Delivering Smiles

For Sonja Bruton, her work as Postmaster at the Flat Rock Post Office is more than a job. It is a calling. And for the residents of Flat Rock, that is a very fortunate thing.

For the past seven years, Sonya has been greeting, helping, advising, and generally brightening the day for thousands of Flat Rock postal customers. Her happy voice and bright smile can turn an ordinary postal experience into a better day. And she loves her work. “I enjoy interacting with people and seeing all the people come and go. In Flat Rock, people tell you their stories, you get to develop relationships.”

When Sonya Bruton became Postmaster in Flat Rock in the summer of 2012 she had already been with USPS for nearly 25 years. After finishing school in Asheville, she started working at the Asheville mail processing center on the advice of her mother. She liked the work and her first real job turned into a career that now spans over 30 years.

Sonya eventually left the processing center and started working in the Post Office’s retail locations. She first arrived in Flat Rock in 2003 working in a staff position. She was then promoted to Officer in Charge - responsible for the office when the Postmaster was not present and then was promoted to Postmaster in 2008. 

That first promotion to Postmaster took Sonya on a journey to other Post Offices in the region - including Lake Toxaway and Mars Hill. But she always wanted to come “home” to Flat Rock and when the position opened up in 2011, Sonya applied and the following year became the 32nd person to oversee the Flat Rock Post office since John Davis was first appointed in December of 1829.

Sonya supervises a staff of four and can also serve as an unofficial tour guide for Flat Rock.  “People come here wanting to know the history. They want to know about Carl Sandburg and the Flat Rock Playhouse and all the summer camps in the area.”

Despite the decline of traditional letter writing, business at the Flat Rock Post Office is still growing. Sonya attributes the increase in mail volume to good customer service and the convenience of a small-town post office. “People like being able to walk right up to the counter and having a relationship with us. It just feels more like family here in Flat Rock.”

The holiday season is looming and Sonya and her staff are getting prepared. “Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. It is crazy,” she laughs!  “But I love it. I'm used to it and I know how to get my mind right for it. My goal is to get people in and out and get them what they need for Christmas. At Christmas, everybody is relying on us the help them get their cards and their packages to loved ones. So it is important to them. And to us!”

With her trademark optimistic outlook on life, Sonya has more good days than bad days at work. “I have a lot of days where I just get a lot of gratitude from customers. And not just because I'm looking for it, but they just give it to me and I love that. It makes me feel like I'm doing a good job.”

Of course, there are difficult situations in any job, but Sonya is determined not to let the challenging situations get the best of her … or her customers. Including the grumpy customer that kept coming back to see her. “He's was grumpy but he kept coming back. So I knew I had him! He actually started talking and was more pleasant. I just knew that he was good inside.”

Ultimately, Sonya’s work is more than just a job. She believes that she has been called by her strong faith to help people.  “Serving people, helping people, being nice to people. I just get great joy in helping people. God instilled the joy of himself in me and I like to pay that forward.”

The next time you are in the Flat Rock post office and see Sonya, be sure to tell her hello. It will make her day. Sonya’s big smile and enthusiastic greetings are sure to make yours.

That Table

This article was originally published in 2019 when our Nana left her home of 35 years to be closer to children. It is offered again today in her memory. -BH

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As I close the front door to Nana’s house for the final time, I take one last peek at the now-empty dining room. 

A hundred mental images flash through my mind, instantly filling the vacant space with an avalanche of memories. Memories of countless meals shared over an old and worn wooden table.

Sitting around that table was a place of unbridled laughter and heart-wrenching loss. Its wooden surface splashed with tears of both joy and sorrow. Around that table, iconic family stories were ritually recounted and repeated as if being recited from the sacred Book of Family.  

That dining room table was where we celebrated all important occasions … including Thanksgiving dinners too numerous to count.

We won’t be having Thanksgiving at Nana’s this year. Or ever again.  Not that this is a sad story - Nana is as feisty and outspoken as ever.  But now she lives in a beautiful retirement community surrounded by walls and floors and ceilings that do not echo with the memories of generations past and present.

Nostalgia stems from closing a particular chapter in your life. From turning a page and knowing that you can never go back to that place or those times. Those times before the children grew up and moved away. The time before lives and marriages and careers faded from brilliant living color to the muted sepia tones of yesteryear.

That old wooden table was our family sounding board. It was the bench from which parents handed down decrees. It was the pulpit from which we shared our hearts and our souls. It was the stage where we told our favorite stories and re-enacted the greatest moments of lives well-blessed. 

That table was the place where family history touched ground.

Every scratch, every dent, every watermark on that table told a story. Just like the people who sat around it for decades, its imperfections and rough edges gave it a unique personality and a singular place in the world.  The original sterile pristine exterior replaced with a tapestry of family history gouged and carved into its soft wooden surface.

Improbably, that dark wooden table was a brilliant mirror that reflected the breadth and depth of the generations of lives that gathered at its edges for so many years. 

As the gap between door and door jamb slowly closes one final time, I smile and say a quiet prayer of thanks. Thanks for a good home with a good table. Thanks for the place that grounded our family. Thank you to that table that steadfastly hosted a family’s passage through this life.

I close the door and the chapter is done.

Flat Rock 101: A Quiz

Howdy!

How well do you know Flat Rock? Are you conversant in the history and lore of the place referred to as The Little Charleston of the Mountains?

Well here is a quiz designed to separate the Flat Rock insiders from the carpetbaggers just down for the day from Asheville.

Take the quiz and see where you rate. Answers below.

Flat Rock 101 Quiz

1. Which actor honed their craft at Flat Rock Playhouse during the early years of the theater?

a) Natalie Wood

b) Tony Curtis

c) Lee Marvin

d) Mark Warwick

2. Flat Rock observed its “Bicentennial” in 2007 to celebrate what seminal event in 1807?

a) The earliest Flat Rock estate, Mountain Lodge, was constructed.

b) Abraham Kuykendall received the first land grant in the Flat Rock area

c) Flat Rock was first mentioned by geographers in public records

d) Flat Rock was incorporated as a village

3. Which famous character on the Howdy Doody Show retired in Kenmure in the 1990s?

a) Clarabell the Clown

b) Buffalo Bob

c) Cheif Thunderthud

d) Detective Butterball

4. Greenville Highway (Rt 225) closely follows the route of what original colonial road?

a) The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road

b) Mountain Bridge Wilderness Trail

c) The Ancient Cherokee Highway

d) Old Buncombe Turnpike

5. What major geological feature can be found in Flat Rock?

a) The Carolinas Traverse Seismic Fault

b) The headwaters of the Ohio River

c) The Eastern Continental Divide

d) The geographic center of the USA from 1821 until the admission of California in 1854

6. The first movie ever shown at the Flat Rock Cinema was?

a) The Sound of Music

b) Pirates of the Carribean

c) Requiem for a Dream

d) Lost in Translation

7. Flat Rock Square (Formerly Singleton Center) was originally the site of?

a) Flat Rock High School

b) Corporate Offices for Ingles Groceries

c) Site of the stables for Hendersonville Police horses in the late 1800s

d) The Original Flat Rock Millhouse

8. Christopher Memminger, the first Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederacy, buried millions of dollars of confederate gold (in legend) where?

a) Saluda Cottages

b) Below the Great Flat Rock

c) Connemara

d) Bonclarken

9. The clubhouse at Kenmure was originally known as what?

a) Argyle

b) Glenroy

c) Elliott House

d) Tall Trees

10. The iconic Wrinkled Egg store received its name from where?

a) The elderly aunt of the owner who referred to herself as “An Old Wrinkled Egg”

b) The shape of a boiled egg eaten during a conversation on what to name the new store

c) The German word “wringëlt” meaning charmed or indicative of good luck

d) The unique eggs produced by a beloved hen owned by the founder’s grandfather

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Answers:

1) c. Lee Marvin

2) c. Flat Rock was first mentioned by geographers in public records

3) b. Buffalo Bob

4) d. Old Buncombe Turnpike

5) c. The Eastern Continental Divide

6) b. Pirates of the Carribean

7) a. Flat Rock High School

8) c. Connemara

9) b. Glenroy

10) d. The unique eggs produced by a beloved hen owned by the founder’s grandfather

How did you do?

Number Correct:

9-10: You probably remember when Greenville Highway was a dirt road.

6-8: Almost good enough to qualify as a native. Almost.

3-5: You need to get out and about in Flat Rock more often.

1-2: Well bless your heart.

Día de los Muertos

I was lost in Spain. On October 31st.

Driving alone in the days before ubiquitous GPS devices, I ended up in the town of Casabermeja - and couldn’t find my way out. Not a problem I thought. I’ll just employ my finely tuned and almost supernatural sense of misdirection. Predictably, I managed to get hopelessly lost in the incredibly narrow and winding cobblestone streets of the ancient town. 

Eventually, I gave up and found myself parked in front of Casabermeja's Municipal Cementario.

In Spain, as in most Spanish speaking lands, Halloween is known as "Día de los Muertos." The name notwithstanding, it is a joyous holiday...a time to remember friends and family who have died. Officially commemorated on November 2 (All Souls' Day), the three-day celebration actually begins on the evening of October 31. 

It is a time to honor the dead who are believed to return to their homes on Halloween. Many families construct an altar in their home and decorate it with candy, flowers, photographs, fresh water and samples of the deceased's favorite foods and drinks.  Relatives also tidy the gravesites of lost family members, including snipping weeds, making repairs and painting. The grave is then adorned with flowers, wreaths or paper streamers. Because of the date, el cementario in Casabermeja was a beehive of activity with a parade of locals streaming into the cemetery with flowers and buckets of cleaning supplies.  

Curious, I walked in with them and discovered endless rows of mausoleums built side by side and stretching away in every direction. It felt like another miniature town comprised of small white stone houses with narrow winding streets.  The mausoleums were covered with a riot of colorful flowers. Incredibly, every single gravesite I saw - and there were hundreds - was adorned with flowers. 

The day was extremely blustery and chilly.  Casabermeja is perched on high on a hill and the wind whipped through the cemetery scattering flowers everywhere and creating an eerie whistling sound as it swept through the narrow passageways between crypts.  All voices and sounds of the living visitors were carried away by the wind.  As I walked among the dead, I could hear only the rush of wind, the rustle of flowers and leaves, and my own breath. 

Walking aimlessly among the graves, I turned a corner and came upon an elderly and frail-looking gentleman pushing red and white carnations through the iron gate on the front of a grave - one flower at a time.  He looked very unsteady in the wind and a sudden gust blew the beret he was wearing off his bald head.  

The cap started rolling down the walkway between crypts and I scrambled after it to retrieve it for him.  As I walked back towards him with cap in hand, I realized that he had never looked up to see where his beret had gone.  He was still pushing carnations through the grate.  I glanced at the inscription on the bronze plaque of the grave.   

Maria Diaz González.  
2 Agosto 2010. 
A las 79 Años. 

His wife. Gone less than a year. 

I stood next to him for a moment - my hand extended with his hat.  Not until the last flower had been pushed between the iron bars did he turn to look at me.  I guessed he was in his eighties.  Thin, stooped, with rheumy eyes set deep and dark into his face.  For a moment we simply stared at one another.  Señor González and the stranger holding his cap.  Two incredibly different lives from two profoundly different cultures. The only sound was the wind whistling through the cemetery. 

His loss was evident in his eyes. I could feel the sorrow in his heart reach across the short distance between us. I thought of all that I have lost, or foolishly given up, or taken for granted until it was too late, and realized that he was not the only person feeling a keen sense of loss that day. Slowly his hand reached up to take the beret. We both held the cap for a moment and stared at each other.  I could see the question in his eyes. Who was this strange-looking person standing before him? Ironically, that was the very same question I had been asking of myself since my arrival in Spain on a solitary journey of self-discovery.  

He mumbled a barely audible, "Gracias".  "De nada", I replied.  And I turned to leave him alone with his wife and his loss. 

A while later I found my way back to Señora Gonzalez's grave.  Her husband was gone. I picked up a couple of loose flowers that had been blowing around in the walkways and slipped them through the grate.

Celebrate Día de los Muertos in Flat Rock

What: Day of the Dead Celebration
When: 5:30 -6:30 p.m., Friday, November 1. 2019
Where: The Gallery at Flat Rock, 2702-A Greenville Highway, Flat Rock
How much: Free and open to the public 

To pay homage to the traditional practice in Mexican Culture to honor those who have passed, The Gallery at Flat Rock is presenting a special Day of the Dead celebration on Nov. 1. The event is in conjunction with the current exhibit, “Crossing Cultures,” featuring the paintings , sculptures and work on paper by Jose Bayro C., of Puebla, Mexico. 

Day of the Dead, or Día de los Muertos, constitutes a multi-day celebration during which family and friends gather to pray for and remember friends and family members who have passed on, in order to support loved ones on their spiritual journey. Gallery owner Suzanne Camarata is hopeful that the community will add to the makeshift altar set up at the gallery for the event.

Participants are welcome to bring by an object or photo during the gallery’s regular business hours, or to stop in on November 1, 5:30-6:30, when sweets will be shared with those dropping in to the celebration, as well as Flying Wish Paper to burn. 

“This is for the community to express their love for someone they’ve lost with a memento, photo, or something they’ve made,” said Camarata. “We are celebrating the cycle of life and the ‘Crossing Cultures’ show by combining the traditions of Day of the Dead.”