RAINY DAY DOG

 

rain all day

This week of continuous rain has been wearing on my nerves. I'd be fine with it were I not sharing indoor space with a dog that wants to be outside, and I want to go walking with dog. Dog hangs about the house restless, staring at me, wanting all my attention. Can't read for her squealing. She'll squeal wanting to crawl onto me and when I don't let her, she'll go to the bedroom and jump on the bed. A few minutes later she's at the door squealing to be let out. I open the door and she backs up due to the rain. I sit down to read and she squeals. I tell her it's enough squealing for the day. She goes and jumps on the bed and the cycle begins again. She's in the reading chair now twisted into a knot, chewing at her back like she's covered up in fleas when she is not, stares at me between chewing spasms, panting, tongue hanging out from the breathtaking effort. It looks like she is using her teeth to comb her hair. She's grooming. Later, I'll make a town run for carrots, coffee, prescriptions and a dog harness. I don't like choking her when I walk her with a leash. She pulls so hard against her collar she chokes herself, either doesn't get it or doesn't care. Plus, she can slip out of the collar. I need control when she's on a leash.  

 

happy to ride with the primate

 

A week ago I renewed the car's license tag. Every year the State requires I stick a little rectangle on top of last year's rectangle with month and year it is next to be renewed. The little rectangle, about an inch by an inch and a quarter, in the past has stuck as irremovably as the old duct tape before they changed to the cheaper glue formula they use now. I could not make the little rectangle stick. I dried the old surface with shirt sleeve, cleaned it as clean as  it can be without taking Dawn to it. The new rectangle would not stick. I could move it easily with one fingertip. Corners lifted easily. My first thought: Revenue. Low bid contract for the glue this year. I lifted it off easily and brought it to the house. Last time in town I bought some Krazy glue. Now I'm waiting for a day without rain. By revenue, I mean a large number of the stickers will fall off after weeks or months and car owners won't notice. Law Enforcement will notice. In this time of zero tolerance it will cost several hundred dollars in fees per incident. I am not leaving mine to chance. I've learned from four decades of experience the state of North Carolina is not my friend. No new taxes means increasing our value as targets for the highway patrol by running up their quotas.

air bellows gap road going down the hill

 

Took a break here, made a run to town in the rain. Came home with some necessities from grocery store and found a harness for dog at Farmer's Hardware. I can already see it will be a trial getting the thing on her, fitting it, while she squirms like a worm I'm attempting to skewer with a hook. The trip to town amounted to a dog squealing all the way to town and all the time in town. I was wondering if she needed to pee, but the squealing started before we got in the car. It began the moment she saw I was going to take her. At the stoplight in Sparta I'd had enough of the squealing. I hollered, Stop it! That was it. All the way toward town I was saying things like, You've squealed enough for the day, Enough squealing, The squealing is rubbing my nerve endings the wrong way. I don't know if this is new or simply her nature. Whatever it is, it will be changing soon. It's like having a kid in the house and no television.

yellow light in sparta

She still could not hold the squealing back. Before going into the grocery store, I attached the leash to the headrest post on the back of her seat. Upon return, she was quiet in the seat and stayed still all the way home. I wondered if she'd choked herself to death. I saw the leash had gone all the way around the seatbelt that was vertical inside the door. She'd pulled the leash to the furthest extremity she could pull it, given the tight rein she'd given herself, and stayed there with the leash pulled tight. I thought, we've got some conceptual issues here. I left her like that all the way home with the attitude she knows what she's doing, and if she doesn't, it's hers to figure out. Don't worry~be happy. I remind self that all her habit patterns from her recent past are broken. Everything is different. My nature is different from the primates she knew before. The house is different, the furniture different, the outdoors different, the food different. And a cat rules. It's not easy for her. I would so love for the rain to give it a rest, give dog and me some outdoors time to walk together, explore dog's new territory, work on our communication signals, find our language and learn it. We were strangers thrown together by fate. We will be awhile learning to know one another. It's fun getting to know somebody new. I need to learn dog as much as dog needs to learn primate. We'll get there.

 

squeal squeal

 

 

*



LESS COFFEE, MORE TEA

 

cy twombly

Ran into my only pet peeve I do not tolerate a second time. Years ago I was talking with someone who asked me a question. I started answering and he walked away. First time it ever happened to me. Hadn't been in Sparta long by then. Next time it happened, I said I'll give a second chance. Next time around same character, same thing. That day I learned they do it once, they do it a second and third time. After that one, nobody gets a second chance. Somebody talking with me of their own volition, and while I'm speaking walks away, no second chance. I do not tolerate it. It's about the only thing I can think of, besides an assault, that I don't tolerate. It happened today. I've learned it is a certain kind of person that does it, and I don't want such people in my life. At all. I've been in the mountains too long to pass off in-your-face disrespect. Disrespect gets my hillbilly back up. And I can't find any reasons for it not to. It's a matter of boundaries, personal boundaries. You disrespect me, I disrespect you. It tells me the one who does it has no respect for me, so I withdraw my respect for such individual. And I don't mean big-deal respect, but the basic human respect of presence. And when I withdraw my respect, nothing fills the void, like pulling your hand out of a bucket of water, no trace left that a hand had ever been there.

 

cy twombly

 

I went to meet somebody at the coffee shop at lunch time. I don't like going in there anymore, feel alien. When Selma had it, the air was friendly, lively, awake, fun. She passed it on to somebody who sapped the friendly, lively, awake, fun out of the place in one sweep. First thing, it was made undeniably clear to all the local people who went in there, the people I went in there to visit with, they were no longer welcome. I asked one why he never went there anymore. "She doesn't like me." Asked another, "She doesn't like me." Come in the door from Roaring Gap or High Meadows country clubs and the service is close and personal, like in the movies, doesn't get better. Just a little bit of classism going on under the pretense of liberal. I'd told Selma in the beginning, when the right people found the place, I was gone. Because she was Cuban, the right people stayed away. With present management, all the wrong people have been run off, and I see nothing in there anymore but the right people.

 

cy twombly

 

I walk the political correctness coffee house line, don't say words like nigger, fuck and shit, much, obey disapproval to everyone's heart content but my own. Disapproval in a coffee shop is worse than disapproval in church. Disapproval is the reason I stay out of church. The pretend liberal is such that it makes me not want to call myself liberal anymore. All I see liberal means in the decades of political correctness is membership in the club of the cool people quick to disapprove of words forbidden on tv. Not my set. In this time of the life, I don't have time for, or interest in, self-editing to tippie-toe around somebody's, anybody's PC disapproval. Told they don't approve of something said, I'm awfully inclined to say something like, I don't give a shit. You don't approve of it, you don't say it. I'm not responsible to your approval. Pisses them off. A time in the coffee shop I mentioned I like to watch the race and caught a smarty-pants classist remark, "That's just cars running around in a circle!" I replied, "Yes, in the most minimal way you can look at it." In French it would be her bourgeois nose shot straight up and she was out the door. I laughed on the inside until I about cried, and on the outside pretended not to notice.  

 

cy twombly

 

I have fallen into a pattern there. I take a seat at the bar, pick up the paper and occupy self with something while I wait for anyone who works there to notice somebody came in the door, and sat down. They're too busy to notice. Walk by and don't look, back and forth. Eventually someone notices. I get the coffee. Want to speak to one, forget it. And if permitted a moment of wasted time, it's with an attitude, I don't have time for this (bleep). It feels like in a state or federal government office. At any time I want the attention of anyone working there, I have to arrest their attention, make them look up annoyed, what do you want? I tell myself it's the New Sparta, get used to it, get over it or get out of it. I've got used to it, got over it, am on my way out of it. I want to do my part to support the shop, as I believe Sparta benefits with such a place, but since my friends have been run off, and I'm a working class redneck too, why am I the privileged acceptable one? Today they were mocking and laughing about an old local boy, someone I respect so high up I'd stand up  for him before anybody. I withdrew my attention, thinking, I really don't belong in this place.

 

cy twombly himself

 

 

 

*

 



A SPARTA EXPERIENCE

found art

The last couple days have been peculiar in such a way I suspect an arrangement of the planets. Here at home, quiet, staying out of other peoples' issues, an email invited me to participate in a civic project I questioned seriously for three days and said ok. A couple weeks later the one who emailed me before, announced she has other things to do and I'm to call so and so and tell him what I want to do. I see no reason to call. There's nothing I want to do. I was asked to do something I hesitate to get involved in and now am told to ask permission to do what I don't want to do. The end. I'm not going past this. Something that starts crazy stays crazy all the way through and ends crazy. It's a natural law. I did like the frog that was dropped into boiling water. Gone. Then I learn one of my friends has pulled some undermining shit on another of my friends. I wasn't even disappointed, it was so in character. Today I saw two women I know hate each other playing like best friends, sweet and happy. No more working on projects that are not my own and no more civic anything. I had my learning years ago. I jump into what I already know is there, get burnt, jump back and laugh at self for not paying attention to self. Told to ask permission to do what I was asked to do pushed me over the edge. It's what I call a Sparta Experience. The part that blew me away, I didn't even have to leave home to have a Sparta experience. It came to me out of the blue. This was the very thing I was wary of that made me hesitate three days to answer. I don't want to do it anyway, and I sure don't want to do it told to ask permission. I saw another friend today throw away a really good and good-paying job out of neurotic fear having to do with self-esteem, unaware yet the job is gone. 

found art

I want to stay home, yet it finds me. Last week a form letter in the mail telling me to report for jury duty in Statesville, an hour and fifteen minutes interstate run, each way. It gives me the willies to think about driving on the interstate, bumper-to-bumper, side-to-side at 75 mph in packs like in a nascar race. I'm not in that much of a hurry anymore and don't care that much anymore. Fortunately, I'm in the age zone excused if requested. Requested right away. The form went out in the mail same day it arrived. Notice came yesterday I am excused. Thank you with all my heart court system of North Carolina. This jury duty form letter came at a time in the life when I don't want involvement in other people's business. It's the freedom that goes with being outside the circle of "making money." Like this craziness that flew in out of nowhere. Other people's mental energy zoomed in on me makes me crazy. It's one of those come-here-I-love-you-get-back-I-hate-you gestures. It's not a matter of being mad. I'm not mad. I've just learned, well enough to get it. Back in 1983, after I'd been here seven years, thought I'd check out the arts council, see if there was anything going on. Preacher Millard Pruitt, whose church I was going to at the time, said, when I told him I'd connected with the arts council, "That'll last about a year." My back went up. I took it for a smart-mouthed thing to say, chose to ignore it. The arts council turned out to be a High Meadows country club women's club. After a year of dreary meetings I committed to involvement in something participatory and egos exploded in my face. Had I not left of my own will, I'd have been invited to leave. 

found art

I told Millard Pruitt what happened and asked, "How did you know it would be one year?" He said, "I know Sparta and I know you." He had worked in the Dr Grabow pipe factory, managed an Esso gas station that is now the Exxon, drove a mail route, kept a farm and was active in the county Republican party. Politically, he thought Jesse Helms was too moderate. He wanted to nuke Iran and blow up the world with Reagan the Great pushing the buttons. He had a brilliant mind outside politics. In politics he was a cement head. He was the embodiment of the Groucho Marx song, Whatever it is, I'm against it. He was everything Yankees like to point the finger at the South about. He was all the words that freak out young liberals, bigot, racist, used the enword, anti-women's rights, a John Bircher Baptist, the Republican party today. Going by what I've learned by now in my own experience, who I am now would say the same thing to who I was then, it'll last about a year. And my reasoning would be the same, I know Sparta and I know you. Then, Sparta and I were mysteries to each other. Now, Sparta and I know each other fairly well. They're glad to see me stay home and I want to be at home. I always see people I am glad to see in Sparta. This is the aspect of Sparta I appreciate most. It's where I see people I know. I like Food Lion because I always see someone I know to speak with for a few minutes. Drug store, hardware stores, bank, gas station, and I head home. Town people and country people are two different cultures. I like people of both town and country. And I like the people I know from Away. 

found art

It sounds like I'm coming from a love/hate thing for Sparta. No. I don't have a hate thing for Sparta in any degree. Only a love thing for Sparta. I accept Sparta's personality as I accept the personality of any of my friends. It is a place to see people I'm glad to know, glad to live among, glad to be in their world. Driving to and from town today, I saw familiar houses of people I know and don't know, and fields, seeing familiar mountain landscape in foreground and background. Everything I see is home. My life before the mountains I hardly ever remember anything from. Still have friends from before the mountain experience, just a few. I don't keep in touch with relatives. We live in such different worlds, we don't have a lot to talk about anymore. They think I live in the toilet of the world and that's where I think they live. They don't want to come here and I don't want to go there, so we don't see each other. I've lost touch with all my cousins. They don't mind and I don't mind. I left everything that went before in my life when I settled into the mountains. I set out to be a solitary, though the necessity of working to generate income took awhile to transcend. I have come into my solitary time and love it, keeping a good flow in motion that isn't too fast. I've worked consciously with my own psychology such that mind is quiet by now. It rattles my flow when a Sparta Experience drops in at home. I apply the rigor learned along the way: if you don't want it started, don't start it. I have a choice. 

vada and found art

*

BREAKING OUT OF MONDAY'S SNOW ON FRIDAY

wild turkey stretches in the sun

The mother of invention, necessity, drove me through the plowed snowbank between the car and the road after the day had warmed up a little. With rear wheel drive, it would have required some snow shovel work. Front wheel drive can get momentum running backwards through the car length of clear ground under the car, pushing the rear wheels through the mound of snow. The rear wheels clear tracks for the front wheels to get a grip on going through the snow. It took a wee bit of slipping and sliding, nowhere near a concern, just ice. Returned easily through the tracks made by departure. The six inches of snow has shrunk down to about four inches, though now it's icy from sun warming the surface during the day, melting just enough to make a thin crust of ice in the night. Front wheel drive, new tires, a car that runs perfectly, dependably, good center of gravity, a car I've driven in snow, ice, mud, over meadows. I take it anyplace I'd take a pickup. I use the back seat as a small pickup bed. Back seat and trunk, I have a an enclosed pickup. It has a big trunk. I needed to go to Carpenter's house to pick up two gallons of water for a week of morning coffee. I'd walked up the driveway three times in this snow and Justin drove his truck up and down it. It already had tracks and I knew the snow between the tracks was not too deep for the car. I had a mound of snow at the edge of the road to crash through and spin the front tires through, sliding this way and that, and come out the other side. Driving up the tracks was the same as without snow. Returning to the road was a slip-n-slide adventure for a moment. 

two turkeys

I need to hit those places with enough momentum to force my way at least half through and let the spinning tires use the momentum I'm able to provide for them to pull it the rest of the way. Let the momentum stop and that's it. Stuck as soon as it stops. Then there's no going forward or backward. I've learned the subtleties of driving on snow and ice with this car over the course of six winters. I've driven front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive and four-wheel drive, all of them several years apiece, to know how to drive mountain roads in every condition with each one. Four-wheel is awfully good. It will take hold of about anything, even sheer ice if you know how to handle it. Four-wheel is handy. Now that I'm not working, don't need to be hauling things like ladders, toolboxes, shovels and so on, taking trash bags to the dump and hauling three bales of hay from the barn to the donkeys is all the hauling I do anymore. The trunk handles it fine. I've found the limits of front-wheel drive, places it would not go that I knew four-wheel could make it. Not many. Not enough to make the difference in expense and weight worth it. Front wheel drive, the weight of the engine is where it's needed, between the front wheels. Every fall I buy two new front tires and put the ones from the front on the back. I like having new tires on the front to pull me through winter. This old car doesn't look like much, but the motor and the driving train are in excellent running condition. I have a good mechanic who keeps it there. Any little thing new that comes up, I tell him the sound or the symptom, and like the guys on Car Talk, he knows what it is. He knows the engine of this car literally inside out, having worked on them at a dealership for a number of years when it was new. It just so happens he knows everything about my car. And, he's Crystal's daddy, Vada's grandpa. 

two turkeys

Main reason to go to town was birdseed. I was out of sunflower seeds. I buy that other mixed birdseed and the birds peck maybe half of it, but they take all the sunflower seeds. Nothing is left but pieces of shell all over the snow. The sunflower seed keeps the birds warm at night, keeps their joints greased, brightens their feathers. And the red squirrels. I've made my feral neighbors somewhat dependent, dependent by expectation. I don't want to leave them without for a day, especially when the ground is covered with snow and ice and it's zero at night. Little chickadees need something in the morning right away. I have to take carrots to the donkeys first and give them their hay. The moment I step out the door, Jack brays, Jenny attempts a bray that sounds like a high-pitched hound's bark. They're hopping up and down, Ice Cream Man finally woke up and has carrots. Carrots make them so happy in the morning they dance. Carrot time is happy time. Next is hay. Chickadees, titmice, snowbirds in the trees overhead call to me to come on with breakfast. The donkeys are ready to graze immediately. Carrots I buy every trip to town. The grocery store sells a big bunch of them for three dollars. It's like giving a kid ice cream. A bag a week. I'm happy to give them that. Was running low on sweet grain for the donkeys, would need some before Monday. A fifty pound bag of grain and a forty pound bag of birdseed from two different hardware stores. I could have bought both from one, but like to give my business to both places. It's my small support for each one. I don't have a great deal to offer, but what I have is best given to people I support. I feel like buying anything is a gesture of support for whoever made it and is selling it, be it working in an American sweatshop in Malaysia, or a regional band selling CDs and tshirts. I want to buy everything I need in Sparta. Exceptions like books, shoes and paint, I get online. I don't have much to support the local economy with, but what I have is given in the spirit of support.   

shadow on the snow

The grocery store packed with people on a Friday afternoon, never feeling congested, registers flowing with the traffic. Didn't see many people I knew. Parking lot packed. Everybody taking a breather, getting out, restocking some food. I tend to stay away from town on Friday afternoons when the traffic is from hell, the kind that makes people from Atlanta exclaim, "What traffic?" when I complain about Friday afternoon traffic in a town with three lights. Today was no choice. Needed water. Birds and donkeys calling. Low on catfood too. I felt comfortable, at home, where I belong. And, of course, spent twice what I intended going in. I don't pay attention to what I spend at the grocery store. If I don't buy it this time, I will next time,. It's all going to the same place. Grocery store done, went to the liquor store and bought a fifth of Wild Turkey Rye, good sipping liquor. Drove home with a six-inch chunk of ice on the hood, top and trunk lid. Mine was the only car in town with Monday's snow still on it, frozen solid. Even driving 63 through Thompson Flat didn't blow it loose. It will melt in a few days. Had to scrape ice from the windshield and free the wipers stuck in ice. The car started first crank, like in summer. I love a car that starts easily and dependably at zero. The drive to town and back was one of the beautiful days of the year when the mountain landscape is good as it gets, all in snow, clear sky with wispy clouds, and such a relief to have temperature above twenty. Talking with a woman at the gas station, she said we're having a heat wave. Any other time, twenty would be way too cold, but today, twenty was a welcome relief. The donkeys felt it too. They could graze with one side to the sun as to the fireplace, warm their bones before another cold night. 

donkey trail to the watering hole

*

SHOPPING FOR MY TWO BABYDOLLS

sol lewitt

This morning talking on the phone with Carole, I said I have two days to find presents for Vada and Cheyanne. I wanted to give them each something special, didn't know what, and it had to be accessible in Sparta. She mentioned earrings for Vada, 3, who recently had her ears pierced and loves her little dot earrings. And for Cheyanne, 7, she suggested a chain necklace with a charm on it. Of course. From that moment, I was ready to park in front of the jewelry store and go in. But the car battery was dead. I think it's the GPS. I make it a point to turn it off, but it turns itself back on. The car sits idle a couple days and it drains the battery through the lighter hole. I unplugged it. The only time I need it is driving on the Parkway in pea soup fog and going some place I don't know how to get to. Allan came by with car to use the battery. I had cables connected and ready to go when he drove up. Car started right away. Thank you, Allan. We talked for awhile, I came back to the house, changed clothes, picked up the checkbook and headed for town. I will need the GPS going to Dudley and Muffet's New Year's party. I need the GPS every time I go there. It's a subdivision on the side of a mountain with roads going every which way, and their house is at the far end of the maze. Before GPS I used directions I'd written from Dudley's directions. I'll plug the GPS in as I need it. Like my friend Jr Maxwell said, If it aint one knot in a log, it's ten. 

sol lewitt

I drove to town in a happy spirit, stopped at the bank drive-thru, and turned down Main Street to the shopping center with the jewelry store, between the auto parts store and the Chinese diner, pulling me on an electrical beam. I was on a mission. Parked in front of Adams Jewelers. I'd never been in the place. Stepped inside the door and it was like I'd stepped into wall of lights. Diamonds in glass cases sparkling, shiny glass everywhere, white and silver, diamond sparkles all around. I think I felt the allure of diamonds. A young woman came to assist my quest. A charming girl I suspected was still in high school or not long out. At a certain age, it becomes difficult to differentiate ages in youth. She was good at her work. I asked about baby earrings in colors. She brought from behind the counter a small display of a dozen colors in two sizes. I picked a soft green gem, very faint green, just a dot of a breath of green. I wanted a color that would complement her face rather than distract, just a hint of sparkle, like a French perfume. Next, a necklace for Cheyanne. My assistant showed me a silver chain that was just right. I was glad she was young, closer to Cheyanne's age. I allowed her feminine to guide me with full confidence. They had a display of varieties of charms. The man there, who was the jeweler, asked what hobbies Cheyanne had. I could only say television. Back to the beginning. I scanned the display case waiting for something to stop my eye, waiting for It. A silver dragonfly jumped in my face. On sight, I said, The dragonfly. I could see in its structure that it was sound, the wings would not fall off one day. It was delicate with lace patterns in the wings. 

sol lewitt

Cheyanne has a delicacy about her that she protects 24/7. It concerns me that she might bury her delicacy so deep she'll lose access to it. I mourn for Cheyanne's life at its beginning. I pray for Cheyanne, especially when we sit on the couch in front of the tv, shoulder to shoulder, our heads touching. I ask only that she be taken care of, looked over, be with her all along her way. She needs a lot of extra-terrestrial help. I don't imagine knowing her beyond her childhood, so in this time in Cheyanne's life, I want to be the one she can count on not to judge her, not to scold her or talk down to her, not to tell her what to do, but be the one whose love is not coercion. Very moody child, lives in two worlds, now three worlds with school. Justin and Crystal took care of her for a year, and there came a time to face it that this is not working out. Crystal and Cheyanne's mother were two very different women playing tennis with Cheyanne the ball. I felt sorrow for Cheyanne. A year ago she told a judge she was tired of going back and forth and he increased the back and forth instead of lessening it. She visits daddy every other weekend now, and stays with her mother, which is where she really belongs. We saw in that year her soul is here to be with her mother. No matter what mama is like, Cheyanne is linked to her. Who's to say that's not a good thing? 

sol lewitt

She'll have a hard life of her own making, but that's ok. Her mama does. Her grandma does. People who don't know how to get along in this world, doing the best they can to stay afloat. Souls that have not yet learned education makes your life better. Not because you make more money with a college degree than high school. I've only worked at one job above minimum wage, and it only slightly. I never wanted to do the kind of work that requires a degree. I wanted my education for my life, not for a job. I didn't want to work in a city, didn't want to be middle class. Though I have to confess I like both worlds. I like the world of high school educated people I live in among the mountain people. I like the world of the college educated people too. The two worlds really don't mix. The masters and the slaves, the bosses and the workers. I'm not in the hierarchy, so I am able to see all of them as individuals, not as a class. Two different cultures. Very different cultures. In the American Congress, the people putting themselves in the news, like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, are pathetic examples of the college educated. I'd much rather know people who work for a living, including people who don't know how to get along in this world. I'm one who doesn't know how to get along in this world. It's a condition I recognize in a lot of different people. It's pretty common. We disguise it the best we can to keep a job. I know in my heart Cheyanne will be ok, whatever path she makes for herself. Maybe she will have the dragonfly necklace all along her way, or her mother might sell it. There's no knowing it's future. The only part that matters to me is the moment of giving it to her. From that moment on, it belongs to Cheyanne.
   

sol lewitt, himself

*

TRAVELERS DO SPARTA

david hayes

The craziness of the gypsy circus passing through town continues in my mind. It wasn't until later that I realized they were gypsies. Yet I knew it on sight when I saw each individual. The woman taking admission money I knew was a gypsy on sight, but didn't take it seriously. I took them for possibly Cubans. The truck with the sign CIRCUS TODAY had Florida tags. I stepped inside and saw the man who evidently was in charge sitting by himself watching people come in. On sight, I thought: that guy is a gypsy. No. Probably Cuban or Latin from somewhere like El Salvador or Panama. They had an accent, but I didn't pay close enough attention to tell if it was a Spanish or other accent? I automatically took it for Spanish. The woman with the hula hoops I thought gypsy, but threw it out of my mind, assessing it too dramatic a supposition. I do know a lot of gypsies have left Europe and come here to USA, because they are hated so much everywhere in Europe. In Moscow, any gypsy found in the city after sunset is arrested, a recent law under Putin. The Nazis exterminated 6 million gypsies, as well as the Jews. The gypsies don't know it. Illiteracy is their way of life; therefore, their history goes back as far as the oldest person remembers locally, and no further. As far as I know they came out of Romania, hence Roma. They live all over southeastern Europe, the countries of the Ottoman Empire, and spread throughout Europe. In some places they're called Travelers. They stay on the move. After the circus, when I realized they were gypsies, I had a laugh at myself for missing it. I recall looking at the woman taking admission; her complexion was not clear like a Cuban's, or any other Latin, but had a layer of what looked like a thin film of dirt from seldom washing her face. I noticed the others had similar complexion. Possibly this is why they are referred to in Europe as swarthy and black. 

david hayes

Once I realized they were gypsies, I had to look at everything I saw in retrospect with new eyes. I did not have to convince myself they were gypsies. I remembered I'd thought that of each person I saw directly involved with the circus. Even thought it was good I went to the car, to protect the car. I didn't see anyone going through cars, but those kinds of things are not seen. In every one of them I saw, my first intuition said, gypsy. And every time, I talked myself out of a conclusion, because I have little to no experience with gypsies, except reading about them and seeing several obvious gypsies in Food Lion parking lot several years ago. I recalled an interesting book I'd read years ago about gypsies in southeastern Europe by Isabel Fonseca, Bury Me Standing. The day after the circus, I wondered what was missing from Sparta. I noticed that the people I saw as Latins first, had an unhappiness about them, a harsh unhappiness that is not Latin, except maybe in gangs and prison. They all had far away countenances. The woman taking money never made eye contact with anyone, only looked at the money changing hands. They never looked at anybody. I thought that a little odd for Latin people, too. Everything that did not compute came together once I realized they were, indeed, gypsies. Another thing difficult to compute was the absence of any county authority, like fire marshall, rescue squad that is often present, on alert for possible need at the fair grounds with a crowd. No law enforcement, either town cops or sheriff deputies. That seemed very odd. My guess is nobody engaged in booking them noticed they were gypsies, like I automatically took them for Cuban without it feeling right. We have so many Latins passing through the county now from all over Latin America, the local people take everyone of a tan complexion for Mexican and think nothing of it, like everything that flies and stings, yellow jackets, hornets, wasps, mud daubers, bumble bees, are bees.  

david hayes

Every one of them I saw had a darkness about them that was not in their complexion. They looked furiously angry with one another. I remember the monkey did not like the man it was performing for. He had to threaten it to make it do its "tricks." It would chew at the leash in fits he had to scold it for. The monkey's countenance said it was not a happy monkey. Its face looked like a cat's face when it's really mad, not mad ready to attack, but in a rotten mood, an impotent rage. I'm glad I did not see the miniature pony. A teenage boy who carried props onto the stage area and removed them had a dark attitude about him. Circus people in my experience tend to give stage smiles and attempt to look happy for the crowd. Only the clown had a smile. It was painted on. The boy looked like he was ready to leave the whole mess of them and start his life over, but it was also a look of permanent interior anger with one another they all seemed to share. I'm not saying any of these conjectures is the case, only this is how I interpreted what I saw. I remember being puzzled by the people of the circus I took for Latin, who had no Latin characteristics. I wrote it off as unhappy family. Nothing odd about that. The sign in the back of the pickup was the first give-away if I'd paid attention. The letters were hand-painted, not fancy circus painting, but slashed like a teenage boy might do who had never touched a brush to paint before. The admission booth looked like a sorry stage prop made of painted cardboard. Suspicions were aroused when I saw no tent, but let it go as maybe something one-ring circuses can't afford to do anymore. I thought: how corporate they are. Take the most money they can get and give the least product they can get away with. When it's over, they're gone. It's the Traveler way. Make a hit on a town and run. I've wondered what they did in Sparta between the time they arrived and set up the circus.

david hayes

Most of all, I wondered why there was no county representation present. I felt like anybody of the county government would have freaked out seeing the crowd at least double the number of people in the space that state law allows, and that in only half the space. It became incredibly unsafe in there by the time the circus started, to say nothing of the absence of oxygen and the heat. Possibly part of my motivation for leaving the crowd was a powerful feeling of being completely out of control vulnerable. Walking out, I had to push my way between people and force my way to the exit door. It was a struggle. I could not have made it through the impenetrable crowd to the door I came in. I thought: if one big surprise were to happen, very regrettable mayhem will take place immediately. I sat in the parking lot thinking, why is no law enforcement here? The county rents the building, telling me somebody involved in county government scheduled the circus. I liked not having cops there, but remembered the Rolling Stones hired Hell's Angels for security at the famous Altamont concert, keeping cops away. Turned out, they needed cops to protect the crowd and the bands from the Hell's Angels. But they had no cops. It went to hell in a hurry. If anything untoward had broken loose at this circus, it would have made headlines on national news. Again, I'm not saying any of this is fact. I'm interpreting what I saw, realizing I did not even let myself in on what I knew at the time, that they were gypsies. My interpretations are subjective, colored by my own attitudes and experience, meaning: limited. I did not see everything. I just felt an overwhelming need to be out of there unto a mild panic attempting to reach a door. It was a feeling that if I don't get to the other side of a door now, I may collapse from light headedness. Approaching the door, I felt an urgency that if the door doesn't open, it will take too long to struggle my way to another door. Opening the door, I felt like I'd been underwater until I couldn't hold my breath another second. The fresh air was another world. It was home.

       

david hayes

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GYPSY CIRCUS COMES TO SPARTA

red grooms

A circus came to Sparta Tuesday. Crystal was taking Vada, who is three. I wanted to go to a circus with Vada to see her delight. Crystal's mother, Diana, came along. I looked forward to it, a one-ring circus, my favorite kind. Hadn't seen one in forty years. I anticipated a performer standing on the back of a horse riding in a circle, acrobatic tricks not many people can do. First surprise: no tent. It was in a cinder block box used for county agricultural fairs. I wondered how a circus could occur in this place as we pulled into the parking lot. Seemed like it might be room for a circus, but where to put the people coming to see it? I became all the more curious when I saw the only place it could be, where the big pickup was parked in front with a folding sign standing up in the bed, yellow with red hand-painted letters, CIRCUS TODAY. I felt good in the company of three of my friends I love in my heart going to a one-ring circus. We arrived early, unable to imagine when would be a good time to get there. Crystal wanted to find a place to sit where Vada could have a close-up view. The seats were "bleachers" that go with the place, I think, the cheapest kind ever made for midgets. Boards 6x1 on an aluminum square-tube frame. First row was no more than a foot from the floor. I thought of the Howdy Doody Show when I was just beginning school, where the kids sat in the Peanut Gallery. It was Peanut Gallery bleachers. Cement floor. Radically uncomfortable, discomfort you notice the moment you sit, even before you sit. It gets worse from there. Fast. When people started packing in around me, I was unable to move even a leg. Very soon, I felt cramped into a box and my back hurting to the point I had to at least stand up for a moment to stretch. No matter how I attempted to sit with spine straight up, relaxed on the seat, neck relaxed, it still hurt like hell in the back muscles. 

red grooms

Paid admission to an interesting looking woman at a cardboard booth like you see at some annual event in an elementary school. She had sequins around her eyes, Cleopatra makeup, a striking woman, black hair pulled straight back, red lips, Latina, one of the performers. She and the booth had a south of the border sensation about them, like anyplace in Latin America, or Romania. I was heartened, thinking, it won't be what I imagined, but it could be awfully interesting. She had a particularly Latin beauty about her that feels exotic in America. She took me back to a picture I kept on a wall in my room in early elementary school years. I have no recollection of where the picture came from. It was a Latin woman in a red dress with black flowing hair and a red rose in her hair.The picture was important to me in ways I didn't have any experience with. She, herself, was important to me, like someone I knew and loved. It struck me curious in this time of the life looking in retrospect at a nearly completed lifetime, questioning symbolism, seeing influences along the way. Inside the circus arena, I saw a ring spread on the floor in half the space that was about the size of a basketball floor. We waited for half an hour watching the place slowly fill up way past comfortable. Crystal bought Vada some toys a clown was walking around selling, sparkly things with flashing lights, a green balloon monkey, and some cotton candy. By the time the show started, the place was packed so tight it was like a stand-up concert where everybody is packed tight in front of the stage. The audience seemed to be about half local people with kids and half Latin people with kids. I've thought Latin people were beautiful all my life. I love to see them, hear them and be around them. From first grade through sixth grade, my closest friend was Mitchell Ledesma. For reasons I never knew he left Catholic school and had to go to public school, him the only Mexican. The other kids didn't have much to do with him, because he was a Mexican. I liked the Mexican about him. That the others stayed away from him left me with a really good friend.

red grooms

The show started with thumping techno beats and a foxy lady giving a hula hoop demonstration. It was so lame I could hardly believe it. Any seven year old girl who put her mind to it could figure out how to do everything she did in one day. The oxygen in the closed space was suddenly turned into carbon dioxide by the mass of people breathing, and the heat went up fast. Next, a monkey on a leash. It walked back and forth across a flat, one and a half inch by one and a half inch, bar about six feet long, four feet high. And? Next the monkey was put on one of three bar stools lined up in a row. It jumped from stool to stool, no more than a foot and a half apart. Monkey show was over. I thought: shit-fire, any cat can do better than that. I was cramped from sitting on the horrible seat, back was in agony, breathing became a concern, and the heat was oppressive. I already knew there was nothing else in this circus I wanted to see. I asked Crystal's mother for the car key, feeling on the verge of desperate. She was holding Crystal's purse, while Crystal was with Vada on the floor around the circus ring where kids and moms were packed in tight. I went to the car and happily discovered the front seat leans all the way back. What a bonus. I sat there and didn't move, opened the window for fresh air, watched the people going out and going in, cars in the parking lot, light sprinkles of rain on the windshield. I felt blessed being outside that box breathing the flowing air of the Gap Civil current. I became so incredibly uncomfortable inside I was glad the circus was a dud. I could leave without dread of missing something good. I could not have sat on that bench another ten minutes. It was a surprise to see how few people were leaving the place. Not more than half a dozen left before it was over. I thought maybe I could start a circus of a dog that goes bow-wow and a cat that walks with it's tail straight up. I'd even have a donkey that goes hee-haw. 

red grooms

I had fallen into such comfort sitting in the car with seat back, it was actually a disappointment to see the people pouring out the door. Vada wanted more circus. Crystal said her back was killing her. Diana was relieved to be off that bench. I asked if anything happened. Crystal said somebody did some juggling and juggled with fire. Vada liked that. Diana said the man with the acrobatic monkey, he sat on a chair balancing on a trapeze. About three feet above the floor. Crystal told about a woman who swung from a rope by her hair. I didn't quite understand that one, but didn't ask for clarification. I knew it was worse than I could imagine. I didn't ask anymore. Any first grade talent show would be better entertainment than this circus. To the kids, it was grownups doing things they can't do, magical, mystical, a real monkey. Crystal told me they had a horse. I said, A horse? She said, Yeah, a miniature pony. Vada had a wand-like toy with a star at one end. Battery-operated, it had a button to make it light up with flashing tiny red, blue and green lights. It had three different patterns of light flashing. It was made of clear plastic, plastic manufactured to something suggesting cut glass, making a fabulous display of light. At the other end of the wand that glowed from one end to the other, red, blue and green, a clear plastic hollow ball. A light in the handle projected a grid of red, blue and green tiny squares, a tri-color checkerboard on the back of the front seat, on the ceiling, on somebody's face. Vada had to project it onto all our faces to see us in that light. She was mesmerized. Ten dollars. The green monkey balloon had a big nose that squeaked when it was squeezed. The arms, legs and tail squeaked when they were squeezed, too. Ten dollars. Vada was charmed by her toys. Crystal remembers her delight when she was little with circuses and state fairs. She wants Vada to have such delights in her childhood too. Vada loved the circus. She was the reason the rest of us went. While we were waiting for the circus to start, Crystal mentioned something about the Chucky movies. I said I'd not seen any. She couldn't believe I hadn't seen them. I said, "I was too old." 

red grooms, himself

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OUTSIDE OF SOCIETY

by crystal smith

If you ever wondered what a grumpy old bastard looks like, in case you don't know one, here's one. Cracking up in my favorite tshirt, because I look like an old biker or a Vietnam vet. I'm neither one, nor was meant to be. The only thread I know of that runs through bikers, vets and me is refusal to live a fake life denying true self in order to be obedient to the social hierarchical code. Patti Smith is singing in my head, Outside of society--that's where I wanna be! I believe this explains why I felt so at home, and by home I mean as comfortable as being at home, as I am right now, in the punk club with a hundred or more people of the same mind about the fake society we live in. They were not people shut out of society, but people who can't live in denial and want to separate themselves from the society of climbers, at least on the weekend. The people who have checked out, my people. I didn't know there were so many. I hear Johnny Moss, punk vocalist, telling me when we spoke briefly, "This is the future," referring to the loving spirit of community in the place Saturday night. My intuition felt agreement as he said it. I have felt this to be so. We are in perhaps the darkest time of human history, now. They say it's darkest before dawn, and I can't imagine a time any darker than the time we're in. Dark, I mean, in the human spirit. The 80s were a time of narcissism, though not among the working poor by any means. This time we're in seems best characterized by the word, venality: willingness to do dishonest things in return for money. The venal minded have always been about, but it looks like venality is the nature of our time, from the rich to the poor. It's why we the people cannot take our "representatives" in government seriously. The example they give as "leaders" is socially criminal. They're the kind of people that say punk rockers are a bad example for the young and Muslims worship a fake God. 

between bands

I hear Bob Dylan singing, Something is happening and you don't know what it is. Corrupt to the core, Capitalism has run its course and is fading out of its own excesses, as foreseen. Capitalism has created immense global poverty in the human population while destroying the earth along with our human spirit. Balance will happen. The changing weather patterns is the earth coming back to balance. I'm feeling a groundswell of humanity is rising to say to the Capitalists draining our life energy, You've dampened our spirit too long. We're taking it back. I've lived my life in refusal to submit to control by my desire for more money. Before I started college, I knew I would never use my degree for a job. I wanted education for my life, not as vocational training. The thing that is happening that I don't know what it is, I suspect is social changes with the new generations of the young. From grumpy old bastard's perspective, anybody under 45 is young. I see in the younger people a consciousness of each other as valid individuals, judging being something other people do, accepting and supporting one another. It's not a hundred percent, but I feel like it is characteristic of today's young. I embrace it. In my fifties, I heard self start two sentences, the kids these days. The second time I heard myself say it, I said, this isn't going to happen a third time. I am not going to become a weary old turd that far separated from reality. I talked with myself quite a long time over it, a few years. I decided to go to a rock concert of the day on my 0 birthdays, starting with the 60th. I went to Ziggy's in Winston-Salem and saw Papa Roach, a California punk band, to get in there, shoulder-to-shoulder, jamming to hard-driving punk, the whole crowd as one. In that crowd I found the kids these days were cool. They had a whole lot more on the ball that the kids my days. They were a happy energy to be in the midst of enjoying some dynamite rock and roll. 

dirty south revolutionaries

For seventieth birthday, I went to Charlotte to a small rock club to see Thrice, a hard-core California punk band. They rocked my world. I found a place I assessed the sound the best and stood there with the kids these days all around me loving the music as much as I was. They regarded me with no more nor less respect than they gave each other. It told me I must be a comfortable presence. That I could be everybody's grandpa didn't inhibit anyone. A time or two I felt the urge to say, I'm not a cop, but edited it out, because what it would mean is, I am a cop. One thing I love about white hair is nobody suspects juvenile delinquency of white hair. I get away with a lot. Several years ago a bunch of suburban women become exurban women got together in a club, the Sparta Revitalization committee. I wondered what the Re- was about. I don't know that Sparta had ever been vital, except maybe when they had hangings on the courthouse lawn. The revitalizers took big, ugly, plastic pots, terra-cotta colored, and stuffed a small evergreen in the dirt of each one, putting these in front of shops up and down Main St, known by signage as Highway 21. Half the evergreens died right away. They stayed in the pots dead for a few months. One day I went to the hardware store and got a can of spray paint day-glo orange. I took off my ball cap to show my white hair and walked down the sidewalk, an authority, stopped at the dead ones and sprayed them beautiful orange. It was two weeks before anyone of SRC noticed. Of course, I confessed. First question in great urgency: You didn't paint any of the green ones, did you? First answer: No. Next question: Why did you do it? Next answer: They were ugly and I made them beautiful.

turd/cutter

The dawn coming after this time of darkness will be beautiful. I feel like the experience at the Milestone in Charlotte Saturday night was a peephole into the future. As the old Capitalist model of hierarchical, exclusive social behavior that only values money fades away, this new inclusive attitude toward life is coming on among we the people. What I believe Johnny meant when he said, "This is the future," was the spirit of inclusion, of love, of community, of people looking to the well-being of one another. No more tv anchorwoman hairdos. No more studying war. No more manhood meaning the power to beat down the weak. We humans have been out of balance for so long with our true selves, I'm believing we'll be coming back to balance. I feel like the Occupy movement that recently gathered 300,000 in NYC a week or two ago is a movement toward shifting into balance. Like when I'm standing and lean over a little to far and just about lose balance, catch myself and come back to balance. I feel like love energy is coming on among us and the hate energy of the dark time waning. Much hate is coming to the surface now, stirred by the right-wing propaganda machine. The hate has been there a long time. It needs to come to the surface to burn off and go away, get out of our system like a flu virus. It gives me hope in a dark time to see the younger generation of people carry amongst themselves a sincere regard for one another, inclusive, supportive, coming together around the music they love in common. I regard a punk rock band as valid an art form as a chamber quartet. In a country that does not encourage art, the art spirit springs up anyway. I felt like the Spirit of Art was alive and well, even flourishing Saturday night at the Milestone. I was as much in the presence of art as in the audience of Robert Wilson's Einstein On The Beach. The future looks good to me now. Thank you, Johnny.   

daniel biggins talking between songs

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FOUND ART: MANGUM^CATER POTTERY

the window

Had to run to town today for a prescription at the drug store and nothing else. Thought I'd drive to town and return without stopping anywhere else. Upon arriving in town, I decided to drop by the Mangum-Cater pottery shop across the street from the drugstore. Saturday morning. I stay out of Sparta in the second half of the week, which is when the shop is open, Thu-Sat. I'm in town Mon-Wed due to the latter half of the week characterized by a lot of traffic and lines. Of course, friends from Atlanta visiting, we drive through Sparta and I bitch about the traffic, and they say, What traffic? Telling you that when I drive in Winston-Salem or Charlotte I about lose my mind from all the traffic, waiting at red lights that seem like ten minutes, several lanes of traffic, all of them full. After a little bit I settle into it, then I'm back on the highway. Last trip to Winston-Salem, the interstate about put me to sleep. I struggled to stay awake in the drone situation of keeping same speed in same lane for an hour. Dreading the interstate drive back home, I took hwy 67 from W-S to Elkin. What a difference, only a few cars and them very seldom, even driving through three small towns. I decided this is the way I'll go to and from W-S in future. I'm finding in my slower lifestyle I don't like driving 70 for an hour staying in place in my lane. It tends to put me to sleep, so I fight sleep on the interstate. Not a good place to be drowsy. On state highway I feel fresh all the way, landscape of farms, houses and occasional forest, changing speed, not required to go 70 by all the cars around me. Im not one who can travel in the right lane and let everybody pass. It goes against my nature. I'd not seen Rob Mangum and Donna in quite awhile and hoped one or both might be there. Plus, I'd not been inside to see what they'd been doing since I was in there last, probably a year.

donna

Donna was taking care of the store. I was glad to see her, hadn't seen her in too long a time. It felt refreshing to walk in the door and stand among the beautiful art works of people I've known for a good many years, feel like friends though we only see each other with years between. They live in another part of the county. I tend to stay at home and they do too. Though I seldom saw Rob and his previous wife, Bet, who cancer took away to the chagrin of a whole community. Rob and Bet came to the mountains from southern Alabama, in fact grew up with a friend of mine, Bill Foy, from Eufaula, I'd known years before I came to the mountains. Rob and Bet have felt to me like my closest friends, though we rarely saw each other. Every time we'd meet, we'd catch up on what's been going on since last time. Bet was too charming a human being to leave us so soon. Now, I miss her with all my heart. Donna came into Rob's life; to me and everyone else, it didn't seem right somebody with Rob besides Bet. I'd been curious to know Donna, though too seldom see her. We used to run into each other at the coffee shop and I've about the same as stopped going there since the people I go there to see don't go anymore. Donna and Rob have slacked off going to the coffee shop too. I see pictures of Donna riding her horse on facebook, a beautiful horse, and pictures she took riding the horse. I was glad to see Donna in the shop today, happy to be able to spend time with Donna to talk about whatever came up. Yesterday I was driving through Galax with friend Dana, who suggested we stop at a new art gallery just off Main St. I confess I was wondering what kind of art they'd have in a provincial mountain town. Whatever I was anticipating, what I saw through the window before entering lit my fire. I wanted to go inside and swim among the beautiful paintings, every one of them extraordinary. The place was called, Gallery Oneseventeen, at 117 W Grayson St, downtown Galax.

rob mangum

Rob and Bet came to the mountains the same year I came to the mountains. They had begun making pottery and wanted to make pottery in the mountains. It was rough going for them for awhile. They traveled to shows all over the South, setting up a booth, hoping to sell enough to cover expenses. I've seen them both grow and explore. By now, Rob is making things like this one above, as well as utilitarian plates, bowls and cups. This example does not characterize Rob's work any more than anything else he does. Seeing his work grow, I can spot his hand in almost everything he does, though somebody seeing his work the first time might think it was three or four different potters. Both Rob and Bet proved themselves over time to be not just artisans, but artists. As you can see, Rob's work is art. It's way beyond craft. The rest of his work, like this above, has feeling. And in the line of a true artist, Rob is as humble a man as can be known. Bet had the same humility. I feel like I'm seeing Donna evolving into her own humility. She came here from a city, and I can't think of an exception among people who come here from cities, including self, who doesn't feel kind of extraordinary in a world of such plain seeming people as the mountain folks. In my early weeks I felt like I was more educated than the people around me and they were lacking. Quickly I found that in the presence of anybody I knew of these hills, they knew a whole lot more than I did. I knew information. They knew life experience, and I had to learn life experience living among them. They became my teachers from the start. Donna came here a countrified city girl, and by now the city is gone, she's a country girl who makes guitar music with her man and sings with him. They make pottery together.She said she is still doing utilitarian things like plates and bowls, learning from the master. She has fallen into the rhythm of a quiet life, what she came here for, like me and many others. 

daniel cater

Daniel Cater came here from Houston many years ago, fell in love with a woman from Roanoke, whose sister he knew here. Married, they decided to live in this county. They took up making pottery at the same time, learning from the Mangums. I have seen Daniel evolve so fast it makes me want to live longer to see what he'll be doing in twenty years. This piece by itself does not represent what Daniel is doing any more than another piece might, but it does represent that he is creating clay sculpture for indoors and outdoors. He had several pieces in the shop, this the one I chose to represent his work with. Anything else would be just as good. Robin, his wife, teaches yoga, plays guitar and sings so beautifully that when I hear her sing I tend to stare at her in awe, like you have that in you all the time--wow. She, herself, is a bright light, and I don't mean just a light. A bright light. It's her spirit. Robin is such a radiant spirit that the first several times I was around her I questioned the authenticity in her mildly effusive radiance. Then, one evening, I saw that Robin really is a dancing spirit in human form. She's in touch with her true self, and her true self is beautiful. Since that experience, too long a story to tell in a sentence, I imbibe her presence when I see Robin. I see her a gift to everyone who knows her. I best characterize my appreciation for Robin by saying she is wide open and not silly. She's not so open-minded her brains fell out. Her brains are intact. I'm having a good time telling you about these people. I see on reflection that these are among my very favorite people of my life. I felt joy in the shop in the presence of so many beautiful possibilities in clay, all of them by friends I have seen grow from artisan to artist. As in the characters of these four people, not any work by any of them has even the remotest ring of fake. Before I started today's writing, I read over yesterday's. It ended saying I believed a chance encounter in town can be as great a spiritual experience as praying at a tomb. And today it happened. Thank you, Donna. 

For the curious, here are some websites for illustration:

Mangum Pottery, www.mangumpottery.com 

Cater Pots, www.caterpots.com

Gallery Oneseventeen, www.galleryoneseventeen.com

mangum cater pottery sparta

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