From the managing editor, April 2015
I never expected to buy a banjo, and certainly not for myself. And yet I recently found myself ogling an Irish tenor on the showroom wall of Acoustic Corner in Black Mountain, North Carolina. This was not my first visit. One of the shop’s resident musicians wandered over—whether he recognized me as a repeat admirer, I couldn’t say. I sheepishly mumbled something about playing the violin and wanting to take up the four-string banjo. He nodded; the instruments’ pitches are the same. Over the shop’s door hung a quirky quilt stitched with a school of “banjo fish” plumbing the bottom of the sea. Those fish seemed to be winking at me. A few minutes later, I walked out carrying my new adventure.
A year ago, the thought of buying a banjo would have been laughable. But I’m not the same person I was then—none of us are. Every so often, life takes our priorities and shakes them up. We discover surprising passions, challenge our beliefs, pick up different hobbies. We buy banjos.
This issue of Smoky Mountain Living pays tribute to such moments of renewal, big and small, timed to nature’s annual wake-up call. Because for all its shades of pastel, spring is anything but genteel. It’s the season of upheaval. Those trilliums poking up in the woods emerge tiny warriors, having won their battles to break ground.
Proving rebirth happens at any age, Anna Oakes writes about our region’s retirees—a can’t-stop, won’t-stop group of seniors pursuing dreams with vigor. Retirement is a long ways off for Sue Eisenfeld, but she knows what it’s like to have a reawakening. After years of hiking in Shenandoah National Park, unaware of its creation story, she chose to go off-trail to search for the stories of its former residents; she shares a piece of her story here. Also in this issue, Jeff Minick tells the tale of the last shots of the Civil War east of the Mississippi River, which rang out 150 years ago this May in our own Waynesville, North Carolina. He reminds us that endings signal beginnings—a transition that has come to define our nation, for better or worse.
In these pages, we also reveal a refreshed look for Smoky Mountain Living. A new section called Sweet Appalachia features the finer parts of life here, which means everything from recipes to books and albums imbued with the spirit of these ridges. Mountain Explorer encourages you to get out there and rove the region, whether in search of songbirds, waterfalls, or a favorite lunch spot. We also introduce a page dedicated to the happenings of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This issue features an interview with Cassius Cash, who became the new park superintendent in February.
Fresh starts are scarcely easy, but they sure can be exciting. There’s magic in the way the revolving of the Earth spurs adaptation, in the unpredictability of nature’s course, how the choices we make now bear fruit later. Enjoy the coming bounty.
— Katie Knorovsky, managing editor