We will go back but not soon enough

After six years, the idea of camping in the North Carolina mountains has at long last taken hold.  There is scenery, there are fish (some big ones) and plenty of hiking.  Why it took more than half a decade to discover western North Carolina can only be attributed to me being a ‘late adopter’.  Very late.  I will lean on my fly-fisherman-to-end-all-fly-fisherman son in law, Tim, to tie me some Caddis and Adams, along with a few streamers (those drove the larger trout nuts).  (We will call it a trade: I sent some French roast coffee ahead of Emma’s birth and later built Emma’s garden while I was up there to celebrate her grand arrival.)

Felicia and our roomy tent. Camping was more fun than I expected. Everything about it was good. Asheville is close enough that if camp food doesn’t suffice, we can always hit Salsa’s – the best Mexican food I have ever had.

We will go back to the North Mill valley, but not soon enough.  This time, the MSR stove and our mildly loaded backpacks will make the trek with us.

Here is last week’s letter in its entirety.

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May 29, 2012

Ellen/Reid: I got a big smile out of that shot of you holding your niece, Reid.  One can only imagine the off-camera coaching you received.  That was so good.  She’s just a little bundle of joy, isn’t she?

Maybe by the time this arrives you will know about your plans for London.  That sounds so adventurous, especially if you have something waiting for you when you return.  That would be great.  I’ve looked into tickets to the U.K., pricey but doable.  I forgot this is an Olympic year and everything will be jacked up price-wise.  But you only go around once, and it would be marvelous to get over there to share your experience at least for a long Thurs.-Sun. weekend.  You’ve been quite the international traveler.  By my count – and I could be wrong – you’ve been to Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Russia, Sweden, India.  What am I missing?

We had a great time in the “mountains” just southwest of Asheville.  We got one of the last camp sites in a state park, and oddly it was a secluded spot at the end of a road where we were really next to only one other couple and well away from the holiday zanies.  We only went for Sunday night.  After setting up the tent we went into Asheville and found an old time neighborhood bar for some of the best calamari I’ve ever had then went to the recovery house where Felicia’s son is staying, and that was a good, eye-opening experience.  The house is well away from Asheville and is filled with guys who are battling the same demons.  Addiction is just such an awful, insidious thing.  After their Sunday night meal, everyone, including visitors (which was really just Felicia and me), had to say what they were thankful for and that was interesting.  Everyone started with “I’m (insert name) and I’m an addict or alcoholic.”  On the way back to camp we bought a couple of bundles of oak firewood and had a great time sipping a little wine, watching the fire, telling stories and just laughing.  I went fishing twice, and caught trout both times, including a 2 pound brown trout of about 17-18 inches (Ellen, tell Tim that after the elation died down I downgraded the catch from 3 to 2 lbs.) plus a few plump rainbows, among the biggest I’ve ever caught, with one topping out in the 14” range.  It’s true that the farther up you walk from the trail head, the bigger the fish get.  Of course, I lost numerous flies due to poor casts but it was still great fun.  North Carolina is so beautiful.  If it just wasn’t for the reddest of redneck politics.

Ellen, we have our tickets for Friday, July 13.  We get in about 1:30 p.m. and will rent a car so you don’t have to fuss with traffic or bundling little Emma up for the trip.  We’ll also get a room to save you guys the hassle.  That’s fine with us.  We are excited to see the little one.  She will be more than two months old by that time.  Can’t wait to see you guys again.  We will get out of your hair early Sunday for our 9 a.m. flight.

Will change a couple of rooms around upstairs in the next week or so in order to configure my office a little bit more efficiently.  I want to be in the same room as the router and phone connections and reduce the number of wires snaking to and fro.  So the double bed and the twin beds will be swapped out.  It’s the behemoth desk that is the biggest challenge.  But all-in-all it will be a far better working arrangement.

My workouts for Wyoming have started in semi-earnest.  There’s got a long way to go and if I’d knock off the ice cream things would be that much easier on me.  But its allure is strong and I wilt way too often.  There are worse things.  At least the ice cream is carb-free.

Some good and some bad…

Felicia. She stood by me through thick and thin when she could have bolted just as quickly for the door.

All along the kids have seen virtually everything that has gone on in my new life in North Carolina.  As they’ve seen and been told, and in many cases you, too, my nearly five years here have had roughly equal shares of some good and some bad, although I think the good has nosed ahead of the bad as of late by a comfortable margin.

Last week’s letter is a recent example of how the good has extended its lead.  It is all part of simply picking up the pieces and moving on.  It is as we all do.  We all have a past but hopefully a future, too.  Ellen and Reid have had bits and pieces of the new situation sent their way but this is their first inside look at the larger picture.  As I have fumbled my way down this road, it’s been quite a path of trial and much error to reach this juncture, but here I am.

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April 4, 2011

Ellen/Reid: By the time you have opened this letter, we will know of Butler’s Monday night fate.  I’ve wondered, aloud sometimes, how they’ve managed to get this far, but they have slain their share of Goliaths along the way, and what’s one more in UConn?  I may be AWOL on the telecast because I’m just too nervous to watch.

Well, it’s about time you guys got to know a little more about Felicia.  You’ve been on the periphery about this for some time – an allusion here, another allusion there.

She’s a North Carolina girl, from Shelby, which is about 50 miles west of Charlotte just north of I-85.  About the size of Ames, I would guess.  But she’s lived in CLT for quite some time, and has two kids just about your ages (Suefan, 26) and Kenneth (23).  Felicia is a nurse by training (RN) and she works in the specialized psych unit of the big local hospital system.  I don’t see how she does it, working with people who just stepped out of an alien spacecraft or see themselves as Napoleon incarnate.  And those are just the easy-to-handle cases.  In some ways it’s fitting that she works with nut cases because that makes it a little easier for her to deal with the likes of me.

We’ve been together on and off for almost three years, and virtually all of the past 20 months.  I’ve got 10 years on her, and whenever she mentions how hard it is to grow old, she gets the evil eye.  She’s very fit and health conscious, none of which has rubbed off on me, and we spend a lot of time together, at least on the weekends.  To her credit, she’s not a golfer, yet, and the thing that she really enjoys is just sitting on the back of the bike.  I wouldn’t be riding nearly as much if she wasn’t taking up the back seat.  We’ve been all over the place on jaunts of 150 – 500 miles at a crack.  Last year I’d guess we put 7,500 miles on the rig.

I have to hand it to her in that she’s quite low maintenance (knock on wood), and although she’s been known to have a short fuse, she rarely exercises her right to complain about my bone headedness or other guy faults.  Thank goodness she doesn’t pay per text message because if she did, she’d be bankrupt.  I’ve never seen anyway who texts more than she does.  If she could text me during dinner, she would.  She’s very attractive, and I am amazed at her staying power when it comes to sticking around.  In the past nine months, she’s had every reason to jump ship but has been with me every step of your grandfather’s situation, my job hurdles last summer, and most recently this bladder thing.  She could’ve bolted for greener male pastures but didn’t, and for that I am very grateful.

Even more amazing is how she has done all that in the face of what she has going on in her own life.  Her daughter lives in Baltimore with her boyfriend and that’s all well and good, but it is her son, Kenneth, who is in Asheville fighting his own set of demons which have afflicted him since he was a teenager.  It causes Felicia no end of worry and heartache, and keeps her on high alert almost every day.  Since I’ve known her, it’s almost like clockwork for him: four good months then wham, some period of time when he’s fallen off the ledge.  He’s been hospitalized and has frequented institutions, and she still has the motherly support for him.  Neither of us is certain how it ultimately will play out, but it absorbs a lot of her waking time and mental stores.  I worry for her, and for him, but it is just how life continues to unfold.

But I wanted you to know at least some of the details because it would be accurate to call her my significant other.  She’s stuck with me through thick and thin, and the least I can do is return the favor.  You’ll have your chance to meet her soon enough.