by Johnny Holloway
Some names and dates have been changed to respect privacy.
People call Hendersonville “Little Charleston,” and it’s easy to see why. Much like the Vanderbilts, the Sandburgs, the one Kephart – they relish in a wild located only a few days ride from the comforts of home, now made even more expedient by way of an interstate. I know the allure well, the essential role summer camps play firsthand, for I spent years travelling to North Carolina from my home in Englewood, NJ. I would spend my summers first attending camp, and later working at the same camp for three summers during college. But this was not the first thing that brought me to North Carolina, that is, summer camp as a fixture, an establishment to which I belonged. Before I ever attended Camp Yulassee, I was sent to Camp Riverdell.
Camp Riverdell was not a real camp, but rather a big historic home and surrounding acreage which belonged to my Grandmother. It was a haven for our family. A ten-acre parcel of well-manicured lawn space surrounding a magnificent house on a hill, a house quite unlike any other I’ve resided in. Inspired by Colonial, High-style, and Greek revival architecture, it was obviously built by someone of considerable means, featuring beaming white pillars outlining a porch that would complement summer nights and summer nightcaps. As a kid – I was always taken by the way the porch seemed to catch the breeze just right, but most especially at twilight, when the cicadas would begin their song and the night entered a heavy, muggy stillness which would turn to crisp, wet coolness come dawn, a weather pattern which would come to define summer nights spent in the mountains. The home was built in 1837, before the town of Hendersonville was officially formed. The immense antiquity of the place was a matter of deep pride for my Grandparents while my grandfather was still alive. Beside Riverdell House stands a smaller second home, a guest cottage in which my Grandmother stays during the winters, as it is much smaller, and therefore easier to keep warm. We call this, “the Little House,” though it is in fact not the smallest residence on the property.
Also on the property are a smokehouse, a gardening shed, a barn, and a smaller cottage still, which housed the enslaved family who travelled with the house’s original owners, M.E. Admonston, a prominent Charleston businessman, and later Major Jackson, a confederate veteran. Riverdell House began as a place of leisure you see, as did many of the historic homes in Hendersonville. It also operated as a functional farming operation under Major Jackson, though he only frequented it during the summers. I suppose that to wealthy business-minded people, building yet another residence for enslaved individuals seemed easier than doing everyday tasks for themselves; it was meant to be vacation, after all. How strange it seems now, looking at the size of Riverdell and the size of “Fred’s place,” the name arbitrarily assigned to the house for lack of saying “slave quarters,” to stretch one’s arms out, finding vastness in one respect, and entrapment in the other. And to imagine how different the experiences of those two individuals must’ve been. And to meditate on my on dichotomous existence. I say two people when in reality there was only one M.E. Admonston, whereas there were likely many “Freds.”
But for now I am only a kid, newly arrived at Camp Riverdell, and such things are far from my purview. I am already too busy running amuck, eating pimento cheese on club crackers, shooting marbles, and watching “Degrassi,” and imagining myself with a hot girlfriend and cool car. My camp counselors take shifts, my grandmother taking the morning shift, starting with “Riverdell Specials,” an English muffin with bacon piled high, melted sharp cheddar to top it off – a staple. This is a breakfast request I am only allowed to place at their house. My parents will not entertain such involved breakfast routines. One might say I was spoiled during my time at Riverdell. I would say I was certainly spoiled. But I am a good kid besides, and have been brought up to respect that things cost money – a fact my father never lets me forget. I am not allowed to live lavishly for what seems the vast majority of the time, so when I do make the trip to Riverdell, I sup and scourge accordingly. A respite from the temperance of everyday life, what is vacation, if not this? Still, the treatment I received while I was there did not sit well with my father, who grew up poor in Harlem.
My grandfather’s shift begins in the early to middle afternoon, for he will often rise later than both my grandmother and myself, having been up late the night before reading some ancient historical book in the adult library. My grandfather’s job is more encompassing – to cater to my every whim during the hot and still part of the day, when boredom set in and I begin to feel antsy. We would go to the pool twice in one day, stopping for ice cream each time. There is a skatepark next to the pool, and we both stand tentatively at the sidelines. I am about as likely to dip into the pool of angsty teenagers with my Walmart bought skateboard as he is, but he is there to support me, and we stand and wait for the courage though it never comes. He takes me to the caboose parked downtown that has model engines inside, chugging ahead full steam. Later he will buy me my very own model train set for Christmas. We will sit side by side, painstakingly gluing the little plastic bushes in their designated locations the following summer, thrilled to have our very own train station at Camp Riverdell. We take our time filling up the steam mixture and sitting back to watch with delight as the engine puffs ahead. Now it is on its own imperative. Many hours will I spend beside that model train, a genuine Lionel, and imagine precious cargo passing over harrowing ravines. My grandfather believes in catering to my creativity, though he himself works in banking. He will also get me my first instrument, and the next three instruments after that. He is a constant in the fevered giddiness of my time as a child at camp Riverdell. He is a selfless, kind and ever-giving individual. I miss him dearly, as does Riverdell. There is a grace to being a grandparent, the ability to do it again.
I am quite capable of entertaining myself; at one moment building Legos – two sets mixed together to create something even the head-honchos at Lego can’t dream of, the next moment tearing across boards cut in the 1800s barefoot, getting the biggest splinters you’ve ever seen – splinters with a body on them, a story to tell, dark animal-like fixtures which will stick with you far beyond their invitation. There is always a sense of immense historical significance to this place, which makes it simultaneously ironic and fetching as my playground for much of the summer.
Now it’s lunch time, my grandfather is usually on the hook for this meal. I sit at the high-top style breakfast counter, my feet dangling off large wooden chairs whose seats spin while my body buzzes from the day’s excitement. It is mid-afternoon, my face is flushed, my voice horse and my feet soot-like. I have spent the day romping as per usual. Spam hits the pan with a slick smack, sizzling instantly. My Grandfather, with practiced hands, toasts the Laura Lynn white sandwich bread (I don’t think my Grandfather so much as tried a piece of whole wheat his entire life), placing yellow mustard on it, encasing the spam and serving it alongside potato chips, nothing flavored – just classic Lays potato chips. This is a daily ritual, shaken up only by the occasional hotdog with mustard and potato chips. To drink: coca cola – my Grandfather is a UGA alumni and will never be caught supporting North Carolinian Pepsi products. I wholeheartedly concur; Pepsi is just a bunch of sweet talk.
It’s three o’clock in the afternoon now, a time when most retreat into the shade and wait out the hottest part of the day. Instead, the sun brow beats us into the pool for a second time. I lose track of time in the cool blue light refractions of Patton pool and am called out the pool not by my Grandfather, but by the pool administration themselves – buff bronzed lifeguards telling me it’s time to get out, time for lap swim. This is a retirement town, after all. A second cup of Froyo, though my Grandfather rarely if ever objects, choosing his flavor with due diligence, ensuring that I did not feel left out by similarly piling his high with toppings of his choice – selfless.
There were other things we did as well.
One time I went skateboarding in the church parking lot.
One time I went to Smiley’s Flea Market and bought the entire “Lost” series on dvd.
One time I asked my grandfather to show me how to drive the beetle (Turbo VW Beetle).
One time I tried to drive the stick shift bunny (VW Rabbit Pickup).
One time we released a snapping turtle we found on the property into Carl Sandburg’s pond.
One time we split logs the old way, with wedges and a sledgehammer. I looked buff afterwards.
One time I helped my grandfather cut and pave the third driveway to our house, a lovely winding backway that leads to the historical placard listing notable persons who lived there.
Once we planted a huge line of pine trees along the side of our property, I remember planted the saplings when they were as big as my forearm, now they tower over the property, though in retrospect we planted them too close – forming a dense jungle of fur.
Now we have grown tired and thirsty from the day spent in the sun, so we return to Riverdell House, driving up the winding gravel drive encapsulated by laurel thickets, the same thickets Kephart marveled at, and the towering Silver Fur and Knotted Black Walnuts draped over our heads – a tunnel of green and brown taking us home. And there she is, brilliantly lit, red rooms and green and yellow rooms, enough rooms to house a great host, and all visible through huge heavy wooden windows, shutters set open to reveal the brilliance lit inside. Here is our palace. And all the various tasks are seen to already, the butter set out to soften for hot corn muffins, the dark mahogany table set beautifully with a soft white cloth, sparkling crystal glassware, and silver that shone so much as to appear freshly polished. The fat back green beans sit on the back of the stove, and the honey ham is crusted to perfection. All that is left is to bathe and prepare for dinner. Any dirty clothes are picked up near as soon as they are dropped. My grandparents pride themselves on keeping the house maintained. We always set more plates than we need. The spirit of that place as a vacation home was never lost.
Now I am older, and the green expanses have become more of a refuge for me than a subject of exploration themselves. I hide away in the lushness of the dark green corners on our property. It is now a world unto myself. My favorite of these corners features an old mill stone, weathered and worn – though the small divots and juts in the stone’s material are still visible after all these years. The stone was brought here. As a small boy the stone seemed a monolith, terrible and scary somehow – it was deep in the thicket and dark, and likely housed no shortage of spiders and poison ivy. But as a teenager this dark corner transforms into a place of escape. Here I have a nice seat for sitting and smoking, and having more craft beers than I should, and kissing girls and listening to music and dancing unseen, thinking of much and doing little. There are two trees next to each other, the perfect width apart to hang a hammock or a slackline — both of which are up and running the first day of my arrival in North Carolina as a teen. My feet and ankles grow strong as I spend hours perched precariously above a sea of black walnut droppings, large lumpy protuberances on the grass, a facet of this corner that made for very dire falls off the slackline. By then I know that no amount of jabbing one’s toes into the earth to out the walnut seeds, as a punter, will disturb their final resting place. No matter how often I try to clear the patch of ground I am likely to land on, I always manage to find a seed with my foot. It is a part of the fun now, upping the ante significantly while on the tightrope. I balance on this tightrope as I balance in life, and as I balance between knowing and not knowing. For now, I am beginning to become curious about Fred’s Place.
I am a camp counselor and spend the week inspiring kids to love Jesus more soundly. I spend the weekends thanking God for the opportunity to crack open a beer, and to hear the cicadas differently. Summer nights in the cabins as a camp counselor are stifling, especially with bedtimes that don’t correspond with the night’s actual cooling off. Every night I crawl into my bunk bed damp and uncomfortable, waking in the middle of the night nearly frozen ontop of my sleeping bag, struggling in the dark to find the zipper, the unphased snoring around me from my campers, exhausted from the days activities, somehow making the experience even more disorienting.
It is refreshing then to escape to my grandmother’s house. I tear off in the stick shift frontier, Bunny’s antecessor, the first car I learned to drive stick shift in. I still stall from time to time, and once I had to arrive late to staff opening because of my inability to make a sharp turn up a steep slope. I didn’t know about the wonders of the emergency brake peel-off then, and instead relented to dejectedly backing out onto busy Yulassee HWY and circling around through the back, which featured a much easier slope, but also added another 10 or 15 minutes of driving to my time.
Now I am a young adult in the midst of a global pandemic. Making the decision to live here is half nature and half nurture. The world always seems to move slower in Hendersonville, and so I find no difficulty in waiting things out in the joy of my childhood place. The cost of living here is cheaper than up North, allowing me a small apartment located on the town’s main street, only 5 minutes from the Riverdell house. I go at least twice a week to see my Grandmother. When I visit I come in through the back driveway, and therefore am always greeted by Fred’s Place. Sitting alone and relatively unchanged on the edge of the property, a window is broken in on one side, and the paint on the door is chipping badly. An old skinny skeleton key is used to open the door, but when you turn the key and push, the door won’t budge, so you must kick the bottom of the door to push past whatever wedges the door shut, and in so doing, you create a confetti of old dried paint which rains down on you from the doorway, coating you in crispy white flakes. When I step inside I want very much to feel something, sorrow, hatred, even ghosts. But instead I feel nothing, nothing from the place itself at least, which is a stark contrast from Riverdell house, which holds so much emotion for me as to be hard to put to words. No, this is an empty place, a dead place. There is no spirit here, except for the absence of spirit. A heartless place. There is no reprieve here, only panic. I feel panic, and it is my own. This place will never be done up with lights and love, food and majesty, hope and community. As much of the history of this place as we know, as my Grandfather spent countless hours immersed in — we will never get the full story of this small cottage on the edge of the property. And I feel that loss deeply every time I enter. For this is supposed to be a vacation town, after all. But every time I enter Fred’s place, I feel the vacation slipping away into the temperance of real life. I feel all the memories of freedom and grandeur chained, jailed, held liable for murder. How dare you.
Now I am an adult, and vacation time is over. Because now Riverdell house isn’t carefree — I am full of cares. Care for my aging Grandmother and her big empty home. Care for the poor souls who’s lives were lost here without being fully lived. Care to not think too deeply. Care to not be mindless. There is a history to this place, and I can no longer carry on ignoring it. All this time I accepted the differences of Hendersonville as an old person town, a vacation town, a mountain town. But if you were to ask me nowadays, faithful reader, what kind of town I consider Hendersonville to be, I’d tell you quite frankly that I’m beginning to see Hendersonville more and more as merely a predominantly white town.