April and the Cascade Crew's Excellent Adventure

This is written in response to the question: What was your first big trip?

My family didn’t go on many/any real vacation trips when I was growing up. Most of our trips involved going to visit family for a few days. I can remember going to Anglin Branch to visit Grandpa and Grandma Smith. After we moved to Tennessee, we would travel back to Ohio to visit family. I suppose that the biggest, sort of real vacation, trip that I made with my family was when we all went to visit my Aunt Carmen in Virginia just outside of Washington DC. Uncle Olen, Aunt Pooper (Beth), Eric, and my cousin Tracy went with us. We went to many of the museums of the Smithsonian, the zoo, Mt Vernon… It was a great trip.

I suppose that my “biggest” trip was after my high school graduation. Some of my friends and I went down to Florida for a week. We didn’t have much money so we had to plan around that. Philip Ayers was going to drive and we were going to take coolers and tents and camping stuff and find a campground to camp out. Eddie Coop and Philip Ayers were still juniors, but my friends and I hung out with them all of the time and they went on the trip. Since we had little money, we figured that we could only afford to camp out. I think that Philip Ayers, Eddie Coop, Carol Grubbs, Lydia Brothers, another Junior, and I went on that trip. I think that’s right. Some of us hung out so often, it is hard to imagine them not being involved in all of my adventures.

So we load all of this camping stuff into Philip’s car and then we load ourselves into the car. It was a two-door car. I can’t recall the make and model but I know that it wasn’t a big roomy Grand Marquis or such. We were packed to the gills with camping gear and kids. As I recall, three sat in the front and the car was a standard transmission with the stick shift on the floor. I can remember every time the gears had to be changed that Philip had to yell shift so that the person sitting in the middle could shift before he could shift. I’m not sure, I may be getting that part confused with a spooking trip but I think that was the Florida trip.

So here we were, driving down to Florida, the windows down, the wind blowing our hair, the music blaring and us singing, or in my case trying to sing, along to Journey, Kansas, Aerosmith, ACDC, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Lynyrd Skynyrd… with Philip occasionally yelling “Shift”! It was such a wonderfully, magical, carefree time!

We made it to St Augustine in one piece and we ended up having enough money to rent a bungalow right on the beach! That was the first time I had seen the ocean and I was blessed to be able to see it with friends that I loved.

I remember that first view of the ocean. I had always known that the ocean was massive, but until I had seen it, just how massive it truly is was beyond my comprehension. It still amazes me to think that my ancestors dared to climb aboard small wooden boats, more akin to a collection of toothpicks than a modern cruise ship, and cross that vast expanse!

My friends and I went to the grocery, stopped by a liquor store, and then stayed put in that little bungalow and on the beach for the rest of the week. Even my ears got sunburned, but that week of friendship, ocean, music, and frozen daiquiris was a carefree, wonderful week that I will always remember. I so enjoyed that trip with them and I have never really had another trip quite like that one, quite so carefree. We thoroughly enjoyed our week and we reluctantly left when our time was up. We drove back home with the windows down, our hair blowing, the music blaring and our voices mingling in a more tired but still joyous chorus of song!

Miraculously, we all made it back home in one piece, perhaps an even bigger piece than before our adventure! We left behind that lovely little bungalow on the beach, but we were carrying away with us memories of the beautiful time we had spent there!

The Mountains; My Haven, My Heaven

People who know me know that I looooooove the mountains; especially the Appalachian Mountains! Whenever I am there, I feel like a wee babe pulled into the haven of my mother’s embrace. I feel content, safe; I feel home. 

I cannot explain this feeling of home as I was not born or raised in the mountains. I was born in Dayton, Ohio. The only way that I can explain it is that both of my parents and my family for untold generations back called those mountains home. I feel like something that I call ancestral memory lies deep in my DNA. The DNA that determined my hair color, my eye color, my bone structure, my affinity for certain diseases has also influenced my love for the mountains!

I have since coming up with my own term, “ancestral memory”, become aware of the more scientific term “genetic memory”. I admit that I need no science to back my belief in ancestral memory. I need only go to the mountains and there I feel it. When I am in the mountains, my ancestors “haunt’ me. I cannot travel through those mountains without imagining what the same trip would have been like for my ancestors.

When traveling in our cars, we are protected from the elements. When rain falls, we simply wiper the drops away and continue on our way. We travel in air-conditioned comfort over paved highways, sometimes even tunneling through the mountain. When we are thirsty, we pull a drink from our ice-filled cooler. When we are hungry, we pull over to Mickey D's for food, and when we finish our food we run into the restroom, where we have the convenience of a commode, sink, and even toilet tissue and soap! Then we continue on our way again, refreshed.

And how our ancestors did it is difficult to even attempt to imagine! They were moving entire families on wagons drawn by animals. They had to pack the belongings of an entire family onto a small wagon! I'm sure they could give us lessons on packing light and knew exactly what a "necessity" was. They had to pack food for the animals and themselves. They probably prayed that water would be plentiful along the way as well as game for part of their food. I'm sure that if anyone got to actually ride in the wagon it was an extremely rough ride, no steel-belted radials back then! What did the wagon even travel over? Unless there was an "established" trail, these folks had to blaze their own. Have you seen all those beautiful big trees growing in the mountains? How long do you think it would take to saw and hack a trail through them!? Lunch anyone? Well they'd have to eat cold trail food or hunt some grub, build a campfire and cook it, and don't forget to feed and water the animals! And rain, you know how slick mud gets. Imagine trying to go up or down a mountain with a load in the mud, and all of the time worrying about the safety of your family, which probably included small children and babies. How did they get across the wide rivers that have such convenient bridges today? Bathroom breaks; well that was a squat in the woods, making sure to steer clear of poison ivy and praying to avoid chiggers! I don't believe they could have done much traveling at night, but I'm sure that a big ol' bright full moon would have been appreciated nonetheless. Bet the mosquitos were a challenge, but they might have been the least of their critter worries. I imagine that there were probably many more predators back then and I'm sure that our ancestors had a healthy respect for them. I imagine when the full moon slid behind clouds, that respect probably grew a little, and the young children were probably downright scared! I'm sure they went to "bed" bone-tired, but an awareness of the ever-constant possibility of danger probably would have made a true rest unlikely. And how long would a journey of several miles have taken them; how many endless days and nights, each one perhaps more difficult than the one before? I'm sure that the hardships my imagination conjure up pale compared to the reality our ancestors faced. And yet, they did it! They were hardy, resourceful, tenacious... folks.

And of course, while driving through my mountains, along several parts of the interstate, I see crosses, the makeshift crosses made by folks who lost someone due to an accident at that spot along the road. Those crosses serve as a sign that someone’s loved one passed from this to the next life at that spot.

I cannot help but think about how years ago, many of our ancestors must have met their deaths along primitive trails. I realize that many were not able to gain comfort from visiting a grave. How sad to lose a loved one along a trail traveled. How much sadder for those who would gain comfort from visiting that grave, only to have to leave it behind, never to return. Perhaps, those lonely signs of a life passed, served to remind those who followed to love today as though tomorrow was not to be.

I imagine that many of those markers left behind by our ancestors have been reclaimed by nature, just as those I see along the highway will someday be. Perhaps they have been lost to the erosion of time, but it is somehow comforting to know that their existence was noted if only for a while. Perhaps some person will be plowing a field or doing some other work one day and find a forgotten reminder of a life that was. Perhaps that reminder will give that person pause to draw his loved ones close and cherish them a little more.

Each of my family members came from folks like those, and I for one feel so blessed that I did. After all, some folks just get to claim to be "royal". We get to claim to be Smiths, Nolens, Middletons, Allens…

So when I am in the mountains, my ancestors are ever in my mind and folks who know me know that I also looooove my ancestors. When I stop at the Bud Ogle cabin along my favorite Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail near Gatlinburg, I can almost hear the laughter of children rushing from their chores toward the house where their momma is calling “Dinner’s ready!”

                                                                                

 
The mountains also make me feel closer to God. It is so beautiful in the mountains and I can’t help but love every minute of it. It’s very humbling to think that God gave us the gift of such beauty and it fills me with such thankfulness that He entrusted that beauty to our care.

 

I can’t help but think, as we drive through this heaven, that God must surely love diversity, and I can’t help but wonder why His children don’t seem to want to follow His lead.

The diversity of His creation is such a huge part of its beauty, and as we drive we see evidence of it everywhere! We are surrounded by myriad shades of green, the greens of the grasses, the greens of the trees; no two greens exactly the same. And if we could see the trunks and limbs of the trees, how much variation in colors and textures we would find! God seems to like diversity so much that He is not even content for things to remain the same all of the time. A tree that bears rosy-purple blossoms in spring bears beautiful heart-shaped leaves of green in summer, fiery red to yellow foliage in Autumn, and bare branches in winter.

 

And the sky, the sky is filled with clouds, clouds of an infinite number of colors. Some are sullen, dark, dusky blues, others are smoky grays, still others bright white. And the shapes of the clouds! One cloud looks like it is bursting with love and has a heart emerging from it, another looks like a turtle and still, another looks like an elephant running across the sky. And the sky has infinite shades of blue, from the palest almost white blue to a vivid deeper blue, and it continually changes. The dark blue velvet of the night sky may seem to be covered by a scattering of brilliant diamonds. With dawn, the brilliant gem that is the sun rises on the horizon brushing the skies with golds and reds. Dusk brings dusky blues, mauves, and roses. All of this wondrous and continually changing diversity makes me wonder if God might have a short attention span.

Yes, I cannot help but believe that God loves His diversity. I love it too. I can’t help but think that if every tree looked like every other tree, if the sky was always the same shade of whatever, if the clouds were all shaped the same; well, how boring would that be?! If every person looked the same, thought the same, talked the same, believed the same; how utterly uninteresting a place the world would be!

So, I loooooove the mountains! I find my ancestors there and I find God there! Where else could I ever be happier and why would I not love to go back over and over and over again! In fact, I hope one day to build me a little house on my Grandpa and Grandma’s old home place on Anglin Branch in eastern Kentucky. There, hills rise all around and the Daniel Boone National Forest is right next door. There I can live feeling close to God, with memories of my grandparents, and thoughts of all my beautiful family that came before.

                                              Grandma and Grandpa's Anglin Branch Home

Rain Barrels, Out-of-the-Body Experiences, and Birth

 

Back in 2017, on my birthday, I was visiting my parents. They started talking about myriad things, including when I was born. I pulled out my phone and started recording.

This is some background information. I was the first child of my parents and I was born in February of 1960 in Dayton, Ohio. Dayton, Ohio has known its share of real winters and snow is not a novel experience for Daytonians.

Mom says that they had gone to St Elizabeth Hospital two or three times before I was born but I was just not ready to be born. Finally on the 25th, on a “bad” day with snow falling, ice on everything, and the roads slick like an ice-skating rink, Mom had Dad take her once more to the hospital. They slipped and slid but they made it.

Now back then, as a general rule, patients were not put into private rooms. I imagine that patients with money may have been afforded privacy, but Mom was put on a bed in a ward with only curtains separating the beds.

Mom says that she and Dad were in their cubicle biding the time until I would make my arrival, while in the next cubicle, another couple was doing the same. Mom says that the lady next door started hurting and wailing. As her hurt increased, her wailing increased. Mom says that she had gotten to the point of proclaiming over and over, “Jerry, I’m dying! I’m dying, Jerry! I’m dying!”

Mom decided then and there that she was not ready to have a baby and she made Dad take her back home. So, slipping and sliding they made it back to their little home on Knox. I suppose that everyone was surprised to find them back home so soon and empty-handed to boot. When Mom explained that she was just not ready to have a baby, Granny calmly told her, “Now Rett, when that baby is ready to come, you can’t stop it. You could stand upside down in a rain barrel and if that baby is ready to come, it will come.”

Wise little Granny was right and it wasn’t long before Dad and Mom were slipping and sliding their way back to St Elizabeth Hospital. I suppose that Mrs. Jerry had already had her baby, hopefully, she hadn’t really died, because Mom actually stayed that time. Maybe she had tried out the rain barrel and decided that Granny was right!

Now back then, no one was allowed in the delivery room except for the mom-to-be and the medical staff so Dad was out in the waiting room. Mom says that they didn’t do epidurals back then and after listening to Mrs. Jerry’s dying, I don’t think that she was up for trying natural childbirth. She says that the doctor gave her a little Demerol and after that, she wasn’t feeling much pain. She tells me that it felt like she had floated up out of her body and was looking down upon herself. She says that she didn’t really feel pain but looking down, she could see herself and could hear herself grunting. Pretty soon, she was greeted by a most beautiful little girl baby. I am very sensitive to light and I can imagine I was crying rather indignantly wondering why these rude people had taken me from my cramped but cozy womb into a bright, noisy delivery room!

Sometime later, Mom reentered her body and was transferred to a room. Dad was able to come in to see Mom, and when the nurses brought me around, he could see me. I imagine that it was love at first sight. I know that it probably was for me and in sixty-one years of life, I have always known that I am loved, so I imagine that it was for Dad too.

 

Thankfully, I was a most perfect baby in every way because the day I was born ended on a low note. As Dad was driving home from the hospital, someone slid on the icy road and rear-ended him. Cars back then were built tougher than today and his car wasn’t really damaged. He also had a perfect baby and wife back at the hospital so no worries!

So, I’m not sure if the story of my birth is unusual to most but I don’t hear about out-of-the-body experiences every day, especially when it is my mom traveling out of her body. Of course, she says that it was just the Demerol that made it seem like she was out of her body, but I like to think that she did that so her face could be the first one that my sensitive eyes would see!

                                                                       Mom and me

                                                                         Dad and me

                                                                   Wise Granny and me