Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia

from The Songcatcher

402 LISTEN HERE THE SONGCATCHER (2001) from Chapter 5 On the North Carolina side of the mountain, Baird Christopher was shelling peas and shucking corn for a vegetarian supper for twenty. The Cosmic Possum Hikers Hostel was a white Victorian mansion dating from the late nineteenth century. Three miles from the Tennessee state line and a mile outside town, the house stood on a hillock overlooking the French Broad River, surrounded by manicured lawns and tall rhododendron bushes, and shaded by oaks and poplars. The mountain mansion had been built in the 1870s when the western North Carolina highlands became fashionable for summer vacationing, because, in a world without air-conditioning, the cool mountain air made southern summers tolerable. When the last of the original owners' family had died or moved out ofthe country, the farmland was sold at auction, and Baird Christopher bought the remaining acre ofland and the big white house. Then, with the carpentry skills he had perfected in the Peace Corps, he set about renovating the elegant old mansion into a dormitory for transient Trail folk. Wallboard partitions split the spacious upstairs bedrooms into two smaller bedrooms, and the chestnut-paneled dining room with its bronze chandelier and ten-foot ceiling was now crammed with homemade pine tables and metal folding chairs set dose together to accommodate the twenty or thirty hikers who would turn up for dinner. Baird usually let one of the hikers do the kitchen cutwork in exchange for a meal, but when he had asked around at lunch today no one seemed to need a free dinner bad enough to work for it, so Baird was doing his own culinary prep work. He took care to station himself in the most conspicuous spot in the garden, however, and he kept another chair dose at hand in case a volunteer happened along. Baird wasn't much on chopping vegetables, but he was glad of an excuse to sit out in the shade of the oaks and watch the world go by-migrating monarch butterflies or investment bankers in hiking boots: it was all one to him. With the white plastic colander balanced on his knees, Baird Christopher snapped open pea pods to the steady beat of a tune in his head. "Need any help?" A stout middle-aged man with a red face and a Cornell sweatshirt stood over him, glistening with sweat. "This is the hostel, isn't it?" he asked, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. "That potato farmer in the old green truck said it was." SHARYN MCCRUMB 403 "Potato farmer?" "Yeah. Guy in overalls hauling bushel baskets ofpotatoes in bed of his pickup. He offered me a ride, but I told him I just needed directions to a place to stay. Said to tell you hello. Gordon Somebody, I think he said." "Oh, Gordon," said Baird with bemused smile. "Potato farmer in an old green truck. Right. I'll tell him you said so. He'll be tickled to death." He chuckled. "Potato farmer." "Well, weren't they potatoes? Or yams, maybe?" "Well, they might have been yams, but old Gordon is no potato farmer. He's a cardiologist from Charlotte. Likes to come up here to his summer place and play farmer whenever we can. He'll be thrilled that you mistook him for the genuine article. It'll make his day. Now, what can I do for you?" The man mopped his face with a grubby bandana. "I need a bath. Can I get a room for tonight?" Baird nodded. "Welcome to the Cosmic Possum Hostel," he said. "I'm just getting the vegetables ready for tonight's dinner. You can help ifyou're so inclined." He removed the paper bag ofcorn from the second lawn chair and indicated that the man could sit down. ''I'm Baird Christopher. I run this place." "By yourself?" "More or less. Every so often one of the Trail puppies will take a break for a couple of weeks or months, either to recuperate from an injury or to earn some cash to take them the rest ofthe way, and I give them a job helping out around the place, but sooner or later, everybody but me moves along. You should have been here lastmonth: The guyworking here had been trained as a chef Used to work at the Four Seasons. He headed out when the weather broke. While it lasted, though, we were eating like kings around here. He even...