Saturday, January 8, we decided to make a quick trip to North Carolina. We have lived in Virginia for fifteen years now. That is very close to the sixteen years that we lived in Canada.
Virginia should feel like home and for the most part it does. We have no relatives in Virginia except our own immediate family so there are times when home is where your roots are.
There is little doubt that our roots are in Yadkin and Surry Counties in North Carolina. Both of our families have large extended families still in that area of North Carolina and certainly our families for the most part with my father's being the exception have been in that North Carolina area since the early eighteen hundreds with some family lines being there even earlier. My father moved to North Carolina in 1904.
The reality is that North Carolina is home. Even in the dark, the back roads that I grew up on are familiar. The people are friendly, perhaps even a little too friendly from some folks from northern states. The rolling hills with the mountains just a few miles away make me feel like I never left.
Saturday night we ate in a small cafeteria and got the all too familiar North Carolina question. "You folks from around here?" We are used to answering the question, and usually say we grew up here but no longer live in the area.
We feel at home in North Carolina and perhaps it is more than just the great number of relatives. Perhaps it is the easy country way of life that still dominates the area. In Northern Virginia, I would be very hesitant to just drop in on someone for a visit without calling ahead. Yet in North Carolina we would feel bad not dropping in on someone if we are in the area. We always run out of time and can never visit but just a few people. It is rare when people don't have time to sit and chat a spell.
The rural atmosphere that Yadkin and Surry still maintain has to be the reason it so easy to visit. Only when we lived on the farm for ten years in New Brunswick, north of Fredericton do I remember such genuine neighborliness. While our former farm up there is now a bed & breakfast Tay Ridge Farms , when we were there, a constant stream of neighbors visited, often just to see how everyone was doing. I guess it was a way to stay close in an isolated community where the elements were harsh, and you could always count on help from your neighbors if you needed it.
Somehow, I think North Carolina and our extended family provide a way to stay close in this modern world where we often are isolated from those that care the most about us. Somehow the continuity of family ties provides support against the often harsh realities of the modern world just as close neighbors did in a remote farming community in Canada.
Though the drive home from NC is two hours and often done late at night, my soul is often renewed by these visits. In hearing the challenges that older family members have faced and solved, I often gain hope that our challenges might also be resolved as time passes. The advice and wisdom of those that have gone before you is often under valued in these early days of this century.
Somehow, I think one of the things that I enjoy most is learning those bits of wisdom that I might have ignored when I was a youth. Unfortunately passing wisdom on is one of the real challenges of this day and age. I think there are those that believe the sum total of wisdom is on the internet, fortunately most people figure out eventually that those who have survived into their seventies, eighties, nineties and even past one hundred are a far more valuable source of advice on life than an internet web site.
My goal this year is to grab as much of that accumulated family wisdom as possible before it is gone or dimmed by age. The good news is that means lots more trips home.
David Sobotta Homepage for pictures, more articles, and other links.
Sales Team Help for evolving theories on professional sales practices in the year 2005.
G3 Systems for some information about the new software and system integration company that I have recently joined as Vice President of Federal Market Development.
Personal E-mail address use this to send me a note about almost anything.
G3 Business E-Mail address use this to communicate with me regarding G3 Systems.
