An Observation from “The Southern Part of Heaven”, aka North Carolina, by Scipio
Sitting on an outside lunch table at Whole Foods in Chapel Hill, NC I am hearing sounds. Some are the sounds of vehicles going by, or the humming of machines, or distant overhead airplanes. I cannot hear the sound of the rushing wind unless the vehicle sounds or machine sounds diminish. Nothing naturally sounding can be heard, just the sound of the artificial machine world that transports us, entertains us, and makes us comfortable.
The natural world sounds have all been muted. The expensive homes and office buildings are carefully manicured, trimmed, and are so unnatural looking. The intensive human labor involved is performed by the underclass who attends it for people who seem to have no time to do it themselves but lots of money to pay others to do it for them.
I hear muted conversations around me, and I pick up a phrase or sentence from time to time from their shallow conversations about a bad merchant check-out experience they had recently, or some mini outrage about their omelet not prepared exactly to their taste or expectations.
Glaringly absent here is the sound of laughter and happy conversations. People who live here say this town is “the Southern part of Heaven”. I disagree. I would call it one of Dante’s “Southern Levels of Hell” because it’s empty of life, true natural beauty, and God’s presence.
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GUNS N GEAR
We hear you, Bro! Our own 160 acre “slice of heaven” degenerated the same way. City slickers and “developers” trespassing, trashing the land, stealing what wasn’t nailed down, vehicles with mega-watt boom boxes flying down gravel county roads waking up the dead. Here a beautiful recreational river, once home to beaver, otters, and trout–now a pig-trough for enormous, bloated ‘human-hippos’ trashing and polluting the river and its banks. Old, abandoned farms and barns being used to cook meth.
Songbirds, even the snipes and grouse by the pond–hardly heard anymore.
And their Creator? Not even mentioned in a land flowing with milk and honey created by Him.
I’m in an upper middle class part of DFW, but live near a creek and tree line. GOT to have some natural connection. But related to covid, masks and all that, it’s clearly the most isolated among us – the cubicle people – who are the most fearful, and snarky. Life to them is get off the toilet, check personal stuff on the computer, coffee, back to the home office to work for 10 hours, open the door to get the Amazon delivery, put on a mask, take a high adventure trip outdoors to Starbucks or if brave enough to Whole Foods, send mom out for botox, post on social media….wash, rinse, repeat. Far better to see a beautiful site in screen saver than to actually go there. And pray not to run out of xanax or zoloft.
I always refer to it as “Chapel Hell” rather than a “Southern Slice of Heaven”
Raleigh is just as bad- I was passing through Raleigh the other day and stopped on Hillsborough Street to pick up a bite to eat and reminisce, but I almost don’t recognize it anymore. While I was eating my supper, I watched the young couples coming and going, having a bite to eat, and barely speaking a word to each other- rather they spent their time staring at their phones. Saw plenty of land whales walking (barely) down the sidewalk. One family came in to eat, and the parents and three children never spoke more than a dozen words to each other- again, they were looking at the phones the whole time. Things have changed, and life in places like that doesn’t seem to reflect the way normal people have lived for centuries.
Another thing I noticed- when I was a student at NCSU you saw students driving up and down Hillsborough St. in trucks and cars with a few years of age on them. Now I see BMW’s, Jaguars, Mercedes, and all sorts of domestic vehicles that probably cost more than my house did. I don’t care what kind of vehicles someone wants to drive, but it made me wonder how college students can afford that stuff? When I was in college I was doing good if I could spare enough to afford a box of ammo to go shooting over the weekend.
This is all the reason I need to take the grandsons out hiking in the woods… to take their shoes off and wade in the creek. To water the trees, so to speak and pick wild blackberries and munch on them. To be able to not only see God’s creation and enjoy it, but also to hear the beauty of silence intermingled with the sound of birds, squirrels, rabbits and turtles in the pond. As they get older we will camp in the mountains, where they can really see the amazing sky at night, not polluted by the city lights. As the Psalmist wrote… “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Psalm 19:1
As an NC rezident in the Charlotte region, i too can attest to the things you observe. This is why i routinely hit the smokies and other wildernes locales to go camp and stalk trout..sleep in a hammock at 6000 ft on balsam mountain to get away from the madness and test and use my amateur radio kit.
https://milehighcampground.com/
Driving on 485 around charlotte is like being in the coca cola 600 at times, i peg at 80mph and i am routinely passed by autos pushing 100mph, weaving in and out of traffic.
we live in a suburban enclave, and have done our best to make it as serene as possible. We sit out in the am w coffee and enjoy the birds, and hand feed my little buddy, Alvin the chipmunk, popcorn kernals. I’m easily entertained. Soon i will have him literally jumping thru a hoop to get fed…
At night, the wife and i go back outside for “he said, she said” time to soak in the sunset and quiet, as we sip an adult beverage, as of late a nice bourbon from Ragged Branch Distillery in VA.
https://www.raggedbranch.com/
This is more or less our “Alamo,” as we have her son, his wife and the two grands here. I plan and prepare as much as possible for us, and them.
All in all, we try to divest ourselves from the madness around us, keep focused on our foxhole perspective and grid square..
\\NNNN
Chapel Hill, close to where I grew up did in days past did have a Southern sensibility to it, where quiet and grace and humor of a southern kind catalyzed with a university’s higher pursuits and enjoyment of sport. It was indeed a town where the likes of Thomas Wolfe, James Taylor and Michael Jordan could all have come from. One could find good used bookstores in its small business district and small mom and pop places to dine. The countryside was just a few blocks away downhill from there. Having worked in the news business for nearly 40 years and in bureaus in Chapel Hill and Durham before I retired I can now say there are few vestiges of what the OP said because Chapel Hill is inhabited by largely overeducated transplants from other areas that ignored the Southern part of it all and just imposed, from what I can tell, their own imprimatur of bigger city life, with the accompanying dissatisfaction and aggressiveness. Add on the irritation and anger that many folks around the US feel now for (pick your cause) that pretty much drowns out what was quiet and thoughtful about the Southern Part of Heaven. As has been said by many, and best by T. Wolfe, you can’t go home again. It ain’t my town anymore. best, redclay
Same urban/suburban hellscape everywhere. Regional accents are almost a thing of the past anymore thanks to electronic mind control. Our escape plan is in motion. if I was willing to abandon a life time accumulation of tools & equipment I’d already be outta here, can’t do it cause then I’d be more useless than I already am. Might have to anyway if the occupier manages to get full on nuclear combat toe to toe with the ruskies.
God bless Slim Pickens & Charlie Daniels.
Spent 4 days last week near Franklin (Standing Indian Mtn) with about 20 miles of hikes of varying lengths. Absolutely beautiful display of His creation..get out of town!
I am gonna check out that campground, has a perfect trout river thru it….love that part of nc, i hit the lower portion of the river and above the power house to stalk trout….
Kind of sounds like most cities in Wisconsin. Fortunately I have a rural area to escape to that’s in a County with barely 15,000 people in it. The city that my day to day work is in is nothing but rot. And there are lots of those land whales waddling around here as well, as I saw one of the other commenters mention.
I live behind enemy lines in upstate NY. Have family in N.C. But I know you have to go West of Ashville to find Heaven.