The Beauty of Brevard, North Carolina

Brevard has many beautiful things about it, too many things to cover with my limited ability in this limited space.  Still, I promised to try in an earlier post so here are some of my views on the city of Brevard, North Carolina.

Things I like about Brevard include the Brevard Music Festival. There are seven summer weeks in Brevard when world class talent descends on the small town to work magic with their voices and their music. In the past years artists like cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinists Joshua Bell and Midori, pianists André Watts and Emanuel Ax, soprano Renée Fleming and mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade have appeared on stage in this city of only about six thousand people.

The downtown area of Brevard boasts activities as diverse as the monthly gathering of peace activists, mostly older people who hold a peace vigil one Saturday in each month. Often braving bad weather, these caring people assemble with their signs to remind us that there are wars going on. Our young people are in harm's way and we could all be working more for peace in the world. The street scene changes on Tuesday as Brevard hosts the evening “Dancing in the Street.” The downtown is closed on Tuesday night, the band plays and the people dance. The downtown streets are actually closed quite often to host various runs, a soapbox derby, a White Squirrel Festival, (Brevard is home to many white squirrels), and all of the classic reasons for closing the city and celebrating, things like Halloween, the Fourth of July and such.

There is a guy who stands at the corner of Main and Broad Streets in front of the Courthouse, with a Bible in his hand. He waves at you and wishes for you to have a good day. If you speak to him, he'll tell you that he has been called by God to stand there and that it is his ministry. I like that guy, I like that he does what he does. I like it that most of the local people wave back to him.

There is a small college in Brevard, (Brevard College, Methodist), with a fledgling football program, sometimes the defeats are embarrassing to watch. I like that the team exists, that the players play, that the effort is made. Having cheered for my son's losing team throughout his high school career, I am perfectly able to cheer loudly for a losing effort and I see the value in the game, the effort, the sport.

The Davidson River offers some of the best trout fishing anywhere in the East. There are bears in the area, daviaupost.blogspot.com/search/label/bears, and I have very much enjoyed my interactions with the bears. There is majesty in Brevard, great panoramic views around each bend. White water rafting, nature trails galore, great equestrian opportunities and wonderful faith congregations. My wife and I felt very welcome in every church we visited while seeking a church home. We found that church home in a place that we could both embrace though she was raised Lutheran and I was raised in a Catholic family.

My wife has enjoyed her involvement with the local AAUW, (American Association of University Women), chapter. The small community has the largest chapter in the state and the ladies do important work as they organize a massive book sale each year. The proceeds from that sale go largely to provide scholarship money for girls in the area and the money is really significant for many girls who aspire to graduate from one of the local colleges. My wife's involvement with the AAUW has been good for both the organization and for her as she has made many new friends through her work with the AAUW.

Brevard is a place that cares, with a free clinic and free pharmacy, those experiencing hard times have a place to turn to for medical care. The city boasts a charity called the Bread of Life, an organization that feeds those who have no good place to turn.  So very many people in Brevard care about those in need and I like that about the community.

 There are many good people in Brevard, it is an idyllic place in many ways and while the community has some problems, those problems are far from being beyond solution.

Cobleskill, New York

My family was living in Winston Salem North Carolina in 1986. We owned a home on Baux Mountain Road at the time. My oldest sons school was raided and numerous drug arrests were made that year. He was in the eighth grade at the time.

I told my wife that he wouldn't spend another year in the school system there and we set out to find the perfect place to raise young children. After spending several months searching, we decided to re-locate our family to Cobleskill, New York.

At this stage of my life I probably wouldn't do that because Cobleskill is a very cold place. At that stage of my life it was perfect.

Located in Schoharie County New York between Albany and Oneonta, Cobleskill is small town America. There is minor league baseball in Oneonta, great Little League and girls softball in Cobleskill, skiing in easy driving distance, and Howe's Caverns nearby. There is a Summer Fair in Cobleskill that everyone in the County, it seems, attends and enjoys.

I liked the High School in Cobleskill, it was built during the Thirties and had wonderful plaster artwork on the magnificent walls. I understand that since we left a new school was built and the old Cobleskill High now houses Intermediate School classes.

My oldest son played football for the Cobleskill Blue Devils, they lost every game but still, I was their biggest fan. My daughter was the Majorette for the band and I thought, the most beautiful Majorette ever. My youngest son Matt was the catcher and MVP on his Little League team.

We made the move and opened a business in Cobleskill. I got three children raised in the best little town I could have imagined at the time. I sold the business that I had started there, Insul-Mart, an insulation distributing company and moved to Greensboro, North Carolina in 1993. My wife's mother was dying of cancer in Greensboro and Brenda, my wife, wanted to be near her mother during that time.

My son Bill had already moved to Greensboro. He was taking pilot lessons in Winston Salem, North Carolina before going to college at the University of New Orleans. My daughter Amanda ended up going in the Navy as a Corpsman and being disabled during her service in the Middle East. My youngest son Matt never really found himself but attended the University of Texas in El Paso for a time before deciding that he needed to see and save the world.

Matt died in Laos in 2006. He had been teaching English at a Catholic School in Thailand prior to his death.

I am forever grateful to the people of Cobleskill for welcoming our family of outsiders, for teaching my children academically and socially, for the experiences of our time there.