Around the fire, stories became my inheritance

There are places in the Blue Ridge Mountains that are special to me in an almost spiritual way. I don’t mean that they are inhabited by ghosts, although I couldn’t say that isn’t true for Scout’s Honor, sure. It’s more about the fact that they hold a little part of the history of a culture that came and passed as all cultural things do. A few of these sites may still exist as they once did, physically recognizable as they once were, but the likelihood of that grows more remote with the passing of time. And not unlike the henges of the British Isles, one might discover a ring of stones marking such spots.

The reason I bring up these particular sites is that they were a seminal part of my upbringing. And like all such sites around the world, some that go back to the very beginnings of human culture, these spaces were where fires were lit. The fires I sat beside were for warmth in that these spaces were entered at dusk and inhabited sometimes until sunup. They weren’t used for cooking other than the boiling of spring water to make coffee so strong that it would strip paint. And depending which attendee was in charge of rations, the occasional pack of dirt road country store weenies might have been scorched on an assortment of green sticks then consumed on folded light bread. Mostly the fare was either a hunk of cheddar, or what was referred to as “rat cheese” and a wax paper wrapped pack of mostly intact saltine crackers. And of course, there was the occasional hunting jacket pocket discovered can of some past season’s sardines.

But the real reason for the firepit was that it was a gathering place, just as firepits have always been. The food was exciting to me for one reason; it was a kind of communion. I mean, I never developed a taste for any cheese except Velveeta until I was in my twenties. And though I put on what I thought was a convincing front, those tin cup rim sips of what passed for coffee didn’t total a half a teaspoon of liquid. And like any kid around a group of his heroes, I was determined to show them what I was pretending to be made of. So, I’d take the knife blade offered limp sardine, gently gripping it between my thumb and middle finger until I could casually slip it under a clump of dead leaves. A moment later I’d smack my lips and drag my sleeve across my mouth and get a nod of approval from the server.

My companions on these fireside soirees were most always what we referred to as “country kin.” That meaning that someone might be my mama’s sister’s husband’s brother. Or my late maternal grandfather’s best friend. Or a ginseng root digger known for being a great teller of tall tales and a healer of dogs.

A whole lot of what was said around that fire was classified as news. When in fact it was precisely the same genre of “news” that my mama and her sisters were conveying around someone’s kitchen table at that same moment, only seated in chairs with Drip-O-Lator coffee and fresh-baked oatmeal raisin cookies. And that news always, always came from some reputable horse’s mouth.

I can’t say much more about what Mama and them discussed, because as soon as I was allowed to turn that kitchen doorknob, I was out and gone toward Indian Branch or Little Bent Creek summer or winter.

The summer I turned 8, I got invited to my first fox race. It was as if someone had handed me a “Get Out Of School Free” card. The invitation came from my mama’s sister’s husband’s brother, one Sam Burton. I had known Sam all my life. His little seven-and-a-half-acre farm adjoined his brother’s matching piece of property. The main difference between those two segments of land was the fact that Sam’s place had a dog lot with a doghouse made of a retired Biltmore Dairy delivery truck sitting at the highest point on his land. And that dog lot was home to the finest pack of Walker Hounds in the western end of the state.

And as much as Sam and the rest of that fireside collection of old men loved to listen to the baying of that pack of foxhounds chasing a game fox around some mountain, it was the stories that was the glue that held that bunch together.

Unlike most of the inhabitants of that part of the state, my granddaddy’s best friend, Stover, had traveled from one end of America to the other and even up to Alaska. Stover was one of those fellows who never met a stranger and never forgot a face. And he never ran out of stories about his adventures either.

Sam Burton, mama’s sister’s husband’s brother, had plenty of adventures to relate himself, having taken part in seven island invasions in the Pacific during his four years in the Army during “The War.” And he was one of those fellows who never forgot a good joke and loved to laugh as much as he loved to hear his listeners laugh.

The root digger, herb gatherer, and dog healer, Tom Harmon was mostly a quiet-spoken fellow who knew about a million folk tales, from Jack tales to his native Cherokee stories. And he was an endless source of mountain craft as well. Plus, Tom could tell haint stories that could set a grown man to looking over his shoulder.

From the time I turned 13, I knew what I wanted to do: entertain folks with songs that I made up. That turned out to be a pretty tall order. It took me years to find my way in that world, but what turned the corner for me was simply going back to those stone circles in my mind and using storytelling as a gate key.