Fall in Gerton
Reds, Yellows, Oranges Came in all their Glory
The Echo of the Gorge is the bi-monthly newsletter of the Upper Hickory Nut Gorge Community Club. The Gerton Post Office and Hickory Creek Market have paper copies. The ECHO made be read online at our blog site: gertonecho.blogspot.com
The Editor welcomes news items: E-mail Margaret Whitt at mwhitt@du.edu or phone 625-0264. Space determines use, and editor may revise. Roving Reporter: Barbara Earnhardt. Photographer: Barbara Earnhardt. Pictures are always welcome.
UHNGCC Officers: President: Mel Freeman (Outgoing), Margaret Whitt (Incoming); Vice-President: Jim Earnhardt; Secretaries: Jean Bradley and Lana Roberts; Treasurer, Sylvia Sane. Board Members: Jean Bradley, Gene Earnhardt, Syble Freeman, Jim Sane and Claudia Freeman (Incoming), Patty Tanner (Outgoing). Immediate Past President: Mel Freeman (Incoming). Board Meetings are held the second Tuesday of each month. Community Dinner and Program is held on the third Tuesday of each month.
On the lookout for Thanksgiving: Wild Turkeys haunt Gerton all fall!
GertonFest IV - Labor Day Weekend 2012
Our Annual GertonFest, now a well entrenched tradition (of four years), is held on the Saturday of Labor Day. We began the day with a pancake breakfast, which kicked off a day-long celebration of the following events: a silent auction, the second annual Gerton 5K, a home-baked goods sale, a dog show, a team spelling bee, bar-be-cue dinner with music and a square dance with more music.Winner of this year's Gerton 5K is Richie Farmer. In the afternoon, Bearwallow Baptist Church provided inflatable jumping equipment for the kids and free snow cones, cotton candy, popcorn. At day's end, we made over $2,500 (before expenses). Several hundred people enjoyed all or part of our day.
Deep Thought in Action
Kids at Team Spelling Bee
Adults at Team Spelling Bee: David Pope, Lana Roberts, Jim Earnhardt
Bob Stepp and Friends play during the bar-be-cue dinner...
while Will Hamilton and the Berry Pickers play for the square dance,
and the dancers, of all ages, enjoy the action.
Calendar of Events
Every Monday - Friday - Exercise by walking with your neighbors to a tape at the center. Daily at 9 a.m.
November 6 - ELECTION DAY. Remember to vote (if you haven't already done so)
November 17 - Noon. Annual Awards Luncheon for WNCCommunities at Grove Park Inn.
November 17 - NEW POST OFFICE HOURS: 12 - 4 p.m., Monday - Friday. Saturday delivery continues, but no PO Hours.
November 20 - 6:30 p.m. - Community Thanksgiving Dinner with turkey (thanks to Mel and Claudia Freeman) and oyster dressing (thanks to Helen Brown) provided.
Program: Edith Bond from Lake Lure will detail Western North Carolina Foundation Programs that could benefit our immediate area.
November 22 - Thanksgiving Day
December 3 - Light Up the Gorge competition. Winners to be announced.
December 18 - 6:30 p.m. Community Christmas Dinner. Program: Christmas Party. Carol singing. Gift Exchange ($5 White Elephant). "My Most Memorable Christmas" - Stories Exchanged. Bring Canned Food for the food bank at Hickory Nut Gorge Outreach
December 24, 7 p.m. Christmas Eve Service at Bearwallow Baptist Church
December 25 - Christmas Day
December 29 - Due date for Anna-Sophia Kay West -Chelsea Erskine's Daughter; Lorri Erskine's first
granddaughter; Joan and David Erskine's first great granddaughter.
Flowers in the midst of fall color
President's Note
I am looking forward to serving on the board next year as Past President.
Happy Thanksgiving and God’s blessings to everyone.
Mel Freeman
Henderson County Community Development Annual Awards
The annual awards banquet for Henderson County was held on Saturday, October 13, at the Justus Center in Edneyville. UHNGCC was the cash awards winner this year, taking home the prize in the following categories: First place in Beautification ($115); Outstanding Programs Award (No cash, but a nice certificate!); First Place in Club Fundraising ($65); Second Place in Senior Citizen Program Awards ($90); and finally First Place in our division for Community Club of the Year ($115) for a grand total of $385. This year, the County organization accepted the regional organization report, so we did not have to write separate reports. Jean Bradley prepared an attractive notebook to accompany our report. Lynn Morehead and Margaret Whitt attended the banquet and claimed our prizes. Within the county, Mountain Page and Barker Heights no longer participate in the competition. Crab Creek, Upward, Edneyville, and UHGCC are all still active and viable community clubs.
Lynn Morehead accepts the UHNGCC award for Outstanding Programs from
Renay Knapp, NC Cooperative Extension Henderson County Center
Gerton Post Office: New Hours
New hours at the Gerton Post Office will begin on Saturday, November 17. Though there will be no hours on Saturdays, the post office will be staffed from noon until 4 p.m. Monday-Friday. Every September there will be an evaluation to determine if Gerton hours will stay the same, be increased, or decreased.
A town hall kind of meeting was held at the Gerton Post Office parking lot at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, October 10. Jackie Williams, a postmaster in a town on the east coast of North Carolina, has the job of delivering the news to the communities whose hours of staffed service will be cut. Gerton is one of the 13,000 smaller post offices across the country that will be affected. She is presently working out of Clover, SC, where our surveys were mailed. Gerton received 88 surveys and, according to Williams, we were the ONLY patrons to return all 88, coming in at 100 percent.
About 40 people attended the October meeting. We were handed a paper with information that said our new hours would be noon to 4 p.m. Questions arose as to how these hours were determined. The answer we were given appeared on the information sheet: "After reviewing the surveys that were returned, and taking into account Postal Service operational needs, retail hours for this location will likely be Mon-Fri 1200 to 1600." (Post Office hours operate on military time.) A vote was taken among those present, and all but three in attendance were actually for morning hours. Williams promised that our vote of those present would be taken to her co-workers and others in decision-making positions.
Apparently, the main consideration was the part of the sentence that stated "TAKING INTO ACCOUNT POSTAL SERVICE OPERATIONAL NEEDS," for when the final decision was announced, the response was the seemingly less popular (among those who attended the meeting) afternoon hours.
The responses to the questions that were asked on the postal survey were the following:
Realignment of Hours 83 or 94 percent
Delivery Option 1 or 1 percent
Village Post Office option 0 or 0 percent
Nearby Post Office option 0 or o percent
No selection made 4 or 5 percent
Clearly, the dominant opinion shared by almost all of those returning the survey is that we wanted to keep our Post Office building and were willing to accept a decrease in hours. As at present, no Saturday window service hours will be available and access to delivery receptacles will not change as a result of the POST plan realignment (the Post Office name for what is happening within the post offices nationwide) of weekday window service hours. Access to delivery receptacles will not be reduced from current hours.
For additional information, please consult https://usps.com/ourfuturenetwork and click on the link under "preserving post offices."
September and October Programs
Travis Smith, local botanist, was the speaker for our September program. Travis brought with him several staff members from the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy. The topic was non-native invasive species. Smith reported that the problem has become so widespread here in the gorge that any number of agencies are making these "unwanteds" a high priority. The Department of Transportation, for example, is being more careful as to when they mow the sides of the road, for doing so when various seeds can be blown everywhere compounds the growth by many times. Smith told us that he used to be a proponent of only organic ways to control the invasives but now, along with everybody who takes the problem seriously, realizes that chemicals do have their place in this warfare. He focused our attention on the kudzu, bittersweet, the misnamed Tree of Heaven (should be Tree of Hell), and the Japanese Knotweed. We all need to be aware of what does and does not belong among our gorge species.
Burntshirt Winery was the Community Dinner’s October program. Kathleen Watson of Burntshirt Winery, a newly established business owned by the Lem and Sandra Oates family, described for club members the various ins-and-outs of tending vineyards for successful wine production. Nearby Middle Fork is the site for four acres of a now three-year-old vineyard. Sugarloaf Mountain, on the south edge of Hendersonville beyond Manual Woodworkers, is the second site with twenty acres for wine production and a tasting room for visitors. Watson, public relations director for the winery, has had extensive experience in the winery business of race-car driver Richard Childress near Lexington.
“The Burntshirt property is the highest vineyard in North Carolina—of which there are l00,” she explained. “With its cool nights, bright sunshine and altitude of 3,400 feet, it is a perfect place to grow grapes.” “Altitude 3400” is the name of one of their red wines, now available at the “A Day in the Country” store in Hendersonville and at the tour site. Tours of the vineyard are led every week Wednesday through Saturday. (See www: Burntshirt Winery.com for more information.)
During the question-and-answer time following Watson’s talk, one person queried about what problems wild animals might present. “Oh—turkeys!” she smiled. “They roost, and feast!” Mechanized canon sounds booming at intervals were successful for a while—but, “The turkeys have learned to ignore them,” she added.
Neighborhood News
Gerton is counting many new neighbors--some have been here a good while, others are just months settled in.
- Mary Jennette from down east NC, and Peg Hudson, originally from Columbus , Ohio , moved here from North Asheville . They love living in the former Tom and Lynda Hartwell house on Chestnut Hill. "We love it here--it's hard to leave for work," they both agreed. Mary manages ACE Hardware on Merrimon; Peg keeps the books and generally manages at Ethan Allen Furniture Company on Brevard Road
--John Solomon Hathaway, who's come to live with his momma and dad, Becca and John Hathaway on Bearwallow Road,
--Sophia Bretton, age 6, and her parents Nicole and August, moved here from Savannah , Georgia Kelly Hill Road Asheville Country Day School
--Susan Murray and Ann Weiss have lived here for a year now, moved from Oregon
...Julie and Bruce Brushett live on Kelly Hill in what was formerly the Jeffcoat house. They love hiking around here with companion dog Fruff, and enjoy meeting with their two daughters, Megan and Melissa, here because of work in Asheville and Spartanburg Durham
--Local author Jack Brody, born in Bat Cave and who grew up spending summers in Gerton, is the pen name of David Earnhardt, who has written a novel, The Moroni Deception, reviewed last Sunday (October 28) in the Asheville Citizen Times. You can read Rob Neufeld's review of the mystery novel on "The Read on WNC" website.
--THANKS again to our Gerton Fire Department staff who raised the flags for Memorial Day in May, and took them down again for us after Labor Day. Some flags need replacing, looking droopy, exceedingly uninterested in their jobs. Somebody should bake those men a cake!
Resident Passes Away...
James (Jim) H. Wiggins, 53, who lived in Gerton for 19 years, died on September 4. He leaves his wife Jennifer; two daughters, Rachel Lloyd and Brittney Wiggins; two stepdaughters, Misty and Lindsey Bayne; a step-granddaughter, Jaylynn; mother and stepfather, Dee and Wayne Glover; four sisters, one niece, five nephews, and one great nephew. The funeral was held on September 9 at Forest Lawn Funeral Home Chapel, with Rev. Jonathan Jenkins officiating.
Jim enjoyed riding his Harley Davidson and his membership in the Southern Patriots Motorcycle Club of Hendersonville for over 21 years. He was a member of Bearwallow Baptist Church.
"He was one of the best friends I ever had," Sam Freeman said about his neighbor. Another neighbor observed, "Jim looked out for me, and I looked out for him. You couldn't ask for a better neighbor."
Yoga Classes
Jane Vogelman, who lives in Hickory Nut Forest Eco-Community, is a certified yoga teacher and will be offering a weekly yoga class at Laughing Waters retreat center. The details of the class are listed below:
-All are welcome to join
- Class style is gentle flow
- The class will be offered weekly (on Thursdays) beginning on 10/26
- Class time is 9:30 am-11am
-Location : Laughing Waters Retreat Center @ Hickory Nut Forest
- Cost: $12/ class (cash or check)
1. an antique child's school desk; it has the drop down seat on the front that would have gone with the desk in front of it - probably from the 1940s.
2. a 28" round etched tabletop with sea grass and fishes; it comes with a cypress stand so it can be used vertically as a fireplace screen in summer or on a table in front of a window as a beautiful seascape.The glass is 3/4" thick and very heavy, but it is perfect in every way; no scratches or chips.
e-mail Bonnie Moore (bmoore2816@aol.com) to request pictures and prices.
