A Native Son of the North Carolina Piedmont

My name is Rocky Hall. I live in the central piedmont of North Carolina. This blog was created out of a need to write and tell a story.

I was born to good fortune. As a small child my days were spent in the shade of white oak and hickory with family as strong as those trees. Water came from a bucket drawn at the well, and we drank from a dipper that hung on a rusty nail driven in the side of the well post. We had a coal stove and an out house. No phone. We didn't need one. But we did have a TV.

We had wonderful neighbors. Folks you could count on. Among them were tobacco farmers, mill workers and mechanics. Old women wore sun bonnets and children were taught to mind their elders.

Summers were spent in the tobacco fields. Or if you were too young to prime you worked at the barn. When we weren't working we romped through the countryside with siblings and cousins, went fishing, swam in ponds, caught crawfish in the spring branch and swang on the porch swing. My shadow would often be cast long at night as I played by the spark of Grandpa's stick welder making repairs for neighbors.

Sunday was for church and visiting.

My parents had me young. We lived with my Grandpa at first, Mama's Daddy. Mama was pretty and Daddy was strong. I can still recall the smell of him as I sat on his lap after he got home from work. Sweat, oil and gasoline were badges of honor for a young mechanic. Around the supper table there was talk of family, neighbors and work. Everyone laughed and sang while Earnest Tubb crackled on the radio. On weekends Grandpa would go out and sit in his old Chevy and read for hours. He loved to read. I can see him now in that faded old car, head just above the window's beltline, eyes looking downward in concentration, fedora pushed back on his head.

That was a magic time. Un-hurried. Even the sunlight was different then.

So now you see. I was indeed born to good fortune.







Saturday, September 17, 2011

surf's edge

I recently spent a number of days on the outer banks with a group of nonconformist friends in a huge house four miles beyond any paved road. The only way in was by 4x4 up the beach. Those days were spent laughing and discussing. Sharing and discovering. Enriching and nurturing. I love unique souls. So full of color and light.

A storm front cut our trip short and we had to leave the island early in order to avoid the high tide and a storm surge that would make leaving difficult. Upon leaving I found myself and my gear in the back of a pickup, facing backwards, headed south along surf's edge. Wild horses grazed freely among the dunes, the stumps 0f an ancient maritime forest appeared and disappeared in the distance behind me as we sped along. Red flags popped in the gale and sea foam emerged from the surf, rolling in the wind like bubbly brown liquid tumbleweeds.

Lost in the flutter and the straw scratch sound of my hair about my ears I began to recall. Echoed laughter and the sights and sounds of it all, of them all, was still searing deeply the palette of my mind. Looking to my right, I gazed past the raging Atlantic and realized the perpetual frontier of the lives I've lived and felt grateful. The kind of grateful that makes your lower eyelids raise as tears slightly well along the delicate lashes. The purple scent of joy saturated the sea breeze. It feels good to be on the surface of this magnificent world.

Wonders abound. Now home, writing this, my dog's head is resting heavily on my thigh as he gratefully snores my safe return. A cold, windy September rain pours outside. I look at him. His twitching pink muzzle always aware.
We two, he and I, mere carbon based life forms. Each an accumulation of cells acting in unison. But there is this wonderful connection between he and I. Between them and us. Between you and I. It can't be seen, though it can be felt and reflected.

And so I catch myself gazing once again, pondering us all and feel my lower lids begin to raise.
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