Jack's Ramblings

[Artiste]

Shakestheground: are you  First Nation?

Or how did your interest in FIRSTS NATIONS started with you?

Hugs!

[jstephens9]

       Thank you so much for those sweet words.
    Sounds like you have had the wandering eye...Sounds like you may be getting itchy feet..I think its a good idea to not get rid of your cabin..You may change your mind at some point..You may want to go home again....

I guess me wandering around is showing me how many places exist out there in the world. I sure have done my share of seeing new places this summer. I guess too with it getting close to me getting these degrees I am wondering what to do with them. I'm not sure what I would do with them here and I am really, really burned out on my present job. Of course, I haven't ever left here yet so it may just be things going through my head. But yeah, regardless I will not get rid of the cabin.

[jstephens9]

Hey Jack friend !!!

Just now discovered your blog here.  I am so happy to see you here !!!

Wanted to thank you for being such a friend to me in S.F. and letting me cry on your shoulder !!!!

Karen
 

Hey Karen,

Great to see you here!!! I am glad you found me. It seems like more people are finding me  And I was glad to be a friend to you in SF. I will be there anytime you need me and you can always cry on my shoulder anytime you want to. I enjoyed seeing and talking to you. I hope everything is going good in Texas.

Jack

[jstephens9]

Wasn't Thomas Wolfe from Asheville? Didn;t he write you couldn't go home again? And then there was John Denver, he went home to a place he'd never been before..

Yes Truman, Thomas Wolfe was from Asheville and he did write you can't go home again. Actually, it was called Look Homeward Angel, but I've never read it yet. His house is still here that he talks about in the book. They were able to build it back after a huge fire there back a few years ago. They said it was arson and they have never caught who did it. I can't imagine why somebody would do that, but there are a lot of crazy people in the world unfortunately. Oh yeah, we have the Biltmore House too.

So John Denver went back home to the Rocky Mountains, but he had never been there before? I didn't know that. How can you sing about a place you've never been too?

[southendmd]

Jack, I believe Truman was alluding to John Denver's song "Rocky Mountian High":

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Comin home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door

When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hangin by a song
But the strings already broken and he doesnt really care
It keeps changin fast and it dont last for long

But the colorado rocky mountain high
Ive seen it rainin fire in the sky
The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullabye
Rocky mountain high (high colorado) rocky mountain high (high colorado)

He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below
He saw everything as far as you can see
And they say he got crazy once, and he tried to touch the sun
And he lost a friend but kept his memory

Now he walks in quiet solitude the forests and the streams
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake

And the colorado rocky mountain high
Ive seen it rainin fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply
Rocky mountain high (high colorado) rocky mountain high (high colorado)

Now his life is full of wonder but his heart still knows some fear
Of a simple thing he cannot comprehend
Why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more
More people, more scars upon the land

And the colorado rocky mountain high
Ive seen it rainin fire in the sky
I know hed be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly
Rocky mountain high

Its a colorado rocky mountain high
Ive seen it rainin fire in the sky
Friends around the campfire and everybodys high
Rocky mountain high (high colorado) rocky mountain high (high colorado)
Rocky mountain high (high colorado) rocky mountain high do de do

Words by john denver, music by john denver and mike taylor

[ifyoucantfixit]

        I dont know but it seems to me Jack.  You had come home to a place you had never been
before in Colorado, Wyoming, and San Francisco...I know I did.  Brokies are home.  Whereever you
are, if they are there.  You feel at home dont you.?  That is what is meant I believe...Having the
place feel like home is a plus.  Its a comfort and ease, that you are not a single person alone, but
part of a whole.  JMO

[Lynne]

I feel you about the development and the mountains.  I shudder every time Sewanee gets a new endowment and a new building goes up...the University is growing and that is Good, supposedly, but it feels less and less familiar as time passes.  I believe it's Homecoming weekend right now, actually, and it's not bothering me a bit to not make that journey.  And there's so much real poverty in Appalachia while colleges and churches and other institutions build bigger and bigger buildings.

And don't even get me started on the Smoky Mountains...I don't know why I've never been to Asheville, but coming at those mountains from the other direction, I used to cringe the whole way through Gatlinburg until I passed the gates into the National Park.  Even then you have to go at odd times - there are just too many people and too many cars.  And I guess it wins the award for most endangered National Park again (or maybe it's Glacier this year?).  Whichever, it's a GDBOUS.

No, don't sell your cabin, Friend.

Home is on my mind a lot now.  For me Home (besides BetterMost) is where my mother is.  I've always had a bad case of wanderlust - I love that Australian idea of a walkabout.  Goodness knows what I'd do if I had unlimited money.  Boston is the only place I've ever lived that felt like coming home.  I know when I crossed the MA state line last year on the way to the Boston gathering there was immense relief in my heart.  I would chalk it up to the drive, but I recognize the feeling from the many times my plane has landed in Boston coming back from trips to TN.  You know you're in trouble if the site of Logan makes you happy.

I was beating myself up about not seeing TN and the mountains as home last winter.  Truman let me read his copy of Jeff Mann's Loving Mountains, Loving Men in West Virginia. (I highly recommend this if you've not read it!)  Anyhow, the love Jeff has for the region - the small communities and the geography - rings loud and true.  Somehow I felt like I must be missing something inside me to intellectually recognize what he sees but not really feel it myself.  But you can't make yourself feel what you do not; for me, home is more equated with people.

[Lynne]

        I dont know but it seems to me Jack.  You had come home to a place you had never been
before in Colorado, Wyoming, and San Francisco...I know I did.  Brokies are home.  Whereever you
are, if they are there.  You feel at home dont you.?  That is what is meant I believe...Having the
place feel like home is a plus.  Its a comfort and ease, that you are not a single person alone, but
part of a whole.  JMO

I agree a hunnerd percent.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

It is like meeting family for the first time too, without a shared history, but strangly familar. Would that we could all be sitting on the same porch or deck right now, drinking some sweet tea, or a coffee lace. How big is your cabin? Can you post a picture? Sounds wonderful.

I started reading Look Homeward Angel, but only got about a hunnered pages in before my attention span went else where. That might have been when Brokeback came along. 

[Artiste]

Oh!