JESSE DUNCAN, DAVEY CROCKETT, WINTER

It was a day probably not much different than this one, the warm rays of the sun sifting through the tree canopies, the colors of nature vibrant and alive, the scent of the forest soft and earthy, perfumed by wild flowers. The symphony of bird songs everywhere carrying in the gentle mountain breeze. Bluebirds and red birds, yellow speckled with white bellies and beige ones, cawing and chirping, fluting and whistling. The year was 1765. A scouting party of pioneers were making their way from Buffalo Mountain, today located off Highway 23 near the town of Erwin in the Appalachian Mountains, to an area called Boone's Creek, the former hunting grounds of Daniel Boone. A young man named Jesse Duncan was a member of the rugged assemblage. I think of Jesse Duncan as an inquisitive mind, scientifically curious I suppose for he fell behind the rest of the party possibly picking mushrooms or perhaps sketching birds when he was ambushed by a band of feral injuns, slaughtered and scalped. It wasn't long before the others in the scouting party realized young Jesse was missing and backed tracked only to find him butchered along the trail. Legend has it he was the first white settler known to have died and been buried in the state of Tennessee. His grave can still be viewed today. The mountains stretch as far as the eye can see, like slumbering bear, a wild sanctuary of peril and the unknown where families are said to have disappeared into thin air. There is a true story of the family of Davey Crockett. The elder boys of the family were away fighting the red coats in the Carolinas and one frightful evening Davey Crockett Sr. and his wife Elizabeth were killed by a Cherokee raiding party. Davey Crockett's two younger brothers were taken prisoner and his younger sister was scalped but survived. These are wild and unpredictable lands. A buddy of mine told me the story one day of how he was out in the wilderness wandering when he came upon a mother bear and her cubs. He froze and they froze. Both parties eyeing each other when to his horror the cubs began to approach him. He whipped out his knife and prepared for a hand-to-hand battle to the death with the beast like the young Daniel Boone in the backwoods of Boones Creek. My friend said luckily the bear clan moved on and left him alone without a confrontation. It would have saddened him to take down a mother in front of her chillins. With the way the weather is holding up it very well may be near time to plant some crops and hope for a balanced spring and summer of sunshine and rain. The winter has been hard for folks here as well as around the country and particularly in the Northeast where my sisters were snowbound for months forced to trek miles in knee deep snow for bread and milk. Disease ravaged us here in the mountains, fevers of 103 and 104, chills and dry coughs that rattled the lungs like consumption. Good folks perished. Many tears were shed. This afternoon I placed my lemon trees out in the sun. They've been indoors for six months while father winter tipped the scales upside down, laughing hysterically, gusting winds up to 50 mph through the valleys and lowlands, tearing tin off the roofs nearby cabins, shredding umbrellas like origami, sending two ton tree branches hurdling through the air like an apple sapling. But today was beautiful and the birds were out in force, the gofers peeking from their holes, mist still present on the mountain slopes and the deer sniffing about, jumping the wooden fences and bounding through the creeks.