Neighbors

On Sunday I was out raking around the compost pile. Louise, my neighbor who is 80 and grew up on a farm near Boone, stopped by to tell me I was working too hard. She gently scolded me, calling me "baby doll," "little child," and "little Carolyn," as she always refers to me. Later when I had come back in the house there was a knock on the door - it was Louise with some potato soup, fresh off the stove.

Jack is another neighbor; he and his wife Lulu live on the lot contiguous to mine. Jack was born in the house they live in, and his parents worked at the Beacon Mill just up the road (a blanket factory, now demolished, and the reason that all these houses are here in the first place). Lulu was born and raised just 5 miles up the road in Black Mountain. She helped plant the pine trees growing outside of the primary school where I work when she was in Kindergarten. Those pine trees are HUGE. Jack and Lulu met in high school - they were in the first class at Owen High School, the first year that the Swannanoa and Black Mountain high schools were combined into one. Jack farmed my field for at least 8 years up until 3 years ago when the property changed hands. His family, the Wards, was neighbors with the family that originally owned this house, the Moodys, for 70 years.

On the other side of the field is Jeanie. She was also born in the house that she lives in, though she and her family make their life in Florida now. They've just been living in the house and getting it ready to sell since the passing of Jeanie's mom, Loula May, last year. Their yard is quite a menagerie - several dogs and cats, a goat named Billy, and 2 chickens (who are for all intents and purposes wild, they were abandoned 2 years ago by their original owners, now they live mostly in the woods but are fed often by Jeanie).

My other contiguous neighbor, from the treeline to the ridge, is the Cliffs of Swannanoa. From my window you can see the No Trespassing signs tacked onto trees in a young forest - a forest that has regrown since being clearcut during the Beacon era. A forest that Jack, Jeanie and their children know like the back of their hand. Many of the special spots they remember there are gone, dynamited to make way for roads, tunnels, golf courses and multi-million dollar houses. And now they and their children are trespassers on land that shaped them and their community.

My driveway is used as a through-fare by neighbors as it sort of connects Central Ave to Fountain Way. Thus I am very often face-to-face with my neighbors, whether I'd like to be at the time or not. In fact, Jack's dog Trouble refuses to exit their yard but through the gate that leads into my yard. Neighbors stop by to check up on me, to see what's growing, to tell me stories about their childhood working on their family's farm. Jack points out areas of the field that need extra lime, shows me where he grew his beans, corn and tomatoes. My neighbors are happy with what I am doing, happy to see the land used again. Though I think they might also think I'm a little crazy, especially when they pass by on their way to church on Sunday morning to see me out in the field raking up horse manure.