Saturday, November 03, 2007

A Little More Info, Please



It has occurred to me that I need to clear something up. Our choosing the name Blackwater for our home has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the security group, which is also from North Carolina. In fact, if that were relevant, we'd be smarter to call our place something else.

No, David picked out the name because of the color of the water in the creek and lagoon. And, it seemed to fit. We could have called it after the creek itself, which is named Little Cross Creek. That would have been amusing, since I'm a fan of the soap opera Guiding Light, and Cross Creek is (or at least, was) their special place in Oklahoma. But Blackwater seemed more romantic, a little medieval, and just, well, ours.

Plants love it here. The previous owners were devoted gardeners, and we inherited quite a collection of flora with the place. I've never seen gardenia bushes 8 feet around before! And we have magnolia, pine, and holly trees, so I'm set for Christmas. But the houseplants we brought over and placed outside have just eaten this place up! Even with drought, the humidity is so high that they thrive! And our weather is just beginning to cool. It's November 3rd, at 11:30 pm our temperature is 44 degrees F with a humidity of 84%.

Sorry, you'll have to excuse me. Born in New York state and having just spent 24 years in Tennessee, North Carolina is very new to me. I may never get over the weather here.

As well as the different perspective. There's a different emphasis from region to region, depending on geography, economy, philosophy. Here in Fayetteville, with Fort Bragg so close, attitude about the military is vastly different from Nashville, where the emphasis is on music and trying to become a 'great' city. In Nashville, you might ask a 10-year-old if they are going to be a musician, or a pro sports player, or a doctor. In Fayetteville, I overheard someone ask a 10-year-old if she was going to be in the Army when she grew up. And she answered 'Yes.' Matter-of-factly, too. Nashville has a church who always announces when it sends relief to national disaster victims; Fayetteville has set up a support system for military families with deployed members.

We had to fill out special school forms because Dave works on the military base. And when the school medical forms asked where we wanted our students taken in an emergency, the base hospital was the second of two choices.

It's a different perspective, all right.

rjm


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