We Are All Local - Selfies A'plenty, Selfies Galore

 
 

I don't do many selfies although photographers will tell you their photographs are mostly about themselves. But today is my 70th birthday, despite what Facebook may tell you, and I felt I deserved a selfie or two. I needed to look at myself more closely at this age and then subsequently decided that you viewers needed to see me too.

The wrinkles amaze me although I certainly not one of those people who thought they would never appear. They have and I do delight in flexing my arms and hands and legs so I can then watch the  wrinkles dance in time to whatever tune I'm humming. Part of the 70-year old package is being easily entertained.

I look at my feet a lot because of my diabetes and my doctor tells me they are doing well. I had some burning for a time, but vitamin B12 and cannabis cream in the morning have done the trick. 

I've just given up on my belly. Except for the hair I'm proud to say I can mimic most any pregnancy. 

My head remains gnarly, probably more so since any of you last looked at it. What has interested me are the strands of hair sprouting up there like a badly seeded lettuce patch. Normally, I would shave these random, longish growths, but I'm finding I like them. I've decided there's memory in them of long ago, but not so long ago, too. Memories of a wrinkle-free, painless, no itchy skin, hairy time.

 

 
 
 

We Are All Local - Faye and Kate

Faye and Kate, Valdese, NC 1992

Whatever misapprehension or concern Leslie's parents may have had about me - my Yankee ways or "he ain't from around here" attitudes - clearly vanished when we brought Kate into their lives. A grandchild was the one thing they wanted that they didn't have and Kate fulfilled their dreams and desires, and then some. Kate was nine years old when Jim passed away so his experience of her, and she of him, was limited. But Faye has gotten the full dose. And now, twenty-five years later, roles are reversed and Kate is more likely to be holding her grandmother although not wearing curlers.

We Are All Local

 

Morris Norton playing the tune bow, Sodom, Madison County, NC 1977

Hanging around in Sodom in the mid-1970s, one was sure to meet Morris Norton. He was in his early 80s at that point, cantankerous, not working much, but fit enough to wander around the community dispensing wisdom and opinion. I thought of him as the unofficial Mayor. He fathered many children, ten or twelve I think, mostly boys, most of whom were the nicest people you'll ever meet. Morris played at music, picking a banjo and playing harp. He could flat-foot dance pretty well for an old guy. He also made and played tune bows, an instrument I had never seen before, similar in sound to a jews harp. It's old and basic, but in the hands of a skilled player could put out a rollicking lick and keep people on the dance floor. 

Two or three years after first coming to Sodom, I was in Maryland visiting family and took a day trip to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Wandering through the numerous and incredibly detailed displays I came to one on early American music. There was a section on instruments and there in front of me was a tune bow, accompanied by a tag that read: Tune bow made by Morris Norton, Sodom, North Carolina. I remember thinking, "Wow. I know this guy." But with the thought came an understanding that History isn't just the grand events, the things and people we know from books and the classroom, but also involves the lives of everyday people.

One of Morris's sons, Emmett, is a singer/songwriter who regularly plays on Friday nights at the Depot in Marshall. Not too many years ago, he approached me and handed me a tune bow. Identical to one his father might have made, he offered it as a gift to me, his signature on the inside face - a piece of local history and, for me personally, something that evoked memories of a photograph, a man and his family, and an instrumental time in my life. 

 

We Are All Local

 

Marshall Bypass, Madison County, NC, November, 2016

 

For much of the last two weeks, I’ve heard the phrase, It’s Not Who We Are,” used in response to the Executive Orders signed by the new president: The banning of Muslims, The border wall, Eliminating health care benefits for veterans and others, The gagging of government agencies, The refusal to separate from his businesses, The Nepotism, The ignoring of Federal Courts. The phrase rings true for me and for most people I choose to be around. These hideous actions are not who we are. I’m proud of that.

However, those of us who are not supportive of these edicts, and many more yet to come, do ourselves no favors when we ignore the reality that, This Is Exactly Who We Are. Not me, or us, per se, but millions of people around us, citizens of this country like you and me, are in complete agreement with these new principles and policies. And they are now in a position to bring many of these ideas to fruition. Many people simply wanted a change from the way things were and I can understand that. But for a significant number of the new President's advisors and supporters, the nationalism, authoritarianism, xenophobia, and bullying are exactly who they are and what they want. Those people scare me and I fear will take us to places none of us want to be.

Anyone paying attention understands our country has always been divided, which at various times in our history has erupted into civil disobedience, bitter dissension, and violence. Mostly, the antipathy has been kept under wraps. But, encouraged and emboldened by our present administration, the divisiveness is growing more intense and deep. The distrust, ridicule, anger and outright hate on both sides of any issue are far more extreme and unyielding than in the sixties and seventies. People are lining up in a way we've not witnessed since the 1860s. I fear for our present and future, things will get much worse .