WALNUT BAKERY AND MORE
Camille, a baker, who made the long trip to Rob Amberg’s birthday party in Letojanni, Sicily, two years ago where she was going to bake the birthday cake but instead got eaten alive by some insect, maybe bedbugs, and was unable to function, was today opening up her own home backery in Walnut, a little community near Marshall. So Susie and I went to buy a loaf of bread. We got the bread but there were all kinds of fancy croissants for sale and coffee and a place to sit, and we ended up sitting in the sunshine at a table with a woman who Susie knew and who had been to Sicily for Rob Amberg’s birthday party, a woman I also knew. That kind of chance leisurely encounter in Marshall is really pleasant.
We drove back to Marshall by the back roads as Susie showed me Big Pine, a community near Marshall. There is Big Pine, Little Pine, Sodom Laurel, Laurel and many more, little communities strung the roads that run along creeks which meander down to the French Broad River. We were driving down one zigzag rode following the streambed with Susie looking for a gingerbread house she had been curious about where years before she had taken a bouquet of flowers in order to be invited in by an old lady to see it. She spotted the house. An old man was peering over the porch railing. Susie stopped and told him how beautiful the house was and he invited her to come up and talk, which we did, for an hour and a half. Earl is 96 years old and has trouble walking. His wife, to whom Susie brought flowers, died years ago and he lives by himself. But as we were sitting on the porch, every car going past honked and someone waved. Earl has a lot of friends. One of his friends, 89 year old Dayton, parked his car and came up onto the porch, unsurprised by strangers already sitting there. He and Earl told stories for an hour of the old days, of the state of their gardens, of strange things that they had experienced. Dayton told of befriending squirrels which he would lure to his front door by giving them food so that they would eat out of his hand. One day a hawk swooped down and sunk its talons into a squirrel, who somehow survived, but the hawk attack enraged Dayton. He had a rifle and a shotgun as did Earl and everyone they knew. He waited with his shotgun until the hawk returned and then as the hawk was sitting on an electric wire he took aim at it but just as he was about to pull the trigger he noticed that there were some yurts with outsiders camping out just beyond the hawk so he put down the gun and let it go.
There were more and more stories but finally we pulled ourselves away and drove back to Marshall. I remember thinking at the time that the best part of our trip to England was the stories we heard. The most intense times that happen when traveling is not when viewing grand buildings but when you encounter someone unexpected who opens his life to you. And Earl’s stories were a sign that you don’t have to go to England or Germany or Sicily for this to happen, it can happen right around the corner if you are open enough.
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BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 