Race Recap - Never Forget

I don’t have many regular readers of this blog these days, I wrote in my last post, which was way back on August 13.  Lizette Pryor was a faithful follower, but mostly because she did not have a computer and I would print out a copy of several posts and mail them to her from time to time.  My little blog shows that I have nine “followers” other than people who might accidentally stumble upon it while surfing the internet and typing, say, “Race Recap” or “Never Forget” in their search engine for some reason.

I began this blog a little over ten years ago, a few months after completing the Boston Marathon, the highlight of my humble running career.  On August 6, I posted a picture memorializing that race, and I wrote:

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

It goes without saying that this blog will be about running, and specifically about running here in Highlands, North Carolina, where I live and run and have my being.

So I lace up my shoes and head out the door . . .

Over the years, while focusing on running and training and racing, this blog has also chronicled other adventures, such as a 2016 journey to California and back in our Mini Cooper with hundreds of other Minis. and a day-by-day account of our journey to England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland in 2019.  I have recorded the progress of several construction projects at our house.  I wrote whenever it could not be avoided about things like the January 6 Insurrection.  And I spent a lot of time writing about Atlantic Beach, mostly for the benefit of Lizette and in gratitude for her allowing us to spend winters there.

I have enjoyed looking back over the years at the many races and places to which we have journeyed, and for that reason it seems worthwhile to pick the journey up again after a laps of several weeks, if for no other reason than to create a record for ourselves.  This Race Recap begins again now because after eighteen months, we finally feel that it is safe enough to sign up for races again.  We have kept up with our running during the pandemic, but most races were cancelled or transformed into “virtual races,” where you signed up, ran a 5-K (or whatever) distance anywhere, and sent in your time in a kind of honor system of competition.  But that is nothing like the real thing.

 So on September 11, we toed the line at the Never Forget 5-K in Franklin, run 20 years after 9-11 and in memory of that terrible day.  Martha had not been running in some time due to problems with her asthma and allergies, and only began training a couple of weeks before the race.  I had been running pretty regularly, but work on our construction projects took time away from proper training.  The course was the old “Ruby Run” course that I actually ran on July 13, 1996, in a staggering time of 22:40, good enough for third place in my age group at the time.  25 years later, I was hoping to break 40 minutes, and be thankful for it.

There was a very moving ceremony before the race, which was well-represented by local fire fighters.  Scott Nelson, a Franklin Police Officer whom I knew when he worked for the Highlands Police Department, led the way with an American flag, and there were prayers and bagpipes to see us off.  Some participants wore full fire fighter gear for the entire distance.  Each runner had the name of a victim of 9-11 on his or her race big; mine was Kathryn Brandis, and I looked her up after the race – she perished on that day in the second tower, a wonderful woman by all accounts.

The Ruby Run course begins at the Franklin High School Track, goes downhill, and then returns uphill, which reminded us of many other hilly races we have run over the years.  It was a beautiful, cool morning, and we both got off to a good start.  The Race Director, who shall remain nameless, is notorious for dispensing with features such as accurate measurement of the course, and we were not surprised to find that it was 3.24 miles in length rather than 3.1 miles.  Adjusting for the distance, my time would have been 39:13, in keeping with my goal.  But Martha ran an even more amazing time of 32:29, on little training and up a long, steep hill.  We both took first place in our age groups (honestly, I was the only one in my age group). 

The next day we drove to Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway and then to Blowing Rock to celebrate Martha’s 66^th birthday.  And also to celebrate once again competing with others, striving together, and attaining a worthy goal however humble.

Lizette Pryor

I don’t have many regular readers of this blog these days.  What began as a blog about running grew into one about traveling and hiking and gardening.  But we have not been traveling much, nor have we felt safe enough to run in a race since March of last year.  Moreover, we thought that Covid was safely receding in the rearview mirror, but now it is spiking again, and as a result we are still reluctant to stand shoulder-to-shoulder at the starting line of another race.

One faithful reader that I knew about was Lizette Pryor, Martha’s aunt who generously invited us to stay at her condo in Atlantic Beach every winter since 2016.  Lizette did not have a computer, so I printed out the blog for her on a regular basis and mailed it to her.  She especially liked hearing about that beautiful beach and the little coastal towns nearby, a place where she had stayed with her husband Leon (who died in 2010) but which she was no longer able to visit. 

Last Tuesday, Lizette died peacefully in her sleep in Raleigh at the age of 92.  I had talked to her on the phone two days earlier – we were in the habit of checking in on her every couple of weeks – and she sounded good, though a little weak and confused.  She was a sweet and generous woman, sister to Martha’s dad Alan, who died in 2016, and she will be greatly missed.  I had the pleasure of knowing that she had received a copy of my book, Bells in the Night, together with one final print-out of my blog, a few days before she died.  “Did you receive my book?” I asked her.  “Many of the poems were written at your beach place.” I told her. 

Do we have a name for
The joy that we feel when the shroud of fog rolls away,
Or when the night heron rises in exultant flight?

Rest in Peace, Lizette.  We will miss you.

Professionals

Construction continues nearly every day on our project, and it reminds us how fortunate we were to be able to contract with a team of hard-working and very competent builders during this busy time for construction in Highlands.  They show up early – 7:30 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. – and work until dark, as I have mentioned before in this blog.  And they have no compunction against working on Saturdays and even Sundays, which used to horrify most folks in this part of the world.  (“It’ll never last!” Martha says her grandmother used to say about such work).  I don’t much like working on Sundays, but mostly because I appreciate the wisdom in observing that ancient Sabbath tradition and the benefit to body, mind, and spirit that it promotes.

Yesterday, Sunday, we had understood that a pair of carpenters might work for half a day, so we planned to drive to Asheville for a reprieve.  There was a vehicle in the driveway at 8:00 a.m. and they quickly cranked up the air compressor.  “Adios!” I said as we left.  We were gone until 5:00 p.m. and were surprised to find that the carpenters had been replaced by roofers, who had nearly completed installing the metal roof on the entryway and garden shed.  They did not seem to mind the rain-slick conditions, and they had Mexican music playing at an audible level.  “Sorry about the music!” I told our neighbor, who was out on her front porch.  “Oh, it’s not bothering us at all.  We kind of like it!"

Despite the Sunday work, a language barrier that is more apparent with some of the workers than others, and the inconvenience of scrap lumber accumulating in the driveway, we are thankful for these men, who are invariably polite and helpful.  I served as building inspector in Highlands when we first came here 38 years ago, and I can testify that their workmanship is excellent.  All of them also seem to have the best equipment and are driving brand-new and very large pickup trucks.  It is a wonderful thing to see that our country can still welcome and reward hard-working immigrants, and to see them thriving and getting ahead.

Last week, I was discussing with the crew of carpenters the placement of a six-inch column on a footing (the one which had caused the inadvertent cutting of the phone cable).  The column had to be directly below the point where two roof joists joined.  I dashed down to the basement and proudly returned with my venerable plumb bob, unwound the string, and held it up to the joint.  “See?” I said.  They grinned at each other and one of them returned from his truck with a little black box that beamed a green laser beam directly where I had held my plumb bob.  “Mine is better,” I insisted.  “No batteries!”  They thought that was funny.

Today, between the time I left home to go running in Town a little after 8:00 a.m. and my return two hours later, they had installed all of the windows on the entryway, a project that would have taken me the better part of a week.

I was reminded of what I told the plumber Tim Gibson a couple of years ago when we called him to install an especially difficult faucet on our new kitchen sink.  “A smart man knows how to do a little plumbing,” I said.  “But a wise man knows when to call the professionals!”

Summer Days

After an unusually cool and dry June (we actually had to water our gardens nearly every day), we had a week or two of more or less daily rain.  And now we have entered that season in Highlands when it is hot and mostly dry but afternoon thunderstorms are ever-present.  As I am writing this post, it has begun to rain again, one of those cooling sweet-smelling summer rains, and in 15 minutes the sun will likely be shining again.  As a result, the humidity remains high and the yard is soaking wet most of the time.  My seven-mile run this morning was difficult with the combination of high humidity and the Code Orange air quality because of the fires burning in distant California and Oregon.

The rain has been good for our gardens, though, and especially the zucchini.  I have had to give much of it away, and I am beginning to think that Karen and Vicki are growing wary on Saturday mornings when I hand them more zucchini.  “Oh no, not again!” they must be thinking.  But it is nice to have enough to enjoy and also to share.  Yesterday I picked my second batch of green beans, three more zucchini, and my first tomato of the season, a perfect bright-red beauty that we had on BLT sandwiches for lunch today.

There were enough beans to blanch and freeze – only three quarts, but they will be enjoyed this fall and winter, perhaps even as a part of Thanksgiving or Christmas Dinner, made tastier by the knowledge that we grew them in our own gardens.

After a lull of several days, work has resumed on the three-part project that we are undertaking this year.  The painting and the carport were completed in good time and the workmanship is very good.  Now the covered entry from the carport to the front door is underway, and progress is being made every day.

The only mishap so far was that on Wednesday, the phone cable to our house was cut while workers were digging a footing for a column.  It was not their fault – the cable had been buried in that location 38 years ago when our house was built and I simply forgot where it was.  I probably should have had it “located,” as the repairman pointed out yesterday, and he was right.  We quickly realized how dependent we have become on a slim black cable buried in the ground when we lost Wifi/internet service as well as cell phone service – we no longer have a land-line phone, and we do not have cell phone coverage except through our Wifi.  

I had a Kafkaesque experience reporting the outage, driving five miles to Highlands where we have cell phone coverage.  “Please enter your date of birth, last four digits of your social security number, or your PIN number to authenticate your account,” a recording demanded when I called Repair.  A woman with a heavy foreign accent of indeterminate origin then got on the line and I found that the phone company does not know my date of birth or SS information.  She referred me to a second woman with an equally indeterminate accent who patiently told me exactly the same thing.  “My PIN number is somewhere at home in a filing cabinet five miles away!” I kept explaining.  Finally I had to drive home, rifle through a file folder, unearth the elusive PIN number, and drive back to Highlands.  This time I got Maria on the phone, gave her the PIN number, and Bingo!  A tech team will be here Friday afternoon, she said.

The next day I went out to examine the cable, which had been not cut so much as nicked by a shovel.  I was startled to receive a sharp electrical shock, but found that when I returned into the house our internet was working, although slowly and intermittently.  (The first thing I did was Google, “Can a phone cable electrocute you?”  Only if you have a pacemaker, I learned.)  The repairman was friendly enough on Friday.  I thought he might have charged us for his time, but after chiding me for not having the cable “located,”  he spliced a new section in place and we were “good to go,” as he said.  

I have spoken to the owner of the local bookstore and arranged for a book signing to take place in a couple of weeks for Bells in the Night.  There will be a notice in the local newspaper in a few days alerting the local public of the poet in their midst and the book that he has just published.  Many locals know me as a runner, retired Town Administrator, and retired real estate broker, but have no idea that I am a poet.  So it is a little unnerving that in a short while my book will be in the hands of local readers, who will discover things about me that they never knew.  Martha announced publication of the book on Facebook and it quickly received many comments, and now I meet people in the Post Office and grocery store who say, “Congratulations on your book!”

One of my Facebook friends is a woman we came to know in real estate and then socialized some with before she and her husband moved away.  She commented when she read the announcement that she was going to order a copy from Amazon, and she apparently did so and posted a photo of it.  One of her friends asked her if she liked it, and she replied, “Read the first poem last night. Love it.”  And then she said something that made my day.  “Reading a poem each morning with my coffee. Savoring them one by one.”  So wonderful to hear that!  That is really the only reason I published this book:  perhaps a handful of people, here and there, now and then, might read a poem and enjoy it in the same way.

I received some free author copies and have mailed them out to a short list of friends.  At the top of the list are two aunts whom I mentioned in the Acknowledgements.  They are among a handful of regular readers of this blog, and I hope they receive their copies soon and enjoy them in the same way.

And now the sun is shining again!  Summer days. . .

42nd Anniversary

My apologies to those few readers of my blog who came to rely on more frequent postings while we were in Atlantic Beach this winter.  Since returning to Highlands in March, it has been difficult to find the time to write.  My running (the ostensible subject of this blog) has stagnated during these warm, humid weeks, although I am still managing to complete nearly 20 miles most weeks.  And there has been little to document in the way of travel.

A recent exception was a trip to Snowbird Mountain Lodge to celebrate our 42^nd Anniversary.  I have written in past years about this historic lodge where we have spent so many of our anniversaries since our first visit in 2003.  The lodge is a very special place of scenic beauty, peace, and serenity, located only three hours away in Graham County on the crest of Snowbird Mountain.  It overlooks rolling mountains on the horizon and Lake Santeetlah deep in the valley below to the south and east, and is also close to the Cherohala Skyway and Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.  We have enjoyed canoeing, cycling, and hiking in all of these nearby places over the years.  

The drive to Snowbird is a pleasant one through relatively undeveloped Graham County.  We took the scenic route in our Mini Cooper, stopping at the Stecoah Valley Center on the way, where Martha took this photo of us parked on a covered bridge to a private home.  I would have been worried about the bridge, with its wide cracks between the boards and the sight of rushing water below, if the vehicles parked in the driveway had not been pickup trucks much heavier than our little Mini.

We have stayed in one of the detached cottages in the past, but recently we have enjoyed one of the twenty or so rooms off the main lodge building with its big windows, excellent library, and dining room where we have enjoyed some excellent dinners.  I like to think that if I can’t sleep in the middle of the night I can tip-toe down the corridor, take a book from the shelf in the library, and settle down to read for awhile, enjoying that unmistakable fragrance of a wood-burning fireplace that lingers even in July. 

We have not stayed at Snowbird for three years, but the owners are continually making improvements.  The new feature this year was the spacious, beautifully-designed Forest Chapel a short way down the path west of the lodge.  What a great place for a wedding!   

 

The grounds have some nice walking trails and there are plenty of quirky little statues, yard art, Tibetan prayer flags, and inspirational signs all along the way.  We have drawn much inspiration from the lodge and its yard art in our own home over the years.

 

At the end of the trail to the east is a platform called Sunrise Point overlooking Santeetlah and there is a tall cylindrical gong, which traditionally we ring in celebration of our years of marriage, the sound ringing out over the valley below. 

This year we did not do quite as much hiking as we have in the past due to the threat of rain, and likewise we did not take a canoe out on the lake.  We did, however, take a long ramble on the Cherohala Skyway on Tuesday in our Mini, stopping along the way for short walks.  We found our way over to Fontana Dam and tranquil Fontana Lake and we ate our lunch nearby.  Snowbird provides breakfast and dinner at the lodge, but for lunch they pack a picnic lunch in a little backpack from a menu selected the night before at dinner.

The next day we enjoyed spending most of the afternoon reading in the Summer House, a covered and screened building not far from the lodge, where we found two or three other couples quietly doing the same thing.  Reading somehow seems to be more enjoyable when you can hear rain on the roof, the cool breeze blowing through the screen windows.

We left on Thursday morning, stopping in Bryson City for our picnic lunch on the way home and arriving to find that several packages had been delivered by UPS.  One of them was something I have been awaiting for some time – five author copies of my book of poetry, Bells in the Night, which has finally been published after weeks of back-and-forth galley proofs and revisions.  I discovered a few days ago that I could go to the Amazon website, type in my name, and have my book appear on the screen (Paperback, $17.95).  But now for the first time I was able to hold an actual copy of my first published book. 

In the coming weeks I will organize a book signing here in Highlands, but in the meantime I have a short list of people to whom I will be sending copies.  At the top of the list are two of Martha’s Aunts, prominently mentioned in Acknowledgements in the book:  “I would also like to thank a sharp-eyed nonagenarian aunt, Anne Sellers, for proof-reading the final manuscript.  Another generous aunt, Lizette Pryor, made it possible for us to spend an annual sabbatical at her beach place, where much of my inspiration and writing took place.”

Thank you Anne!  And thank you Lizette!

Father's Day

Now that we’ve been vaccinated and it feels safe to travel again, I decided that for Father’s Day we would take a trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway that I have been longing to complete for some time.  Last year, as noted in earlier posts, we only took two out-of-Town trips the entire year due to Covid-19.

Our daughter sent me Father’s Day greetings, and it is hard to believe that she just turned 35.  I still remember taking her to church on Father’s Day in 1986 when she was only ten days old.  I recall that she was well-behaved for the most part except for a lot of little cooing sounds – we were up in a corner of the balcony where we did not disturb anybody.  Katy has always been a talkative one!

It was raining when we left our house, which was a little disappointing, and the first thing we encountered was one of those big city bus-sized RVs gingerly maneuvering the multitude of curves between Highlands and Brevard who absolutely refused to pull over despite many opportunities and the honking of the 20-or-so cars behind him.  At times he was going less than ten miles per hour.  But I am striving to become a more patient person and it was good training.  On the same road, we just barely missed hitting a huge deer that leapt across the road in front of us, missing us by only a foot or two.  It would not only have killed the deer, but also totaled our little Mini Cooper and gravely injured its passengers.  We were thankful when the rain began to dissipate, and on the other side of Brevard we found a welcome site parked at the place we had arranged to stop and rest:  the Lobster Dog Food Truck, which sets up at one place or another in the Asheville area, and which we have been trying to meet at one of those places.

We have learned to appreciate food trucks more and more in recent months.  They are quick and inexpensive and usually have a higher Health Department sanitation rating than restaurants.  A lobster dog is a toasted split-top hot dog bun crammed with lobster and mayo, warm butter, and special seasonings – an indulgence on Father’s Day and the best we have had since our trip to Maine in 2016.

As we drove north from Asheville through Burnsville and eventually onto the Blue Ridge Parkway, the rain let up and the sun came out.  Our destination was the Switzerland Inn in Little Switzerland – Milepost 334 on the Parkway.  The historic old inn first opened in 1911 but has seen many improvements since then.  We had driven by the Inn several times on various trips on the Parkway but had stayed there only once and for the first time in 2015.

Inside the inn is a large wood-burning fireplace, comfortable seating with game tables, and lots of bookcases.  A person could happily spend many rainy days without even leaving the lobby itself or the dining room next door.

We had a light dinner and then strolled down the broad lawn overlooking Lake James to the south where a fire pit had been lit.  It was a beautiful place to sit and relax.

The next morning, while we were checking out, I investigated several old photos of the original Inn and the inhabitants of the area.  This striking picture of Isaac Hollifield especially caught my eye.  He was an old-timer who used to take visitors to the camp at Mount Mitchell, and he looked like a real mountain man.

From Little Switzerland, we exited the Parkway and drove on many winding two-lane roads through that part of Western North Carolina known as the High Country, which we seldom visit unless we can stay at a place like Switzerland Inn as a base.  We went through tiny places – some of them containing no more than a gas station – along the way:  Ingalls, Roaring Creek, Cranberry, Elk Park, Banner Elk (not far from that famous Town everybody loves named Loafer’s Glory), finally coming down into the lovely valley that is Valle Cruces, past a stone Episcopal Church and conference center, to the historic Mast General Store, ca. 1909 and listed on the National Register, and its Annex just down the road a bit.  With its wooden floors and old-timey merchandise it reminds me of Mitchell's Hardware in New Bern.

From Valle Cruces, we made our way to Blowing Rock for lunch, with plenty of time to walk around and enjoy this Town that is in many ways similar to Highlands, with a vibrant Main Street and many fine shops and restaurants.  Then we made the surprisingly short trip down Highway 221 to Marion and Old Fort, then down to Bat Cave and Edneyville, finally ending up in Hendersonville.  We both had appointments in Brevard with a young doctor recommended to us – our current doctor in Highlands has left – and it made more sense to stay for a night in Hendersonville, drive to Brevard the next morning, and then return to Highlands, which is exactly what we did.

We discovered a new restaurant in Hendersonville called West First, and we also discovered a new place to stay that we had not known about, a historic rock Inn in the Laurel Park area on top of a mountain called the Echo Mountain Inn.  Originally a private summer home built in 1896, the place went through major renovations in the 1930s and the 1970s.  Small, comfortable, and historic – all of the things we love.

We left for Brevard the next day, were pleased with our new doctor, and finally returned to Highlands on Tuesday afternoon, not encountering any leaping deer or slow-moving RVs on the way.  It was a good Father’s Day get-away!  And now I am checking to see where Lobster Dog Food Truck will be located next.

Our Thriving Gardens

Our own gardens are thriving in mid-June thanks to just the right amount of rain and just enough of the limited sunshine that filters through the big shade trees all around us.  The tomato plants are jumping out of their cages, and the ones that Martha planted up on the deck are as tall as she is.  This is the difference that six weeks of ideal weather makes:

The zucchini (left) and potatoes (right) are doing well, too, although the beans and peppers seem to be coming along more slowly.  The potatoes are especially bushy, and I wonder if they will produce a good crop.  It is always a mystery what is going on underground until you dig them, and I am remembering the old saying, “All plant, no potatoes” taught to me by my neighbor 40 years ago.

I checked the zucchini the night before last and found four large ones that seemed to blow up from blossom to full-size overnight.  There was enough to share with our neighbor, and the other two (see below) provided enough for a dinner of spiralized zucchini with grilled chicken one night, parmesan zucchini rounds the next night, and Martha’s zucchini lasagna the third night – delicious!  They are a prolific vegetable, and the joke is that in zucchini season, you have to roll your windows up tight when you go to church to prevent your neighbors from putting them in your car.

I have seen what looks like deer footprints between the garden beds, so I erected some deer netting around the beans topped with a strip of yellow tape.  I couldn’t find POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS at the hardware store, and besides I suspect (but am not entirely certain) that deer cannot read anyway. 

The perennial flowers are doing well, too, day lilies and clematis in full bloom along the walkway to the back door.

I think I mentioned that we were waiting for a second estimate for painting our house.  It came promptly and under budget, and when we asked the genial Lupe Gonzalez when he could start, he said tomorrow or the next day.  In four days time, two men painted the entire house and garden shed, working long hours.  

When that was done he came by and gave us an estimate on building a carport (also under budget), and when we asked when that work could start, he hesitantly replied, “Next week?” as if we might think that was not soon enough.  Sure enough, a team of men showed up early in the week, cut big square holes through the asphalt driveway for the footings (something I would have been unable to do) and poured the concrete.  The next day, work began on the carport, and in four days was completed except for the metal roof, which had been back-ordered.  What a work ethic these men have!  It is top-quality construction, and they worked long hours, one day working nearly 12 hours.  They walked gracefully around on the roof trusses like mountain goats, unafraid of heights, competently whipping out tape measures and circular saws and power nailing guns.  It is always a joy to watch the effortless motion of competent, skilled men at work.

Work stopped for several days until the metal roof arrived, and we were not sure when it would be installed after it appeared in the driveway one day.  Three nights ago, a Latino laborer showed up at 7:30 p.m. and worked until dark, and the next night he did the same.  He could not speak English very well, but we communicated, I think, our appreciation for his working so late.  Last night, he finished up, and in the dark started to carry my ladder around the house and hang it up before I went outside and gestured that I would put it away tomorrow.  Like the carpenters constructing the carport structure, he was fearless on the slick metal roof.

 We like to take photos of construction projects at our house, and it is always interesting to go back and look at them months and even years later.  Martha found a wonderful program on her phone that transforms a photo into something that looks like a water color, and she has been using it to record these new projects.  Here is the house after it was painted.

And here is our garden shed, which I constructed several years ago and which we normally refer to as a “folly” because it is more a place to sit and relax than a place to pot plants.

And here are two photos she magically transformed of the plants on our back deck – her garden, the one that is safe from predators and gets as much sun as anywhere in our yard.

One of the many things that Martha inherited from her Mom is a little sign that Jane Lewis always had in one of her gardens, and now it has been placed in one of the planters on the back deck.  It’s a famous quote, and I discovered only today that it is by the poet Dorothy Frances Gurney:

 The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God’s Heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.