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| Photo by me, January 2017. |
"I just want to scream hello," sings Eddie Vedder in the the Pearl Jam song Elderly Woman Behind A Counter In A Small Town. I thought of screaming hello as I stood atop Turkey Mountain in the Cohutta Wilderness of the North Georgia mountains yesterday. The light was fading, the clouds were dropping and it was so quiet that it had a creepy feeling. I have been in the middle of nowhere plenty of times in my life, but something was off.
Earlier, out chasing down a waterfall in a remote location miles down a dirt road in the shadow of Rich Mountain I had gotten the creepy feeling then too. I had arrived at the trailhead or what I thought was the trailhead as I had limited information and was out of cell service range to verify my information. I turned around and left. It takes a lot for me to bail out of a situation in the wilderness or in the city for that matter, but sometimes you just get that feeling that something is wrong and you trust your intuition.
I have been spending a fair amount of time in the mountains since October of last year. I have been out on the trails, looking at the sweeping vistas, hunting down waterfalls and traveling the rough roads. Some of the attraction has been the peace and some of it has been finding new places that I had not seen before. However lately I have been more on guard and alert up there thanks to the uptick in violent incidents around the country since the election. You can sense that the people up there do not like people like me and there has been the occasional odd and accusing look.
I have not felt like this since the early 1990s. I feel like a target.
You can figure it out after you have up there long enough what areas are safer and what areas are a little more dangerous. Some places give me bad feelings like how I feel whenever I cross into Alabama and step back in time. You know the percentages of encountering rednecks are higher in some areas than in others and some of those rednecks are on the lookout to fuck with an outsider.
Driving down one dirt road through beautiful bottom land that had probably once been a corn field, but was now grazing land for horses, I spotted a sad relic, an ugly scar. A flagpole in the middle of that field flew the Confederate battle flag. You do not see that flag as much now as you did when I was kid, but when I do see it, I know I am around people that not only disagree with me but hate me. The Confederate battle flag is not a welcome sign saying hello but is a warning sign.
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| Photo by me, January 2017. |
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| Photo by me, January 2017. |
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| Photo by me, January 2017. |
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| Photo by me, January 2017. |
There was another warning sign browsing the shops of downtown Blue Ridge. I went into one shop that was selling Reagan/Bush tee shirts. They were not tacky in their design but were actually nice shirts and seem to be well made. This was not some grungy place that sells live bait and beer but was a tastefully done shop with dim lighting like one might find in Banana Republic. The Reagan/Bush shirts were folded nicely on a display front and center as you walked into the door. They were not to be missed and were meant to make a not so subtle gesture to customers. I looked around and could not find any shirts for Clinton or Carter or Obama or Kennedy. I got the hint that my kind was unwelcome. It is absurd that anyone would want to willing go back to the Reagan/Bush years of the 1980s, much less want to wear a shirt proclaiming such nonsense.
Looking at the county maps from the 2016 election will tell you who these people voted for and what their beliefs have proven to be. Like that rolling dark cloud in the sky they want to sweep in a period of darkness into the hearts of America and spread their fear like the wind.
Rural America went from a live and let live mindset from when I was a child to an ugly, mean-spirited, conservative, regressive and scared landscape. They may not always bash your head in or vandalize your property but are more subtle in their dislike of you and your kind. Whether it is the odd look, being purposefully seated at the isolated table, away from other patrons, downstairs and in the far back corner of a restaurant in Blue Ridge or the whispers - they make sure to remind you that you are not welcome.
I am strong enough to say fuck them and I will fight until I am dead. In this new era of conservative politics I will need to keep looking over my shoulder a bit more often. It won't keep me from enjoying the mountains, but I am damn sure more careful about it than I have been in a long time.
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