Needing to recharge: An early spring day provides the perfect mixture for restoring body and soul

I’d been feeling that need for nearly two months, since being felled by COVID for the second time just after the first of the year and returning to work more quickly than I should have.

But the truth is, The Paper is a hard place from which to stay away. There’s the usual guilt about your work being foisted off on innocent others while you lay in the bed moaning and groaning and praying for death.

More important, though, is the feeling that if you’re away for long, you’ll miss something important.

Like an enthralling  Marty Queen story about fishing or alien abduction.

Like a visit from Bruce Ervin or Ron George or David Connelly or Cam McNeely or any of the host of other characters who drop by regularly just to keep us on our toes.

Like being at my station to tell the publisher that his “drop dead” deadline is about to pass and he’s gonna be singing the blues in the night with a blank spot on the Opinion section front page where his column was supposed to go.

Like being at full battle stations as Thursday afternoon speeds toward Thursday evening and we’re all working at full throttle to make sure this newspaper is ready to go into production on time.

You see, The Paper is a fun place to work. The team we have here blends together more cohesively and has more fun doing very tough jobs than any group I’ve been associated with and I’ve been in the marketplace for more than half a century.

Even so, sometimes a fella just needs to recharge.

And this past Monday, March 11, I was able to do just that.

The recharging begins at breakfast. A fella can’t get his energy back from fruit or granola or nuts or cereal. I dined on two piping hot homemade biscuits stuffed with bacon, egg, and cheese.

That breakfast was necessary for the next step in my recharging process – a long, slow, solitary hike in the woods on what turned out to be an absolutely perfect early spring day.

I love my bride. I love my dog. I love family and friends with whom I have shared glorious hikes in the past and with whom I hope to share many glorious hikes in the future.

But on this particular day, I just wanted to be by myself. Free to amble along at my own pace. Free to stop whenever I wanted, eat whenever I wanted, and think about whatever I needed to think about.

Or, just as important, to think about nothing at all.

My hike took me along the majestic Catawba River at Riverbend Park and within minutes of my arrival on the river’s south shore, I had spotted a pair of bald eagles, a couple of osprey, and three great blue herons.

What a way to start the day.

Over the next six hours, I hiked about eight miles, but I spent about as much time sitting as hiking.

I sat on a bench and watched the river roll by. Another bench found me in a hardwood forest beside a small creek. And, in my favorite spot of the day, I leaned my back against an old oak and let the March sun warm my face.

With its mix of river and of wetlands, of forested hills and open meadows, River Bend is perhaps the best spot in the area to see and soak in the beauty of several different outdoor environments, all within one park.

Nature is a great healer, a great restorer, and a great comforter, and those wonderful qualities are never more on display than a March day when the sky has no clouds, the sun is warm, and the only sounds are the whisper of the river or the light song of the wind.

Sometimes, a fella just needs to recharge.

And thankfully, that's just what I was able to do.

Bill Poteat is editor of The Paper. He may be reached at 828-448-0195 or via email at bill@thepaper.media.