It was 40 years ago this month that I first heard the name of the small creek in Jackson County that would eventually become our home, Moses Creek. Becky and I had been renting a house in Cullowhee in 1984 from a landlady who kept threatening to up the rent on us, even though we’d told her at the get-go that we, newlyweds from eastern North Carolina, had no more ”up” to give. But a year in, after still another monthly phone call from her, I turned to Becky and said, “Let’s see if there’s something we can afford to buy.” 

A man who lives up Caney Fork once told me he didn’t split red oak for firewood because its sap smelled like urine. He called it “piss oak.” His remark came back to me one day in September while I stood in my woodlot filling my lungs with the odor from a ton of freshly bucked-up red oak waiting to be split, and all I can say is that one man’s stench is another’s sweet aroma. 

On Friday, May 27, the day after a big storm dumped inches of rain on Western North Carolina, the air was so clear and the sky so blue it made me think back to the spring of 2020 when Covid shut down the world and for a few weeks the earth’s atmosphere returned 300 years to pre-industrial clarity. I called it Pandemic Blue. 

Just over a year after opening its doors at a new location, Caney Fork General Store is closed, though likely only temporarily. 

Finger-pointing over who’s to blame for unpaid bills following a business relocation project in Jackson County has transitioned to the legal realm.