The new years toasts are over, and we’re a week into 2009. If hindsight is 20-20, then it’s time to feel pretty confident inpassing judgment on 2008 — it sucked.

Ever want to just drop kick a time span into oblivion? In more ways than can be said here, that’s how I feel about a lot of last year. Nothing’s all bad, but the balance sheet for 2008 ends up on the negative side. Good riddance.

And this is coming from someone who considers himself an optimist, one who can find the jewel in an avalanche of slime. In this job we often have to wallow in the mud with the power-mongers and the self-righteous, the pitiful and the abused, but we do it in hopes of making things better. So instead of letting bad news drag me down, typically it’s a springboard to look at what could be or how good I’ve got it.

But many times during the last year, that was hard to do.

Of course there is the bad economic conditions that waddled into our lives in 2008 and just sat there, a huge gorilla with its arms folded and a nasty snarl on its face, squatting there in the middle of the room and refusing to leave. It’s been tough. In our business we’ve had to cut people’s hours, have layoffs, and hold the line on all spending. And there may be more to come. We’ll see how the winter shapes up.

Every business owner has a similar story. No one is happy with sales and profits (or should I say losses), and everyone is getting a little desperate. When business is bad and salaries are cut or workers are let go, lives are screwed up. These are scary times.

And if the recession wasn’t enough to scare the bejeesus out of you, what about the newspaper industry in general? This business is changing so fast it’s hard to keep up, and a good part of that change is eliminating resources going into the gathering of news. All across the country, newspapers are cutting back. We who believe in the value of professional reporting to analyze and interpret the news are, I’m afraid, fast becoming relics. Our industry is changing, but no one can see where the future lies. That uncertainty is unsettling.

On top of that, we’ve had too many health issues here at our business. People I care about are dealing with tough stuff themselves or problems afflicting loved ones, and of course it affects their work. How can it not? And how, as a boss, can you not feel sympathy toward their plight? Never mind that it happens when you’re trying to squeeze blood from a turnip, so that these personal problems run up against bad times on the business side.

There was also my own private nightmare in 2008. My mother-in-law battled through a tough summer with a major illness, and then my mother became unexpectedly ill and fought like hell for almost three months before passing away. Losing a mother you’re close to — besides having to dealing with the grief — is like cutting the last tether holding you to the life raft, and suddenly you’re out there in the middle of the ocean on your own emotionally. No matter your age, it just takes time to regain your balance.

A friend of nearly 30 years also lost his mom this year. He’s one of those guys who makes proclamations that stick in your head, a blue-collar philosopher who thinks hard about life. I got him on the phone when he was driving back from visiting family after she died, and he had been on the highway alone for more than 10 hours. “No one said the journey was going to be easy, that it wasn’t going to get rough at times,” he said. “You just got to keep moving.”

And so we do, keep putting one foot in front of the other, get out of bed, get dressed, get the kids to school, go to work, go through the routines of our life. The little things will lift you up, the unexpected silly email from the co-worker, the stories about my wife’s students, the declarations of omnipotence from my 10-year-old during breakfast, the angst of my 13-year-old, the sunny smile of my 16-year-old who is too wrapped up worrying about school and sports but who just can’t help being a ray of sunshine in whatever room she’s in.

I can’t stand whiners. They get under my skin real fast. If you feel the same, you’ve probably read enough of this. Too much damn grousing. Time to move on, one foot in front of the other, heading forward. Here’s to 2009.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

The healing power of forgiveness is at the top of the list of things in which I believe strongly. It’s the best drug on earth, doing more good for more people than anything a doctor ever learned in medical school.

The U.S. Forest Service is about to release its opinion on whether to allow boating on the Chattooga River. It’s been a long and complicated battle, but here’s hoping that American Whitewater’s attempt to open the river to kayaking is successful.

Fair’s fair, so I’ll print an anonymous letter I received over the weekend. We usually don’t print anonymous submissions, but this one raises important issues. Don’t stop reading before the last paragraph.

The truth is that, at the state level, no one is giving Pat Smathers a chance to win in his bid for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor. The Canton mayor and attorney is trying to run a statewide race with low-budget campaign, and so the odds are stacked against him.

“Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson believed in a strict code of ethics and morality that was Christian-like, and judged according to that belief. When I came across this quote the other day while reading the Washington Post online, it seemed relevant to our situation today.

The praise for outgoing Waynesville Mayor Henry Foy has been plentiful. Both of the other newspapers in Haywood County have beat me to the punch, publishing glowing articles and laudatory editorials.

But I’ll still add my voice to the chorus. Foy’s tenure as mayor has just about mirrored my own career as a Western North Carolina journalist. He was elected in 1991, and I moved to the mountains in the summer of 1992. I’ve gotten to know these mountain communities at the same time I’ve gotten to know Henry Foy and watched him in public life.

Setting an example

Each year I spend covering politics and local governments, my appreciation grows for those who conduct themselves with class. It’s a trait that we all recognize when we see it but perhaps have difficulty describing. And that’s exactly the point. Someone who has class earns it by cumulative action over time. It’s not something one can sum up nicely in a campaign slogan or some pithy speech.

I distinctly remember meeting Foy’s old architectural partner, Tai Lee, soon after I moved to Waynesville. Lee had this absolutely wonderful sense of humor, and his outgoing nature endeared him to many. Foy, as many well know, is much more quiet and workmanlike.

Sometime in those first few weeks in the mountains I was introduced to Foy. Ken Wilson, then publisher of The Mountaineer — I was the editor — had the very helpful habit of giving me the background on those I met. He let me know right away that Foy and Lee were prominent town fathers who were well-liked, powerful in their own right, and just good people. Ken’s instincts were usually right on.

As time passed what I learned to respect about Foy more than anything else was his dogged pursuit of those issues he felt strongly about. Though he has always been congenial and, as I said earlier, a person with class, he is also a fighter. His position as mayor was both a job and a passion, and he worked hard at it.

Old Asheville Road

Here’s a comparison that reflects absolutely positively on Foy’s influence on Waynesville. Consider the difference between driving into Waynesville on Russ Avenue from Lake Junaluska and driving from Lowe’s on the Old Asheville Highway.

Russ Avenue is a wide ribbon of asphalt with absolutely no attention to landscaping or pedestrian amenities. Its design encourages drivers to just fly along. Nearly every time I’m on that road my instinct is to go faster than the posted speed limit.

On Old Asheville Highway, the opposite is true. Its landscaped medians, sidewalks, traffic circle and other design elements encourage drivers to slow down and be careful. It also looks pretty darn nice for what it is — a road.

Foy and the rest of the Waynesville aldermen and staff fought hard to get that road, and they wanted even more pedestrian amenities. The county commissioners at the time wanted a road exactly like Russ Avenue. As editor of the community paper, that was one of the first issues I took on. We editorialized time and again for more planning, re-thinking design plans, viewing this roadway as an entrance to Waynesville and not just another highway.

It was a long time coming, but the state Department of Transportation for the most part came around to the town’s vision. A series of work sessions in which the public took part with experts led to a process that had community buy-in and resulted in what we now have.

Foy played a critical role, and by my estimation it was the first time a community in this region forced DOT to re-design a road and come up with something better. Now, towns in the region stand up to DOT all the time.

Recreation for all

The second great fight I remember Foy taking center stage in was for the recreation center that opened about eight years ago in Waynesville.

Haywood Regional Medical Center had only just opened its beautiful fitness center, and there was a general consensus among many in Haywood County that if Waynesville built its own it would fail. Not enough people in the county, they said.

Foy, however, did not waver. I remember hearing him speak about the need to build a place where children could go, a recreation center versus a fitness center. He had help on this one from the likes of Bob Brannon, who also knows how to stand up for what he believes in, and many others. Again, I was editor at The Mountaineer at the time and we believed just as strongly in the need to build a place for children that would provide an anchor for the town’s Vance Street Park.

Foy and the recreations supporters succeeded, and now Waynesville has a park complex that is the envy of much larger towns.

A regional influence

Part of why I admired Foy so much is that our views were very similar on many of the important issues that have faced Waynesville and other mountain communities. He saw the wisdom in building the county justice center downtown, in preserving the town’s watershed, in developing a groundbreaking land-use plan and in supporting Waynesville’s Main Street program.

These are not political beliefs but quality-of-life values. Because of the stance Waynesville took on many of these issues — and Foy had plenty of support from other elected officials, town staff and many in the community — this is a great place to live.

And other mountain towns and communities have looked at Waynesville as a leader and emulated it in many ways. In other words, the influence of a well-run town reaches beyond its borders. I travel to public hearings and town and county meetings throughout the region, and without fail I’ll hear these other leaders mention Waynesville’s successes.

Foy left his mark, and it’s one that will endure for some time in Western North Carolina.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

Too often debates about immigration veer way off course, inhabiting some netherland of hysteria that is so far from reality it borders on the ridiculous. In the past couple of weeks we in North Carolina have witnessed just such a situation as the decision that community colleges should admit illegal immigrants exploded into newspapers and radio talk shows.

The decision by Michell Hicks, chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, to do away with a column in The Cherokee One Feather was a mistake.

This is about war, but only from a distance. When I read about deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan, it mostly seems a world away. On the rare occasion it gets personal, I can’t help but be reminded that war, particularly this war, seems a waste of young lives.