Brook Mayo

I am from steep hills and curvy roads dirt bike rides and the back of a pickup truck. From Sweetwater Road, Route 129, and West Buffalo Creek, an A-frame house, a woodstove, and a basketball hoop nailed to a telephone pole. I am from chestnut trees with prickly burrs that stick in your bare feet when you run down the hill to the handmade wooden swings. I am from a clothesline in the backyard and an old moonshine still up in the mountain behind the house. I am from if we don’t talk about it, it didn’t happen Wild Turkey behind the truck seat and Salem Light 100’s in the underwear drawer. I am from Friday night football and church on Sunday mornings basement potlucks, summertime VBS, and baptism in Lake Santeetlah. I am from vegetable canning with great aunts on the concrete patio and pulling tobacco leaves with my Pa in the field behind his house. Apples and potatoes stored in the cinderblock bomb shelter built into the hill, boiled chestnuts, salted watermelon, wilted lettuce, and Vienna sausage. I am from a dry county that lets restaurants sell booze if they build a tennis court and a school system that closes down for the beginning of hunting season. I am from a place that I love but worry about, a place I want to visit but no longer want to be my home. I am from a place that is sometimes forgotten.

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