A life I lost

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In the fall of 2006, my German Shepherd Gretta and I were living in a beautiful home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Northwest North Carolina about three miles from a little village called Boone. There you'll find Appalachian State University, a small regional state university where I was a Linguistics professor in the English Department. ASU is very popular among young folks in North Carolina who love winter sports because there are so many ski resorts within just a few miles, and there's every other winter sport around there, too, except maybe ice fishing. Winters are rugged; most people need 4-wheel drive vehicles. It is a town of motivated Subarus and Jeeps.

Springs are long, gradual and lingering, just heavenly to see unfold; the daffodils, dogwoods, azaleas and wildflowers take their time. Summers are mild; the rhododendrons bloom, and the temperatures are so moderate that no air conditioning is needed. And fall. Fall in the mountains. God's creation puts on a display of color and beauty that is beyond my ability to describe. Every shade of gold and red can be found mixed among the evergreens in perfect proportions. The trees stand in tiers on the mountainsides, gradually blending into the blue ridges of the more distant mountains.

I interviewed for my job during a blizzard back in early 2001, and I fell in love with the place. I can remember the wind howling and whistling around the window of room in the hotel where I stayed for the three long days of the typical academic interview. I stood at that drafty window and shivered as I watched the snow fall. I thought of Dr. Zhivago making his way home. Home.

ASU campus

Faculty volunteers took me for my meals. I remember Steve and Nikken and their just-barely-a-toddler Ryan picking me up in their Subaru at 7:30 am, taking me to The Mountain House for breakfast at the height of the snow storm. Life goes on in a snow storm in Boone, and the university hasn't closed down since the blizzard of '98. The Mountain House has southern home cooking on its menu, and they do it well. I had eggs, bacon, toast, grits, juice, and coffee. Ryan was a precocious child, learning the names of things. We were all thrilled when he pointed out "chimney" at the restaurant's fireplace and said it so clearly. Steve and Nikken remained one of my two favorite couples when I moved there. Nikken was from Indonesia, and she was finishing up her dissertation for a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Cornell. We became friends immediately.

ASU campus

There were other characters on the faculty, like Bill the professor, the folklorist, who used to sing with the Diamonds, the 1950s Doo Wop group who recorded the classic " Little Darlin' ."  Cece studied how the banjo was brought to America by African slaves, then picked up by the white man and is now almost exclusively played by white folks. Susan and Joe were fiction writers, Kathryn was a published poet. Our department chair and his wife were a bluegrass team that played all over the area. In years past, Dave and his brother had performed widely in Europe.

ASU campus

 Boone is charming. It is home to Mast General Store, an old time general store, plus a clothing store, a shoe store, and an outdoor clothing store for the outdoor sportsman. It even sells the most perfect porch rocking chairs made by the Amish. The original Mast General Store is in Valle Crucis, a few miles outside of Boone. And in downtown Boone, there are antique malls and good restaurants and bars and a quaint old mountain stone Post Office. I love antiquing and visited the largest antique mall while I was there for my interview. I found an 1862 Pennsylvania Dutch dower chest that I loved, and I promised myself that if I got the job, I'd give myself the chest. I did and I did.

My 1862 dower chest

US Post Office Boone, NC 28607

 My housing search was more than successful. I found the perfect two-storied cedar mountain house on a large, partially wooded, partially landscaped lot. There was a crescent driveway lined with large, old, mature rhododendrons and a split rail fence. The house had a covered porch that ran across its entire front, and there was a mountain view. I got myself some of those Amish rockers, some end tables, lanterns, and plants. I had a swing and and a dining table on my back deck, and I fenced in the back yard for my two German Shepherds, Duke and Gretta. It was the first time I had ever had a garage, and I filled it up with shop vacs and tools and equipment in no time, but still left room for my Jeep.

Home

This home was to be my last stop. I would retire to the mountains. I can remember sitting on the front porch, where I had my daily yogurt, and picturing myself puttering in the flowers in my yard in my later years. And my bird feeders. I had birdfeeders and birds everywhere. Deer frequently came into the back yard to set Duke to barking. There was a high ridge behind my house, and I will never forget seeing the silhouettes of the deer against the sky at the top of the ridge at dusk. In the winter, I had a fire in the fireplace every day, every day, and it was needed occasionally in spring and fall. And I can still hear the wind chimes on my front porch making music in the surprisingly strong mountain winds. And the wind itself would sometimes howl like a spaceship landing in my yard.

The Blue Ridge Parkway

Boone is right at the Blue Ridge Parkway, and I loved to take long drives there, often with a picnic, usually with the dogs, or go to the village of Blowing Rock, a charmer just eight miles away, where my cousin Rene lives. Blowing Rock is a village of boutique shopping and expensive homes, but it is absolutely beautiful. Grandfather Mountain is close by as well, with the gathering of the Scottish clans each summer there at MacRae Meadows and Singing on the Mountain. And every spring, there is Merlefest, which is the best Americana and traditional and roots music festival in the country, in Wilkesboro, just 30 miles away.

The house was big enough for my parents, independently, to come and visit all they wanted to, and they could have all the room and privacy they required. Mom would come and sometimes stay a month. She loved it there. She loved to work in the yard, to sweep the front porch, even when it didn't need it. And I love waiting on her, fixing her meals, taking her out, or just sitting on the porch looking at the mountain across the way and talking. Mom loved the view from the window in her bedroom, and she loved the dogs. Dad would come and sometimes bring his dog, Gabby. He always wanted to work, and it was a constant struggle keeping that elderly fellow off the roof, out of the gutters, and with me. The kitchen and breakfast room were re-wallpapered with yellow and white gingham, and I painted my kitchen cabinets blue myself. The vanity in the master bath I painted white, and I painted most of the rooms a neutral yellow, even adding a stencil design around the walls in the powder room. Every corner of that house was exactly as I wanted it. I scoured area antique shops for just the right piece for every spot. In my back entry over an antique table hung a framed print of a water color by a fellow professor, Bob, who is now retired and painting in Paris.

My job. Oh. There is nothing in the world I love more than teaching grammar and linguistics. I love them both so much, I couldn't tell you which I love more. And I love students. Students like language, they really do if you hit them right, and linguistics is so exciting that many days most of class would be on the edge of their seats, learning forward, gripping their desks, waiting for my next words. But what English major wouldn't love animal languages, bee dance communication, language and the human brain and Phinneas Gage with that spike through his brain? What English major doesn't love Greek and Latin roots and affixes in word formation, sentence infinity, child language acquisition, accents, dialects, and so much more? I always said I could rise up out of a coma a talk about linguistics, and I really thought I could. Ask me to tell you about the two kinds of verbs. Well, maybe you'd better not.

But then I got very sick and found I could not rise up and teach. I had to take a leave of absence. The problems were many. I won't list them all. They had been coming on gradually for several years. I had already had to give up the annual UVA football weekend, Merlefest, Wolftrap concerts, and long trips to visit old friends because of my health. I've seen emergency rooms in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. And then my dog Duke died during my leave of absence. When my leave was over, I really wasn't able to return to work, but I didn't realize this. Somehow I made it with the support of my chairman, a few colleagues, and the many dear students who expressed concern until the Fall of 2006, and then I could go no further.

I became very ill, seriously ill, and was forced to stop working in my sixth year at ASU and take an early retirement. I lost teaching. I lost being a linguist. I lost my students. I lost my colleagues. I lost Boone. I lost my house, not to foreclosure but I thought I had to sell. I lost rooms full of treasured antiques. I lost the new puppy I had recently gotten. I lost my career. I lost my security. I lost myself. I prayed that the house would not sell, that Gretta and I would have to stay by default. In the meantime, Dad's dog died, Dad had a breakdown, and had to go into an assisted living facility, and Mom lost her sight in one eye to macular degeneration. Steve and Nikken moved to California. Gretta passed away, and I was all alone.

Greensboro

Then the house sold. A cute newlywed couple bought it. The wife had a red BMW convertible that made me see green. I sold about half of my furniture and placed the other half in storage. I camped at my Mom's in Reidsville for a full year, finding all new doctors in Greensboro, doctors who so outshone the ones I had in Boone that it made me wonder what if. Finally, after a year, I was strong enough to get a place of my own. I found a smaller place, a townhouse in an older neighborhood in Greensboro, a place where the outdoor upkeep is not my responsibility. There's no yard, just a little courtyard that is mine, but there's pretty landscaping and mature trees in the common areas, and the community is adjacent to two parks. But it's not the mountains, it's not Boone, the dogs are gone, the students are gone, I am not a linguist, I am not a teacher, not a professor. Being a linguistics professor with German Shepherds was my whole identity. I am bereft without them. And Greensboro is okay; it's just not special. I've never seen so many strip malls in my life as there are in this city.

I am not now well enough to be my parents' keeper to the degree I want to be. I was just re-evaluated by my doctors last month to see if I could return to work and was told that I could not. Not yet. What my primary doctor wants for me is just medical stability, and a nice little life: church, a few good friends, good books, movies, good music, and pets. Ah, pets. On Christmas Eve, Kia the dog came to my house. She's a beautiful five-year-old Great Pyrenees who seems to be perfect. I cannot understand how she ended up homeless at age five, she is such a gem. So, I have a dog again. She's helping me build my strength by getting me out walking in the park several times a day, and she's giving me that unconditional love that only dogs can give. And I adopted a cat who has turned out to be the sweetest cat I've ever had, and that is saying something.

Sometimes I have to shake my head to realize that this is me. That I am here. That I am not teaching. That I am not a linguist. "I remember every face of every man who put me here," wrote Bob Dylan.  Other times I thank God that this is me, that I am here, that I have a home, that I am able to take care of myself. That I am getting stronger every day. All in all, despite the losses I am blessed, and I am going to be fine. I am starting over. Again.

My precious cat, Readmore

 Kia, the new dog of my new life

Nina Simone I Shall Be Released