When I got married I knew, as they say—-I knew I was marrying not only my wife, but also her family.  What I didn’t know was that I was marrying the county, as in Mitchell County, North Carolina, the county my beloved is from.  Mitchell County is in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina and its one of those counties in which everybody knows everything about everybody.

So…………..so when my wife calls her mother (and isn’t a close mother-daughter relationship a wonderful thing!) she gets not only the family news, she also gets the county news:  who did this, who did that, who died this week, who was in the hospital, who—-who—who.  As I like to jokingly say, with my wife and her mother there’s no detail too small to share in great detail.

Personally, I’m a beach bum.  Give me the waves and the sand and the ocean breeze and I’m in heaven, but there’s also something about the mountains, something very special about mountain people.  Mountain people, at least from what I’ve observed, know the joys of living in community. 

The first time I met the people who would end up being my in-laws I excused myself to the bathroom after supper.  From the bathroom I heard my father-in-law clear his throat and announce, “Well,——-he’s not bad for a flatlander.”

This flatlander ended up being my father-in-law’s favorite son-in-law.  (O.K., what’s your point?  So what if I’m his only son-in-law. I’m still his favorite.)

If you want to know what’s happening in Mitchell County give me a call.