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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview K-0252, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
This interview is more about a lack of industrialization in North Carolina than the state's development, but offers an interesting perspective on growth. Sam Parker, Madison County Probation and Parole Officer, praises rural life in the interview. Parker left a job at an insurance agency in the 1960s to settle in the hills of Madison County, where he lived for a while without electricity and grew his own food. In this interview, he discusses his decision to leave the comforts of suburbia and the appeal of living a somewhat ascetic lifestyle, where community connections take the place of Internet connections. Parker sees this lifestyle declining, but does not condemn development or mourn its passing.
Sam Parker, Madison County Probation and Parole Officer, praises rural life in the interview.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[unclear]
Sam Parker. Presently, Madison County Probation Parole Officer. Madison
County resident—. [Recorder is turned off and then back on.]
First of all, how old are you?
I will be sixty my next birthday. I was born April 19, 1941 in Knoxville, Tennessee.
So you were born right in the city? Right in town?
Yes, I was born at the old Knoxville General Hospital, which no longer exists. Interestingly enough, I found out later that Dr. Otis Duck of Mars Hill was one of the residents at the old Knoxville General Hospital at precisely the time that I was born. That's a connection!
Dr. Duck is certainly a county legend.
A county legend. And he and I talked about that on some of my visits to him. He was in fact a resident there at the time.
Tell me a little bit about growing up in Knoxville. What did your parents do?
My father worked for the Knoxville Utilities Board almost fifty years.
My mother held no regular job outside of being a homemaker. But of
course, that's a regular job in itself. I have two sisters, one older,
one younger. I was born on what is now University of Tennessee campus.
The house that I was born in no longer exists because
Where did you go to college?
I went essentially to get away from home. Both of my sisters attended University of Tennessee. I went to East Tennessee State in Johnson City, I guess being kind of rebellious and wanting to get away from home.
What did you study?
My major was History. A minor in psychology. I suspect the history major came from taking history courses and enjoying them, and really enjoying the courses more than having in mind what I was going to do with the history major once I graduated.
I'm envious. I wanted to major in History, and my father insisted that I major in business, because, "You'll never do anything with a History major!"
You're right, unless you want to teach.
Well, that's exactly what he said, but I point out to him now that this is what I'm doing. I'm a historian! I'm just a photo historian. And we laugh about that now. There were times when it was a struggle because of that. So you were in Johnson City. Is that how you wandered down here?
I don't think so. The last semester that I was in school, I met—well,
actually, I met Paula in Knoxville. She had already graduated from the
University of Tennessee, but was still hanging around Knoxville. I met
her there in Knoxville. We got married; I came back to finish the last
semester at East Tennessee State. I had, during my meetings—during my
living in Johnson City—met a fellow by the name of Don Ledford. Don
Ledford at that point in time worked for a fellow named Bud Edwards.
Edwards was [and]
So at that time, in '67, had that 2,500 acres already been purchased?
Yeah, it had already been purchased. Now, it was all still raw land. Wolf Laurel—the thousand-acre section of Wolf Laurel—was the only area that had roads in it. There were a few houses built, maybe ten or twelve. The road to Wolf Laurel was not paved. The main road from the gatehouse to the top of the mountain—at that point in time a restaurant—was paved. But the rest was not. So we had to drive on four or five miles of unpaved road to get Wolf Laurel.
But there was a restaurant there?
There was a restaurant at that point in time. Now, it was unadvertised, it was new. There were essentially very few people coming up to Wolf Laurel at that point in time. So what we had—Paula and I, and Bud and Don and a few others who worked there—we had basically 2,500 acres of absolute gorgeous mountain land. It was really our run. We had a beautiful Ball Mountain. We had springs; we had the whole works and very few people to deal with it. In the wintertime, there was no ski area, no golfing, no anything. We were essentially there by ourselves living in the mountains unbothered by civilization, basically.
That's pretty amazing. Now, let me backtrack for a minute. Was Donald Ledford kin to John Ledford?
No. He's originally from Johnson City. Now there could have been some Ledford connection, who knows. But at this point in time I don't believe that there's a kinship there. He's no longer here. He's in fact back in Johnson City. He left here probably in '72. I see him occasionally.
So at that point you were living in a log cabin?
Living in a log cabin. 2,500 acres of just gorgeous mountain Eden. And very few people around.
What was it like being a person who was trying to sell home sites then in, basically, this almost wilderness area? That must have been pretty much of a challenge.
It was tough. Now, we did get sales, and it kept us alive. And it got almost to the point, Rob, where you really didn't want to see people coming, because what you were going to do was sell a portion of this Eden to essentially a stranger. We were infected with the pioneer mountain spirit at that point in time. I think that's the word—we were infected with it. Here we were working with people—the laborers who worked there at that point in time—the Abby Hunnicuts, the Ponders, Aaron Ponder, Clay Jenkins. These people had essentially seen frontier mountain-living in reality and had grown out of that. So they knew. They still cooked on wood stoves. They still milked cows. They still did the things that the pioneering folks of this county have done for centuries. Now, they were one step above it, maybe a half a step above it, but they infected us with that pioneer feeling. The old back to the earth feeling.
How did you respond to that? Did you want that for yourself?
We did. It's interesting. It made you want to get back to the earth, to do canning, to do hog raising, to do cattle. It's that frontier feeling. And we were infected, no question about it. Infected to the point that we asked Clay, who was the foreman on the job up there, blue-collar workers, "Start looking for us a place." We wanted a place of our own.
And about '69, I guess, Clay took my wife and I on a little tour of some
of the outlying areas and found a place that we believed was for sale,
over on across the holler from where we were. He told us who owned the
place. We found the owner, [the land] [Laughter] [to] [Pause.]
I certainly recognize that situation from my own experience. Was there a sense, when you're asking yourself "what have you done" that, "I don't have the skills, that I don't have the knowledge that the Willises have and they lived up here?"
Yeah. It's a feeling of being put in jeopardy. Of you stupidly—maybe unknowlingly—of putting yourself and your family in jeopardy. Anything can happen. My nearest neighbor was probably two miles away, and that on a jeep road. Well, at that time probably impassible because of the snow. But you think, and we thought, "Look, this has been done before. It's been done by hundreds." Now, there also have been hundreds who have not made it, but it's been done. No big deal. And here youth steps in with its impestuousness, and you do it. Of course, my mother and father, Paula's mother, they just couldn't understand what we were doing, and it was a battle with them. "Why don't you move? Why don't you blah, blah, blah?" But we didn't; glad we didn't. It was an experience that you long for somehow. It's a creativity. It's something that steels your independence. Not "s-t-e-a-l-s," but hardens. Somehow brings you to the point that, "Hey! You can do this." And we did.
What was it doing for you? You'd go out and spend part of the day at the fire tower, and you'd come back to your cabin. What were you doing around the place? Were you raising crops?
Yeah, we raised basically what we ate. We had beans and potatoes and the
typical mountain fare. Pumpkins. What one would grow around here. We
canned a lot of things. Green beans, corn, that kind of thing. We did
for the first while—probably a year and a half we didn't have
electricity. I remember Dillan, who was our only son—Dillan's bottle to
bottle—and it late at night and it in the wintertime. We used the potato
masher, and set the potato masher on top of a kerosene lamp with a
little protective surface to heat the baby bottle. [Laughs] [and]
Prior to that, what was your sense of things? You talked about this idea of the frontier and the pioneer spirit. Those kinds of things. Did you—both of you coming from more urban areas or suburban situations—what did you think you were doing? What were you thinking back then? I guess I'm asking the same question that your parents might have been asking.
That's an interesting question, and I'm not sure that I can answer that.
I'm not sure that I can answer that. What we were doing was some sort of
inner [pause]
Was there a sense, Sam, of rejection in terms of upbringing?
That's entirely possible. In fact, maybe probable. I suspect there was some of that in it. There was some rebellion. Of course, I was a 60s person. Maybe even a 60s hippie, when it comes to that. So that feeling of rebellion, I'm sure—or the act of rebellion—.
So the "back to the land" idea was real prominent?
Yeah, it was indeed. Now, the '60s rebellion certainly played a part in that. We came here early in our relationship. One of the first people that we kind of ran into—and I think it was because a mutual kind of understanding of what we were doing and what they were doing—-was Peter Gott and his wife. Peter had been here a year or two before we got here, and Peter is the kind of person who has huge drive to get things done. To get things completed, to do things well. He's really a much more organized person than I ever would be. And Peter certainly had some influence on Paula and I, because he at that point in time had completed the first house that he lived in, which is a little masterpiece. A little piece of art, if you will. And that's Peter. He does things with that kind of finality. And so, we spent some time together over the years, back and forth. And he was influential in almost teaching us, "Hey, do it a little bit more structured." We didn't, and that's simply the personalities, I think. Certainly his influence was fairly powerful. But the greatest feelings we had, the greatest input to our psyche on the thing, were local folks.
That was my next question. My experience is that most of the new-comers
that have moved in—especially people who moved back in back in the late
'60s [and]
It's true, and it's interesting how that happens. You get a kindred
spirit. Now, there are other people who are real standoffish. But like
you say, mine—I suspect I had two. Well, I had more than two, but two
major ones. Van Ramsey, who lived below me, was a second father. Van had
grown up into what I was doing, had been part of it. Van was an
intelligent guy, had been away, had been back. Knew the old customs.
Knew how things operated. Knew who to talk to, knew what to do. He knew.
He was a [Laughs]
That's a good one.
Preach Davis was quite a character. Quite a character.
How did these relationships with Van Ramsey and Mr. Willis—how did that mentoring kind of play out on a day-in, day-out basis? What kinds of specific things were they showing you?
Well, I got some chickens. Wanted to have some eggs, and I started
building a chicken house. Well, here I am not knowing anything. I start
up on my chicken house, and Van came by. He had a place that joined me,
and he had a little fishpond and a little cabin that joined my property.
And Van used what he called his camp. He'd come up to spend the night.
He'd come up to take a drink or two. He'd come up to fish. He'd come up
to see me. You know, he spent his leisure time at his camp. So he came
by, and I'm building a chicken house. And he said, "What are you
building?" And I said, "Chicken house." And he said, "Poplar poles?" And
I said, "Yup." And he said, "Now you know that poplar pole won't last.
Next year, you're going to have to build another chicken
And you were willing to listen.
Oh, absolutely! We were just sponges for this kind of stuff. We were interested in how it was done. Bought a cow, milked a cow for two or three years. A milk cow is kind of like getting married, though. You've got to be there. You've got to do that.
You mentioned going out that one night to the spring. Was the spring set off far from the house?
Yeah. It was off from the house. There were a spring or two around this
house. This one was the one that they had traditionally used. And it was
maybe 50 yards from the house. Up above the outhouse, where it should've
been. We used that for a year or two. Later, I came in with a backhoe
[and]
So those early years, though, you didn't have water in the house?
No, we carried it in, in buckets. We had a couple buckets. We'd go out and fill the bucket and bring them in.
And what did you do for shower or bath?
Well, I had a wood-burning stove at that point in time. Now, this wood burning stove I got from Mr. Jarvis, over on Jarvis Branch, for twenty-five dollars. It's copper-clad; in fact, I still have it. In it was a grate, I guess you'd call it, called a water jacket, that if you put water into it, built a fire on the stove, you had hot water. Now, at that point in time—which led me to say, "Hey, we've got to have water into the house." Because at that point in time there was a reservoir with it that stood alone, but you had to have a little bit of water pressure to fill up the reservoir. Up until that time, we'd simply put a bucket on the stove. We had a washtub. Put water on the stove, heat it up, dump it in the tub, sit in the tub, take a bath. Once I got water into the house from up on the hillside, I had an outside shower for the summertime. Inside, we had the standing reservoir for the hot water that would be created by the stove. So then, you'd just turn on the spiggot and hot water into the tub. That came after we decided that that's what would make things a little bit easier.
Did you and Paula both just plug into the romance of this?
Oh, no question! It fed on itself. Do you know what I mean? It fed on
itself, and it'd turn you into a salesman for that lifestyle. And I
mean, we did. Lionel is here partly because of us. Bob Selwin, who was
here for ten or twelve years, came simply because he was friends of
ours. He and Annie, who is dead. [Knock on door]
So you were talking about different people, of Lionel and Selwins. You'd become kind of a salesman.
Yeah, they'd come to visit. And you're out walking in the woods. Here
it's the springtime. It's the most gorgeous place on earth. You're
living not an easy life, because you trade your labor—your physical
activity—for what you've got rather than for money or anything else. The
first time I saw Lionel, Lionel was headed to somewhere in Central
America. He and his wife. Ecuador. And he came through. He knew Selwin
from [unclear] [I'm]
The local people that you found yourself hanging with. You mentioned that a few of them were placing bets on whether you would make it or not. But also was there almost a sense of amazement in terms of "what are you doing here"?
Exactly, exactly. They had worked themselves to the point of getting
away from what we were trying to get into. They were trying to work
themselves into the house on a paved road. They were working themselves
into a television set. They were working themselves into grocery stores
that you have your own meat cut up and you go buy it. And essentially,
they were trading back into the money end of the existence rather
Their children were, I suppose, even farther along.
Even farther along the path, no question. In fact, the path of no return at that point in time. At least of returning anywhere in the near future.
I remember wondering, "Why would you give all this up?"
Exactly. Here is this beauty. Here is this pleasant existence. Now, it's hard work, no question about that, but the mental salve that it soothed us with was just—it overcame any sort of work situation. The pleasant living was essentially what we were after. And I suspect we got that.
I would go visit Delly Norton, and what was immediately recognizable was how integrated her life was. It was like it was all right there.
Indeed, indeed. Right on the spot. Indeed. That's an interesting point,
but true. It was all right there. I had been playing some guitar at that
point in time with a friend of mine. Up at Ball Mountain we had played a
little bit. Ran into, of all people, Byard Ray—Byard, the fiddle player,
and Byard and I got kind of a kindred spirit situation. I got to playing
some rhythm guitar with Byard's fiddle playing, and Byard introduced me
at that time to a guy named Obray Ramsey. Being an old 60s hippie I
guess you could say I had run into some people who were odd. And I don't
mean that in a derogatory sense. I mean, just different from others. But
Obray was just a wild man on the loose. He and I hit it off immediately.
We played a lot; we sang a lot, drank some. Obray wasn't bad to drink,
but we both liked to drink a little. And one of the first things I [who gave us] [Imitates Paula being upset]
I'm hearing that "homemade" is almost synonymous with the word, "real."
Yeah, I think that's right. I don't know that it's any more real than anything else. But the fact that it is done by you or your friends, as part of the place where you are, really makes it important somehow. I think you're getting back to that independence, to that almost revolution from dependence. That played a major role in that.
Moving on, you stayed in that situation. After a couple years, got electricity, and you felt like that was really the point where things started to change.
Yeah, they did. They started to change a little. Of course, we had another child. We had Brett.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
The roads were still passable. I only had a jeep road in and out. I had
a winch on the front of my jeep, and a lot of times I had to winch in. I
had certain little spots that I knew I could go out with the winch, get
in, get out. In the wintertime, certain times, you couldn't do that.
Sometimes it'd snow up there and drift up into the road, and you simply
could not get out. Fortunately Brett was born in the summertime, so we
could get in and out at the right time to get him into Asheville and
born. There was snow on the ground when Kate was born. She was born in
March. Again, no trouble. We weren't concerned with that, somehow. We
believed that, "Hey, doesn't make any difference. We can do this. We can
get in; we can get out. Don't matter what it takes." Of course, our
parents were going, "Whoa! [Imitates voices of parents] [Pause] [Phone rings]
And total—especially with young kids—.
And you had baseball games. I wore out a land rover or two on the road getting in and out.
Where were you working at that point in time?
Well, I worked five years in the fire tower, which was just a wonderful
job. Learned how to play the mandolin in the fire tower. Dropped Peter
Gott's mandolin off the fire tower, which I've never been forgiven for.
[RA laughs.]
Francis Ramsey, Liston's wife?
No, this is a different Ramsey. She was a very good politician; she was a very good manager. She was just a decent woman.
I'm just curious how you managed to get that job, given the way things happen in this county.
That was in '72 or '73. There was one man, Mr. Wallin—a small little guy, probably weighed 115 pounds—who was the only male working in the social services office at that time. He retired. They had used him for various investigations, kinds of things that the women didn't want to do or wouldn't do. I found out about it through Obray Ramsey. Obray said, "Hey, you're looking for a job. Go down there and talk to Miss. Ramsey. Talk to Francis Ramsey." So I went down there and interviewed with Francis Ramsey. Obray was the one who, I suspect, had some say-so in that, too. He and Byard both, maybe. Since I did have a college degree at that point in time—and it required that—she hired me.
And I went to work for the social services. I investigated two or three
child abuse situations, one of which I got called a "revolving
son-of-a-bitch" on. That's probably what she really wanted me to do,
because that was coming into [Laughs.] [Laughter]
That was a $500 dog! [Laughs.]
But you know, dogs in this county were important parts of the county. It worked out. I don't remember exactly how, but it worked out okay.
We were talking about getting electricity, and you felt like for you and Paula, personally, that was the beginning of a change. And you talked like maybe not really being sure whether that was the right thing to do. But I'm curious about things that evolved, not just for you and your family but for the whole county. Things have really moved forward in a way. Forward, I guess, is really a question. But they've moved in a way that are so remarkably different than when we moved here back in the early 70s.
No question about that. And of course, the value of that
movement—certainly is not for me to say whether that's good or whether
that's bad, or whatever it is. I don't know about that. You get into the
philosophy of some of the people like who I've
Well, it's very scattering.
It is. It is, indeed. You lose all focus. You lose focus on both. It's almost what you're trying to get away from.
You're doing both of them kind of in a half-ass kind of way. Not doing either one very well.
You get back into that frantic. It's frantic. The other is not frantic. It's calming. The life on the mountain is calming. Now, the frantic may be that the cow's out. Or the frantic may be that the pig's dead. But it's not that zigzag frantic that you get at a traffic stop, or it's not that lightning bolt kind of thing. It's more of a calm approach.
And I'm not asking you to judge good or bad, right or wrong. It seems to me that the whole county has made this transition. There's certainly individuals in the county that—well, you know, Lionel comes to mind in many respects. And he's a newcomer. There's still people who were born here, who live very much in an old fashioned way.
Yeah, there are. Now, those are dwindling, too. It's interesting, I've been noticing that some of the—and I'm not sure what television genre it's called—some of the exposés have been addressing themselves to the very kind of people we're talking about, who still live, if you will, the old way. They're so few now, that they focus in on these few. And these folks are still holding on. I noticed a story on a storyteller the other night who is still living the old way, if you will. It's an interesting story. Still interesting to me. But there are fewer and fewer and fewer of those, and I guess it's simply because that they're dying out. Face it, I've been here over thirty some-odd years, and the people that I've known who have been directly involved with that directly—most of them no longer exist. I mean, they're dead.
That's certainly my experience also. And it's almost like when you start doing TV exposés on them, it's a sure sign that it's dying.
It's almost a historical notice. This is it. We want this recorded.
"Let's put them in a museum now, because they have basically no real usefulness in our society." And I wonder how a place like Madison County, that really has had that history and had that kind of lifestyle probably longer than most any other place on the east coast—.
It's true, and it's because there's been no major development here. And one of the reasons, too, I think, is there's no flat land. There's no place to put Acme Sock Company. There's no place to put these other things.
But access, also, in and out of it has really changed it, where it's been a major thing, too. As you were talking about, getting electricity felt like a personal change for you all. It seems to me that getting the Weaverville/Marshall highway—it's really changed things. It's allowed people in; it's allowed people out.
You know, speaking of roads, Rob, once upon a time, Zeno Ponder and some
other—James Ledford and the other folks in this county who were in
leadership positions at that point in time—some still are. We were
involved with the road—the new 19-23— from essentially the high school
into Weaverville. And so there were board meetings, and there were
meetings on that road, and it was going to bring major changes to
Madison County. It's interesting, and I don't remember who had the
analogy. What they said it was going to be like a funnel that was going
to funnel all this economic development into Madison County. And what
happened was that the funnel was turned end-to-end the other direction,
so that essentially Madison County funneled out into
What it has done, though, it has funneled a—and this is certainly taken a period of time, but you go on that quarter now and—.
It's coming. [Laughs.]
It really is moving this direction! And the funneling is not so much economic development—jobs—but it seems to me that there is such a wealth of new people and new ideas that are coming into the county. I know you've experienced this back twenty-five, thirty years ago. I could guarantee that you knew not only most people that you passed on the road. You knew their cars, you knew their dogs.
Absolutely. You could say, "That's John" at midnight, driving by your house. You know what I mean? You knew the sound of his car or his truck or whatever. You know, I tell you another interesting point, too, Rob. The further down the road you go, if you will, and the more people we lose who have had direct contact with the past, then the people coming in are not having direct contact with the source. They're having direct contact with the source maybe twice removed. Since I've been here, there have been basically two generations of people. The kids who were not born when I got here sometimes now have grandchildren. And so the people who are coming in and saying, "Hey, what's going on here?" are not talking to the source anymore. They're talking to the filter. "Well, my grandmother raised—." It's not "I raised." It's not "I know what pb id="p25" n="25" />this does." It's, "My grandmother knew what that was." And it's almost a diluting effect, as we go further and further.
Jemima made an interesting point when we were talking about all these things. I asked her, "What's your experience with having a girlfriend over to spend the night? That has got to be an interesting dynamic for a seventeen-year-old girl in this day and age." She said, "Well, you know, it's really curious. My friends will come over here, and they find it absolutely amazing that I was born on the other side of that wall, first of all. And they have concerns about what would happen if something went wrong. There's those kinds of concerns, but my mother bore all those children and Lionel basically helped."
Was the midwife. [Laughs.]
And there was never any problem. So, they kind of get by on that, but "we go out—my friends and—we'll go out camping." And she said, "I'm the only one who knows how to build a fire."
Exactly.
She says, "I get the real feeling that my friends who were born in this county, who's families were born in this county, feel that I'm the person who is teaching them. I am the filter." And I find that to be just an amazing circular kind of thing. But you're right on the money with that whole idea.
See, I believe that there's not very many people in this county who could live without electricity. Now, when I came here electricity hadn't been here long. Telephone—gosh. So you were really talking to the source. You were talking to the sources there.
Yeah, I interviewed Jerry Plemmons, and he for the first seven or eight years didn't have electricity.
Jerry's a very interesting character. Jerry's almost an intellectual anomaly to the county. I don't mean that from the standpoint of IQ. I mean that from the standpoint of he's almost got an innate outside-county intellect that he developed somehow.
Yeah, I was shocked by that also. He's always struck me that way.
You almost think, "Hey, he's not native. He's moved in." Not so. He's right from the ground of Madison County. Interesting fellow. I think what makes it interesting is he can see both sides of the coin quickly. Now, there are a lot of folks in this county who can't see both sides of the county. By gosh, Jerry can. Wham, there it is.
What was your sense about the new highway—about I-26—and what that was going to mean for the county. How did that strike you?
I had the same feeling, Rob, after I'd gone to work for Wolf Laurel. We
had been there probably a year, year and a half. Nothing much happening
at all. Oh, you'd build a house occasionally, but it was a kindred
spirit. They'd invite you in, you'd stay with them. We had some people
from Kingsport, where Bud was from. Wonderful people, who built fairly
expensive housing in Wolf Laurel early on just to get Bud kind of
started. But they were kindred spirit type of folks. Interested in the
country, not living here permanently. But you got the same kind of
feeling when you saw the thing commence to take hold. When you saw more
people coming in. When you saw water lines going in. When you saw roads
being paved. When you saw lots beginning to sell. You had the same kind
of feeling that you were losing something here. You were [Pause.]
Yeah, and the highway by itself is not the cause of those things.
No.
I think it certainly will accelerate the problem.
[Pause.]
Yeah, I'm not sure either. I had a sense, too, of—again, I've been here twenty-eight years. Not quite as long as you have, but there was a different—the people who were moving in here twenty-eight, twenty-five, even twenty years ago—there was a different sense of who they were. Thirty years ago, you really had to want to live here. You really had to be willing to plug into at least some of those—.
Yeah, I don't think you would have made it, Rob, had you not plugged into it. I don't think you would have made it very well had you not plugged into the old time. That made that spirit strong. You know what I mean? It was as if the second generation from the real "no electricity, down to earth" folks—that second generation hadn't filtered out enough. They still couldn't remember what you were doing. There was some sort of respect for that, that you weren't in trying to make major changes. And I don't think they wanted to be at that point in time. I think there was some respect for that, and help those that came in to make it. We had a lot of help from locals. "Hey, let me show you how to do that."
Right. Let me show you what wood to cut.
"Now, don't cut that; that won't burn. You couldn't light that. Don't cut that water oak!"
Black gum. [Laughs.]
Black gum won't split. I've got a big black gum by my place as you start in, and Van said, "Let me tell you what's very good for that tree right there." And I said, "What is it?" He said, "Take a limb about the size of a grapefruit." And he said, "If you cut off sections of that limb and drill a hole in it," he said, "it'll make the best wagon-wheels you've ever had!" You know, for a kid's wagon? It won't split!
But you know, there's a different sense now. There is not the need for people moving in to plug into anybody from the county.
True, true.
They can be totally autonomous, and I find that all the time. I meet people, and they haven't got a clue. They know nothing of the music tradition.
It's astounding. That's maybe, Rob, what this road is going to do. You know what I mean? You come in off of this road, bang, find you a spot. Bang, you're there. And then in order to get anything happening, you don't go down stream, essentially. You get back on the road and go into Asheville. You get back on the road and go somewhere else rather than dealing with the local folks.
That almost speaks to the idea of communities, first of all becoming more homogenous. But also communities being less local, more broad or global in a sense.
Yes, that's it. Of course, you've got the television now. You've got
internet. It's really interesting. In 1976—no. Gosh, I can't remember
my—. Getting old. I—on Obray Ramsey's advice, and Byard, some of the
other folks—I had been around at that
When you think of Madison County when you think of the word, "place"? What has that meant to you? What is being here? I know that's a broad, vague question.
Well, first of all, the reasons that we essentially settled here in our final settlement—the first Wolf Laurel adventure we didn't come to settle. We came to see what was going on and so forth, but once we found our place here—it's basically home. We found the place we like. We found people that we can deal with. We found a non-hostile environment that took us in as total strangers, into almost family. Well, hell, into family. I mean, the Ramsey's—into their family. I mean, hell, everybody was kin. And we found a community, a family, a living place, a communal pleasantry. That's what everybody looks for, I think. A lot of other folks haven't found it, but I think we did.
It's curious to me, because I've had the same experience, too, Sam,
where you move into a place, and you move into family. But yet, you've
also moved away from family. I remember my grandmother coming up the
road on time. This was when I was living over at Jim and Libby
Woodruff's place on Big Pine. My grandmother was raised in Southern
Italy, born there. She comes up this road and she just looks around
like, "How in the hell did you find this place?" [Laughter.]
Exactly. It's a very—family. "Family" is an interesting word in this
situation. I think the newcomers now, Rob, are not going to find that.
They're not going to find that family, because essentially that family
is gone. And now the new family that's here is almost like what you're
moving away from. You're not going to find that,
Taking that to the next logical step, where are your children? And what are they doing?
Interesting. All three remember, of course, living on the mountain. I still have the place. In fact, I intend to—I'm in the process of planning me a getaway up there. A little log house that we can do that.
The Vann Ramsey remembrance place?
The camp, right. [Laughter] [whispers]
One of the points I try to make with our two children is—kind of
instilling in them what the real value of that piece of land is. It
certainly can be viewed as a monetary, financial asset. On the other
hand, I very clearly learned from Delly that the real value of the land
has to do with one's ability to be able to live on it. That land will
provide for you. With that in mind—those ideas, those kind of contrary
ideas in mind—I'm curious about how one deals with that issue with one's
children? How one looks at that. And my immediate thing is to say,
"Well, I'm going to fix this and sell it." [Laughter]
Yeah, I know what you mean.
And I sense that that would be fine with them. Well, we can rent it. We can make an income on it, if that's what you want. Have it there to live on . But I'm curious about you're saying that your kids come back and say, "Let's go back on the mountain." That definitely is a connection. But how do you see that connection being played out maybe after you and Paula are gone?
Interesting question, and I can't answer that, Rob. I don't know. It's
interesting. It just struck me. I've had offers on that property up
there, mucho offers. And I've never really wanted to sell it. I haven't
spent too much time up there since we moved off. But I've spent quite a
bit of time, particularly by myself—particularly Paula and I go up. But
I've always had in the back of my mind, "Hey, whatever happens, I can
raise my own food." Now, that may be some sort of wild dream of mine or
thought that should something drastic happen anywhere, that I could do
that. Probably. Who knows. But it's always been there; it's important to
me because it's a safety valve. It's a lifeline. I don't know, Vann and
those boys always had one hand in the earth. They always kept
That's interesting. I've always felt the same thing. Just that safety valve, that security. Knowing that you can. Obviously, it'd be very difficult to have to be self-sufficient.
Oh, I'm not sure physically I could do it anymore.
Exactly. The older I get, the more I start thinking about propane heat instead of wood. I was out cutting wood yesterday, and I was like, "Why am I doing this?" But I wonder whether that feeling in me doesn't jump back a generation to our parent's generation. Being raised in the Depression. Coming through that period of time. Whether stories that my father or mother told me that have continued to resonate. I mean, I was raised in the suburbs. I never knew any need to do these kinds of things. But yet, knowing that I know how to do it is—there's something that's secure. Whereas our children—God, my son—the thought of getting out of here.
Raising beans.
Well, this is—.
END OF INTERVIEW