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For the past few weeks I’ve had John McCutcheon’s rendition of the song The Great Storm Is Over playing in my mind.

Hallelujah! the great storm is over
Lift up your wings and fly

Yes, Hurricane Helene has passed, but I’m only gradually coming to grips with the storm’s aftermath. You see, we were basically incommunicado at first, except for our little emergency radio and the updates from local government. Along with everyone in our Montford Hills neighborhood and most of Western North Carolina, we had no internet or cell service, not to mention electricity or running water.

But when we realized the extent of the devastation it was heartbreaking. Rainfall amounts in Western North Carolina ranged from 12 to 30 inches and winds from 46 to 78 miles per hour were experienced in the region. At last count, 95 deaths had been reported, 39 people were still unaccounted for, and a number of homes are uninhabitable, some actually having been washed away by the flood waters. As of last week, 143,000 households had signed up for FEMA individual assistance, and approximately 1,400 families had taken advantage of the agency’s temporary shelter assistance. Roads were washed away, bridges were destroyed, utility infrastructure was damaged and out of commission. Many lost their businesses and/or their livelihoods. Asheville’s Biltmore Village was submerged and much of the River Arts District was demolished. Among other hard-hit areas beyond Asheville, Swannanoa suffered major damage, and Chimney Rock was basically obliterated. Families in rural areas were trapped and had to be reached on foot or by helicopter. Grocery stores and service stations were closed. And much, much more. The total damage in this region has been estimated at between $30.5 billion and $47.5 billion, and recovery will be measured in years rather than months.

Destructive flooding!

On a personal level, we’d been warned to stock up on water—fill containers, the bathtub, etc. and stockpile some foodstuffs. But in my arrogance (Wasn’t our region supposed to be spared the worst effects of global warming?), we didn’t take all the precautionary measures we might have. Nonetheless, we got by using a battery powered lantern, our headlamps, and candles for light; we got ice to keep our refrigerated items from spoiling and used water from our rain barrels for flushing toilets (I went to the backyard to pee whenever possible); Shonnie devised an effective system for washing dishes; we showered at the Woodfin Y, and we got potable water from friends with a well. We also got back into reading actual books, you know, the ones printed on paper.

Our neighborhood was on higher ground, so no flooding was experienced apart from a few basements. However, numerous trees came down, blocking roads, taking out power lines, crushing several vehicles, and damaging a few houses. Luckily, in our yard only one small pine tree fell causing no damage. Neighbors immediately began checking on each other, sharing resources and information. A couple of days after Helene, we held a Questionable Meat Party. Everyone brought meat and fish from their nonfunctioning freezers to a home with outdoor grills, and a good time was had by all, at least for a while.

One neighbor whose home was powered by solar panels set up a charging station, another helped empty the water from a flooded basement, still another brought non-potable water from a nearby creek for flushing toilets. One man singlehandedly took down a leaning tree in the yard of a couple who were sitting out the storm in Atlanta. Folks who came back to town after the storm brought lots of bottled water and water containers. We went to the nearby Whole Foods Market and Chamber of Commerce to use their Wi-Fi and get a sense of what was happening beyond our neighborhood. We generally relied on word of mouth for news outside our little cocoon.

Loading pet food for the Humane Society

For us things gradually got better. My spirits rose considerably when, after a few days, our power came back on for us and about half of our neighborhood. Cell service gradually returned, though you had to be standing in just the right location, and texting was functional even when phone calls were not. And after about two weeks, water began flowing, along with a boil water advisory. I finally gave up on Spectrum’s internet service and signed onto U.S. Cellular’s, which has been working quite well. So, while things are far from being back to normal, our family and those nearby have the basic necessities, though we don’t know when potable water will be available through the city system again. Shonnie, Gracelyn and I spent some time loading pet food for the Asheville Humane Society, and we’ll likely do more for our four-legged and our two-legged friends as time goes on.

So, now knowing my family is safe and now has all the essentials, Gracelyn’s school is back is in session, and Shonnie’s therapy practice is up and running, I get to ruminate on what’s transpired.

• First of all, Shonnie, Gracelyn and I got to experience living without electricity and our usual diversions—podcasts, streaming music, videos, etc., and we began to play games, assemble puzzles, and read together.
• We got to experience what the night sky looks like without all the light pollution, and it was pretty amazing.
• When my daily time on screens was reduced to zero from probably four hours, I’ve gotten to consider whether this is how I really want to spend my time.
• I’ve done a lot of thinking about how blasé we are about our use of potable water—flushing toilets, watering lawns, washing our cars, etc.—when 2.2 billion people worldwide lack safe drinking water.
• The kindness of strangers really came through vividly. Just one example: When the traffic lights weren’t working drivers would drive to the intersection, completely stop, and patiently wait until it was their turn to go. No hassling, no horn honking, just folks being kind to one another.
• The exceptional support from FEMA, the military, state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, businesses, ad hoc groups (including bands of folks with chain saws getting together to clear roads and driveways), graymanavl spending the day at Reed Creek and Watauga Street pumping creek water for folks to use for flushing toilets, a young girl on Montford Avenue giving away lemonade and snacks, Tall John’s providing free coffee and breakfast burritos.

Gracelyn & Shonnie at the vigil

Personally, I’ve been all over the place emotionally. There have been times when I’ve been anxious and fearful. There have been times when I’ve been filled with gratitude and joy experiencing how our community has come together to support one another. There are times when I’m filled with grief and sadness at the death and destruction.

Last night Shonnie, Gracelyn and I, along with thousands of other Ashevillians, participated in an inspirational candlelight vigil at Pack Square honoring all those affected by Hurricane Helene. I continue to be deeply moved by the love, resourcefulness, courage, and resilience of our community and those who have come from near and far to support us in this challenging time. The profound connections with one another at the vigil were palpable. I connected with folks I knew and those I’d never seen before, including giving my lighted candle to the couple behind us who didn’t have one.

So, is the great storm really over? No, but we are lifting up our wings and flying. And in this moment I’m reminded of a song by David LaMotte, We Are Each Other’s Angels (written by Chuck Brodsky):

Sometimes you’ll stumble, sometimes you’ll just lie down
Sometimes you’ll get lonely, with all these people around
You might shiver when the wind blows, and you might get blown away
You might lose a little color, you might lose a little faith

We are each other’s angels, we meet when it is time
We keep each other going, and we show each other signs

Happy 25th anniversary, my darling Shonnie. We’ve created a wonderful life together filled with love, intentionality and adventure, and I look forward to the next 25  (when I’ll only be 106)!

A few highlights from our 2.5 decades together:

1995:We meet while training for the 1996 Austin Motorola Marathon.

1997: We enter a committed relationship and move to Asheville.

1999: Surrounded by family & friends, we marry.

Don’t mess with Texas runners!

2006: We create I Do! I Do! The Marriage Vow Workbook.

2008: We work diligently to elect Barack Obama president, & we celebrate his inauguration in Washington, D.C. in January 2009.

2010: Gracelyn is born & is baptized at Jubilee! in 2011.

2016: Gracelyn enters Kindergarten and is now a rising 8th grader.

2022: Shonnie graduates from Western Carolina University with a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling. Soon afterward she joins Asheville Family Counseling.

Gracelyn’s 1st birthday!

1995-2024: Lots of fun, laughter, adventure and some challenges along the way as well.

And today we celebrate!

When my family moved from Texas to California in 1952, I was surprised to find that the third-grade lessons in Pomona were at about the same level as the second grade in Mount Pleasant. So my classroom life was pretty laid back until the day our teacher asked everyone in the class to stand and recite the alphabet. A little childish for the third grade, I thought, but I began fearlessly: “A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H . . .” When I reached ‘I’ (which I pronounced as “ah”) however, the class exploded in laughter. Bewildered and ashamed, though unaware why, I stumbled through the remaining letters of the alphabet and meekly sat down.

A few days later, I was sent out of my classroom to a speech therapy class. The speech therapist worked with me to correct what were considered my mispronunciations and to learn to pronounce “I” as “eye” rather than the long, lilted “ah” in the dialect of all true Southerners. Needless to say. the lessons didn’t take, though I kept my mouth shut or was on guard when speaking aloud in class to avoid further ridicule. When we returned to Texas, then moved to Tennessee, I thankfully was back in familiar territory language-wise.

Recently I did a little Googling on American English dialects and learned that I speak in a dialect known as the South Midland, a subset of Southern American English, which is spoken in a region from east Texas through most of Tennessee and some bordering states.
From the ubiquitous “y’all” to “warsh” for “wash,” “naht” for “night” to “fiixin to” do something, I’ve proudly maintained my Southern Midland accent, even in the face of the plethora of TV hosts, radio newscasters, and podcasters, many of whom have been trained to speak in an Upper Midwestern dialect.

In Western North Carolina, where I now live, there is a distinctive accent brought by Scots-Irish and English settlers known as Southern Appalachian. However, here in Asheville there’s such a wide diversity of folks from around the U.S. who have settled here that you’d probably have to travel into the surrounding countryside to hear anyone say “you’uns” or “done did that.”

One evening a week or so ago, Shonnie, Gracelyn and I watched “Dead Poets Society” together. At the film’s conclusion, I began to ponder the course of my formal education—from the first grade through college.

My initial foray in the public school system began at East Ward Elementary in Mount Pleasant, Texas, in 1949, and my first-grade experience was not a promising start. My aged teacher not only demanded that we color within the lines, she also dictated the colors we had to use. That attitude, along with the exceptionally boring books we were required to read (“See Dick run. Run, Dick, run!”), had me longing for recess and the playground, my only respite from the tedium and tyranny of the classroom. I did learn to read on my own, however, so I could enjoy my favorite comic books—Superman, Roy Rogers, and Donald Duck, among others.

Though there were a few teachers along the way with whom I resonated (most notably Ms. Mitchell, my sixth-grade teacher, who was a recent college graduate), for the most part from first grade through high school, it was the stultifying memorize and regurgitate routine. However, during my senior year, my Tullahoma (TN) High English teacher provided an opportunity for creative writing when she required us to write our autobiography, a project I thoroughly enjoyed, and which provided my first inkling that I had a way with words. Below is the first paragraph and another excerpt from my 1200-word effort for which I received an A-:

Many people write their autobiographies when they are fifty or sixty. I’m going to write mine right now while I’m seventeen so it won’t be so long. . . .

During March we moved to Pomona, California. Ah, sunny California! When we arrived it was raining and the temperature was about sixty degrees. The teacher thought I talked funny because I said “ah” instead of I, so they sent me to a speech teacher. They couldn’t convert my Texas drawl though. The only good thing about California was the nine or ten television channels. We moved back to Texas six months after arrival.

Otherwise, I encountered listlessness and monotony, punctuated by sports, practical jokes, and girls (in that order). However, one high school history project also stands out. My classmate Norris and I reenacted the sinking of the Maine, setting up a large tub of water outside the classroom window, floating a plastic model of a battleship in the tub, inserting a cherry bomb into the battleship, and blowing it to smithereens. Yeah, I guess this activity actually falls into the practical joke category.

High school pals out on the town in 1961

At the University of Tennessee my classes were more challenging, and things shifted for the better. Chemistry just seemed to click for me. We were doing challenging experiments in the chemistry lab, the outcomes of which relied on the intention and expertise with which we undertook them to obtain the desired results. And my freshman English teacher gushed over some of the personal essays I wrote in her class, offering the second intimation of my future path.

Perhaps I experienced my greatest collegiate awareness in my music appreciation class. Reputed to be an easy A, I signed up with no great expectations. But, exposed to classical music for the first time, I was entranced as I listened to it and even purchased a record of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto Number 5 featuring Van Cliburn at the piano. I continue to listen to classical music on our local NPR station to this day. Then there was the 0.0 grade point average the spring quarter of my sophomore year, but I’ll leave that tale for another time.

I managed to graduate from Sewanee—The University of the South in 1966 with a degree in psychology and minor in English, thanks to the generosity of my third-year French teacher who gifted me with a D. Then there were my brief forays into post-graduate education—law school and English grad school, neither of which held my interest for very long.

Somewhere along the way I realized classes and schooling were not my primary method of learning, that I learn to do things best by actually doing them. I think I probably could have dropped out of school in the fourth or fifth grade and still have pursued my professional undertakings, including teaching, construction, energy conservation, public relations, marketing, strategic planning, freelance writer, and political organizing. In fact, my inherent skill set—planning, problem solving, and organizing–provides the attributes that I continue to draw on in my writing, as I plan what I want to say, determine how best to say it, and organize the words and sentences so that they accurately reflect my thoughts and flow in a manner that might resonate with readers.

Now to stop procrastinating and complete get back to work on that long-delayed memoir before time runs out!