By Gibbs Knotts • Guest Columnist

Some local sportswriters have expressed bewilderment at a recent ranking by a nationally circulated magazine, The Sporting News, that placed Cullowhee at No. 199 among the United States’ top 399 sports cities.

These pundits seem perplexed that Cullowhee would be ranked 26 spots ahead of Boone, home of archrival Appalachian State University. When comparing Boone and Cullowhee, the sports reporters have focused on the higher attendance at Appalachian State football and men’s basketball games.

In their haste to criticize The Sporting News ranking, some journalists are missing a point that The Sporting News apparently did not miss — Cullowhee is home to a LOT of sporting events, many of them successful by regional and national standards.

Focusing solely on football and men’s basketball overlooks the achievements of at least seven of the other 13 Division I collegiate sports at Western Carolina. Last year, three WCU teams – women’s basketball, women’s soccer, and men’s track and field – won conference championships. Women’s track and field, baseball, men’s golf and women’s golf also have posted notably successful records.

WCU’s women’s basketball and soccer teams have been ranked in the nation’s top 20 academically. The women’s golf team regularly places individuals on the National Golf Coaches Association All-American Scholars list. In the spring 2009 semester, 87 student-athletes made the dean’s list and 18 earned perfect 4.0 grade-point averages. At Western Carolina, athletic victories usually go hand-in-hand with academic successes.

Part of what makes a sports town a sports town is tradition and history, and Western Carolina has its fair share. The first three-point shot in men’s college basketball was made in Cullowhee. Every year at NCAA basketball tournament time, the networks roll out the footage from 1996 when the Catamounts came within a whisker of being the first No. 16 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed. And Asheville’s own Henry Logan opened the door for student-athletes of his race when, in 1964, he joined the WCU basketball team and became the first African-American to play at a predominantly white institution in the South.

Adding to the game-day experience in Cullowhee is WCU’s Pride of the Mountains Marching Band, whose crowd-pleasing halftime shows over the years are being recognized nationally by the John Phillip Sousa Foundation, which has awarded the band the 2009 Sudler Trophy — the Heisman Trophy of collegiate marching bands.

Aside from Catamount athletics, Cullowhee also features outstanding outdoor sporting opportunities. The area is a haven for cyclists, hosting numerous group rides and the annual Tour de Tuck bicycle ride. Anglers flock to Cullowhee for many miles of rivers and streams, and Cullowhee is a world-class boating and kayaking destination. Some Olympic athletes train in the area.

The university engages students in outdoor experiences through its Base Camp Cullowhee, a campus organization that hosts nearly 2,000 people per year on outdoor adventures and supplies students with low-cost outdoor gear and supplies. Base Camp employees serve as a resource to the Cullowhee community, providing trip advice, trail maps, and other outdoor tips to local individuals and families, and to hundreds of the millions of Americans who visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway annually.

Is Cullowhee really the 199th best sports town in the United States? Scientifically, I can’t say, but when you look at the entire picture, why not? What I can do is invite sports fans of all persuasions to come to Cullowhee and find out. Attend a soccer match or a women’s basketball game. Bring your bike and ride the Ring of Fire. Float down the beautiful Tuckasegee River. Or bring your binoculars and watch track or cross country or some other Olympic sport. You may discover that The Sporting News has it right — sporting opportunities are abundant in Cullowhee.

(Gibbs Knotts is faculty athletics representative at Western Carolina University where he teaches political science and public affairs. In his free time, he attends Catamount sporting events and enjoys Cullowhee’s many outdoor opportunities.)

Haywood County elected officials may sometimes get fed up dealing with the incessant public record requests and the three-hour meetings that a new wave of public scrutiny is forcing upon them, but there’s no good alternative except to take the medicine no matter how distasteful. Even at the county commission level, elected officials have as a first obligation the task of remaining answerable to the public — even when the public becomes immensely irritating.

Over the last several months a group that is loosely associated with — or at least resembles — the 9-12 national movement has begun going public with comments on local issues. They’ve been attending nearly every commission meeting, taking extended turns at the microphone during the public comment session. The constituents are spending public money by extending the meetings taxpayers pay to videotape.

There has been obvious tension between elected officials and those who have come to dominate the public portion of the meetings. Those showing up have been making requests for documents, digital files and other information. On occasion, the requests have been made to several different departments for the same information, a frustrating example of how the county must do the public’s business but at a cost that is often wasteful and unnecessary. Some have even continued to complain, disagree and otherwise make demands long after explanations have been provided.

Perhaps most frustrating for elected officials and county workers, is this — some of these folks have been provided information or facts but then act as if they don’t know the why, what or how much. One county official said it was as bad as lying, to act as if something isn’t known when indeed it is.

So what now? Nothing.

There’s simply no way to muzzle public comment in a democracy, no way to stifle the voices of those who demand an audience with their elected officials. Despite the cumbersome, capricious nature of what’s going on in Haywood, commissioners are stuck with it.

In almost every case I’ve witnessed over the years of groups or individuals deciding to become involved in local government by showing up at meetings, the result has been positive. Whether it’s builders and pro land-use advocates clashing in Jackson County, North Shore road proponents speaking their mind in Bryson City, or this group now showing up in Haywood County, one can only believe that the public interest is better served when people are involved in local government.

We suspect most of those now appearing before elected officials in Haywood have honorable motives and honest problems. It is the bad apple that ends up spoiling the whole bunch. One or two people grandstanding or going overboard disrupts what, in my mind, is a time-honored process that makes local government the most accountable form of government we have.

The concept of the informed electorate is an important part of this issue. People who get involved and make their opinions known on important subjects are the bedrock of good decision-making by elected officials. But what if there are those who refuse to digest, who ask but don’t listen, whose real mission is not to gather information? How can our democracy function, for all its shortcomings, when some take advantage of the system?

And that’s really the problem. There’s a difference among those who have legitimate concerns and those who use county commission meetings as a platform to air their own views, whether partisan or not. But our system lets everyone have their say, without regard to their motives. As they say in sports, it is what it is.

By Kirkwood Callahan • Guest Columnist

In the election of 2008 many Americans aspired for hope and change when Barack Obama won the White House and Democrats increased their majorities in Congress. Today signs of buyers’ remorse are everywhere.

Disgruntled voters opposed to policy proposals of the majority party confront senators and representatives. Thousands march on Washington to protest legislation that accrues more power for the national government, diminishes individual choices, and grows the national debt.

The disconnect between citizens and the Democratic Party is best illustrated by the debate over health care. Democrats differ as to whether to have government-run health insurance (public option) or nonprofit insurance cooperatives and who to tax to defray costs, but all Democratic bills result in government controlling the nation’s health care .

However, on Sept. 30 a Gallup Poll showed that the overwhelming majority of Americans embraced individual responsibility and rejected the idea of government responsibility for healthcare by 61 percent to 37 percent.

Polls have also shown that the majority of Americans are satisfied with their health insurance, and contrary to White House efforts, more of the nation’s physicians are opposing control by Washington and offering alternatives. Recently three former presidents of the American Medical Association — including a spokesman for an association of 10,000 physicians — advocated in a Wall Street Journal article for low cost health savings accounts, tax credits for individual and family health insurance policies, and comprehensive malpractice reform. GOP lawmakers have proposed the same ideas along with portable health insurance that can be sold across state lines.

There are many other areas where the Democratic party is disconnected from the concerns of the many — a disappointing lack of transparency as health care reform legislation is packaged in documents with over 1,000 pages of arcane language, a largely unspent $787 billion “stimulus” bill passed in February, and indecisiveness over the war in Afghanistan.

The situation at home where North Carolina is ruled by a Democratic legislature and a Democratic governor is no less encouraging.

Higher taxes are levied upon citizens as unemployment lurches toward 11 percent. This fiscal year’s budget was reduced because of the recession’s shortfalls in revenues, but in the preceding six-year period state spending increased more than 50 percent while the population increased only by about 10 percent. Where did the money go?

Much evidence shows it did not get to the right places.

Last December the Raleigh News and Observer reported on the dysfunctional state parole and probation system. The Observer revealed that “Since the start of 2000, 580 offenders have killed while on probation. Probation officers, hamstrung by vacancies and a sloppy bureaucracy, can’t locate nearly 14,000 criminals.”

Seven months after this report Patrick Burris, a parolee, murdered five people in South Carolina. To date, the parole-probation system still lacks resources necessary to perform its essential responsibility of protecting the public.

In 2007, funds for outpatient care for mental health patients were slashed, but from 2004-7 over $81 million went to “health and wellness” centers at UNC Asheville and Western Carolina University. During the 2007-9 budget cycles the General Assembly allocated $7 million a year for retreat centers for teachers while many of their colleagues faced job losses when the recession’s crunch came. Other examples of misallocated resources are too numerous to list here.

To whom should disillusioned voters turn? Many, disappointed in the Republican party in years past, have suggested a new party combining the energies of independents and other disaffected groups to find a way out of the nation’s morass.

However, those who would turn to a third or independent party should think about it further. There is no objective evidence to think an independent movement could marshall the political experience essential to run the government. Behind efforts to drive more and more power to Washington is an entrenched politicized bureaucracy in the legislative and executive branches. A new party, if it could elect candidates, would flounder on the rocks of partisan barriers that no beginner could navigate. Also, voters of conservative inclinations who reject Republicans for other candidates may see their votes produce unintended consequences.

In the 2008 election, Obama received all of the state’s electoral votes by receiving only 14,177 more votes than John McCain. Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate received 25,722 votes. Write-in candidates received 13,942 votes.

The Republican Party and its new leadership has the party structure for a return to fiscal responsibility and a concern for constituents’ opinions. But first it must achieve majority status in Congress and the General Assembly.

In our legislative branches, it is the majority party that determines the chairmanships of committee, and it is in committees where the nitty gritty work of legislation is done. The most important decision that each member of Congress makes is the decision to organize with his party at the beginning of each session. Conservative voters may think Blue Dog Democrats advance their values, but the reality is that all Democrats must work within a committee structure dominated by liberal chairmen and co-chairmen. The liberals set the agenda. Ask Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid.

The Democratic leadership in Raleigh’s General Assembly similarly mutes conservative Republicans efforts.

Voters rejecting the change of the Obama Democrats would best serve their interests by supporting the Republican effort to claim majority status. The Republican Party, following significant defeats in two general elections, has returned to its roots and with new dedication affirmed its commitments to core conservative principles: limited government, local control, individual responsibility, strong defense and sound stewardship of state and national finances.

On Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Lambuth Inn at Lake Junaluska Haywood Republicans will have their annual Fall Harvest Dinner to raise funds and introduce party leaders and candidates. I will be the master of ceremonies and the dinner starts at 6 p.m. This is a great opportunity to observe a conservative party at work. For information about the dinner or this article contact me This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Kirkwood Callahan is retired and lives in Waynesville. He has taught government at four southern universities.

The joint board that will run the eventual Haywood Regional Medical Center-WestCare affiliation needs to have a sitting Haywood County commissioner as a permanent member, as one Haywood County commissioner is now suggesting.

Commissioner Mark Swanger worries that the interest of Haywood County’s citizens — who own the buildings and property at HRMC — could be compromised if a commissioner is not on the new joint board. HRMC now operates as a public hospital, and most of its dealings are subjected to the state’s open meetings laws. The new venture with Carolina’s HealthCare System will form a private nonprofit, entitling citizens to very little knowledge about the decisionmaking process.

Swanger’s reasoning makes good sense: “While I don’t doubt the motives of anyone involved in this now, 10 years from now we will have an entirely different cast of characters, so counting on the trust issue is not good business in my view. I think a commissioner needs to be part of the operating agreement so the citizens who have the financial investment in the physical plant of Haywood Regional are property represented.”

There’s little doubt among those who have been following the affiliation of WestCare and HRMC that the board members from both hospitals are working with the best interests of their communities at heart. The driving force here is to provide three communities — Haywood, Jackson and Swain counties — with stronger, better delivery of health care services for many years into the future.

What if, however, some kind of cataclysm occurs at Carolina’s HealthCare and its smaller entities become expendable or begin to be treated as mere profit centers for certain types of specialized care rather than as stand-alone hospitals? Or if a future CEO from Charlotte begins to make decisions without regard to citizens in this region?

The kind of scenario described above is not likely to occur, and we would hope that the board members from this region — whomever they are — would stand up for our citizens. But county commissioners — and most elected officials — typically operate from a different mindset because at any monthly meeting they face reminders that they serve the public’s interest, whether it is someone complaining about taxes or a neighborhood group seeking help about barking dogs disrupting the peace.

This one is easy. Citizens in Haywood County — and those of Jackson and Swain, for that matter — would have another measure of confidence in this affiliation if a county commissioner gets a seat at the table.

By Brent Martin • Guest Columnist

When President John F. Kennedy formed a federal-state committee in 1963 known as the President’s Appalachian Regional Commission, one out of every three people living in Appalachia was living below the poverty line. Millions of Appalachians were fleeing for work in other regions, and per capita income was 23 percent lower than the U.S. average.

One of the solutions proposed by the ARC was to build over 3,000 miles of roads into Appalachia, roads that would bring jobs, wealth and modernization. And the roads did come. The alphabet soup of highway projects that came out of the ARC are visible everywhere in Appalachia today —– Corridor B, for example, or more commonly known as Interstate 26, was completed in 2003 at a cost of $250 million —– for the last nine miles of highway blasted through mountains from Asheville to Tennessee.

A small segment of Corridor K, which the ARC and NC DOT are working to complete, will come at a similar cost. Ten miles of Corridor K will come with a price tag of $350 million of federal and state tax dollars to blast a road from the Stecoah community through the Nantahala National Forest to Robbinsville. The ostensible reason for building the road is that it will solve Graham County’s problems of unemployment, poverty and isolation. These are serious problems, particularly since Graham’s unemployment and poverty rates are higher than state averages. But will building a four-lane highway solve these problems? The NC DOT claims it will.

Specifically, the DOT claims that a new four-lane highway will attract businesses, make commuting to work out of the county faster and easier, lure tourists who enjoy “reduced travel time and increased accessibility,” and improve access to medical facilities. What the DOT does not acknowledge is that highway construction jobs bring only a temporary bump in local spending and that very few of those dollars would circulate locally. Large crews and specialized equipment skills required by such a large project will likely mean importing many contract workers. Small rural economies have small economic multipliers, so few of those dollars will remain in the local economy. Contract workers will send paychecks to their families back home, and likely travel there themselves during their time off. Since the increased spending is known to be temporary, new retail businesses are unlikely to invest in new or expanded local stores.

Even after the highway is finished, an interstate through an isolated rural area carries people out as well as in, and would likely encourage Graham County residents to do more of their shopping outside the local area.

Expanding highway capacity in hopes of attracting manufacturers takes a backward-looking view of both the U.S. economy as a whole and this region in particular. Manufacturing jobs have declined throughout North Carolina’s western mountain counties, from 37 percent of the workforce in 1970 to 10 percent in 2007. It is not likely that a new four-lane highway will bring those jobs back, especially as fuel prices continue to climb over the coming decades.

Solid long-term economic development is based on the inherent strengths of an area. For Graham County, that includes a strong rural work ethic and unsurpassed wild natural surroundings. An interstate will not contribute to the former, and it will seriously damage the latter.

Jack Schultz, author of Boom Town USA: The 7 Keys to Big Success in Small Towns, documents the increasing popularity of small rural towns as the fastest growing economies in the nation. Increasingly, entrepreneurs are moving to these places because of their natural beauty and small-town atmosphere, and they bring their businesses and their retirement incomes with them. Schultz names Highlands as one of the “Golden Eagles” — the top 100 “Agurbs” in the nation. Highlands’ location is very similar to Robinsville’s: it’s in a valley surrounded by Western North Carolina’s beautiful mountains and is at a similar distance from interstate access. Clearly, an interstate is not necessary for economic success in this part of the state

At the other end of the state, Tyrrell County is featured in another recent publication, Balancing Nature and Commerce in Gateway Communities. The least populated of all North Carolina counties (Graham is 98th), Tyrrell County has chosen to turn its remoteness into a marketing advantage. The county bills itself as “unspoiled, uncrowded, uncomplicated,” with attractions ranging from red wolves to the Scuppernong River nature trail. Per-capita personal income has risen by 11 percent (after adjusting for inflation) since the Balancing Nature and Commerce book was written, and Tyrell County’s unemployment rate now ranks 42nd in the state compared to Graham County’s fourth (November. 2007 data).

According to the Graham County Chamber of Commerce web site, “Graham County, filled with Smoky Mountain adventures, is becoming better known every year. With a natural beauty still unspoiled by crowds, it is truly a rare find in today’s world.”

If Graham intends to keep it this way, the county had best ask the ARC to provide Graham with a cash alternative to this destructive highway, and invest instead in the long-term preservation of the goose that will hopefully continue to lay golden eggs for years to come. Strip malls, convenience stores, and chain restaurants that come with the type of highway DOT is proposing will only strangle the life out of it.

(Brent Martin works for The Wilderness Society in Franklin, NC. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

His harshest critics delight in daring you to characterize their frothing hatred — and there is no other word for it — of President Barack Obama as “racist.” They whine, “You just can’t criticize Obama or you’ll be labeled a racist by the socialist, liberal elite media.” Now this is rich. A group that has, for decades, depended upon the labeling of people who disagree with them as a substitute for real debate on the issues is suddenly in a twist over being labeled!

During the campaign for the presidency, we saw repeated, sneering mention of Obama’s full name, Barack Hussein Obama, with a decided emphasis on “Hussein.” We were subjected to rumors about his citizenship, rumors about his religion. I am sure that there are still people who feverishly believe that Obama is a Muslim (he isn’t) who is not even an American citizen (he is). If this isn’t a form of racism, it could pass as a body double.

While this lunatic fringe bears watching, I am more interested in the opposition reaction to three things, all much more recent: Obama’s push for health care, his failed efforts to lobby for the 2016 Olympics to be held in America, and his win of the Nobel Peace Prize. On the surface, these things may not have anything in common, and it is sure that health care is a complicated issue about which people can reasonably disagree.

But the word “reasonable” belongs nowhere near any description of the reaction we have seen regarding Obama’s push for healthcare. The opposition, perhaps gripped with severe amnesia, believes that hundreds of thousands of poor children, just to choose one example of the millions who do not currently have health care, SHOULD have health care, but that we should just find another, less “socialistic,” way to do it. Again, these are the same people whose favored party has been in power for the past eight years. Now I know that the priorities of the previous administration were more centered on war, torture, and tax cuts than finding effective health care options for Americans who do not have coverage, but still, in eight years, you would think they could find half a day or so to discuss it, right?

It is not so much the opposition to health care that gives away the true motives of Obama’s opponents as the reaction to the other two events, however. When Chicago lost out on its bid to land the 2016 Olympic games, Obama haters were delirious with joy. It would only take about five minutes of searching on the Internet to find footage of Americans cheering wildly as news broke that America had lost out on landing the Olympic games. I know it sounds crazy, but you would think that Americans would be happier if we actually landed the games, but apparently not, not if that meant some kind of moral victory for Obama, a president already far too “uppity” for some, evidently. Here was a man in need of a “comeuppance,” and losing the Olympics was just what the doctor ordered.

Except that he turned around immediately and won the Nobel Peace Prize, transforming those joyous cries into apoplectic fits of disgust and despair. When have we seen indignation so absolutely pure as that over Obama’s achievement? Obama himself said he didn’t deserve it, and I am actually inclined to agree with him. After all, you can only put the Nobel Peace Prize so high in your trophy case when you are presiding over two wars, you have failed to initiate an investigation on the possible war crimes of the previous administration, and you have not yet suspended use of the military tribunals of that same administration. If Obama is pacing himself, he needs to pick up the pace. Let’s just say that the Nobel Peace Prize is like a new set of clothes he needs to grow into quickly.

But you see, these are not the arguments of the Obama haters, because these arguments are based on a critical review of the evidence, and not a more deeply ingrained dislike for the man himself. So what are their “arguments”? Maybe no one really knows for sure, not even them. They’ve despised him from the start, and the condition only gets more acute as we go along. It has only been a few weeks since these folks were enraged because Obama gave a pep talk to students about the importance of staying in school and studying hard. Well, we certainly can’t have a sitting President stress the importance of education to America’s students, can we? The very nerve of this fellow!

The people who so dislike Obama say it is no different from people like me who never liked George W. Bush, who never gave him a chance. Well before he was elected, I admit that I thought of Bush as the feckless son of a more successful father, and every time I heard him speak or every time I read anything about his record, I became more and more amazed at the seeming gullibility of those millions of Americans who voted for him as leader of the free world — twice. But I didn’t despise him, not until he and Cheney cooked up this war we’ve been in for over six years, exploiting a national tragedy as a springboard to start it. I just thought that George W. Bush had no more business being president than I had singing opera at the Met.

Is this animosity against Obama different? Yes, I think it is. Is it racist? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it’s not a duck, but it certainly does quack like one.

(Chris Cox is a writer and teacher who lives in Haywood County. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

By Brent Martin • Guest Columnist

With the long August recess now behind them, Senators have returned to Washington, D.C., with a heavy workload. In addition to the momentous responsibility they have to pass legislation that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, they have an unprecedented opportunity to change America’s future for the better. Comprehensive climate and energy legislation that passes the Senate can and must dedicate 5 percent of the funding generated by such a bill to safeguarding fish and wildlife and natural resources on which we all rely. Just two weeks ago, 22 North Carolina organizations joined more than 600 groups from all 50 states to do just that. The letter delivered to the Senate has a clear message — we need swift action on climate change that will both create jobs and protect our natural resources.

This call for action is based not only on protecting our environment, but on creating green jobs that will help our economy for generations to come. If funded properly, climate legislation will create conservation jobs nationwide, employing construction crews, engineers, scientists and others to restore America’s landscapes and strengthen ecosystems so they can withstand disruptive changes, remove invasive species from natural areas, repair damaged watersheds and help revive rural economies. Furthermore, here in Western Northern Carolina, our outdoor recreation industry is dependent on healthy ecosystems — businesses that support fishing, rafting, and camping that are being threatened by the effects of global warming, putting at risk North Carolina’s $7.5 billion outdoor recreation economy. As the health of North Carolina’s forests suffers, a range of business and vital ecosystem services are likely to be negatively affected, such as North Carolina’s $100 million per year Christmas tree industry.

We simply can no longer afford to ignore this important issue. Many areas of North Carolina’s coastline are sinking at a rate of nearly 7 inches per century, and studies predict that sea level rise of 18 inches is possible by 2080, flooding more than 770 miles of the state’s coast. Upland ecosystems are also affected as evidenced by a decline in high-elevation spruce firs, loss of brook trout habitat due to rising steam temperatures and the destruction of hemlock forests by invasive species.

Since mid-century, temperatures across the state have risen approximately 1.2 degrees and are expected to rise up to an additional 5 degrees by 2060. A temperature rise of just 4 degrees would cause central North Carolina to resemble the climate of central Florida. In coastal North Carolina, projections show a decrease of up to 8 inches in annual rainfall by 2060. These changes are significant, and the impacts are already being felt.

The House of Representatives has already passed legislation that establishes a national policy to better safeguard natural resources from global warming and provided 1 percent of revenues generated by the bill for these efforts. Ultimately, significantly more dedicated funding will be needed to address the impacts of climate change on our wildlife and natural resources. The Senate is standing at the crossroads of history and we need its leadership now to get the whole job done and ensure that climate legislation both reduces greenhouse gas emissions and safeguards natural resources, wildlife and our own communities threatened by the changes already set in motion.

Millions of Americans have spoken – it’s time for the Senate to listen.

(Brent Martin lives in Franklin and works for the Wilderness Society. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

I have lived in a lot of places in my life — countless apartments, dorm rooms, and houses, some of them I can barely remember — but in nearly 48 years, I have only had two homes. I left one of them when I was 18. I am leaving the other one on Friday.

After spending nearly a year looking at other houses while getting ours ready to sell, we finally found the home we were looking for, and finally found a buyer for our home. We feel lucky and are looking forward to beginning the next stage in our lives in the new home, which has more room both inside and out for our growing family. But that does not make leaving the only home our family has ever known any easier. I have been here for 15 years, the family for nearly six.

We can pack away our possessions, putting them all into nice, neat, numbered boxes. But what are we supposed to do with our way of life, those habits that are tied directly to living here, in this house? I am not talking about memories — we will be taking those, of course; they were already packed away long before we even looked at the first empty box. I am talking about something else, the rhythm of life, the little things we all take for granted.

Rushing out for a pizza because the chicken’s gone bad. The arrival of the ice cream truck on a sunny afternoon. Crowding into our one bathroom on a Sunday morning, jockeying for position like basketball players battling for a rebound as we get ready for church. The sound of the kids talking in their sleep, so audible with our bedroom right next door. Impromptu walks around the neighborhood, the houses as familiar as the faces of old friends. The place where the Christmas tree goes, the place where it always goes. The music, always the music. Family dances to “Rock Lobster” before the kids are off to bed. The indescribable feeling of turning off of Church Street and on to Meadow, after a few days away from home. The feeling of the gravel under your tires — how your own gravel sounds different from other gravel. The feeling of the key turning the lock, the dogs competing for attention. The feeling of belonging so completely in one place.

So tell me, where do we pack these things?

Even the memories we can and will carry away with us have become so very heavy, so sopped are they in the place itself, the bricks, the mortar, the creaks in the wood floors, the cracks in the walls, the trees outside. As we draw closer to leaving this place behind, trying to wrest the memories away from the objects to which they are so profoundly attached, a weird thing is happening. Suddenly, everything in my life here in this house suddenly seems to be happening all at once. I sit at the kitchen table, divorce papers spread out before me, pondering my life here alone. I find in the mailbox a document that tells me my book will be published. I look out the front window and see my friends in the yard moving toward the front door, come to say and do whatever they can on the day my father has died. I am on the computer all day, sending the cleverest messages I can think of to the woman who will become my wife, my heart out of control as a feral child. I am putting on a tie to get married in, this decision having been arrived at and executed on the very same January day.

I am driving home with the baby in the backseat, taking him to see his room upstairs for the first time, the one we painstakingly converted from an office to a nursery. I am driving 20 miles per hour, maybe as high as 40 on the interstate. I am teaching him how to walk. I am trying to figure out the new camcorder on Christmas morning, the kids tearing into their presents like brightly colored piranha. I am taping crepe paper to the ceiling and lighting birthday candles. I am on the phone negotiating a price for the house.

In 15 years, I have lost my father, three grandparents, and two dogs, one of them buried behind the garage. I lived alone for more than half that time, watching the last years of my youth slip away in impossible increments, so much so that I wonder if the man who moved in here 15 years ago would even recognize the man who is moving out.

I have heard that moving is one of the most traumatic events in a person’s life, a notion I would have laughed at 25 years ago, when I was in the habit of moving someplace new nearly every year. But now I see not only that this is actually true, but why it is true. Moving is a metaphor for death — if you are a believer in an afterlife, and I am. It is saying goodbye to one life and hello to another, a life yet unknown in a place you think will be better, but don’t know for sure, can’t know for sure until you get there. It’s all about faith, after all.

I heard Loretta Lynn sing that “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” No doubt, a little bit of me will die on Friday when we take one more tour through the empty rooms of our home — uh, no, THEIR home now — to look for any last remnants of our life together here before we get in the truck to leave Meadow Street, to say goodbye to it all, to say, at last, thanks, thanks for everything.

I do not much like having my photograph taken, but there is one picture of me I have always liked. In it, I am standing near the road between my old apartment and the park across the street. In the crook of my right arm, I am holding my nephew, Adam, who is 3-years-old. I am wearing my favorite shirt, a gray R.E.M. T shirt, and it is a beautiful day. Adam is squinting, and I am smiling broadly, as if to say, “This is MY nephew!”

My sister, Lisa, was the first of us to have children, and Adam was her firstborn. As soon as he was old enough, I took him to see professional wrestling matches, the Harlem Globetrotters, even the Charlotte Hornets when they used to hold their preseason training camp in Boone, back in the days when I was a sportswriter for the Watauga Democrat. Adam was pretty dazzled to be able to get that close to the players, even if it was just practice.

One day after practice, I tried to get Rex Chapman to give him an autograph, but Chapman snubbed us, leaving Adam standing there at the door to the locker room holding his unsigned Hornets basketball. I was so peeved that I wrote a nasty column the very next day about pampered athletes, as well as placing a private hex on Chapman, which in turn caused him to have a terrible season.

Now, the Hornets are in New Orleans, I’m in Waynesville, and Adam is on the verge of being in Iraq.

I went back to Sparta over Labor Day weekend to see him. He had come down to visit for a few days before shipping off in just a couple more weeks. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with him, bumping fists, talking about music, watching his kids play with my kids, who are only slightly older than his. On Saturday night, we somehow got involved in watching a segment of my mother’s favorite movie of all time, “The Sound Of Music,” picking it up right around the time that Captain Von Trapp realizes that the Baroness is not really the girl for him, after all.

As we watched the family Von Trapp basically sing its way out of the clutches of the Nazis, as we watched them climb that mountain and out of harm’s way, propelled upward by the soaring music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, I wondered what Adam must be thinking. He is, after all, heading back down the mountain, toward the fray, where matters these days are a good deal less black and white.

Near one end of the couch, his girls, who are 4 and 2, got involved in some type of minor dispute that quickly escalated into accusations, followed by tears. He handled this the way he always handles his children, with a calm, soft, but firm touch that miraculously settled the issue almost as quickly as it began. He is a single dad who dotes on his girls without spoiling them. I have never seen him get remotely upset with them, not even once. He tells them what to do, and they do it.

Later on in the evening, we watched sports highlights and just talked about whatever came up. His girls were laid out on the couch next to him, fast asleep, one with her head in his lap. I can’t imagine how hard it is going to be on him to leave them behind, but that is not one of the subjects we talked about. It was just easier to talk about the Bruce Springsteen show I am going to see this week, or the Tool show he is planning to see. It is easier for me to tease him about the mean imitation he used to do of Michael Jackson, moonwalking across this very same living room floor not so very many years ago.

Now he is a grown man, a father. Now he jumps out of airplanes. Now he is a member of the US Airborne Infantry.

The next morning, we all had breakfast together, and it was time for us to go back home. My kids had missed their mom, who had to stay behind and work, and I needed to get caught up on some work back at home. His kids hugged my kids, and I hugged Adam.

He promised to keep in touch via Facebook, and I told him I would look for him there. And I will. But I will also probably dig out that photograph of the two of us, just standing there in the road. What’s that Van Morrison song? “We were born before the wind, also younger than the sun.” I love that picture.

This country must pass health care reform that accomplishes two major objectives: providing coverage for everyone and controlling skyrocketing costs. I believe that the bill must include a public option for those who are now uninsured. And just like automobile insurance, anyone who enters the workplace must be required to have health insurance, either from their employer, their own private plan, or from the public option.

Conservatives and liberals alike agree that our health care system is not sustainable in its present form. Employee-sponsored health care premiums doubled in the past nine years, rising three times faster than wages. American families spend more on health care than we do on food or housing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if costs keep increasing at the current rate, 25 percent of the nation’s economy will be tied up in the health care industry by 2025.

The fundamental questions for those advocating reform is how can we cover those who now don’t have access to care while controlling costs in an industry where price has become irrelevant? When is the last time you asked your doctor how much a test, an operation or a drug was going to cost?

According to The Wall Street Journal, the current system of employer-provided benefits “has divorced the consumer — the patient — from the real cost of services. It encourages excess spending, runaway lawsuits, defensive medicine (doctors ordering unnecessary tests and procedures out of fear of being sued), and huge malpractice premiums.”

•••

This is a complex issue, and understanding it has become even more difficult amid the tidal wave of misinformation that is circulating. It’s unfortunate for those of us who believe health care reform is critical that this debate is occurring during an economic crisis that has forced unprecedented government intervention into private industry. Both the outgoing Republican administration and current Democratic administrations supported government taking new and expanded roles to stave off a long-term economic disaster. Intervention to rescue the banking and automobile industries, along with Obama’s stimulus package, have further fueled the long-running fear of too much government intrusion.

The health care problems, however, can’t be solved without government intervention. Government is already the major player in the industry through Medicaid and Medicare. But here’s the truth — Obama does not support a government takeover of our health care. That’s not even being discussed and is a complete distortion of reality.

What he does want is a public option for insuring the 45 million people who currently don’t have health insurance. That option is the best chance for controlling insurance premiums, which in turn will prompt the insurance industry to work with health care providers to keep costs down.

There are other major problems on the other end of the healthcare spectrum that must be resolved as part of reform. Many who have insurance are denied coverage or reach their caps when they face serious problems like cancer or heart problems. Also, changing jobs with a pre-existing condition can be devastating, often leading to a denial of coverage or skyrocketing premiums. A plan for affordable portability of coverage must be included in any reform measure that is passed, along with measures that prevent insurance companies from denying coverage just when it is needed most.

Although I think the public option is necessary, compromises can be found. Some are suggesting allowing the insurance companies to develop low-cost plans for those who currently can’t afford care. This plan includes a trigger for a government option to come into play only if the private companies can’t get the job done. The public option is better, but a compromise that earned some Republican support might be the best possible solution — and the only way to get a bill passed.

•••

One issue that hasn’t been discussed much as part of this health care overhaul is personal responsibility. We can’t cut our health care costs substantially if Americans continue to suffer from chronic conditions that are preventable.

Our children are suffering from an obesity epidemic. Many of us eat too much and exercise too little. Go to any middle school in the country and observe the children. It is a sad thing to see so many who are obviously on their way to a lifetime of battling obesity.

I don’t have a problem paying taxes to provide health care for a working mom who has a full-time job that pays just above minimum wage and doesn’t offer healthcare benefits. I do, however, have a problem paying for those who cause their own health problems by eating badly, not exercising, and perhaps smoking. I’m not sure how it can be done, but we must encourage lifestyle changes that could substantially reduce total healthcare costs.

•••

Healthcare reform has discussed by nearly every administration since World War II, and we have yet to make meaningful headway. Congress has made more progress in the last six months on this issue than ever before, and citizens need to encourage their lawmakers to finish the job.