Cosmic Charlie, a high-energy Grateful Dead cover band from Athens, Ga., will headline Saturday's sixth annual Greening Up the Mountains festival. Music that runs the gamut from traditional ballads to classic rock 'n' roll will waft from two stages at opposite ends of Main Street during this year's event. More information about Sylva's downtown spring festival is available in the special section inside this week's printed issue.
Spring may have officially arrived a month ago, but folks in Jackson County learned years ago they'd better not plant anything until the end of April or the first of May. The risk of a late frost is too big a chance to take, some learned the hard way. But when the centuries-old forests begin to leaf out, starting in the valley and moving steadily up the mountainsides, folks know it's safe to put out their tomatoes plants, beans and corn. They know the way is clear to add splashes of color in the form of flowers to driveways and around mail boxes. Spring is a time to rejoice, to celebrate the world's rebirth, to take advantage of warmer weather and greet friends no longer wrapped head to toe in layers of clothes. This Saturday's Greening Up the Mountains street festival in downtown Sylva offers locals and visitors alike an opportunity to do all the above, not to mention a chance to feast on Indian frybread and polish off a Polish sausage. For a few hours or all day, festival-goers can gather together with neighbors, shop for spring supplies, stomp their feet to the beat of live bands and watch as children experience the wonder of pony rides. Plans for Mill Street While most participants will come to experience the town's open-arm welcome this Saturday, officials with Sylva Partners in Renewal, the primary festival producer, will use the occasion to celebrate prior accomplishments and look forward to new challenges, said SPIR President Russ Seagle. SPIR and Sylva officials learned in February they'd been awarded a $146,000 Transportation Enhancement Grant from the N.C. Department of Transportation. Since then the pair has called together all who will and could be involved in a project to improve the accessibility and livability of the town's Mill Street area, including upgrades to the street's sidewalks and a bridge to connect the town parking lot with Poteet Park and the public swimming pool. "SPIR is delighted to have been granted this funding request from the DOT," said Seagle in February. "This says a great deal about the value the DOT places on the improvement of our downtown." Once the project gets started, which must wait until contract documents are drafted and approved by all involved, those in Sylva will notice work to widen the sidewalks and street to make them more like Main Street, SPIR design committee Chairman Odell Thompson said. Improved materials, including brick-like features, will be used on the street to serve as crosswalks and to slow down traffic, he said. "Of course, the bridge will be the highlight of the project," said Thompson, who indicated that close cooperation between Sylva, SPIR and other agencies would be essential to ensure Phase I work and other projects are completed in tandem. CSA Heritage Demonstrators While SPIR looks to the future, Catch the Spirit of Appalachia, another festival producer, will use Saturday to celebrate the past, including gardening and food preservation traditions deeply rooted in mountain culture. "When it came to preserving foods, mountain people displayed magnificent creativity," said CSA co-founder Amy Garza. "It had to be so. With no electricity, no modern conveniences and no other way of keeping food fresh, they came up with some of the most ingenious ideas." And their ideas worked. They put up previsions by pickling, drying, salting, smoking, spicing, burying, bleaching, sulfuring, fermenting, and finally, canning. They saved fresh sweet milk, buttermilk, cheese and butter by storing them in a spring house built into banks of a cold spring. Dried fruits always added to any pantry, Garza said. Peaches, berries, grapes and apples, after getting a few weeks in the sun, will keep for years if hung in a dry place. Then there were leather-britches (dried snap beans, sometimes called shuck beans or fodder beans), sauerkraut, smoked and salted pork, plus an array of jellies, jams, butters, pickles and preserves. Some hill folk even used hornets' nests to protect their eggs from freezing in mountain winters. Most mountain people made 'kraut’ soured cabbage salt-aged in a crock churn, with a plate over the opening, and a rock on top of the plate to hold it down when the cabbage began to "work." Then a cloth would be tied over all of that. Or cabbage could be stored by burying the heads upside down in the garden soil with the roots sticking up so they could grab hold and pull them out when they needed them. Smoking and salting took care of most meat and fish: mountain, rainbow and brown trout, hams, bacon, salt pork and more. All mountain homes had a smoke house somewhere close by, Garza said. "But none of our traditions are more sacred and respected than that of canning," she said. "And nowhere has this tradition been carried out with such consistent continuity as here in Western North Carolina. Shelves lined with colorful canned foods are a tribute to the old ways of putting something away for a rainy day." Many cooks continue to consider old-time preserving an important family enterprise, Garza said. However, the art and craft of the old ways are beginning to be less important because of the time it involves, and because of our modern conveniences. CSA's part in Saturday's festival in downtown Sylva will be to honor the creativity of mountain people by sponsoring several traditional heritage contests with cash prizes to encourage one and all to come out and celebrate the ingenuity of our ancestry, said Garza. Demonstrators of old-time mountain crafts will also be on hand to show young and old alike how beekeeping, wood carving, spinning, weaving, corn shuck dolls, Cherokee basket making, soap making, quilting, shaker boxes, crocheting, hand rug braiding and hand rug hooking used to be done. It takes a Village, and a Video Camera Every year law enforcement agencies are faced with the task of trying to locate children who have been reported missing. Statistics have demonstrated that the sooner the child can be found, the more likely that child will be found unharmed. Fingerprints and recent photographs are among the most useful tools to aid in locating and identifying lost children. As another identification method, should it ever be necessary for any local child, the men of Dillsboro Masonic Lodge are offering again this year for parents and guardians free video tapes of children. Come with your children to the Dillsboro Masonic Lodge booth during the festival Saturday, April 26, and your children will be video taped to visually and audibly capture their appearance, mannerisms and speech. Their height and weight will also be recorded on the tape. The Masons will furnish the tapes, free of charge, which will be labeled after recording and immediately given to the parent or guardian. There is also no charge for the recording. Parents who had tapes made at last year's festival may bring them for the addition of a current recording. "It is hoped that many parents and guardians will accept this service the Masons offer for the children of our community," said member Bob Root. Festival Favorites Along with a variety of musical talents, craft sales and festival-style food, Saturday's event will include favorites participants have come to expect, including pony rides, a petting zoo and "Chalk Zone" for children, results of The Sylva Herald's photo contest, Carlton Burke's wild animal exhibit on the Baptist church lawn and the Blackrock climbing wall. For more information about the 5K road race, the bands scheduled to appear on both stages, the New Century Scholar's Ducks on the Tuck fund-raiser and the CSA Parade of Many Colors, see the newspaper's special festival section. Information on corresponding events can also be found throughout this week's edition.
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