PawPaw, Madison County, NC, 10/21
When I first moved to Madison County in 1973 I was convinced the operative word for the county was “Slow.” For someone raised in a large metropolitan area, my new home seemed to work on a snails’ pace. People spoke slowly, as if deliberating each individual word. And walking was no faster, with every step taken with care and assurance. Driving was much the same and I remember getting behind old timers going 15 mph down Big Pine Road, much to the frustration of everyone behind them. It didn’t matter what you were doing - visiting, doing business, working, entertaining - people didn’t get in a hurry. They approached life with stoicism, calmness, and patience, essentially letting the world come to them. Time was the one thing you were always willing to share.
It’s not like that around here any more. We as a county have done our level best to catch up to the rest of the country. We are a busy crowd with schedules to keep and places to go, and we have to get there fast. And with that loss of “Slow” we risk losing respect and consideration for the world around us.
I don’t see us returning to those days of old. We’re too enamored with the things that speed up our lives - computers, cell phones, caffeine, constant movement. Covid has served to change our habits somewhat. We’ve stayed home more, gone out less, and learned how to entertain ourselves. But it hasn’t stuck. We are more than ready to return to a more frantic pace.
I’m reminded of a day years ago. Doug Wallin asked me to drive him to his tax preparer’s house. Doug didn’t get out much. He never married and stayed at home with his aging mother, Berzilla, farming tobacco, raising most of what they ate, tending the family land, and becoming Madison County’s premier ballad singer. It was a short drive from Craine Branch to Shelton Laurel, 15 minutes at most, but a significant excursion for Doug. It was a rainy day, misty, made for mournful ballads, and Doug sang for much of the drive. On our way back, we got to the spot in the road the locals referred to as Peach Tree, that was the dividing line between Sodom, Lonesome Mountain, Guntertown, and Shelton Laurel. Doug stopped singing, seemed to sniff the air, and said, “Well, we’re back to God’s Country.”
I suspect that such a well defined sense of place, and the slowness necessary to achieve it, is out of reach for most of us. It’s not who we are anymore. But I do think the closer we can come to that sense of Slow the better off we will be.