Two Years In Transylvania (Country)

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Hey' You out there! I don t necessarily mean you that's doin' . . . this report is more for the folks who are still readin' and thinkin' and dreamin' 'bout doin . I'm here to tell you that you really can get up and make those wishes-the "back to the land" wish, the "be your own boss" wish-come true!

Now, I know that the methods which work for one person or family could very well drive another to bankruptcy, but when your fantasy gets a little shopworn around the edges-the knowledge that somebody else has "made it" can sure brighten things up again. Not that everything has been peaches and cream for us up here in the mountains of western North Carolina-we're not even really "out of the woods" yet-but my family does feel that it has found a permanent home here in Transylvania County.

Of course, we didn't move to the country on a spur-of-the-moment impulse. Even seven years ago-when my wife, Bonnie, and I were still newlyweds-we realized that we wanted to leave our Florida city life behind someday ... and establish a more independent, more down-to-earth lifestyle for ourselves.

Bonnie was then-and still is today-a teacher, and at that time I was supervisor of a welfare office. Our homestead dream (though we talked about it a lot) was little more than "wishful thinkin"' until some friends offered us a week in their house in the Blue Ridge mountains. Those cool hills -contrasted with the body-punchin' heat and humidity of a Florida July-were all that we needed to convince us that the time had come to act.

In fact, that short vacation pretty much determined our future. We decided then that-come hell or high water-we'd be livin' in those mountains come the following summer.

Bonnie and I had never been really conscientious money savers, but we had in vested in a small lot somewhere along the way-and we owned our house-so we did have a little nest egg that could be converted to cash to finance our move.

And, as much as some folks try to avoid the issue, there's no gettin' around the fact that money is the one absolute necessity for anyone who wants to transplant hire- or herself into a rural environment. The idealist who plans to go out and "do his own thin" without a cent in his pockets will more often than not-wind up as one of the sorry embittered "also rans" who limps back to town with a horror story.

Of course, money alone won't do the trick, either. In order to prepare for our new life, I quit the welfare office and took a job as manager of an orchid nursery. The work was hard and the pay very poor... but a year of it would- I figured-teach me enough about the business to enable me to start my own nursery once we'd settled in our country home.

Then-when the net summer rolled around-we went to Brevard, North Carolina for a week . . . to find a teaching job for Bonnie and to look for a house and land. We had already put our Florida properties on the market, and we sort of expected "dream homesteads" to be thick as weeds up in the mountains. Unfortunately, several thousand other people must have come to the same area with the same thing in mind . . . a livable house on about five acres of decent land. The realtors just smiled when we told them what we wanted ... a smile that said they'd heard it all before.

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