My Grandmother’s house is nestled on the side of Cullowhee Mountain in North Carolina; it’s about a quarter of the way up the mountain with a long curvy driveway that is in much disrepair. Many years ago it was paved with blacktop and, I imagine, quite nice, however, now it is filled with pot-holes, crevices and mounds of loose asphalt. It reminds me of the unstable roads of L’viv Ukraine; besotted with craters from sunken brick and treacherous to any low riding vehicle. Only, instead of the mangled brick roads of L’viv you have such a narrow path that you can not dodge the holes or out maneuver the erosion and debris. In Ukraine, when road condition or traffic caused problems the taxis would simply use the sidewalks, my Grandma’s driveway sports a thirty foot drop off on the side instead.
It’s always frightening to drive on her driveway, even more frightening to be a passenger and feel as if you are hanging over the edge of the precipice as you speed up or down the incline, the wet leaves making the tires spin and refuse to grip at times. It’s always exhilarating. When my family use to drive to Grandma’s in our big 15 passenger van I, sitting in the far back seats, always had my doubts as to whether we could indeed make it up the incline, the van would quiver and the engine would seem to moan but somehow it always pulled through and brought us to the top, I would silently congratulate it and give my arm rest a little pat as if to say “thanks and well done”.
A small stream that ran down the mountain, right next to the driveway and, needless to say, partly the cause of the erosion, was always a favorite of my older sisters who would spend hours catching salamanders under the rocks in the stream, naming them and making up their life stories. At some point in time my Grandmother accidentally drove over and killed a rather large poisonous snake crossing her driveway as well….but that was before my memory.
My Grandma’s house always smelled musty and old from being in the humid mountains, it especially bore this familiar aroma before she had the shag carpet removed and reverted back to the less 60’s but more practical wood flooring.
When we were younger, and even a bit so now, her basement was frightening to us kids, you had to traverse steep wooden stairs and instead of a hand-rail the walls by the basement steps were always plied with mouse traps, some of them even set. After you survived the steps the basement was eerily dark, due to the burnt out light bulbs, and cool. In our young imaginations we could envision the evils that lurked in the corners and in the closet that contained the loud creaking of the water heater. Being in the mountains, snakes could also haunt the basement and we were consistently wary of their potential presence. The only consolation we found in the basement was the adventure of discovering what we concluded as “old relics” that were stored down there. These included a rotary phone; boxes of old dress patterns, jars full of buttons. Our favorite article of amusement in her basement was an old dart game hanging on the wall with a handful of rusty darts accompanying it; we would play with them for hours; much to our grandma’s chagrin.
Later in our lives we discovered a ping-pong table as well, in another room in the basement that offered a lot of enjoyment and was a bit safer as well, I'm sure, to our grandmother’s relief.
