PRIMROSE‘S TEA TENT
Susie and I went to Nanostead to see if there were people there whose portraits we could make. But there seemed to be few people we hadn‘t photographed so instead of setting up our photo booth we stopped by Primrose‘s tea tent where we had tea and heard about the activities of two young musicians who were also having tea. It was exactly what the tea tent was set up for.
And then I walked around Marshall taking photographs of the nearly empty town, with a few National Guard soldiers cleaning the streets and a few volunteer cleaning the first floor of the Capitola Mill, the old cotton mill, converted to upscale apartments. Below the mill, on the river edge where there had once been grass there was a wide sandy beach and the river shore was piled with trees and branches and trash and white PVC pipes that had floated down 20 miles from Asheville. The former high school, now artists studios had also been flooded on the first floor and was being cleaned out.
And then I drove home on River Road along the French Broad River which was littered with debris on both sides of the river with all the buildings and parks along the way scoured away. I was aware, in a way that I have had never been, how much the French Broad river had over eons carved a path between steep hillsides and cliffs on either side of the river so that there was no way for the thirty feet of water to escape onto flatlands as it roared toward Marshall, demolishing the town when it got there.
I drove through the River Arts District, the flat former industrial area of Asheville beside the now torn up railway tracks which had become an artist‘s haven with many studios and shops selling hand made things which had been bordered by a greenway with walking and biking areas along the river with destruction everywhere and then drove home.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 