Getting That Second Wind

As baby boomers enter their golden years, the anti-establishment generation is proving it still has a few conventions to dismantle. Golfing and knitting still hold appeal in retirement, but don’t tell these folks to slow down. “This group of baby boomers—they don’t want to sit or relax,” says Marian Schaffer, whose company SoutheastDiscovery.com, has been helping retirees relocate to the South for more than a decade. Many of today’s retirees, she says, eschew age-restricted communities in favor of the “vibrancy of being around younger adults.”

Enter Southern Appalachia, an all-ages playground for the active and affluent. People come to the Smokies and the Blue Ridge for the mild weather, a four-season climate, and beautiful scenery, of course. But retirees are migrating en masse to highland college towns with other motives in mind: They desire a physically, mentally, and socially active lifestyle. Retirees who head for the nearest campus are on the “vanguard of a growing trend,” according to a recent Forbes article that cited Asheville, North Carolina, among the communities attracting lifelong learners. 

“There are people coming from all corners of the United States to move here,” agrees Schaffer. Western North Carolina, for example, has long been a second home and retirement destination for Floridians, but lately, Schaffer has observed an uptick in relocations from California, Arizona, and Texas.

A Brookings Institution analysis of Census data found that “mid-South” areas such as the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia saw some of the nation’s highest growth rates in 65-and-older populations between 2000 and 2010, including a 60 percent increase in Raleigh and a 35 percent rise in the Southern Appalachian region near Chattanooga.

Towns with universities are a bonus to today’s retirees, because of multi-generational populations, diverse culture and activities, and plentiful opportunities to learn about new topics and hobbies. “In many ways, university towns are small towns with big-city amenities,” says Catherine Frank, the executive director of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. “It’s a great way to have all of those wonderful things without some of the downsides of living in an urban environment.” 

One of 119 similar programs across the country dedicated to enabling “members to thrive in life’s second half,” OLLI offers some 350 classes for older adults, ranging from the liberal arts to exercise to hands-on crafts, and helps connects eager volunteers with schools and other organizations. Its peer-to-peer learning model is based on members sharing their areas of expertise with one another—with a membership that includes accomplished individuals ranging from a Nobel laureate and Smithsonian curator to an auctioneer and cartoonist, to name just a few examples. 

In some cases, OLLI members are expanding on classroom lessons in the real world. Leading a writer’s workshop led retired teacher John Himmelheber to create the web-based Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine. Now in its second issue, the magazine caters primarily to senior voices in Appalachia but has grown to attract submissions from as far-flung as Fuji Island. “It’s like a part-time job,” says Himmelheber, who moved to Asheville with his wife from Maryland, near Baltimore, in order to better stretch their teacher retirement income. “I guess I can’t actually get into retirement fully—I’m retiring into something I already loved to do.”

Himmelheber and his magazine help back up OLLI’s mission, which is set on refuting two myths of aging: that aging is a process of loss, and that older adults are a drain on the community. “Engagement with new ideas and activities is really important,” Frank says. “Studies show that people who leave the workforce on their own terms and have something to look forward to live longer or have greater degrees of happiness. And older adults are a great asset—they still have such passion and so much to give. Being an older adult doesn’t have to look like you thought it did.”

Consider these three mountain metropolises that prove just that.

Asheville, North Carolina

“Like a kid in a candy store,” Cindy Berryman-Fink brimmed with youthful excitement at the thought of all the possibilities at OLLI—“all the courses I could take and possibly teach—the lectures, special interest groups. A place to meet other retirees.”

Berryman-Fink happened upon the institute after relocating to Asheville, her and her husband’s chosen retirement destination after 35 years in Cincinnati, Ohio. Their criteria included natural beauty, theater, restaurants, and four seasons, but milder winters than the Buckeye State. “The Paris of the South” fit the bill. She has since partaken in numerous classes from OLLI’s menu: nutrition, yoga, history, politics, literature, music appreciation, a course on significant Supreme Court decisions, plus a class on rock and roll. 

Following a 31-year career as a communication professor, Berryman-Fink shares her expertise by teaching courses at OLLI, including one this spring called “Talk Is Cheap: Communication Challenges in Long-Term Relationships.”

In her new home, she has also embarked upon a new gig. “When I was planning to retire, I started keeping a list of things I could do,” she says. “I have always been a pet lover—always the person in the neighborhood who took care of neighbors’ pets when they went away.” Now she owns a pet-sitting business and cares for animals while their owners are away at work or traveling.

“I love it, because I get to spend my time with all these cool dogs and cats and meet some neat people,” she says.

Pet-friendly is among the attributes making Asheville a desirable location, not to mention its reputation as a foodie destination, its proximity to the Blue Ridge Parkway and outdoor adventure, cultural programs provided by the University of North Carolina at Asheville and Warren Wilson College in nearby Swannanoa, as well as cooler temperatures than other Southern cities. And while Asheville and Buncombe County exceed more than 220,000 residents, many smaller surrounding towns offer convenient access to the city’s amenities. Mission Hospital continues to expand on the services it offers, a boon for health care–conscious baby boomers, according to Schaffer.

Berryman-Fink’s advice to recent retirees is to “give yourself the freedom to try new things, but quit them if they don’t work.” For example, she initially thought she might try her hand at brewing beer. “Then I moved to Asheville,” she says, “and realized, why would I do that with all the breweries here?” And while Berryman-Fink enjoys her new business and activity at OLLI, she makes sure to afford herself plenty of time to read, travel, and relax, too. 

“I feel intellectually engaged, and I’m in better physical shape than I’ve ever been in my life,” she says. “I probably wouldn’t have realized 20 years ago just how much fun it is to be retired.”

Boone and Blowing Rock, North Carolina

Forbes magazine listed Boone, N.C., among its “10 Best Places to Retire” in 2012, calling it an “affordable mountain town.” The article praised the home of Appalachian State University for its free local bus service and median home sale price of $215,250 in 2010, as well as its location “nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains” near three ski resorts and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Appalachian State University’s public activities include free lectures and film screenings as well as readings and meet-and-greets with visiting authors, and its Performing Arts Series and Appalachian Summer Festival bring world-renowned artists, dancers, and musicians to town. ASU’s Patricelli Craft Enrichment Program provides craft classes in multiple arts, including architecture, basket making, drawing, glass work, jewelry making, painting, photography, pottery, video documentary production, spinning, weaving, metal working, woodworking, and even biodiesel production, with hobbyists, students, and novices learning alongside each other in small group settings. Eric Reichard, director emeritus of the program, estimated that 15 to 20 percent of class enrollees are retirees. 

“When we set the program up, I was thinking it would primarily be for students,” he recalls. “As it turns out, more than half of our participants are retirees or community folks.” And many convert their craft skills into supplemental income or even new careers. “I could probably name 25 people who have come though our programs that have started small businesses of their own,” adds Reichard. 

Kidd Brewer Stadium is arguably the best in the state for taking in a college football game; carved into a hillside, the arena offers a grand view of a campus wrapped in mountain peaks and autumn arrays. Boone is an adventurer’s playground, offering convenient exercise opportunities at in-town parks and greenway trails and extended jaunts just minutes away in two state parks, the New River, the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area, and the multiple parks and trails adjoining the Parkway. In the summer, lawn chairs and picnic baskets are in regular rotation, with free outdoor music concerts taking place nearly every night of the week.

Nearby, the historic resort village of Blowing Rock frequently lands among publications’ top 10 lists as well: It has been named “North Carolina’s Prettiest Small Town” and also made a list of “America’s Prettiest Winter Towns.” Blowing Rock is recognized for its high-caliber restaurants, its iconic Main Street, festivals and events for every season, and destination spas and lodging facilities such as the Westglow Spa and Chetola Resort. Opening within a couple of years will be Chestnut Ridge at Blowing Rock, a new post-acute health care facility.

Tri-Cities, Tennessee

Located across the state line from Boone and Blowing Rock is the growing Tennessee Tri-Cities region of Johnson City, Bristol, and Kingsport, offering similar natural surrounds as their North Carolinian neighbors—but for a cheaper price tag.

“The cost of living there is lower; the cost to build a home is lower,” notes Schaffer. “That brings people to the other side of the mountain.”

Part of the Tri-Cities region is charming Jonesborough, founded in 1779 and Tennessee’s oldest town. East Tennessee State University resides in Johnson City, the largest of the trio near Interstates 26 and 81. Its Mary B. Martin School of the Arts presents a full calendar of traditional, historic, and contemporary arts events, some with connections to its home region of Appalachia and the South and some that are farther reaching in scope. For example, the 2015 season ranges from folk music by the Kruger Brothers to a lecture on UFOs by author Nick Pope.

ETSU houses multiple museums highlighting natural history, Appalachian culture and heritage, and railroads. The Johnson City Community Theatre was established in 1885, and has been continuously performing shows since 1912. And while Nashville may be country music’s headquarters, Bristol highlights its history as the “birthplace of country music” with a new Smithsonian-affiliated museum. Held each September, the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion has earned a reputation as a progressive music festival that showcases rising artists before they hit it big—Grammy-nominated country artist Sturgill Simpson serves as a recent case in point.

Recreational areas include the Appalachian Trail, Cherokee National Forest, multiple greenways, and several mountain lakes, while the region includes several top-notch medical centers, including a veterans hospital.

About the author: Boone journalist Anna Oakes wrote about trout derbies for the previous issue of Smoky Mountain Living.

Encore for a Music Lover

With his 70th birthday on the horizon, Bob Hinkle says “retirement” isn’t in his vocabulary.

The Asheville native hightailed it out of Western North Carolina after college, in pursuit of the bright lights of New York City (“I don’t even think I went to graduation; I just took off,” he says). He spent his 20s chasing fame as a guitar player on a tour bus, racked up recording industry credentials in his 30s and 40s, and eventually found himself in a VP role at a major record label on Times Square. Along the way Hinkle worked with music legends including Kenny Rogers, Etta James, Patti LuPone, and the Band (the rock group known best for touring with Bob Dylan), and helped launch Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen as celebrity twins. By his 50s he struck out on his own; by his 60s, Hinkle was ready for a slower pace. He and his wife, opera singer and therapist Kim Hughes, decided to decamp to Hinkle’s native mountains, trading the buzz of Manhattan for the tranquillity of Western North Carolina.

They bought a house in Black Mountain. For a few months they meditated and socialized, settling into small-town life.

That’s where the storyline twists. While meditating one day, Hughes couldn’t shake the phrase “White Horse Black Mountain.” A month or so later, a new friend showed them a derelict car dealership in the center of town with naturally strong acoustics—and an old poster of six white horses running through a meadow hanging on the garage door. “We figured some things in life should not be ignored,” Hinkle says.

Suddenly, the couple bent on slowing down found themselves in the throes of starting a music venue. In November of 2008, they opened White Horse Black Mountain. Six years later,  the venue has proven “twice as labor-intensive as anything I’ve ever done,” says Hinkle, who applies his decades of experience picking talent to book five or six nights of performances each week. Hughes manages the venue’s social media and also keeps busy as a singer and therapist, even giving voice lessons to New York clients over Skype. 

White Horse Black Mountain presents everything from jazz, classical, Celtic, folk, bluegrass, and world music to puppetry, storytelling, and theater. A frequent host of benefit events, the venue is currently in the process of forming a nonprofit branch to better support charity initiatives. 

“It’s become more than just a place to come see music—it’s like a second or third home to a lot of people who come here,” Hinkle says. 

And about that milestone birthday coming up: Hinkle will be celebrating it the way he knows best, with a blow-out party on May 9 for all comers at—where else?—White Horse Black Mountain.

Weaving a Legacy

A rocket scientist turned weaver would have made for an interesting enough story, but it didn’t turn out that way for Bill Carson. 

The man who spent 32 years working for IBM on such groundbreaking projects as putting Americans on the moon had planned to spend his retirement in Colorado, taking up weaving as a new hobby. Instead, he and his family have spent the past two decades spinning a different kind of yarn in Little Switzerland, North Carolina. They operate the Orchard at Altapass, a century-old apple orchard, preserve, and Appalachian heritage center showcasing traditional music, dance, storytelling, crafts, and more.

“I planned to be busy. I never planned for this,” says Carson, now 76 years old. Bill’s resume reads like an encyclopedia of scientific innovations. In the 1960s, Bill worked as the program manager responsible for the software on the Saturn booster that helped launch astronauts into orbit. In the ’70s, his team made recommendations to the U.S. Army on money-saving hardware improvements to the Patriot missile system. And in the ’80s, he helped develop GPS and air traffic control technologies.

Around 1990, Bill and his wife bought his ailing aunt’s house in North Carolina, where “we fell in love with the mountains and changed our plans.” No longer Colorado-bound, Bill was still intent on learning the loom: “I taught myself to weave and was all set to be a weaver, and was for a year or two.” Then one day, Bill’s sister, Kit, noticed a newspaper ad for the sale of a 280-acre orchard property on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Two hours later, it was hers.

“We were fearful that it would be developed if we didn’t act quickly,” Carson explains. “That pretty well changed my life.” 

An operating orchard since it was planted by the Clinchfield Railroad in 1908, the property had been unattended and inactive for about a decade. “We brought the orchard back, but we were more interested in preserving the culture and music and history of the area,” Carson says. The Orchard at Altapass is now a nonprofit foundation, and Carson remains active giving hayrides at the orchard and traveling to schools and festivals to share the stories of the site, which has ties to the earliest North American settlers and the Revolutionary War.

“The people that I see that seem to be happiest in their retirement are busy people, and most of them are busy doing things for others,” he says. “The unhappiest people are the least busy, and sometimes they don’t live very long.”