they dug dirt with anything they had on hand, which included cast iron frying pans. The trees had decayed, and the dirt was covered with green grass, but you could still see the ridges that marked the breastworks.

A portion of the battlefield is preserved as a National Historic Landmark. That includes 130 acres of land, but the total land owned by the Bentonville Battlefield Historic Association and the American Battlefield Trust runs to a total of 2,063 acres. When Bradley wrote the book some 28 years ago, most of the land that constituted the total battlefield was in private hands. Since then, some 50 or more purchases of private land have been added to the land owned by the two organizations. The (allegedly) haunted Harper House is still standing, though it is closed for renovation.

A little time ago I attended my high school reunion in Clayton, NC, which is on the westernmost edge of Johnston County. I planned to get to the battlefield before the reunion and walk the terrain with Bradley’s book in my hand. That did not happen: some people just can’t drive, and when they have accidents on an interstate highway, they tend to throw a lot of plans into a cocked hat. The time I should have spent at Bentonville I spent on the interstate, waiting for the police to move the accident a few miles in front of me. It would have been an appropriate time to visit the battlefield because it was raining that day. That would have made it a trifecta: rain during the battle, rain during the big camp-out, rain during my walking tour. As it is, I will have to wait for another rainy day to visit the battlefield that I last visited nearly 60 years ago.

The Harper House

Monument to the North Carolina soldiers at Bentonville.

Headstones in memory of unknown Confederate soldiers.

A re-enactment photo.