Loose Leaf Notes

1. When I got dressed Monday morning I felt my friend Mara in my body and found myself wondering what she was putting on that morning.  Mara’s been at Duke University Hospital for a couple of months with her daughter, who needs a heart transplant and who has had several near-death close calls.   – More HERE.

2. The clothes I wore during the two weeks I spent with my brother Danny in a Houston hospital before he died (needing a liver transplant) have been imbued with that experience and have never been the same.  They seem to hold the memories of that time, and I knew the clothes Mara’s been wearing these last months would be doing the same.

3. On the way home from our weekend in Marshall (20 miles north of Asheville) NC to visit my son and his girlfriend, Joe and I listened to a This American Life podcast on “Getting Your Money’s Worth,” and a segment about L. L. Bean’s lifetime guarantee return policy, in which people have successfully returned everything from a half eaten cookie to a 30 year old pair of slippers.

4. Joe, who had been limping since playing a kickball game on Saturday, laughed and said, “I’m going to ask my mother if I can return my body. I’ve had it for 54 years and it’s wearing out.”

5. Our three days in Marshall included an island kickball game in a little league field with dugouts, a housewarming party at my son’s and his girlfriend’s new grand old farmhouse and a jailhouse tour at night.  Being in the jail, reminded me of the old forts I grew up next to in Hull, MA, with their dank stone rooms and their long graffiti filled hallways with manholes.  It was my first time seeing the inside of the jail that my son and other creative developers plan to renovate.  At times it felt like a themed cocktail party. People used their phones for flashlights. Check out the pictures HERE.

6. Touring “the island” where the kick ball game was played in the lead up to the housewarming party, reminded me of being on Martha’s Vineyard.  The island, accessible from downtown Marshall by bridge, is much smaller but had that “out of time” island feeling.  Later, at the housewarming party, I met a couple of Josh’s friends who come from Martha’s Vineyard and who reported regularly seeing Vineyard resident Carly Simon on the island, which interested me because I am currently reading Simon’s memoir “Boys in the Trees.”

7. In the book Simon reveals that she wrote her song “Anticipation” while waiting for Cat Stevens to arrive at her apartment for a date.  About her fling with Jack Nicholson she says, “It was akin to a promising summer rental that gets canceled at the last minute.” She writes about divulging that she spent the night with Warren Beatty to her therapist, who responded, “You’re not the first patient of the day who spent the night with Warren Beatty last night.”

8. I’ve always been curious why the river that runs through Asheville and Marshall is called the “French Broad.” To me that’s like calling a river the “English Chick.”

9. So I looked it up on the Wikipedia and found this: The French Broad River, which flows 218 from near the town of Rosman in Transylvania County, NC, into the state of Tennessee, was named by white settlers centuries ago because it was one of the two broad rivers in western North Carolina. The one which flowed into land claimed by France at that time was named the “French Broad River,” whereas the other, located along land claimed by England was named the “English Broad River.”

10. Okay, then there is that little fact that there’s a county in NC named Transylvania, better known as a place in Romania made famous by the legend of count Dracula. So I looked that up too and discovered that, in the case of the NC County, Transylvania was founded in 1861 and got its name from the colonial Transylvania Company. The world “Transylvania has Latin origins: trans (“across”) and silva (“woods”).

11. This description of Marshall from the town’s website sounds a little like Floyd a decade ago:  “With the French Broad River at its feet, the steep rocky edge of a mountain at its back, a railroad passing through, and a pillared court house, Marshall is the epitome of a picturesque mountain town. In historic downtown Marshall you’ll find old-time stores, art galleries, shops with unique home decor and gifts, restaurants cooking with produce from local farms, a Sunday afternoon farmers market on the island, and more. Serving the mountain community, you will find holiday events, county services, and the home offices for the county libraries.  Marshall is also becoming a center for artists. Browse the galleries on the island and downtown, go to classes, exhibits, shows and concerts, often centered on mountain culture.” 

12.  Rural North Carolina may not have vampires but they do have Pentecostal churches that practice the religious handling of snakes.

13. “Everything about him communicated that he was, in fact, the center of something— the core of an apple, the center of a note.”   – Carly Simon on James Taylor.

____________Thirteen Thursday