Blogging in Madison County

I'm in Marshall, North Carolina, this morning, which is about four or five miles from the house I grew up in. My mom has cable TV but no Internet or cell service, so I'm writing from the public library here. (My aunt let me borrow her card.)

Outside, seen through the wall of windows across the room in front of me, western North Carolina is almost indistinguishable from east Tennessee--same hills and mountains (although they are packed a little tighter here), same green dulled by summer haze, same heat (not seen but felt). I guess what makes this place somewhat different for me is that I grew up here. I went to high school just a couple of hills from where I'm sitting right now. Having moved to Johnson City in 2001, when I was 42 years old, I don't have much of a past with the place--although the little bit of past I have there is wonderful. Here in Marshall--and in my sort-of-native place in Walnut--I know a lot more ghosts. Ghosts of family and friends, ghosts of wonders and crimes, ghosts of things that happened or didn't happen. I find this both comforting and unsettling at the same time.

Another thing my mom doesn't have is air conditioning. Last night Raleigh and I slept in my old bedroom--I on a queen bed that wasn't there when the room was mine, he on a twin mattress on the floor. We had the windows open and two fans blowing on HI, one pointed at him and one at me. I don't know what we'll do when Leesa shows up this afternoon. She and I will have to share the air, I guess.

Today is Mom's 75th birthday. We'll have a little cookout this evening. The big party is tomorrow after church, with all the church members (all 20 of them or thereabouts) and a goodly number of surprise family members that she probably hasn't seen in a while.

Well, I'm going to wrap this up for now. My mission--as it is every Saturday afternoon I'm here--is to wash her car and get the week's groceries. Signing off from the Marshall branch of the Madison County Public Library. . . .