Friday 12 September didn't dawn bright and clear in Boone.
That nasty fog still socked us in. Around 8:00 a.m., when I was ready to leave,
Marcia got in her car and drove out ahead of me, like a pilot ship. We still
couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of the hoods of our cars. By then, I
was entertaining some less-than-intrepid thoughts about my drive to Burnsville
and the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival on wet, winding, mountain
roads that wove beneath the bearded scowl of Grandfather Mountain.

Although my Honda had more than a half tank of gas,
intuition prodded me to top off the tank before I left the area. I grumbled
over the cheapest gas in town, $3.67/gallon, ten cents more per gallon than in
Raleigh the previous day. Still, I've learned to listen to my intuition. After
I tanked up, I headed out on Route 105, white-knuckling the steering wheel like
the flatlander I am. Again in the "slow lane," my Honda protested
another climb into even more opaque fog. Holy cow, was I ever going to see the
sky on this trip? That particular climb was to over 4000 feet, and by then, I'd
said to heck with fourth gear and accustomed myself to using second and third
gears. Remember, en las montañas, what goes down must go up, and up, and
UP.

Sunshine started puncturing the clouds about halfway to
Burnsville. Tempted as I was to stop and take pictures, I kept driving because
I knew no two-dimensional image could capture the eerie layers of sun, fog, and
mountain that I witnessed, almost like looking at a parfait through the side of
a clear glass. About fifteen minutes east of Burnsville, the clouds peeled back
and presented a pristine, azure sky wrapped around ripples of mountains.
Huzzah!

Inside Burnsville's city limits, every gas station was
packed with cars, some of them lined up into the street, drivers waiting to
tank up. Odd. Reminded me of the days when Jimmy Carter was president, and we
had a supposed gas shortage. Glad I'd filled up in Boone. I found the Town
Center area, venue for most of the festival's events, and wheeled a box of
books into the main lobby, where the indie bookstore Malaprops was
already open for business. My publisher had called me two days earlier with
news that Malaprops hadn't received the box of books they'd ordered, so I
brought all my stock. No way did I expect to sell out of books. I was a
rookie at the CMLF, mere Grasshopper to other authors at the festival, Southern
literary luminaries like John Ehle and Pamela Duncan. Still, what an honor to read and present at the festival. Plus the
weekend provided my first opportunity to reach out to the  readership in
western North Carolina. And how exciting to meet all the authors!

Almost first-thing, I met Lucy Doll, the venue coordinator
for the festival, and the gracious lady with whom I'd be staying for two
nights. She introduced me to another festival volunteer, Kathleen Sioui, a
geologist who rescues dogs and works hard to find them good adoptive homes.

Christine Swager found me in the bookstore area. She'd been
an author guest at the festival in 2007 and had given me two thumbs up as a
reference when the festival selection committee was considering me as a guest
author early this year. Chris and I have been on several panels together at
Revolutionary War historical sites. She introduced me to authors Charles F.
Price and Jack (John) Buchanan.

In the auditorium, I heard the second half of the panel
"Healing Historical Trauma: The Cherokee Removal." Panelist Myrtle
Driver, a Cherokee tribal cultural traditionalist who translated Charles
Frazier's Thirteen Moons into the Cherokee language, hadn't yet arrived.
Rumors were that she was delayed in Cherokee, NC trying to purchase gas for her
car. I still didn't comprehend what was going on or connect her dilemma with
the lines I'd witnessed at gas stations in Burnsville. The panel was moderated
by Charles Price. Other panelists were Jack Buchanan, whose latest release is Jackson's
Way (about Andrew Jackson's role in the Trail of Tears); Dr. Barbara
Duncan, education director of the Museum of the Cherokee in Cherokee;
and Troy Wayne Poteete, a justice of the Supreme Court for the Cherokee Nation
in Oklahoma.

Regarding the Trail of Tears, Dr. Duncan, a folklorist,
discussed the current psychology that when a culture is abused, displaced, or
enslaved, the culture passes the trauma to subsequent generations. Folktales,
she said, are the distilled wisdom of a culture. Folktales of the Cherokee
usually begin, "This is what the old people told me," and end with
something good coming to the people, the wisdom of how to cooperate and help
others in a group. In contrast, folktales of the Europeans who removed the Cherokee
in the Trail of Tears focus on the individual getting ahead. The Cherokee today
strive to release their anger over their removal from lands they inhabited for
so long. A provocative panel and discussion.

When I came out of the auditorium, I noticed that several
copies of my books had already been sold. Usually that doesn’t happen until
after I've given a presentation. I was distracted off that peculiarity by news
that gas had become scarce in the southeast, due to Hurricane Ike's passage
through the Gulf of Mexico. Refineries in the Gulf were being shut down. And
gas prices had climbed well over the $4/gallon mark as consumers panicked over
perceived scarcity. Did I mention that I was glad I'd listened to my instincts
and filled up in Boone that morning? That meant I could return to Raleigh
without having to tank up again.

Over lunch, people discussed the fate of Galveston, Texas,
where the hurricane was predicted to make landfall. I wished I had access to a
TV or radio. In Burnsville, my hostess, Lucy, had a dialup Internet connection,
and I couldn't get a signal with my cell phone. I felt blind, queerly isolated
from the catastrophe hammering Texas and the gas supply quirks.

In the authors' lounge, I met Vicki Lane, moderator
for a Saturday panel with Sallie Bissell and Rose Senehi.
Peggy Poe Stern, a native Appalachian author who'd been at my
presentation for the High Country Writers the previous day, was also there with
her husband.

My books continued to sell in advance of my Saturday reading
and presentation, the stacks of both dwindling, so I fetched the last of them
from my car and consigned them to Malaprops. Then I returned to the auditorium
to hear Tony Grooms, keynote speaker, on "The Beloved Community." He
spoke on the responsibility artists have of pointing the way to the greater
social good, and the role of faith in creating art and social change. That's
why spiritual and religious leaders are so often at the heart of social and
political change. Another fascinating presentation.

After that, I listened to Jack Buchanan read a selection of
short stories at Main Street Books. (How annoying that I'd left my copy of his
Revolutionary War book, The Road to Guilford Courthouse, in Raleigh.)
Main Street Books is a quaint shop in an older, true
"brick-and-mortar" building not far from Town Center. The store's
primary business is sales of gently used hardbacks. They also offer a small
selection of new hardbacks and paperbacks.

At the main building, I ran into Lucy
and Kathleen again. I hitched a ride with Lucy to her house to meet her sweet
beagle, Annie; her beagle mix, Mr. Carmichael; and two doggies she was
fostering, Lucy and Susie. I came alarmingly close to adopting the adorable
beagle-terrier mix, Lucy. (I'm such a sucker for beagles. Thank goodness
Kathleen found her a family Saturday.) Kathleen joined us, and we hopped in her
Jeepster for a tour of Burnsville. We headed back to the festival in time to
partake of Happy Hour, which actually lasted from 3:30 to 6:30 and was
clandestinely undertaken at a nearby building and adjoining patio because
Yancey County is "dry." Then all the authors and volunteers enjoyed
Carolina BBQ.

Kathleen and Lucy planned to attend the party of a Burnsville
resident named Dotty, who lived up the mountain. Sounded like great fun to me,
so I went with them. Turned out that many of Dotty's guests were retired
ex-Floridians. I decided that there couldn't be many retirees left in Florida
because they'd all moved to Burnsville. Dotty and her friends had spacious
homes in the mountains, no Florida heat or humidity, no hurricanes, and no
traffic. What's not to like? Lucy kept introducing me as her author and making
me feel as if I'd won a Pulitzer Prize. The sun set, a waning gibbous moon
rose, and Lucy, Kathleen, and I, full from our BBQ dinner, admirably resisted
the lure of the desserts and hors d'oeuvres. I never made it to the "Java
Jam" back at the Town Center that night. Too tuckered out.

Many thanks to Lucy Doll, Kathleen Sioui, Dotty, Malaprops,
Chris Swager, Charles F.Price, Jack Buchanan, and Dr. Barbara Duncan.