I guess I too have been an immigrant to “The Mountains” though they’ve never really been a destination for me but rather part of “Being.” I’m a Piedmont Man, or I think of myself that way, though in North Carolina either
#Boone or
#Asheville have captured me significantly and when you add my great love for
#Guatemala, a nation not just of Mountains but also Volcanoes, it is clear that peaks and pinnacles have figured prominently in my life.
The old mountains of Appalachia (Ap-Uh-LAT-Cha) do have a presence - a character - can I say, a personality? I’ve never been a “hiker” but because I grew up walking pastures in the flatlands a trek on foot has never put me off. I’ve sought out places to live where I could get somewhere on foot. As a boy in
#Bonlee I walked to and from school most days despite the sidewalk-less roadside - one had to literally be ready to ‘jump the ditch’ in that landscape - and part of that repeated even more often was the stroll ‘downtown’ from the house to my parents hardware store.
In Chapel Hill I lived on North Campus, an easy walk to Franklin Street and then later I lived in Carrboro and walked Old Greensboro Street to get places. A little house on Plant Road led me to know the Greenway through to the Forest Theater in the early 2000s too. In Greensboro our house was a short journey through the woods and a cemetery to the Guilford College campus. And Weaverville in Buncombe County was super walkable, with homey Blue Mountain Pizza 15 minutes away through back streets.
Of course Antigua, Guatemala is a walker’s town by centuries-old design. Even now in
#WestHarlem The City is a pedestrian’s paradise of sorts with bodegas, bars, and cafes right there. Riverside Park gets the dogs and I a 3-mile plus a day workout.
LMaybe I share “hiker” AND immigrant with George Masa to at least some degree. Modern Tech has even made a photographer of me too, albeit a rough one. I’d really rather think on all this ‘hiking’ about as wandering.
#OTD (June 21) in 1933 Nature Photographer
#GeorgeMasa (Masahara Izuka) died. Born in Japan (1881), Masa Immigrated to
#AVL in 1915. He mapped, measured, and photographed The Blue Ridge region of Western North Carolina.
https://www.ncdcr.gov/.../george-masa-great-smokies... #GeorgeMasa’s work demo’ed the import & beauty of NC’s Mts. He ‘Saved the Smokies’ by capturing that beauty on film. SEE here:
https://wncmagazine.com/feature/photographic_memory