Night in West Asheville, NC

I went to the ‘blues jam’ at the west Asheville Westville pub last night and was engrossed watching the locals – young and old alike – dance with different partners to the music.  They were so sincere in their dancing and obviously enjoying themselves that I finally felt like I’d arrived in The South.  One severe faced girl with a mouth that seemed to contain huge buck teeth on account of the jowls she had, would dance with every partner and to every dance with her hand on her partner’s back, at a rigid angle with only the thumb and forefinger touching his back – as if to suggest anything else would be prurient.

The HoneyCutters : Irene

In the morning on the Blue Ridge Parkway a rock slide had occurred above the French Broad River and the road was closed. As I contemplated driving around the barricade I met a cool dude named Peter James who is in an Asheville band The HoneyCutters (thanks for the trail mix Peter).   We had a good conversation about the curse of too much self-awareness and how it doesn’t seem to afflict the southerners – who have all been pretty earnest.    Irony does seem to peter out somewhere along the southern half of the Appalachians. I didn’t regretfully go around the barrier blocking the slided road…

Asheville Deco Downtown

The homeless man that sat down to bum a cigarette from me outside the City Bakery Cafe confided in me that he was a shoplifter, but he didn’t like to be bad, that he’d been in Asheville for 41 years (he was 41).  He saw things in shops, shiny things, and he just wanted them, wild-eyed and craven.  His take on Asheville was that it was a good town, and that there were a lot of police but that they didn’t mean bad.

Blue Ridges

After the GPS froze for a while I asked several people (within 1 hour of Athens, GA) if I was going in the right direction. The usual response was a ponderous You want go to Athens. Georgia??? I amused myself by wondering where else they might think I wanted to go, Greece?   So I looked it up and the Athens in Georgia is the only significant Athens in the USA and 8 hours from the nearest other Athens (in Virginia).
Maybe their response was just meaning, surely you don’t want to go all the way to Athens, Georgia? I can’t say much other than it’s a small town.