On the Edge of Appalachia

Gorilla in the Mist ~ Kayaking Appalachia

You can hear the Gorilla long before you see it. It has a mighty roar, as if waiting to claim its next victim.

For hikers, there’s only one way to reach the Gorilla –

a not-for-the-faint-of-heart scramble down 1600 feet of steep mountainside, clinging to exposed roots and frayed ropes –

in order to reach the “Garden of the Gods” and the Green River Narrows, through which Gorilla flows.

And that is how I spent this past Saturday, scrambling down a steep mountainside in the company of good friends.

But hikers like us have it easy compared with what awaits kayakers.

Just 35 miles south of Asheville, the Green River Narrows was first successfully navigated in 1988. One of the most extreme kayaking runs in the Eastern US, it is now a rite of passage for serious paddlers.

Because for kayakers, the opportunity to “huck” themselves off the Gorilla – a Class V rapids with five segments (Pencil Sharpener, The Notch, The Flume, Scream Machine, and Nies’ Pieces) –

is just irresistible.

So irresistible, it made National Geographic’s Ultimate Adventure Bucket List in 2014.

The source of the Green River Narrows’ ferociousness is the Tuxedo Power station, which lies upstream. The Tuxedo periodically releases water at a rate of up to 216 cubic feet per second over this canyon of ancient Appalachian bedrock, creating a fierce playground for paddlers.

Gorilla, one of the “Big Three” rapids on the river, is perhaps the most visually impressive.

It starts with a narrow 4-foot slot that is immediately followed by two waterfalls –

“The Flume” and the “Scream Machine” – for a total drop of 28 feet.

A famous training ground for extreme kayaking, the Green River is legendary and the pinnacle of many kayakers’ careers.

Each November, many of the world’s best paddlers descend on the Green to participate in the annual Green Race, considered by many to be the most competitive and coveted whitewater race on the planet. Kayaker Grady Kellog describes the experience:

“The Green is a river where anyone can have a bad day –

(but) it’s a magnificent run that will have you high on adrenaline for days.”

For hikers, the adrenaline rush is also there –

and can be safely appreciated (and photographed) from solid ground.

Curious to know more? Check out the following videos and websites ~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsHMeGDpxQk

http://alltrails.com/trail/us/south-carolina/green-river-narrows

In memory of Boyce Greer of LiquidLogic ~ friend & kayak enthusiast.

A Woman Named “Hello”

Not long after I moved to Asheville, I met an extraordinary and courageous photographer named Moni Taylor, who shared with me not only her insights into Appalachian ways of being and culture, but also her unique (and many!) perspectives on life.

We met one another at a coffee shop just down the hill from my house and right away got to talking about photography.

At the time, Moni lived in a charming cottage that was the architectural and handcrafted embodiment of her own personality –

she called it her little”hobbit house.”

A few days after we met, she invited me over to her house to show me some of her latest work.

Shot primarily in black and white, the subject matter was so upsetting, I could hardly bear to look at it. At the same time, I could hardly look away.

Moni was working as a neonatal nurse at the local hospital when I met her. And that was where she captured her most moving photographs.

With love and great compassion, Moni Taylor had documented the tiniest of lives – the ones that lasted only moments.

What began as a gift of memories for one set of grieving parents grew over time into a series of portraits of lost babies, a collection of photographs she eventually put together in a book with the poetry of her thoughts on loss and remembrance.

Moved by her work, I wrote a feature article on Moni and her photography for Mountain Xpress, a local paper.

In addition to our talks about photography, I learned a lot about life from Moni. I loved our coffee shop chats. I loved the hours spent sitting curled up in an easy chair at her place, or mine, sipping tea, listening to her stories.

I could listen to her thoughts on people and men and life and the world for hours. She has a colorful manner of speaking that is unique, even by Appalachian standards.

But by the time I’d met Moni, she was growing restless with life in our small town. Her kids were grown and she was ready to get back to traveling as much as possible. She was ready for new adventures.

After some thought, she decided to join the Peace Corps.

“I had been thinking about a life change and the Peace Corps was definitely on my brain. I thought about it when I was younger and then life stepped in,” she told me. “But now it’s a perfect time for me to wander.”

Much to her surprise, Moni was assigned to Malawi – the third poorest country in the world.

The idea of a nurse/photographer from Appalachia setting out to help people half way around the world seemed to me like a great storyline for a documentary film.

And so, with the help of friends, we began documenting her life in the weeks leading up to her departure as she said goodbye to friends and family.

Before leaving Asheville, Moni did something people around here often do,

but that she herself had never done before –

She got a tattoo.

And not a small one either.

A devout Catholic, Moni had the likeness of the Virgin Mary inked into her skin, along with the names of her four children.

“So the Blessed Mother will always have my back,” she said with a grin.

And then, Moni set off for two years in Africa with her backpack, her camera and a heart full of good intentions.

“When it comes to travel and adventure, I am fearless,” she said, shortly before leaving.

“I took my daughter to see the Grand Canyon when she was ten, just because I wanted her to see it. And we drove. And people said, ‘Why didn’t you fly?’ And I said, because I wanted to see the earth between here and there. And it was fascinating and I loved it.

“So as far as being fearless and doing things, I’ve always had that.”

“And I never have ever regretted one dime I’ve ever spent on travel. It just feeds your spirit, it adds layers to your soul. And adds layers to your whole life that nobody can take away.”

“And so I’m convinced I will come back richer and fuller. And it’s going to be okay.”

After she arrived in Malawi, one of her first discoveries was that her nickname – Moni – means “hello” in the local dialect.

What a perfect name for the film on this rare bird from Appalachia, I thought –

“A Woman Named Hello.”

I started making plans to visit her in Malawi to continue documenting her story.

But the emotional and physical realities of a Peace Corps life in one of the world’s poorest country took their toll on her spirit.

“I miss all that wonderful stuff that is the complete support of the best friends…” she wrote in the journal she kept of her experiences there. “I need it like air these days …..

This environment is so different than any I could ever imagine myself living in ….. I have thought a million times, ‘why was I sent here?'”

Disheartened and ill, Moni left Africa and the Peace Corps before I could get there.

These days, she continues to travel and share her nursing skills, her passion for photography, and her Appalachian-rooted world view with people in different cultures and countries.

Periodically – and always without warning – Moni will appear on my doorstep and tell me all about her latest adventures.

[All photography by Kristin Fellows with the exception of the black & white photo, which is by Moni Taylor, and the one of Moni in Malawi, for which I have no photo credit]

The Mystery of the Grave Is Revealed!

“I came to tell you she is NOT buried in your backyard!” said the man standing in my front garden.

I work from home and there are few things more annoying than having people drop in unexpectedly, especially when I’m on a tight deadline.

But when a stranger starts a conversation with those words … maybe it’s time to take a break and hear what he has to say.

“Are you the owner of this house?” he asked.

“Who wants to know?” I responded, cautiously.

“I’m Harry Giezentanner!” he said.

I knew the name. The Giezentanners had owned my house many decades ago.

Giezentanner was also the name on the gravestone in my garden.

When I bought this old house, no one warned me it came with a grave. Even the next door neighbors seemed taken by surprise with its discovery.

My daughter promptly googled the little girl’s name for more information and came up with a different grave for the same little girl – same names and dates, but in Tennessee. Further research revealed a third gravestone with the same information, but now the birth and death dates were both off by a year.

We were puzzled. Where was she? Who was she? And what had happened to her?

Fragments of information came slowly to light.

A neighbor’s former wife – also in the Giezentanner family – had told me what she knew about Mable Ruth the day before Harry appeared in my front garden. She assured me that Mable Ruth’s parents, the Nannie Lou and L H Giezentanner on the gravestone, were living in Marshall, a half hour up the river from Asheville, when their little girl died. Harry confirmed that.

During our conversation, I noticed he often looked past my shoulder, curious about the house.

So I invited him in.

It had been decades since he’d seen it. As if in a dream state, he wandered from room to room, sharing memories of his grandparents.

Some time after Harry’s visit, I came across a newspaper write-up with the full details of the tragedy.

On the 13th of July, 1928, The News-Record in Madison County reported the story of Mable Ruth’s death. It was front page news.

“The community was greatly surprised and terribly shocked Thursday afternoon to hear of the sudden death of little Mable Ruth Giezentanner, who was stuck by a Buick roadster Thursday afternoon and fatally injured…. The accident occurred … where Mr Giezentanner, who holds a position with the Southern Railway as telegraph operator, works.

“Mrs Giezentanner and the child had gone to Rollins in a taxi driven by Mr Romeo Ferguson, to carry Mr Giezentanner’s lunch to him. Eye witnesses said that the child stepped from the taxi and walked around in front of the roadster which struck her, the accident being declared unavoidable. It is said that the roadster was traveling about 15 or 20 miles per hour.

“The driver of the roadster stopped and picked up the child and came back to Marshall with the parents. The driver of the car was accompanied by his wife, both being from a North State, and they were both nearly prostrated with grief by the horrible occurrences. The child was carried to the Marshall hospital where she died shortly after.

“Little Mable Ruth was a sweet, pretty little girl, much beloved around Marshall, and she will be greatly missed by all who knew her.”

Harry assured me that little Mable Ruth (who would have been his aunt) was actually buried in Tennessee, and the marker in my garden is just that – a memorial stone placed there by grieving parents.

Bears Everywhere!

You don’t have to be able to outrun a bear, Tom once told me –

you just have to be able to run faster than your friends.

He threw his head back and laughed. (He often finds his jokes a lot funnier than I do.)

Here’s another piece of advice: “It’s important to be able to distinguish the difference between the skat of black bears and the skat of grizzlies,” he says. “Black bear poop has nuts & seeds & smells like berries.”

“Grizzly bear skat has little bells & smells like pepper spray.”

Mountain humor.

(Not quite so funny to hikers, though.)

Bears are everywhere in Asheville, N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission biologist Mike Carraway was recently quoted in the local paper as saying. “If we gave you a map showing the bears’ movements, it would be a solid map of Asheville. The east and northeast and south have more bears, but there are pretty much bears everywhere.”

But running into one often happens when you least expect it.

Like the afternoon I happened to glance out my living room windows and saw a large black shape that wasn’t normally in the garden.

A black cub had sauntered into my yard to snack on fallen apples. I grabbed my camera and sat on the back deck, listening to him as he snuffled and munched contentedly, taking photographs with shaky and cold fingers.

Or the time I was gardening, and happened to turn around in time to see a large black dog run down my neighbors’ driveway. But then I realized, oh right,

they don’t have a dog.

Watching out for bears is something to ponder here when you ride bikes – just ask Tom, who once had to fend one off while out riding along a mountain ridge.

Or jog on the local roads.

And even when (and how) you put out the trash.

You may even need to yield to a family of bears when driving.

But folks around here weren’t always that accommodating. Years ago, bear pens were built in areas or gaps where bears had been seen. Bear hunters would stack up logs and rig a trip line attached to bait. When a bear pulled at the bait the logs would fall on the bear, killing it.

These days, bears are, for the most part, respected and tolerated and many of these areas have since been put to better use as scenic overlooks and trail heads. People have learned to give bears a respectful amount of distance for co-existence and “a lot of people are pretty much OK with it,” Carraway says.

So has Asheville become a bear mecca?

“We have bears moving in and bears moving out,” Carraway says. “Some are staying in a small area, and some are moving around. And “some young bears born in the city wind up leaving.” Pretty much like human offspring.

This recent bear study – a collaboration between NC State University and the NC Wildlife Resources Commission – also found that town bears generally are healthier and better fed than their country cousins because they are supplementing their natural food with food from human sources.

But then, anyone who’s accidentally discovered that Asheville bears like coconut water,

already knew that.

Christmas in Appalachia

For several weeks now, I have been on the lookout for moments to photograph that (at least to me) show the customs, culture and spirit of “Christmas in Appalachia.”

But so far, all I’d been able to find…

was Santa and Mrs Claus breakfasting at the Moose Café (a popular farm to table restaurant),

an aging elf trying to transport wrapping paper on his bicycle,

and a young mermaid surprising Santa – none of which were what I had in mind.

The days passed and suddenly Christmas was upon us. Tom and I drove up to his parents’ farm for dinner.

They live in a picturesque holler, a small valley that lies between mountains in Yancey County. This wasn’t my first visit here, but I had never before seen it at dusk.

Their home, with the windows glowing and smoke coming out of the chimney, set against a backdrop of mountains, looked like a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting.

Tom is a fifth generation Appalachian and this entire valley was once owned by his great-great-grandparents. Over the years, the land was subdivided and then subdivided again among the siblings of each successive generation.

Family descendants still live in homes and on farms throughout the valley.

During the 45-minute drive up the mountains, I saw a few possibilities for the photographs I’d been after. But it wasn’t until we walked inside the family farmhouse

that I realized I had finally found exactly what I had been looking for.

Each room was decorated for the season and table was beautifully set with Tom mother’s Christmas china.

Mouth-watering smells filled the air and pretty soon, a feast of ham, garlic cheesy grits, sweet potatoes, and oyster casserole was laid out before us.

And for desert, there was a delicious homemade fruit cake (made with applesauce) – a recipe from Tom’s great grandmother.

Farm, family, food, and celebration – it was all right there.

And it had been all along.

Want a taste of Appalachian Christmas? Try Tom’s great grandmother’s recipe!

Granny Young’s Applesauce Fruit Cake

1-1/2 cups brown sugar
1 quart applesauce
1/2 lb butter, melted
1 cup raisins
1 cup figs, 1 cup dates, 1 cup nuts – chopped
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp cloves
3/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3 cups plain flour
3 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix nuts, fruit, sugar and spices together in a large mixing bowl. Stir melted butter into mixture, then flour and soda. Mix well. Pour into a well-greased and floured tube pan and bake in a 350 degree oven for one hour and 15 minutes (or until done.)

Merry Christmas from Appalachia!

The Road of Good Intentions

Sometimes I get the crazy feeling that Appalachia is speaking directly to me.

Sometimes it’s subtle, and sometimes it seems (at least to me) pretty obvious.

Like the wrong turn I took while driving out in the countryside just days before the end of the year that brought me unexpectedly face to face with a very unexpected street sign.

Why on earth would someone name a road ‘good intentions,’ I wondered (when I wasn’t wondering where the heck I was.)

But then I got to thinking about the past year and decisions made – based perhaps more on good intentions than good sense.

On the first day of a brand new year, maybe it’s time to simply appreciate that positive thoughts had been at the root of them all, let it go, and move on.

Thank you, Appalachia – I can’t wait to see what surprises you have in store for me the next time I lose my way.

A Little Ghost in the Garden

Even by Asheville’s idiosyncratic standards, my neighborhood has a lot of personality.

Perched on a mountainside overlooking the north end of town, it is laid out in amaze of rather narrow and hilly streets – perfect for long, rambling walks with dogs.

It is home to musicians, artists and artisans. Dancers and dreamers. Builders, renovators and carpenters. Massagers and missionaries. Realtors and retirees. Genealogists and historians. Fishermen, restaurateurs, and coffee shop owners. Mountain folk, half-backs, snowbirds, and urban-flighters. It even has a ballet conservatory and an electronic music factory.

Some folks have been here most (if not all) of their lives. Some, like me, have only just recently found their way into the neighborhood. Some have built their dream retirement home here, while others are just trying to get through the mountain winters without central heat.

Our street has a random assortment of Arts & Crafts bungalows, Victorian and Queen Anne-style homes, a little church, and a home for retired Methodist missionaries and one Dutch barn – my own Casa Mia. And, co-existing in a rather bizarre juxtaposition, there is also a women’s shelter next to two lovely and historic B&B’s.

A crazy eclectic mix – that’s Asheville.

Each house in the little ‘hood holds a unique cache of stories of the generations of people and families that have lived and died there.

Like the one down the street, where wedding initials and dates, etched with a diamond ring from decades ago, are still visible in the glass of the window panes.

Or the overgrown lot around the corner, where you can still see the ruins of an historic home that crack-addicted squatters accidentally burned down nearly twenty years ago, back when the neighborhood was the working turf of prostitutes and drug dealers.

And, until recently, there was Donna Sue’s old farmhouse dating back to 1910. A year and a half ago, I took a photograph of her standing on the front porch that seems to illustrate the bewildering and poignant displacement of old Appalachia. But it’s actually just a photograph of Donna Sue, getting irritated with me for taking “so durn long” to grab the shot, while she was busy trying to pack up and move out. But not too busy, it bears noting, that she couldn’t indulge in a lengthy discussion on the flowers in her garden and the best place in Tennessee to get moonshine.

After Donna Sue and her family left and only her stubborn old cat remained, the farmhouse was torn down to make way for something new.

Even my house, it turns out, has its own ghosts – one of which belongs to a little five-year-old girl, whose gravestone I discovered unexpectedly one day in my back garden when clearing away some underbrush….

Because Asheville

There’s an expression friends around here have been using recently – “Because Asheville.”

I like it. In only two words, it explains what is completely unexplainable about life in our town.

Like the unexpected magical randomness of walking down an alley and finding a scattering of yellow flower petals next to a door that says “Imagine Inventing Yellow.” Or the discovery of a mini galaxy hovering over a collection of antique bottles in the window of an old building in a dark alley late one night.

There are many happenings and serendipitous occurrences I could give you to illuminate the meaning of “because Asheville.”

Here’s but one.

It’s likely I would not have met Tom had I not purchased the house I am currently living in, the house I call “Casa Mia.”

I called it Casa Mia just because it’s mine, even though I am living in Appalachia and there is nothing even remotely Italian about the house (or me, for that matter.) I just like the cosy way it sounds.

I would not have met Tom because I would not have met Jo, the German rugby-playing- architect-turned-landscape-gardener-for-missionaries across the street from Casa Mia.

And I would not even have bought Casa Mia – had it not been for yoga.

Ten years earlier, my kids and I picked our first home in Asheville for its views, a little ranch house, perched on an acre of hillside, overlooking a lake, a bird sanctuary, and the mountains.

Much as I loved it, after the kids had graduated and moved on, I wanted to move closer into town. I soon discovered – and lost my heart to – an old Dutch barn style house in a funky little neighborhood, just blocks from downtown. The realtors told me I couldn’t buy it because a contingent contract was not permitted. But I was in love and already living there, at least in my head.

And so I began stalking the house.

I detoured all of my trips into town so I could drive past it and gaze at it longingly. It was so charming, I fretted, surely it would sell before I could unload my current house in an uncertain real estate market.

A few days after I first saw the house, I walked into my local yoga studio. Ninety minutes later, lying on my mat in a post-Ashtanga state of savasana, a thought made its way into my somewhat blissed out head.

The heck with the realtors, I thought happily, why not just knock on the door and ask the owners if I could buy their house? At the time, it seemed like an entirely rational idea.

Within moments, I was on their front door-step, disheveled, sweaty and still wearing yoga clothes. I told them I was passionately in love with their house and felt inexplicably drawn to live there. And then I offered them their asking price. The owners – a kind of scary looking, heavily tattooed French guy and his American wife – said okay. As simple as that.

But, of course, it wasn’t that simple.

I arranged to pay them monthly not to sell it to anyone else while my realtor and I energetically worked to sell my house up by the lake. Seventy-two showings and seven months later, there we were, sitting at the settlement table.

An hour later, the little Dutch barn house was mine.

The next spring, while working in the front yard, I met Jo –the German rugby-playing- architect-turned-landscape-gardener-for-missionaries across the street.

Jo introduced me to Tom on a blind date.

Because Asheville.

A Very Appalachian First Date ~ Involving a Bull, a Beggar, a Dinosaur, and a Pig

My first proper date with Tom was also the first (and only) time I have ever had a pig’s tongue inside my mouth.

I’ll explain how that happened in a moment but first, let me say that it was a very Appalachian first date, involving interesting characters, layers of history, craftsmanship, and livestock (of course) – interwoven in a uniquely contemporary way.

It took place along the banks of the French Broad, one of the oldest rivers in the world,

under the watchful eye of a dinosaur.

Where it flows through Asheville, the French Broad has for decades been lined with a motley assortment of old warehouses and industrial buildings held together by not much more than lush green ivy and many layers of graffiti and spray paint.

Back in the day, this stretch along the river was the epicenter of produce and livestock distribution for the surrounding Appalachian farms.

Over the years, however,

with the retreat of the farmlands and the changing ways of handling livestock, the buildings were gradually abandoned and fell into disrepair.

And then, decades later, something magical began to happen.

Slowly and quietly, first just a few, then hundreds of creative souls moved into nooks and crannies of the old industrial buildings that were even somewhat inhabitable, creating a much treasured warren of artist’s studios along the river.

And pretty soon, art was cropping up just about everywhere.

One of those creative beings was John Payne, kinetic sculptor, self-professed time traveler, and founder of the Wedge Studios.

In 2001, Payne purchased a three story classic warehouse adjacent to the railroad tracks, which he transformed into affordable studio space for himself and other artists.

Known as the Wedge for its shape, the building originally functioned as a produce and livestock cooperative for Appalachian farmers back in the early 1900s.

A few years after Payne moved into the building, the Wedge Brewing Company, a craft brewery, opened up on the back loading dock, overlooking the train tracks.

Gradually, the area that had once been home to chicken hatcheries, tanneries, livestock yards, an ice house, and a flour mill,

became a home for breweries, eateries, and artists – and is now known as the River Arts District.

One of the many things Tom and I had already discovered we have in common is a love for grabbing a pint

down at the Wedge.

It was, therefore, a logical starting place for our first real date.

After Payne’s death in 2008,

one of his fantastical creations, the Utahraptor, was purchased by the current owners of the Wedge Studios. It now stands guard above the entrance to his old studio on the building’s backside –

next to what has recently become The Bull and Beggar, a restaurant that Modern Farmer – a magazine and website “for anyone who cares about where their food comes from” – declared to be among their top ten global (yes, global) picks.

Drinks turned into dinner when Tom and I wandered hand in hand down the loading dock to check out The Bull and Beggar’s “sipid food and sturdy drink” inside their recently renovated portion of the warehouse.

Accepting someone else’s idea for who to date had so far worked out quite nicely for me.

So when the women seated at the table next to us (as well as the waitress) raved about the pig’s tongue on the menu that night – despite the voice inside my head screaming – No!!! – I said okay, I’ll try it.

Years of trying not to bite the tongue in my mouth, however, was too much experience to try to overcome in just one evening.

Or, possibly ever.

Tom just laughed as he ate the rest of the porcine dish, all by himself.

And then, asked me out for another date.

[painting of John Payne by artist Ben Betsalel]

Dating Appalachia

I arrived in Asheville as a single (divorced) woman, with two kids – one in high school and one in college. It took me awhile to realize that my prospects for finding a boyfriend here were pretty slim. According to Kiplinger, Asheville ranks among the ten worst cities for singles in the US.

I knew just what I was looking for, though. Having lived in London as a kid, worked in Paris as a teenager, and traveled throughout much of Europe for work as an adult, I was on the lookout for an international boyfriend, someone to have travel adventures with and learn different languages from.

Asheville attracts an interesting mix of people, but eight years had passed with nothing more than a handful of dates and a few relationships that didn’t last past two months.

And then fate intervened unexpectedly in the form of a tall, long-haired, German, rugby-playing architect named Jo. Jo was in charge of landscaping at the retirement home for Methodist missionaries located across the street from my house and for the past year, we had waved to one another occasionally or spent a few moments chatting about gardening. Or house design. Or Germany.

One day, on a whim, I asked him if he had any single friends.

“No,” he said smugly in his strong German accent. “We’re all taken!”

I regretted having asked.

Several weeks later, however, he came striding across the street as I was pulling my car into the driveway.

“Okay,” he said, not wasting any time with small talk, “I’ve thought of someone!”

Surprised, I agreed to meet that “someone” without wondering why it had taken him a month to come up with this guy.

“When are you going to Spain?” Jo asked. I gave him the date of my return and he arranged the blind date for the following night.

My trip to Barcelona had been planned with my Chinese horoscope in mind, which promised those born in the year of the Monkey would find true love some time in the last quarter of the year of the Snake.

Accordingly, I booked my trip for late September, thinking I might help things along a little by putting myself in the perfect location to meet an adventurous, handsome Catalan. For a whole week, I would do nothing but walk the city, experience the food and wine and people, take photographs on the streets and hopefully meet the man of my dreams.

Sadly, I returned home boyfriend-less. I did meet a lovely waiter named Pablo on my last night in Barcelona at the restaurant just outside the flat where I was staying which, two glasses of wine later, it might have turned into something interesting, but….

Re-entry is always tough. And so on my way back to the States, I spent much of the five-hour layover at JFK pondering this upcoming blind date and wondering how I might get out of it.

Hours before the rendezvous, Jo reappeared on my front porch to tell me my date’s name (Tom) and the location of our dinner – Curaté, a wonderful Spanish tapas restaurant downtown. He also told me I would be able to identify my date by the rugby shirt he would be wearing. (Rugby shirt, at Curaté?)

It had been a 23-hour journey back to Asheville. Massively jet-lagged, I dragged myself through my pre-date preparations and headed downtown.

We arrived at the restaurant at the exact same moment. Even before I saw the rugby shirt under his sports jacket, I knew it was him.

He was smiling at me.

That evening, sitting side by side, while the chefs provided us with dish after dish of deliciousness, we talked for nearly four hours. I discovered he isn’t German or European, he is a fifth-generation Appalachian. And he has the complexion of someone with Scottish roots, not Mediterranean. He does have an accent, however – a Southern one.

I also discovered the time I spent inventing excuses to get out of a second date … was entirely wasted.

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