July 29, 2024

The sun blazed down on the hospital parking lot.  It was nearly full, I had to park a half-dozen rows out. Sweating, I walked inside and inhaled the cool indoor air. I checked in for my 22nd CT (computed tomography) scan in five years.

This one was supposed to be decisive, the first scan since I started an oral chemo drug four months ago. I now wear sunglasses everywhere to protect my red, irritated eyes, and can’t taste vegetables or fruit.

The reception area was crowded. I got in line, the receptionist gave me a digital disc, the kind you get at restaurants that blinks to let you know your table is ready. I took a seat. In ten minutes the device glowed red.

A clerk gave me a paper bracelet, I signed a form. She led me to the outpatient waiting area. A half-dozen patients stared at their cell phones. I completed another form. A nurse called my name.

“How are you this morning?” she asked. We walked to a tiny exam room.

“Which arm?” she asked. I showed her both. She poked at a vein in my right arm. “This is good.” She pushed the vein, it moved under the skin. “Uh-oh, it rolls. We’ll go with the left.”  In a few seconds she had inserted the IV link. I felt nothing, she was that good.  

“Back in here,” she beckoned. I followed her, as I had followed others for the dozen CTs I’ve had in that cramped chamber. I’d met a lot of nurses at the hospital, but didn’t recognize her.

 “Looks busy,” I said.

“We’re always busy,” she said with a smile. “Day and night, 24/7.”

I emptied my pockets and slid onto the bench fitted to the CT device, which is a giant donut. She covered me with a blanket.

“Have you had a CT?” she asked.

“I’ve had around 20,” I said. “Here and in Virginia. We moved here three years ago.”

“Oh? Where in Virginia? I used to live in Centreville. We moved here 17 years ago when my husband got a job at GE. I’d never go back to Virginia.”

“We lived in Woodbridge.”

“Whenever we visit I’m amazed at the traffic. It’s awful.”

She hooked my link to the tube through which a saline solution and a dye flow to enable the CT device to illuminate your organs. I stretched my arms above my head.  She started the dye flow, I felt the warming sensation as it ran through my veins.   

“All set.” She disappeared into the control room. The bench slid me into the donut for a test run. The nurse revved it up, it hummed. “Hold your breath,” a computerized tone commanded. I puckered as it scanned me. Half a minute later it said, “Breathe.” I exhaled and gasped.

It was the same drill as the last time, and all the times before that. Two passes through the donut and I was done.

“The radiologist will look at the scan and send it to your doctor with his report,” the nurse said. “You can read it on ‘MyChart’ probably later today.”

I stuffed my wallet, phone, and keys in my pocket.

“Drink plenty of water to get the dye out of your system. Have a great day,” she called. She already was moving on to the next patient.

The visit had taken under an hour. The routine now is much faster than just a few years ago, when patients had to drink two quarts of metallic-tasting liquid and wait an hour until it “painted” their organs. The pre-scan fasting is down to two hours from six.

The CT is easy, once the patient is on the bench and prepped it’s over in a few minutes. It creates a ghostly black-and-white image of your insides. PET scans and MRIs are harder and take longer, although in most cases are more precise. If the doc orders a PET the patient knows they’re on track for the next step, a biopsy.

The scan report was posted on the “My Chart” site that evening. It showed some reduction, a few centimeters, in the liver and pleura tumors. After six years of cancer: biopsies, surgeries, chemo, two months of radiation, a year of immunotherapy, and all those scans, some good news. Helped along by prayers of hundreds of people, many I know, many I don’t know.

Two days later Sandy and I showed up at the Cancer Institute, where the oncologist and I first met nearly four years ago. The phlebotomist drew three vials of blood for his inspection. We walked to his office. He extended his hand and grinned, “How are you feeling? Scan looks good.”

I mentioned the tired, bloodshot eyes. He nodded and turned to a computer monitor and pulled up the scan image. “The drug is working,” he said. “That’s big, because it’s experimental. Labs are great. Creatine is a bit high.”

I knew the drug is intended for cancers that I don’t have. No drug exists specifically for thymic carcinoma. I’m an experiment, the doc’s only patient with this problem.

 Sandy brought up the low blood sugar, the loss of taste, the optometrist’s prescriptions.

The doc said, “Lay off the drug for two weeks, see if that makes a difference. If you’re still doing well I’ll reduce the dosage. We know the drug is working. So I’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Lay off the drug”: I wondered. Health care almost always amounts to more drugs, more tests, more side effects. Let’s try going the other way. Then too, some of us are blessed, gifted in ways we do not earn. Some other Power is in charge.

The pills are in a drawer, two unopened vials next to the four empty ones. The two weeks will fly by. This guy knows his cancer. I’m a test case. We all have our tests. We soldier on.

July 22, 2024

We learned that Thomas Farrell had been murdered. The crime occurred in Nashville on May 29, 1913. Farrell, a police detective, was shot by a bad guy, who then was arrested. This and more news was reported two weeks ago at the Harper family reunion. Farrell was Sandy’s great uncle, or maybe a great-great uncle.

We drove for six hours to a state park in Tennessee to attend the gala event, a meeting of the Harper (Sandy’s maiden name) clan and two other families, the Maybrys and Pritchetts, who are distantly related. Of the sixty-plus folks who showed up under the park pavilion, I knew about a half-dozen.

In a cosmic, big-picture way, family is the foundation of human history and culture. Family connections dictate the form and function of governments worldwide. British history is a fifteen-hundred-year story of family, if we date from the Plantagenets (1154-1216), who reigned after the Normans, and were followed by the houses of Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, down to Windsor today.

In the same way, the rule of the Bourbons and Romanovs, until ended by gruesome political violence, guided the histories of France and Russia for centuries. The consciousness and constraints of family hold in Asia, the Middle East, everywhere, for good or evil. No one escapes. Hermits, cloistered monks, and prison inmates serving life have families. For all of us, family may be a primal source of joy, or heartbreak.

Family ties endure, but for many they become strained and remote. American families—parents, siblings, children have scattered. Our oldest daughter is in New Orleans, the youngest lives in northern Wyoming. We have nieces in Seattle and cousins near Miami. A couple of cousins live in New York, and an uncle and more cousins in southern California. That’s life. Everyone knows it.

Sandy’s family actually bucked the trend. She has some family in Michigan on her mom’s side, whom I first met at a funeral last summer. One day they were there, the next day they were gone. The Harpers, though, mostly stayed in Tennessee within 20 or 30 miles of Nashville, where Sandy and I met all those years ago.

Twenty-five years ago my mom staged a reunion. It was the same type of thing—a blur of aunts, uncles, cousins and their children, stories, singing old favorites, a few drinks, for some more than a few. The older ones all are gone but the memories remain, which really was the point. The kids at that reunion have kids of their own. Grandkids have shown up.

The Harper gathering followed the pattern. One guy, first-cousin Mike, shouldered the work of putting it together. We knew he was interested in genealogy. Mike went all-out, creating whiteboards of the family tree complete with dozens of ancient photos and blurred copies of birth, marriage, and death certificates. He arranged the boards on tripods near some picnic tables.

The exhibits took us back to Michael Farrell, born in Logford County, Ireland, about 1840. Various documents report that in 1855 he stowed away and sailed to America. In 1861 he enlisted in the Confederate Army and fought at Shiloh and Murfreesboro, Tenn. He was wounded twice and discharged when the war ended.

In 1867 Michael married Bridgett Hollaran, who had come from Galway County, Ireland. They had ten children, including poor Sheriff Thomas. Michael bought land and farmed for a living. He died in Nashville in 1932.

From Mike’s research we learned that Michael’s and Bridgett’s daughter Annie, born in 1869, married John William Harper, a telegraph operator, in 1895, starting their Harper line. Annie and John had six kids, including Peter Gaines Harper, Sandy’s grandfather. Peter married a woman named Duel Sisco. They had five children, including Sandy’s dad, William.

Mike stopped there, but he could have gone down another level to Sandy and her siblings and their spouses. The next branch would be our kids and their cousins. He already has reserved the same pavilion at the same state park for another reunion next year. Maybe he’ll tack on those people.

We stood around chatting for hours, grazing on a massive potluck buffet. We met, with some confusion, a few Maybrys and Pritchetts, as well as the dozens of cousins, nephews, and nieces, fitting everyone into the family puzzle. We took pictures, someone took a big group shot. As the late afternoon heat simmered, the crowd packed their picnic baskets and folding chairs and headed for their cars. We stayed over at the park.

As with any family history, odd facts show up. Somewhere the documentation reported that John William Harper’s father, Peter Leboun Harper, fought with the Union Army. With Michael Farrell a Confederate veteran, we were looking at a blue-gray dynamic. How did Michael like his daughter marrying into a Yankee family? Trivial, but fun.

Our son Michael later asked what now seems an obvious question: since the Harper name didn’t show up until Annie married John Harper, why start with the Farrells, a generation earlier, instead of John William? I wondered myself.

But then we realize a family tree can start really anywhere because, like all human history, it has no clearcut beginning. Those patriarchs of the 18th century and earlier, nobles or paupers, landlords or tenant farmers, are descendants as well as ancestors. Annie, wife of John and mother to Sandy’s granddad and five other Harper children, was first a Farrell. Her earlier relatives were Farrells and others.

The line advances into the future. Louis XVI lost his head in 1793, but the Bourbons returned to rule France in 1815. Even after the Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas and his family in 1918, a few Romanovs escaped to Europe. Their lineages remain, obscure, but real. People marry, have kids, change names.

Connections, while distant, endure. That’s the principle behind all this visiting. We’re already talking about who will appear on Mike’s 2025 whiteboards. Right now we’re planning to be there. Maybe with the kids.

July 15, 2024

We arrived in Tellico Plains, Tenn., in the far southeastern corner of the state, finishing a four-hour trek from midstate Chapel Hill, that’s also Tennessee, not North Carolina (the town was named after the North Carolina city). The plan for Tellico was to get a look at farm property a friend is buying just north of town. Then there’s the Cherohala Skyway.

From Chapel Hill we headed east through pretty country, then paused at a Bell Buckle café for coffee. The town offers eccentric Middle Tennessee charm along with the usual antique and curiosity shops. We’ve stopped there a couple of times over the years. The coffee is tangy and good. The town, really a hamlet or village, is home to the Webb School, a small but prestigious boarding school for grades 6 through 12. The kids wear uniforms.

Sitting in the café, we noticed the few local folks who wandered in, a young woman with two kids, an older couple. I guessed this is exactly what we should be doing at this moment: sipping caffeine in a quiet place in the middle of nowhere. It suited me.

We drove south on I-24 to Chattanooga then north on I-75. We crossed the Hiwassee River then exited at Calhoun. Twenty miles along, Tellico Plains sits in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, where the 656,000-acre Cherokee National Forest rims the few settlements in the area. Maybe 800 people live there, maybe 700, I asked, no one was sure.

Once there you’re cornered between mountains and forest, miles of forest. The Smokies spread across the boundary region of two states. The Skyway, starting at Tellico, extends 43 or 50 miles, depending on how it’s measured. Tennessee has about 25 miles, the rest is in North Carolina. The route (eastbound) ends at some indefinite point just west of Robbinsville, N.C., birthplace of country music legend Ronnie Milsap.

Cherohala combines the first two syllables of “Cherokee,” and “hala,” the last two of Nantahala as in National Forest, which covers 531,000 acres of western North Carolina. The Skyway rises more than 4,000 feet to around 5,400 near the eastern end. The road starts in town and continues tamely for a few miles, bordering the crystal-clear Tellico River.

We stopped at Oosterneck Creek (1,045 feet) and watched the river rush by. As we chugged forward a half-dozen bikers cruised past us heading to Tellico.

The forest air cooled to a refreshing crispness. The Skyway curled up, up, then down, then up. At Lake View we were at 3,360 feet. The deep green of the mountains loomed through pale mist. We watched the mile markers and puttered on. At Brushy Ridge we were at 3,750, then 4,100 at East Rattlesnake Rock trailhead.

More bikers roared past, a couple of cars lined up behind us as we poked nervously forward, we pulled into an overlook to let them pass. We crossed the Tenn.-N.C. border, climbed, then descended, then climbed again, in some stretches at a 9-degree slope. I stopped at Haw Knob (4,890) but crawled past Huckleberry Point at 5,300.

The vernal mountain forest stretched to the horizon. The road turned and descended. We gritted our teeth, the van’s brake warning light clicked on. Wright Cove was at 4,150, Obadiah 3,740, Hooper Cove 3,100. The road twisted down, falling. Suddenly we hit Santeetlah Gap at 2,600 and saw signs for Robbinsville.

We were done with the measured Skyway but the narrow two-lane pavement kept twisting through dense woods, sunlit and beautiful, bordering a rocky creek. A few homesteads showed up alongside small garden plots and woodpiles, meadows and pastureland. Then the forest closed in again.

Eventually we found outer Robbinsville. We saw a church steeple and a couple of signs urging “Repent,” then a courthouse. Highway markers appeared announcing state roads 129, 143, 19, backwoods routes carved through the rough country.

We passed the last point on our state map. No internet connection, no Google Maps. I went old school and yelled at a guy in a parked pickup: “Which way to Bryson City?” He opened his door and pointed.

“Turn around and go back and take the first left. Go to the first light and go right. Keep going ‘til you pass some guys working on the road. Turn right at the next light, then right at the one after that, then stay straight and you’ll see a sign for Bryson City.” I stared at him. “Turn around—” He started to pull away. “I hope you remember that,” he yelled. “I won’t,” I called back and got back in the van.

We squinted again at the signs, I studied the map, baffled. Suddenly the internet kicked in, we got our maps. We oriented to 129 and headed out of Robbinsville. We passed the guys working and pressed on. The road straightened out. We saw a sign: “Bryson City, 23 miles.” The city street became a country highway.

We veered alongside fast white water, I guessed the Tuckasegee River, which flows through Bryson and east. The river rushed past, we saw a bright orange inflated raft float by, the paddlers in their helmets stroking with the rapids. Then another, then a third. The Nantahala closed in around the river and the road. The Tuckasegee flowed by, more rafters riding the fast water.

The forest opened up to white-water businesses, rental places, shuttle buses, a few cafes and bars. Rafters were unpacking vans, lugging gear. The woodland road widened to three-lanes. We saw signs for Dillsboro, Sylva, and Waynesville, which calls itself “Gateway to the Smokies.” We crossed the Appalachian Trail and dozens of other remote pathways.

The peaks towered around us through eastern Nantahala, still lush and jungle-dark, the kudzu hanging in thick tangles from massive oaks. Passing Sylva, we looked north at Black Rock Mountain, green and gorgeous, 5,700 feet of rock set gracefully among the Plott Balsam range. Then the Pisgah National Forest, Nantahala’s junior partner, full of waterfalls and other wilderness magic, stretching east to Asheville, and south toward home. 

July 8, 2024

We drove with son Michael and daughter-in-law Caroline from Glen Mills, Penn., maybe 15 miles to Centerville, Del. The point was to visit Chadds Ford, technically in Pennsylvania, but really straddling both states. Chadds Ford, in its sweet pastoral hills, pastures, and rural settlements, is both an unincorporated place and a state of mind.

We’ve been there a couple of times. We visited the Brandywine Museum of Art and the Brandywine battlefield in December 2019. Last December Michael and Caroline took us back to Longwood Garden. I wrote about the beauty, gentility, and history of the Chadds Ford world. I tried to describe how those qualities of place translate to an elegance that, tucked in a hard-to-find corner of mid-Atlantic country, is distinctly, supremely American.

Glen Mills is roughly midway between Philadelphia and Wilmington. We headed southwest on Ridge Road, which merges with Smithbridge Road through Chadd Ford’s rolling, forested country. In a couple of miles we crossed into Delaware, then approached Smith’s Covered Bridge, built in 1839, the longest of the state’s three covered bridges.

The bridge spans Brandywine Creek, which echoes with the history of the place. On September 11, 1777 11,000 American colonials faced off along the creek against 18,000 British redcoats determined to seize Philadelphia. American commander George Washington massed his men where he guessed the Brits would attack.

British General William Howe also knew the territory, and sent a small unit in a feint at Washington’s men. His main force attacked from farther north, outmaneuvering the colonials. The two armies fought for 11 hours, the longest single-day engagement of the war. The colonials retreated, the Brits marched into Philly. The battle is memorialized at Chadds Ford.

The East Branch and West Branch of Brandywine Creek flow southeast for roughly 30 miles from Pennsylvania’s Chester County. The branches merge near the city of Coatsville, where in 1810 local people founded Brandywine Iron Works and Nail Factory, later Lukens Steel, using the power of the creek’s flow.

The mill created steelmaking jobs and earned the city the nickname “Pittsburgh of the East.” The creek continues south to the Christina River east of Wilmington, which then flows into the Delaware River.

We crossed the bridge and passed through quiet places you might call villages: Centerville, Quintynnes, Williamhurst, where stately homes and specialty shops appeal to people accustomed to affluence. We browsed the displays in Adorn Home Goods, a chic little place where you can outfit your dining room in style. Wine glasses are $30, a large demilune basket tote is offered at $190. We wandered through, the only customers that Sunday morning.

Longwood is the other anchor of the area, reached on lovely, winding country lanes. Pierre DuPont of the DuPont chemical legacy started developing the gardens when he bought 200 acres of woodland in 1906. Over decades he and his descendants added acres, now more than 1,000, and created stunning beauty with some 10,000 plant species. Awestruck crowds come throughout the year.

We’ve visited twice, the second time just before last Christmas, when the place was more than spectacular. We strolled the Flower Garden Walk, heavy with seasonal poinsettias, lilies, and hyacinths among the fountains. The DuPonts lived at Longwood, the house, on a gentle slope is filled with family photos and treasures. The Conservatory is the heart of the garden, exploding with the color of 4,000 exotic species, sometimes more.

Chadds Ford was the home of the Wyeths, America’s first family of fine art. At Brandywine you find the work of illustrator and patriarch Newell Convers (N.C.) Wyeth and three of his children, Andrew, Henriette, and Caroline. Their paintings are displayed worldwide—our Greenville, S.C., art museum shows a selection of Andrew’s watercolors, hypnotic in their beauty.

Henriette married artist Peter Hurd and moved to New Mexico and created gorgeous landscapes. Andrew and Caroline spent nearly all their lives in Chadds Ford, masters of oil, watercolor, and egg tempura, a medium Andrew developed with Peter Hurd. Jamie Wyeth, second son of Andrew and his wife Betsy, became prominent with both oil and watercolor, and painted portraits of John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter.

The Wyeths devoted their lives to creating art by observing their Chadds Ford surroundings and its people—farmers, artisans, mechanics, people close to the land.

We moved on, making a circuit through wide, rolling pastures. Solitary colonial estate-type homes are perched on broad hillsides amid thick, vernal woodland. Downtown Philadelphia is an hour away, but it seems a century distant. I thought of “Christina’s World,” Andrew’s graceful, world-famous masterpiece, full of richness and pathos.

Many places all over America show unique rural beauty. Ten years ago we drove north from another verdant stretch of country blended with small outposts, between Elizabethton, Tenn., and Damascus, Va. The route, TN 91, winds through the gorgeous, rolling Cherokee National Forest to the lovely hamlet of Shady Valley. You then cross the state line to Damascus, a way station on the Appalachian Trail.

The Chadds Ford environs are a far different world. The place unfolds naturally from the City of Brotherly Love into genteel Quaker farming and cattle country. Much of the land was acquired by captains of industry through the Gilded Age years of the late 19th century, many of those family connections remain. The place offers no national park-style tourist dazzle, but tranquil beauty framed in the region’s rich history. You visit once or twice, you want to return.