Appalachian State University - Rhododendron Yearbook (Boone, NC)

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t y R.T. Smith In the land of kudzu and copperheads, of mica md moonshine, there is glory on the wing of a swooping lawk and mercy in the lace of November snow, and »race in the crystalline tumble of a gem-studded nountain stream. These Blue Ridge Mountains form a agged and shining bracelet of rock and wood across the Arist of the South, and the centerstone of this natural ewelry is Boone, North Carolina, where Appalachian state University is a nucleus of energy and enthusiasm. As you snake along the narrow highways or the splendid showcase of the Blue Ridge Parkway, you feel :he churning energy of a banjo breakdown on the wind, ;ee the green fire of high pine forests, and touch the undeniably tangible spirit of the mountains. Here, in the dorious country surrounding Boone, the fertile sward of ppalachia once settled by the Watauga Indians and ater explored by Daniel Boone, you taste the sharp salt )f country ham biscuits, hear the midnight quake of the roomer squirrel among the yarrow, smell the immodest iweetness of wild mountain laurel, and behold the cold •oadside waters in their eternal rush down the nountainside. The North Carolina Mountains are the last home of the old gods, survivors of reason and technology, the brilliant images of cryptic red sunsets, sickle-shaped winter moons, the rich chocolate brown of fecund soil that knows the probe of hoe and steel plow, the roaring chorus of a diamond-clear waterfall, and the phoenix flames of frost-glazed sunrises. A wizard-like combustion dwells in these hills, and this is the magic your bones must seek. This is the mystery your blood must find. As you drop into the granite bowl that holds the small town of Boone, you feel the cool autumn breeze and see its bold brush strokes in the trees - gold, crimson, green, yellow and brown. You anticipate days of sitting on the cold rocks of Winkler ' s Creek or Elk Park Falls, afternoons of walking the fringes of Watauga County and scanning the swarthy land for hay ricks and froth-scrimmed running horses, of chatting with the back-country folks who cling to their King-James-Version language and time-proven methods of coaxing the crops from the earth, and nights of hiking to the totemic fire tower where you see Boone leap as one sprawling spray of light among the rough shadows of mountains with names like Hawksbill, Grandmother, Table Rock. J0 ■ 7A L T ' « A| w Scenics 5

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You think of short trips to the rainbow-colored ;averns in Linville where blind fish plough the anderground river like the lost tribes seeking the aromised land, eveni ngs spent at Wiseman ' s View searching for the legendary Brown Mountain Lights and theorizing about their myth-shrouded source, or raucous weekends at Holly ' s or the Villa Maria. You imagine the rapid slamming of dogger ' s feet on a hard oak floor and the blatant shock of that first sip of white lightning at the back of your throat. Or you imagine the fall of apples, like small fists applauding their own crisp ripeness, of the first snowfall when the white crystals seem to fall out of a saw-edged sun and drift to the ground like vanishing manna, like tiny slivers of a spun-glass dream. You look forward to the explosion of flowers that will follow the snow - heal-all, jack-in-the-pulpit, trillium, rhododendron. You await the sweet showers of April washing the roots and stirring you to blood-touched pilgrimages to the rock and water, the unreality of Linville Falls, to the trails, to the rivers and fields and treetops and ridge crests and split-rail fences that unfold the eternal glories of the Appalachian Mountains. You hook your thumbs in your belt and hum a few bars of Foggy Mountain Breakdown or Cripple Creek and light up a corncob pipe and throw back your shoulders to give a rebel yell that rises from deep in the blood in your guts to the rim of the heavens. You know that you are in Appalachia and at ease and glad as a fox in the hen yard to be at home where the sun splashes off the mica sheets in the mountains as if the hills themselves were the source of the light, the source of the energy, the source of life. When December locks the mountains in shadowed chains of blue snow, you hoist your skis and set out for the slopes, or you sled or drink steaming apple cider and watch the sky fall softly through an ice-sheened window. Your curl into your parka and mittens, your hood and boots, and explore the exploding flower of winter, for in the mountains you are free and able to resist the ruin that hovers in fragments over the rest of the world. Scenics 7