MONTICELLO

MONTICELLO

Charlottesville, VA

By Greg Evans
Follow me on Twitter @paddys ale house

My young daughter and I were traveling south on the interstate 81 when we decided to take a detour and visit the famous homestead of Thomas Jefferson. We were on our way back to our cabin high in the Great Smoky Mountains, when the urge to deviate from the trip sent me off the exit and nearly off the road into a dense thicket. Oddly enough, while traveling along, I believe route 64 east, there are no signs for the great Monticello. I wasn’t that surprised, nothing in the south surprises me all that much. Very little makes any sense and the more I try to rationalize it all the harder it is for me to find more than three hours of sleep on any given night. After nearly thirty-three minutes of winding mountain roads and out-of-control big rigs, we took an exit for Charlottesville, Virginia, because I knew from looking on a map that Monticello was near the city. City, it was no bigger than a small town. We drove up a hill, bore right and found ourselves practically on the quad at the University of Virginia. It was a beautiful campus but I had no desire to hang around. I have two degrees from two great universities and I wasn’t looking to participate in another, at least not yet. I sped off the campus nearly dissolving the lives of a couple hippy kids, turned right and headed up the narrow road into the heart of Charlottesville which I found to be an ugly little place, except for about forty feet downtown by the statue.

          With the greatest of difficulty we finally found our way onto the spiraling road leading up the mountain to where the immortal house stands. We parked, exited the car into a blanket of humidity and nearly 95 degree heat, purchased two family tour tickets and waited for the shuttle to take us up to the house. Mary was intrigued by the life-size statue of our third president and I took a great picture of her beside him. We reached the grounds with about five minutes to spare before our tour began. We met our guide and a few other families with young kids and the lady began giving us the history of Monticello which I found fascinating. Mary found the large front lawn much more interesting and ran around in circles howling like an Injun. Numerous groups were obviously disturbed and staring at the commotion. Mary then collapsed and lay sprawled out in the lawn, sweating profusely, gasping for breath and singing Beauty and the Beast songs. I was sure we were about to be thrown off the grounds. Instead they ignored my young hyperactive daughter and we entered the house. It was beautiful inside, and the most incredible house I have ever been too. To the left was a collection of Indian artifacts and weapons Lewis and Clark brought back from the Pacific Northwest and presented to Thomas Jefferson as a gift. There walls were covered in maps and beautiful oil paintings of Thomas Jefferson’s famous friends. He had numerous gadgets and instruments, thousands of volumes of literature, antlers, beautiful furniture and secret mechanisms in the house which astounded us. He designed the entire house. They could bring bottles of wine to the dining room from the wine cellar by way of an ingenious pulley system and communicate by an elaborate bell system. The whole house and property intrigued us and at one point Mary wanted me to put her down. I turned my back for a second and glanced over my shoulder in horror as she was rapidly scaling the wall via a 200 plus year-old window. I snatched her from the window like a lizard and hung on to her as she clawed desperately to be released. We entered the library where there was a chair that only Vice Presidents were allowed to sit in and Mary made a beeline for the chair as the room filled with gasps. The tour guide nearly took down a book case trying to cut her off but I was able to sweep her up flailing like a hunted quail and didn't let her down until we were out of the house and back in the yard. The garden was exceptional and I can only imagine what it looked like during Jefferson's lifetime. It was a great side trip and I look forward to returning once Mary gets a little older.

GUNSHOTS IN THE HOLLER

GUNSHOTS IN THE HOLLER
By Greg Evans
Follow me on Twitter @paddy's ale house

The little one and I were outside throwing wood, stacking the logs, preparing for the approaching winter when I heard successive gunshots, multiple times echoing from the holler. It is nothing new to hear gunshots around these parts, people hunt everything up here, if it runs, swims, flies, slithers, but it was different this time. There weren't the pauses in fire you'd expect of someone aiming and concentrating while hunting deer or possum, but a more rapid, hurried fire like Custer's 7th Cavalry beginning to cluster. At first I suspected it might be my neighbor Dwyane but I could just make him out through the Walnut trees working his plow, his Marlin rimfire was leaning up against the barn. It was then I suspected a revolution had finally begun. The stagnate economy, enveloping poverty, increasing taxes, deceiving healthcare legislation, it all has finally come full circle and society has imploded, I conjectured.
               It wouldn't begin in the cities or suburbs. People there are used to rules, laws shoved down their throats and limits to food portion sizes, but up here in the mountains those laws don't apply. The Good Ole Boys have short tempers and quick trigger fingers and they are exceptional marksmen. It was soon to be dark, I could smell some trout being fried, carrying on the Eastern breeze blowing to the West. It always blows to the West here in the mountains. I grabbed the youngin and the mutt dalmation and headed up to the ridge for a closer inspection. It had become quiet and a light haze hung over the valleys. I didn't see skirmish lines of red coats airming Brown Besses or the hollow blast of cannon toward approaching fodder. Nobody was coming through the cornfields of the Tipton Farm, there was only silence and the songs of the mockingbirds.
                   My three year old chattered away in between slirps from a bottle of water and goat's milk while simultaneously picking at a Bradford Pear tree splinter in her thumb, talking about shooting dead the bears that like to run across the golf course over where they hung to death that elephant from a crane. We stood and watched for a time as the sun slowly started to dip over the hills to the West. I lit up a cigar and we decided to head on in and see if the bull frogs were out yet, sleeping on the warm rocks and lily pads.
                  Night set in and we headed over to Poppy's basement for peach moonshine and chili done up right. Larry and Debbie were back from South Carolina and Kris came by with some home brew strong enough to knock the hoof off a ham hock. There was Felice and Boudleaux Bryant lamenting of a place lost to time, there was joking and a bettin' and country two-steppin', the little ones a singin', ole Hank a howlin', barefooted chillins and Regulators a prowlin', and rabbit stew with some squirrel gravy and foamy brew, and we are still free here, high in the mountains of Tennessee.

SUMMERTIME, AL PETTEWAY AND AMY WHITE

I have to say the weather has been pretty freaky lately and I do know, because of science, that the planet is undergoing a geomagnetic polar shift which is why Appalachia is now experiencing tornados and heavy daily showers like a Guatemalan rainforest. Some say that eventually the Appalachian mountains will be sub-tropical. Fine with me. I wouldn't care if I never saw snow again for the rest of my days. Summertime in Appalachia is beautiful. The clear, fresh, warm mountain air and lush green forests. Birds and butterflies are everywhere, the sweet smell of fresh moss and trickling streams. I drift off with the wind to times past, when the world was smaller and the forests bigger, when the oceans were blue and green instead of brown. I walk through endless golden fields of wheat and meadows of crocuses.

I lived in cities for years, New York, Los Angeles, just outside Nashville and who knows where else? I'll tell you what, the skies were never as blue as they are here at the top of the world, high up in the clouds of the Appalachian Mountains. The bluest blue you could ever imagine, bluer than a Van Gogh painting, a blue that is so pure and vibrant you get a strange warm tingling feeling like you are flying, or that sensation of laying in a field far from any humanity without any shoes on, your eyes closed and the soft mountain breeze tickling the soles of your feet in the shade of a green apple tree on a warm summer's day. You can't put stuff like that into words, you have to experience it. A world full of little yellow inch worms.

Saw a show the other night, drove down, out of the mountains and along winding, narrow roads with hairpins turns and speeding trucks like being in Peru, and watched guitarist and banjoist Al Petteway and singer, harpist, guitarist, mandolinist and doboist Amy White, perform. It was an extraordinary show and the purity of the music was Appalachia. This couple comes from the east near the Flattop mountain in the Carolinas and showcased their mountain music with the precision, fluency and passion of Apelles painting a line. So in a small concert hall, a couple thousand people, dimmed lights, the clanging of flasks of peach moonshine and the scent of nearby peppermint chew wafting through the quiet crowd the music took us away, floating through the ancient hills and howling of raiding injuns, whispering waterfalls and swaying of Revolutionary War oaks tree branches we soared and swam through our own thoughts and memories, accompanied were we by incredible photographs of nature and mountain top views, photographs taken by Al and Amy. I was moved by the performance and I'm not moved by much. Another day high in the mountains of Appalachia.

SPRING IN APPALACHIA, GROWING AN ORANGE TREE IN THE MOUNTAINS

A song through the woods came to me, just past dark, I heard it softly, like a whippoorwill through the purple shadows and I knew it was coming from down yonder by the ole Brode's cabin so I followed the sound along the old creek bed. Little Annabel, I recognized her voice, pulling laundry off the line and folding it on the picnic table in front of the little white barn, once a black smith's shop before eighteen hundred and sixty-one, still standing. It was Pretty Saro, in perfect pitch I imagine, and I sat down where I was on a dried rotten log with my cigar, tipped my hat up so I could see the stars and hummed quietly along. It's nice on a warm night, to sit and enjoy a fine smoke and listen to a pretty song. The sounds of the forest alive, crickets and evening birds, the scuttle of little rodents and whispering of the wind. Throughout the mountains folks were out strolling and chatting and playing music from Clinch River to Roan Mountain. Haven't had but one such evening in maybe seven or eight months. It was a hard winter this year. Since last October we have only been out of the mountains once. During the day the bumble bees and wasps zipping about in every direction, though neither is an aggressor and thus I can enjoy the weather comfortably alongside them. With all the heavy rains and snows we're due for a mass hatching of blood thirty mosquiters ready to enjoy a fat spring meal. I'll have to erect a few torches to chase them away or else I'll be filled with welts in the duration it takes to have a cigar. It wasn't until today that I can confidently say, spring is now here and darn it if it didn't take long enough to arrive! I have decided that this year I am going to plant a couple orange trees. As I have mentioned before I have three lemon trees that I have been growing for two years and they are as healthy as ever. The secret is to take what people who claim to be "experts" say with a grain of salt. I am not saying they don't know what they are talking about, but there are more than one way to grow a nice tropical fruit plant in the Appalachian Mountains. The first thing is that you need a pot or a empty plastic coffee container, cleaned of course. The tropical fruit plants won't grow well in the natural clay and come winter they will obviously die. Next, simply purchase a fruit from your local market, like a lemon, lime or orange. Purchase some regular fertilized soil and put it into whatever pot you are going to do your growing. Then remove a few seeds, at least three just in case one or two don't grow (not all seeds will grow regardless of how careful and attentive you are), bury no more than two per pot, about two inches under the soil. Water them well the first day and then a little every day after until they begin to sprout. Then make sure they get plenty of sunlight (southern exposure) because, don't forget! They are tropical plants. They will grow slowly so don't be alarmed. During warm and hot days and nights they can be kept outside but come autumn and winter they must be brought in doors. They will go dormant, which means they won't grow much at all but they will survive if you keep them watered and in front of a window that gets a lot of sunlight. They will survived for years if you care for them well.

SPRING, WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE, TAMARIND TREE

The day was full of colors and light, 70 degrees and the mountain mists burned away before noon. I kept the lemon trees and the mini palm outside over night and I'm sure they grew an inch after today. The wife purchased two hanging inpatients which I hung beneath the awning on a porch. The wine now flows through my blood and the cigar tobacco sticky on the corners of my mouth, a sweet bitter flavor. Evening has set in and I can see Orion's belt in the direct western sky from my perch on the top of world. The bats twisting and twirling still at this hour, dogs barking in the distance, guns being fired down in the hollow. Venison for a week I suppose, or maybe squirrel. Went shooting the other day at the range. Talked with an old timer from across the mountain. Said he's about done with this darn winter and at 82-years-old said he can sniff the coming spring and sure enough spring has arrived. The blossoms on the dog wood trees opened full this morning decorating the hillsides and valleys with gorgeous whites, lavender, rose and purple. My perennials are beginning to flower and I believe I even saw a mosquito sneaking around but it's too early in the season for them. By mid summer this place is so full of mosquitos if you walk through the woods in shorts and a t-shirt you look like a case of the small pox. Aside from playing with the little one I worked all day long, from the morning until I threw burgers and hot dogs onto the grill. I took the hamburger meat and mixed it with chopped white onion, minced garlic, parsley, Italian seasoning, black pepper and Worcestershire sauce before packing into paddies. I then grill them on the top level of the grill at about 400 for about 30 minutes and they were fantastic. Did you know that Worcestershire sauce was actually created by accident by two chemists in Worcester England in the 1830's trying to create a good curry. They had made the sauce but it was too strong so they stored it in a factory and a year later when they were making room in the factory they tasted the sauce and it had fermented and mellowed and was tasty and thus a wonderful hamburger sauce was had. In 1838 the first bottles were put on the market called "Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce." The ingredients according to an article by Fay Schlesinger on Nov. 3 2009 from Daily Mail online, are malt vinegar (from barely), salt, sugar, molasses, spirit vinegar, anchovies, onions, tamarind extract, garlic, spice and flavoring (cloves, lemon, pickles, soy sauce and peppers). By the way, Tamarind is a tree in the Fabaceae family indigenous to tropical Africa. It also grows wild in South Asia and Arabia particularly in the country of Oman, though it is thought to have been transported there by people. It was introduced to Mexico and Hawaii in the 16th and 17th century respectively. It is now grown in many nations with a tropical climate. The tamarind flowers with red and yellow flowers. It is a busy tree with evergreen leaves and reaches heights between forty and sixty feet. Tamarind has a sweet and sour taste and is high in vitamin B and calcium.

BIRDS OF TENNESSEE

It is incredible how the weather can sway from the miserably cold to comfortable. The birds have arrived in droves to the bird feeder: robins, indigo buntings, cardinals, white-breasted nuthatches, morning doves, pine siskins, blue jays, mockingbirds, chickadees, finches, red-bellied woodpeckers (not on the feeders but on the trees) and high above hawks like small cars soar in circular patterns periodically plummeting to the earth like meteors. There is this one white-breasted nuthatch that seems to come everyday along with a bright red northern cardinal. They appear to be friends and I wonder what they speak about when at the feeder. It's funny, they often take turns instead of eating together even though there is room for both of them.

Guillermo Leon

I haven't been able to write in a few days. Been busy traveling, visiting and working. Spent some time in the New Jersey Suburbs and it is a small piece of paradise surrounded by horizons of urbana. My father and I sat beneath two or three enormous pine trees, before us a lawn filled with wild turkeys, females in heat and males strutting about flashing their ware, smoking each a Guillermo Leon cigar and it was wonderful. Initially we were hit by a mild spice but it was smooth with a perfect burn. The skies were blue and the air was crisp and the cigar was delicious and I recommend it.