Opinion

Sometimes, the urge to just go is irresistible

They didn’t know where they were going, their only waypoint the “S” on the compass rose.

They were both from Minnesota. For a laugh they could turn on the accent that became the humorous aside of the Coen brothers’ film “Fargo,” with the “yaah” and “geez” and “you betcha.” In their 50s, both had been able to retire early, she a landscape architect and he an Air National Guard pilot.

Their sailboat, a modest older model, was named “Our Lucy,” a reference to Lucy in the Peanuts cartoon who acted as a counselor to the other characters. For them, the boat was their therapy.

We met them briefly on a recent boating trip to the coast, both of us tied up at the same marina in Oriental, N.C., for a few days. Their plan was to meander as far south as they could over the next few months. When the urge struck to get off the boat, they’d find a place to dry dock her and go home until the need to wander struck again. A few days later we bumped into them in a restaurant in New Bern.

I’ve always been infatuated with the concept of a nomadic life. I moved a lot as a child, so perhaps it was not having a homeplace or a hometown. Tales of early fur trappers, gold prospectors and sea captains were the books I gravitated toward as a kid. As soon as I was old enough it was off on weekend trips, whether by car or backpacking. In college I sketched out on-the-cheap summer adventures around the country, talking friends into coming along and stretching my meager funds as far they could take me.

Fortunately — or perhaps fortuitously — I fell in love with a woman whose thirst for travel likely exceeds mine. Lori had already been all over Europe and the U.S. by the time we met, and we sealed our plans to get married while staying in a small inn on the south Irish coast while on a half-year backpacking trip together. I think yearning for adventure is a very basic human trait, and travel is a sure way to find it. Even a seemingly mundane trip will lead to unexpected encounters and travails. Because travel can be uncomfortable, because problems or challenges inevitably arise, because the best laid plans can go all to hell in an instant, what’s left are your wits and your ability to make the best of the situation. Out of those times come great memories and stories.

Paul Theroux, whom some call the godfather of travel writing, is one of my favorites. He’s a novelist and a travel writer, and his books deal more with a love of adventure and people rather than geography and culture. His classics include The Great Railroad Bazaar (a trip by train from Great Britain to Japan and back) and The Old Patagonian Express (Boston to Patagonia via train). A couple of years ago he had this to say to the BBC about travel: “Travel in an uncertain world ... has never seemed to me more essential, of greater importance or more enlightening.”

For most of us, the real world — marriage, kids, careers, house — eventually brings an end to the days of being able to pack all of one’s belongings in a single vehicle and just move on down the road at a whim. And that’s OK, for that more sedentary life is full of its own meaning and lasting friendships.

But that doesn’t mean the urge to just get up and go ever disappears. For some of us it lingers, goes dormant for periods but then rears up, begging for release. And so my thoughts today are with those Minnesotans, by now likely in Wilmington, perhaps nearing Little River, S.C., wandering south at their own pace.

Scott McLeod Editor

(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com)

Biden’s gun control proposal a good one

To the Editor:

President Joe Biden has recently made very appropriate reference to the need for strengthened gun control legislation.

To be specific about this topic, it is suggested that a requirement be established for owners of hazardous weapons to secure a license for such ownership and to carry such license at any time the subject weapon is carried away from its owner’s residence. Such requirement would be totally equivalent to the well-established requirement that a driver’s license be available at any time a motor vehicle is operated.

In no way is the above suggestion intended to violate or lessen the rights of law-abiding citizens who are gun owners. Much to the contrary, it is intended to clarify their right to own and use a weapon for appropriate purposes, such as wildlife hunting, or other often competitive events.

President Biden inspired these thoughts. It would be a remarkable achievement if he could convince the U.S. Congress and the public to adopt the above thoughts or their equivalent, to implement his stated intent to strengthen gun control.

Rolf Kaufman Waynesville

Corbin should vote for Medicaid expansion

article makes clear that North Carolina needs elected officials to support actual Medicaid expansion that would provide health care insurance to people who earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid but too little to qualify for a marketplace subsidy. That is about 600,000 North Carolinians. The N.C. General Assembly has voted multiple times against Medicaid expansion.

Please do not be confused. The partial expansion that Sen. Corbin spoke of is not Medicaid expansion. Why cover some when we can cover all? The latest COVID relief package will bring $1.7 billion into our state over the next two years if we expand Medicaid. With Senator Corbin’s plan? Nothing.

A statewide poll found that 64 percent of Republicans, 76 percent of unaffiliated voters, and 83 percent of Democrats support closing the Medicaid gap. Saying “I don’t think there’s the votes in the House or Senate to get that” indicates that Sen. Corbin does not know his constituents. Rural North Carolinians are dying. We need Sen. Corbin to vote for what we need, not what he thinks.

Ann Hibbard Waynesville

LETTERS

Cleveland County casino coverage great

To the Editor:

Although I am not a resident of your area, I am very grateful for your articles on the proposed Catawba Casino in Cleveland County. Contrary to the perception given by our local media, there are a number of people in our county opposed to this casino.

Silence is sometimes said to be golden. In the case of a casino in Cleveland County, it is not.

The City of Kings Mountain is being assailed by private LLCs who are in large part unknown quantities. A pre-launch facility for slot machines has been reduced to a pre-manufactured modular building to hold less than half of the originally planned 1,300 machines. A pending lawsuit in the D.C. courts threatens the development of the casino because it points out a flawed approval process and broken laws and regulations. An unproven developer has been entrusted with what has been said to be the biggest economic development in our county.

What do we hear from our county and local officials these days? Silence. A silence that fails to highlight the influx of campaign money to politicians who have voiced their support. A silence that refuses to acknowledge a developer who has a questionable past and poor track record in the casino industry. A silence that history will not judge well.

Thank you for your willingness to cover concerns about the casino that are not voiced by our local officials or media. I hope that residents in Cleveland County will begin to read your coverage to be educated about some of the concerning issues with the casino. Alton Beal Mayor of Lattimore, N.C.

The people your God created?

It should cover two current movements in America.

One: What is the prevalence of interracial families in America today? We dwell on events as though they are clearly black or white. But, the faces and skin we see on TV are seldom predominantly black. Most are light brown, tan or almost white. Show us what happens inside the families where one parent is black and one is white. Or other races. What do relatives feel? What do they say? Is there some chance that racial tolerance is progressing in spite of daily stories of prejudice and hatred? What effect are contemporary interracial commercials having on people’s attitudes toward race?

Two: What is happening to wealth in America as a function of interracial children? Please show us that love trumps racial prejudice when people die and leave money to their mixed-race descendants!

Your documentary, Ken, will help people see that America is rapidly becoming a country unlike any other in history.

Most Americans will understand. Most will embrace our new destiny.

In John Steinbeck’s 1952 classic novel East of Eden, we are reminded of the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. As told, Cain may have felt rejected by God and in anger killed his brother Abel. In the novel Adam Trask’s Cantonese servant Lee said this to him: “The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears.”

Is Lee’s statement not just as true for those who are born in America and yet must bear the weight of knowing that some people believe they are superior to them simply because they have a different set of genes (over which they had no control)? Is prejudice not actually a form of F