Coon Dog Day

http://www.saluda.com/

My parents live in a small town in Western North Carolina called Saluda. They have an event there every year called Coon Dog Day. I kid you not. There is even a Coon Queen. That has cracked me up for years!

My parents have been back and forth to Saluda for as long as I can remember, lake houses and small cabins, mountaintop retreats. There is something about a town where Mr. Thompson still runs the local small grocery store and has known me since I was about 10 years old. There is usually a hug for me when I pop in and a remark from him about how much I have grown up over the years.

Saluda still has a soda fountain, and the local men meet there on Main Street to have breakfast club or play a game of chess in the afternoon. The door of the soda fountain is a wooden screen door that makes that cool old spring stretching sound when you open and let it close behind you. If that isn't the sound of summer, I don't know what is.

Heartwood Hammock, The Brass Latch, the beautiful Victorian houses that sit in the hills overlooking old Main Street are still a treat to visit. I grew up there off and on, square dancing on Friday nights in the old school building with Jimbo Bailey; eating at Green River Bar-B-Q, or hiking to a hidden waterfall with Laura, my buddy that lived across the lake. It was a great time in life.

So, if you ever want to go to Mayberry, head on up 85 To Greenville and then take Highway 29 on up to a little bit of paradise. Who knows, maybe I will head up there for Coon Dog Day. The shirt alone is worth the drive.