CHAPTER 195. CHiCO YEARS: PRODUCTIVE, RELAXING YEARS 2008
Well into four years of working at Chico’s and so far loving my job and the people I work with. Things have been proving productive for me on the home front as well. I was able to write regularly I had put together two book collections of Essays, all new: Seriousness and Weeping a Night; Rejoicing a Morning.
There are many reasons for some one's unemployment. Sometimes it is their fault and sometimes it is not. Sometimes it is because of crime, sometimes because of disaster, sometimes just because: the owner retires and closes the restaurant, the product becomes obsolete, the person just quits or the person retires. The reasons for unemployment do not have to be mutually exclusive. Neither do the reasons for suffering.
China has an earthquake--32,477 dead. Myanmar has a cyclone--78,000 dead.
How could God allow this amount of suffering? Isn't God in control, if there is a God?
Well one of those disaster figures is above the weekly average and the other under the weekly average for deaths, which are 54,982 or 2,859,055 deaths a year. Yes, on average a person dies every 11 seconds. You must remember this is the world. Nobody gets out alive.
This is Earth, not Heaven. Heaven is perfect. Earth is not, here everybody gets hurt.
Excerpt from Seriousness, “Seven Suffernigs”
A poetry book entitled Just an Old Poet. My photography
volume, Random America.
JUST AN OLD POET
My poems have meters
Rhythms
And frequently have rhymes.
I hope you’ll forgive this
Old poet
Yet learning new times.
Lois and I were again able to take a couple trips. In March we stayed at the Inn on Canal Square in Lewes. It is a decent boutique hotel right on the canal, fairly expense in-season, but we were able to get a special discount
it was not the in-season, but winter well after after Labor Day and before memorial day and also because my friend Ronald Tipton (right at his job) was the long time desk clerk. Even so it was more than we usually paid for a hotel room.
There are not a lot of attractions in downtown Lewes, beyond the ports on the canal, a Swedish Museum called the Zwaanewdael.
Lewes claims to be
the first town in the first state. It began as a trading post and whaling port for the Dutch in 1631. It was named Zwaanendael, or Swan Valley and in 1632 the indigenous local tribe of Lenape wiped out all 32 of the settlers . Until the city of Amsterdam granted the parcel of land to Mennonites in 1662.
Otherwise, you basically wander about exploring the town, which is what Lois and I did. The photo I took of Lois was near the museum site.
Besides this you
spent a lot of time eating, not that there was a ton of eateries still open during the winter season. The photo above and Ronald, Lois and I ws taken by our waiter in the Buttery, on of the more expensive restaurants there. (This photo was taken a year later on another visit.)
We also ate at the Irish Eyes on this and several visits to Lewes. Ronald wasn’t overly pleased with Irish Eyes because they had live entertainment, and he found the constant singing of Irish music very
distracting, while Lois and I rather enjoyed it.
Even Ron had to admit the meals were tasty and filling.
We did return home
in time to go to the three day Couples Ministry at our church, which at that time was Bible Baptist, a mile from our home. It would go through a couple name changes over the net decade or so, from Bible Baptist to Northlife Community Church to Iron Faith Fellowship. I will spin the yard about this church in a later posting.
On June 23 we were off again heading for Asheville, N.C. You see in high school Lois had to do a report of an author. We had such reports at Owen J. And I was always picking someone because I though their book was on the Supernatural. For instance, I choose Arnold Bennett, because of his book Buried Alive (1908) Sounded like a horror story to me, but it wasn’t.
I choose Nathaniel Hawthorne for the same reason, basing
my judgment on his House of Seven Gable. The call it a Gothic Novel, with supernatural and witchcraft, but I mainly found long winded descriptions of drawing rooms.
I probably would have preferred the author that Lois had, but was somewhat overwhelmed with the length of his works. This was Thomas Wolfe. It is interesting that Wolfe was one of the wonderland of Editor Maxwell Perkins who edited, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway among others. Hemingway befriended Fitzgerald, at least for a while, but was completely put off
by Wolfe. This was partly because of height. Hemingway at six foot (He was the same size as me.)
had grown use to being the tallest guy in the room, and took dislikes to anyone taller. Wolfe was 6 foot 6.
Anyway, Lois developed a strong desire to visit Wolfe’s hometown of Asheville, so that June we were on our way south. We did pay a visit to Wolfe’s yellow house, now a museum dedicated to the author.
December 2, 1859; he was the first to so be hung for this accusation in the United States. Since John ain’t around no more, I guess we’ll do lunch. There goes Lois asking away from my camera at Harper’s Ferry.
We actually made this little side trip to have lunch at an
Irish Pub I had read about located near Harper’s Ferry. This was Irish Isle in Middletown, Virginia, just over the West Virginia line.
I don’t know what to say about it. Lois and I like Irish Pubs and this was a good one. That was our table there on the right by the wall when we ‘ad bite there. Unfortunately it no longer is in business. There is a new pub in
Middletown upon that sight called Nana’s Irish Pub, and we have never been to it so can’t say much about it. The Irish Isle was very good and served traditional Irish fare, I can say that.
We then stayed in Roanoke overnight at the Fairview. We had dinner down the highway from the hotel at a restaurant called the Coach and Four.
They were listed as a
three $ restaurant, but you only live once. Even though their menu cover didn’t feature anything I liked.
This is what I believe I got.
French Onion Soup Au-gratin ‘en Crock (4.95), Greek Salad (6.95), Veal Pamigiana (13.95) [I was sort of eating my way across Europe].
I could eat more in those days and I am sure I has desert as well.
highway toward Asheville, although we stopped for lunch in Boone.
I had planned to go up Grandfather Mountain, which overlooked the town, but it rained all day. So instead we ducked into a place called Melanie’s Food Fantasy to eat (seems like all we do is eat, doesn’t it).
There were a number of people eating at tables outside, but Lo and I do not really enjoy outside dining, so we headed inside, where we, along with the Southern hospitality and charm of the art staff, go to chose our table. A couple moments later a furious thunderstorm started and all those outside diners came hustling inside. Soon every table was filled. Even being lunch they served omelets and that was what I had, a bacon and cheese omelet that came with home fries and toast.
twisting thing now slick with rain. Because off the storm, the mountain itself was closed, so I just keep going around it on some back country road.
It seemed we were driving forever. The driving raid suddenly turned to noisy hail pinging off the car. Naturally we got lost in the mess since we off my AAA. Maps. With the weather we couldn’t even enjoy the views.
Hotel, the Biltmore Residence Inn by Marriott which set up a ridge at the beginning of the city. In this photo, the windows on the upper floor right were our room. I had a good view of the hotel parking lot, so could keep a watch over or car.
The site had everything, including a full kitchen. And these towels and washcloths shaped like white swans.
on food, we could have made our meals right in our suite, but we were there to work, so the first night we drove back up the highway and had a really good time eating at a Texas Roadhouse we had passed earlier.
We made the rounds of the highlights of Asheville, beginning with the Biltmore Estate. Biltmore was build as and country estate by George Washington Vanderbilt II (left) in 1888. The Vanderbilts were a prominent and wealthy family. Besides being an art collector, George II shared in the steamboats, railroads and other businesses of his family.
The Biltmore estate was the latest privately owned home in the United States. He died from appendix complications in 1914. He did not die on the Titanic as some people came to believe. He had booked on that voyage, but cancelled because his wife had a premonition.
When we drove up to the ticket office of the Biltmore Estate we discovered it was closed that day. However, we did stop for a bit at the Biltmore Village, which at one time had been part of the estate. I was drawn to stopping in the village because they had a large Chico’s and I felt compelled to visit it.
We also ate lunch in the Village at a cute restaurant called the Corner Kitchen, where you ate on the second floor in a beautiful, cozy room.
We did some side tours outside of Asheville during the five days we stayed there. One was out in the country, Chimney Rock. The Rock seemed somewhat precariously balance up a column, but we went up anyway, despite my infamous fear of heights. At the top, which thankfully you could reach by an elevator, that let you out in the gift shop, of course.
the site, made a slight jump from there onto the Rock proper.
I have to admit the landscape view from atop was pretty spectacular.
We went from Chimney Rock further down the country road to Lake Lure. A number of wonderful, but expensive summer home surround the lake, and of course you can take a pleasant guided boat ride across and around the water.
From the boat you can visit, but not debark upon Snake Island. It is off limits because it lives up to its name and is infested with
You can pause and go ashore down from that island. This is the Lake Lure Inn where the movie “Dirty Dancing” was filmed. We took shelter in it’s cove because a storm had come up suddenly upon us halfway across the lake. A lot of thunder and lighting to remind us we were on a metal frame craft.
It grew very dark and the rain fell in large heavy drops, stirring up the previously calm surface.
It passed quickly, although we got a bit wet in the open-sided road. It was a fun trip, but everyone was joyful when we pulled into the main dock with all its ducks about the docks,
curious street sculpture here and there.
One of our disappointments was dinner. I had made reservations for a restaurant that received a good deal of publicity named the Flying Frog. We found it alright, but just couldn’t find anyone inside to greet us or seat us. We tried upstairs and down without luck. We finally just walked out.
boarding house once owned by Mrs. Julia E. Wolfe, Thomas Wolfe’s mom, that had been known as “Old Kentucky Home”.
Here is the 6 foot 6 author with one of his manuscripts carried into Max Perkins office in crates. Perkins, the editor at schribers, who also had Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald as clients had to whittle the novel from 15,000 pages to book size. It was still a large book. Here goes Lois wandering around Thomas Wolfe’s home.
downtown Lexington, Kentucky. It was known as the Parozza Southern Inn and featured a statue of a fat chef in the window.
Earlier in the year Laurel began dating a boy named Rance. This picture was taken on Laurel’s birthday and they went to El Tapatio in Claymont, not fr from where we live and along Philadelphia Pike. It is pretty authentic, having been founded by Mexicans some years before. IT was be a fun restaurant to visit with its live Mexican music.
Laurel dated Rance for about a year. She always go s kick out of the fact his mother could not pronounce her name with the Ls at both end. His mother was Japanese and her Ls always sounded like Rs.
(center with blue hair, Noelle is the tall girl in back). At that time Dr. Nancy was the visiting vet at the shelter. She now owns her own Veterinarian Hospital, where Noelle works as a VetTech along with her other full time job at the Windcrest Vet Hospital. Nancy and Noelle have been very close friends for 13 years to date.
Noelle also got her second cat, then a kitten, that she named Isaac in 2008. Here is Isaac resting on my arm.
