hearts a-bustin

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The common name of this shrub refers to the plant's seed pods which are now ripe and a-bustin'. Once the seeds have matured, the red capsules burst, scattering the orange seeds up to 15 feet. Bam!

Known in the Smoky Mountains by the folk name hearts a-bustin', Euonymus americanus is now doing just that: bustin'. A quick shower this week only added to the plant's apparent pathos.

If you know anything about the lives of the mountaineers who lived in the hollows of the Great Smokies before the coming of the national park, you know their hearts were often broken, mostly by the early deaths of loved ones. Their lives were hard, insular; their cemeteries are filled with tombstones of people who died much too young. Mourning was a routine facet of their lives. They wore black. They grieved. They buried their dead. Finding a photograph of one of them smiling is impossible. 

But who hasn't felt such heartbreak? Such a-bustin'?

I know of their hardships. The cemeteries at the foot of Mt. LeConte are filled with my ancestors. One, near the Rolling Fork Motor Nature Trail, is actually named the Bales Cemetery. I had an uncle named Maferd I never met who is buried there. He died the same day he was born: November 22, 1923. 

Short life, but at least his hardship was brief. Broke his parents hearts. Homer and Pearl. Their first child.  But they were not alone.

You can bet that any child who died in September, their graves would have been decorated with bouquets of heart a-bustin'.

Yes, hearts a-bustin'.

- photo taken about twelve feet from my front porch.

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my mountain, no really

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Mt. LeConte

" One of the deeply satisfying things about a mountain—

almost any mountain—is the way it can at the same time 

belong exclusively to so many people."

- From "A Thousand Mile Summer" by Colin Fletcher

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at home LeConte

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Mt LeConte in the Great Smoky Mountains

The seasons are beginning to mingle. For weeks, fall colors have flowed with slow restraint down the slopes like the tears of a geisha; while last week, a light snow dusted the higher elevations. The first kiss of winter, as soft as a lover's touch, covered Mt. LeConte above Gatlinburg, my hometown.
 

Thomas Wolfe wrote "you can't go home again." He meant that things change. After you leave, it's never the same. Yet, perhaps he was wrong, Asheville is on the other side of the mountains; here Mt. LeConte still looms.

I grew up in the foothills south of downtown Gatlinburg as did my father Russell, as did his father Homer, as did his father Jim, as did his father Caleb. I come from a long line of hillbillies, mountain men, and the mountain that has loomed over all those lives is Mt. LeConte. 

Its silhouette is recognizable as the mountain with four peaks. At 6,593 feet, High Top, the second peak from the left, is the third highest point in the Smokies, topped only by Clingman's Dome at 6,643 and Mt. Guyot at 6,621. 

Chet Raymo writes in The Path, "If we don't belong somewhere, we belong nowhere. If we are not attached to a particular landscape, we might as well be adrift in space...The place we learn to love can be a windowsill in a New York high-rise, a patch of woods on Walden Pond, or a million acres of the high Sierras. What's important is that we feel at home.

I feel at home at the base of this old mountain.

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mountain blood

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If you are familiar with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, you might recognize this cabin south of Gatlinburg in the foothills of Mt. LeConte. It's located on the Motor Nature Trail, a one-way road that winds through the mountains between Cherokee Orchard and Roaring Fork. The sign in front records it as the Jim Bales or James Bales home site. If you note the similarity between our last names you might think there was a connection.

Indeed, you would be right.

Jim Bales was my great grandfather. My grandfather Homer Daniel—born January 5, 1899—grew up at this site along the creek. He eventually married my grandmother Pearl and moved over the ridge to the Baskins Creek watershed. There they had four children, the last of which was my father Russell.

In 1929, the Bales family sold their 200 acres for $2,000 and the parcel became part of the new national park. Two thousand dollars was a lot of money for poor folks.

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dressed in white

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After the clouds lifted, Mt. LeConte reappeared dressed in white.

What was that old song by the Outsiders? "Girl in love dressed in white, Crying crying on her wedding night, The gown of lace hung on the chair, The pretty gown she'll never wear, Never wear."

The song has nothing to do with the Smokies most beloved mountain, although I know several couples have been married on the top. Let's hope they are not still up there.

- Photo of Mt. LeConte in the Great Smokies


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goin' nowhere

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“Clouds so swift, rain won't lift, Gate won't close, the railings froze.
Get your mind off wintertime, You ain't goin' nowhere.”


- From “You Ain't Goin' Nowhere” by Bob Dylan

- Photo of the LeConte Creek watershed near my boyhood home in Gatlinburg; old snowfall on the ground and a new one moving in. Mt. LeConte is in the photo but hidden, as it often is, by the low moving clouds. But that's just the way it is with that mountain.

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