Ascent

I woke up on Wednesday morning and stepped into a new decade of my life.

Seventy.

The number felt strange. Not troubling so much as just a little hard to believe. When I was a child, seventy belonged to very old people. It was an age that seemed impossibly distant, reserved for grandparents and not for a kid running barefoot through the neighborhood on long summer days.

On the morning of my birthday, I decided that the proper way to celebrate turning seventy was to jog to the top of Glassy Mountain at the Carl Sandburg Home. Not to set a personal record. Not to prove anything to anyone. Just to remind myself that I still could.

The air was cool and still, and the first hints of dawn were beginning to brighten the eastern sky when I arrived at the Hiker’s Lot. I spent a few moments stretching the muscles and limbs that had so faithfully carried me through the decades. I took one final deep breath and started my run.

The trail climbed steadily through the woods as the sun rose behind the trees. Shafts of light filtered through the canopy and scattered across the forest floor. Birds greeted the morning from unseen perches, and the familiar rhythm of the climb soon settled my thoughts.

Or perhaps unsettled them.

As I made my way up the mountain, memories flooded over my thoughts. Not in any particular order and not because I was intentionally taking inventory of my life. They simply arrived, one after another, as naturally as the sunlight slipping through the trees.

Faces I had not thought about in years. Friends from childhood. Teachers. Family members. Moments of joy, moments of regret, moments that had quietly altered the course of my life without my recognizing it at the time. With each turn in the trail, another memory seemed to emerge from the woods.

And somewhere between the parking lot and the summit, I realized I was not simply climbing a mountain. I was walking back through seventy years of blessings, mistakes, losses, friendships, and love.

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I thought about my parents and the examples they gave me - both good and not so good. They were not people who delivered grand speeches about values or success. But they taught me a great deal by example. I thought about my four siblings and the unique bond we created while navigating childhood together. No one knows your earliest stories quite like the people who were there to witness them.

Eventually, the trail steepened and carried me further back into those early years.

I was born in Elmira, NY but I grew up in Danville, Virginia. It was a childhood that was both wonderfully unsupervised and perfectly natural for that era. Summer days seemed endless, and the neighborhood was our kingdom. My friends and I rode bicycles and skateboards from one end of town to the other, climbed trees that would terrify me now, and invented silly adventures that always seemed monumentally important.

I thought of my boyhood friends. Peter, Al, Robert, Laird. Together, we stumbled through life's early lessons, trying to figure out who we were and who we hoped to become.

As my breath became increasingly labored on the steep mountain trail, I found myself thinking about another person whose presence shaped my life even though I knew him only briefly. My older brother Jon died more than fifty years ago. His death left a void in our family and our family never talked about him enough after he was gone. Still, his memory was a constant and important reminder of the fragility of life.

Becoming

As I continued up the wooded trail, I thought about my first date in high school with the cute girl I had met years before in seventh grade. We went to a homecoming football game played in a torrential downpour. We were soaked within minutes, but neither of us seemed to care.

Other milestones soon followed. A first kiss. A first car. My first college acceptance letter. Each felt like a doorway leading toward a future I could not yet imagine. Eventually, that future led me to Davidson College, with the promise of a much larger world waiting just beyond the horizon.

Like most young people arriving on a college campus for the first time, I thought I knew much more than I actually did. Davidson quickly introduced me to people who would challenge my assumptions and broaden the perspective of a small-town boy. Davidson also incubated some of the most important relationships of my life.

There are many treasured friendships from my time at Davidson. Roger, my college roommate for four years who showed me the limitless possibilities of a life lived with enthusiasm and intention. Jim, who would run through a burning brick wall of mixed metaphors for his friends. Charlie, whose quiet and unassuming nature taught me that you don't have to be loud to do great things in life. Mike, who was always ready for whatever adventure presented itself and bounded through life with abandon. Dave and Steve, who could make me convulse with laughter in one moment and contemplate life’s great questions in the next. They helped build foundational stories that have only improved with age.

Davidson also introduced me to mentors who shaped the way I think. None had a greater impact than Dr. Charles Cornwell, my English professor and, eventually, one of my closest friends. He encouraged my writing, but he never confused encouragement with leniency. He was honest about my strengths and equally honest about my weaknesses. He taught me that good writing requires discipline and a willingness to keep revising until the words finally say what you mean. If I’ve ever written something that painted a vivid picture or conveyed the emotion of a moment, Charles deserves much of the credit.

As the trail climbed toward the summit, I realized how much of my life had been shaped during those college years. My love of reading, my desire to write, my curiosity about people and their stories, and many of the friendships I treasure most all took root during that time.

Most of my post-college career was spent in Winston-Salem. During my thirty years there, I was fortunate to build a remarkable circle of friendships that taught me the essential role human connection plays in our well-being. These were the people who celebrated life's joys alongside me and the same people I could lean on when the road became difficult. This week, eight of those friends traveled to Flat Rock to help celebrate my birthday. In truth, it was less a celebration of turning seventy than a celebration of friendships that have endured, deepened, and enriched my life for decades.

That may be one of the great blessings of the passing years. Time gradually teaches you which relationships are temporary and which are built to endure. The people who endure become part of your story. Their lives become intertwined with your own, and after enough years, it becomes difficult to separate your memories from theirs.

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Like many people of my generation, I married young. At the time, it seemed perfectly natural. Many of our friends were doing the same thing, and I assumed that love, optimism, and determination would be enough to carry us through whatever challenges lay ahead.

I thought back to standing in the middle of Main Street in Danville after the wedding and kissing my bride – that cute girl who huddled under an umbrella with me at a high school football game - while the groomsmen held back traffic. To be fair, there wasn't much traffic to hold back, but at that moment, it felt like the world had stopped for us.

Years later, our son was born. I remembered holding him in my arms for the first time and feeling something shift inside me. Until then, I thought I understood love. In truth, I had only experienced a small part of it. I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility and protectiveness, unlike anything I had ever known. When the nurse pricked his heel to draw blood for a routine test, I remembered fighting back tears. It seemed impossible that someone so new in my life could matter so much.

Over the years, I watched him grow into a kind and thoughtful man, a loving husband, and a devoted father. Along the way, fatherhood taught me lessons about patience, forgiveness, and letting go when it was his time to forge his own path in the world. I spent years wondering whether I was doing enough and getting it right. Looking back now, I suspect he gave me far more than I ever gave him.

Life, however, has a way of teaching lessons we never volunteer to learn. That marriage ended, and the years that followed brought new challenges and new opportunities for growth. Later, my son and I became part of a blended family. Those years taught me that family is not simply something we inherit. Family is also something we build, often imperfectly, through persistence, grace, and a willingness to keep showing up. That marriage, too, ended but I continue to claim the children as my own.

For many years, I searched for explanations that would make the story easier to tell and easier to live with. Age has a way of stripping away those comfortable narratives. The truth is that I was often selfish and lacked the understanding and maturity necessary to sustain a healthy relationship. I did not always listen well. I did not always communicate honestly. I did not always appreciate what had been entrusted to me.

Then, 15 years ago this week, I opened the door of a small Thai restaurant and met Denise for the first time. There was an involuntary catch in my breath as she walked through the door. Certainly, her beauty was impossible to miss, but what captured me was something deeper. She possessed a warmth, intelligence, curiosity, and kindness that drew me in immediately.

Life had taught me a great deal by then. It had taught me about success and failure, joy and disappointment, certainty and regret. Most importantly, it had taught me that love is less about finding the right person than becoming the kind of person capable of loving well.

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I finally crested the trail and stood at the overlook. Watching the morning light spread across the valley, I felt something I hadn't expected when I started out from the Hiker’s Lot - gratitude.

I realized that some of the greatest blessings in my life had emerged from periods I once viewed only as mistakes or failures. The painful chapters had shaped me just as surely as the joyful ones. Without them, I would not have become the person who eventually met Denise, moved to Flat Rock, and discovered a deeper appreciation for the gift of ordinary days.

The years following college had been filled with work, responsibility, and the obligations that accompany adulthood. For twenty-five years, I built a business in Winston-Salem, pouring my energy into growing it and navigating the inevitable ups and downs that come with entrepreneurship. When I eventually sold the company, the sale felt like the culmination of decades of effort.

Looking back now, I can see that many of the most important beginnings in my life arrived disguised as endings. All the twists and turns of my life eventually led to Denise who, in turn, led me to Flat Rock when she accepted the position of Executive Director of United Way of Henderson County in 2015.

Homecoming

Very few places feel like home almost from the moment you arrive. Flat Rock had that effect on me. Although I had never lived here before, something about the mountains, the lush green landscape, the winding roads, and the slower rhythm of life felt deeply familiar. It was as though I had returned to a place I had known all along.

The move also reunited me with my professor and longtime friend Charles. One of the unexpected gifts of growing older is discovering that certain friendships are capable of surviving years of separation - and then resuming as though no time has passed at all. Our friendship was one of those gifts, and being close to him again added another layer to my growing sense that I had arrived exactly where I was meant to be.

Over time, Flat Rock has become much more than the place where I live. It is a community that continually surprises and inspires me. What began as casual curiosity about my neighbors, the rich history of Flat Rock, and interesting local events eventually evolved into Flat Rock Together.

The weekly newsletter and blog I have written for the past seven years started modestly enough but has become one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Week after week, I meet remarkable people and discover stories that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. The newsletter gives me an excuse to ask questions and to listen carefully. Most importantly, it prompts me to pay closer attention to the remarkable world around me.

Through Flat Rock Together, I encountered quiet acts of generosity and kindness that rarely make headlines but form the foundation of a meaningful life. The experience taught me that extraordinary people often hide in plain sight and that every community contains far more goodness than we sometimes recognize.

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For the past decade, I have walked the trails of Connemara, often wondering what it must have been like for Carl Sandburg to spend his final years among these same fields and forests. Perhaps it is only my imagination, but there are times on the trail when his presence feels surprisingly close.

I often think about another literary intersection that has always amused me. I was born in Elmira, New York, where Samuel Clemens spent many summers writing some of the most enduring works in American literature. And now, in the final chapters of my own life, I live where Carl Sandburg spent the final two decades of his.

I make no claim to belong in the company of these two great writers, but I like to think that both men would understand the impulse to pay attention to the world around them and to transform those observations into the written word.

Descent

I lingered at the overlook for a few more minutes before turning back toward the trail. The fog that had blanketed the low places earlier was steadily giving way to sunlight, and the details of the landscape were becoming clearer with each passing minute. It struck me that memory works much the same way. Certain moments remain hidden for years, obscured by the busyness of life, until something causes them to emerge once again into view.

For most of my life, I have measured progress the way most people do. There were degrees to earn, careers to build, goals to pursue, and milestones to accomplish. After seven decades, I’ve come to recognize that the real treasures are often the people who accompanied us on the journey rather than the destinations themselves.

Jogging back down the mountain, it occurred to me that I was no longer walking through my past. I was returning to my future.

That realization brought with it an unexpected sense of peace. Like many who reach this stage of life, I have become increasingly aware that the trail ahead stretches only so far. Yet that awareness feels less unsettling than it once might have. The climb that morning had reminded me how fortunate I have already been.

Not because everything worked out exactly as I planned. Far from it. But viewed from the perspective of seventy years, my experiences no longer seem like separate chapters competing for attention. They feel like pieces of the same story, each contributing something necessary to the whole.

I found myself smiling at the thought that the number which had seemed so significant when I woke up that morning, no longer felt especially important. Seventy was simply a number.

What mattered were the people, experiences, and blessings behind it.

And so, as I begin this next chapter of my life, I do so with a grateful heart.

Grateful for my family. For my friends. For this amazing community of Flat Rock. Grateful for the opportunity to write the blog, and for those kind enough to read what I write.

Most of all, I am grateful for the journey itself. It has been an amazing adventure.

Thank you for being an important part of it.

The View from Seventy

Stitching Together an Extraordinary Life