He was a wizened, grizzly old fellow with twinkling eyes, and only one arm. I had never seen him before in my life. But in no time I found myself conversing easily with the old gentleman, telling him I, too, was born and raised in this country. 'Obie Rose' was my daddy,' I said. And when I said it, it must have been quite a shock to him, for a wave of astonishment flooded his leathery face. It turned out that old man Ralph had been one of Daddy's fishing buddies, years ago.

'You know, I had two or three of them metal lures your daddy made. Wouldn't a'took nothin' in the world for them lures, but they all got gone somehow. I let a fellow borrow the last one I had. I'd been savin' it for a keepsake. He promised to bring it back, but he lost it, snagged it over a rock or a branch or somethin', up on the North Fork.'

I grinned. 'How'd you like to have another one?'

'Oh, Lord yes. I didn't think I'd ever get another one. I'd sure be obliged to you for it. You know, there weren't never a lure before or since like them. Why some folks said they was magic, but I don't believe that. There ain't no such thing as magic in this world. But they was fine lures all right. Yes mam, I'd sure love to have me another one.'

Not long after that I reached into my dwindling store of Rose lures and gingerly drew forth one of the silver-shiny objects, placed it in a box and mailed it to the old man. I didn't know it then, but the happenstance acquaintance I'd made with Ralph Jarrett was only one in a long string of serendipitous encounters which in time would come, each with a flavor of its own, and connected one way or another with Daddy's fishing lures. As the months passed I gathered these experiences like so many brightly colored beads. Together they brought me good fortune, and eventually changed my life. It all started on my 41st birthday.

That was in 1983. I lived in the city then, and worked in a CPA's office. It was a cold and concrete world, gray and brittle and sterile. The people were nice enough, but it was no place for one whose heart had known and loved the green hills and hollows of the high country, who'd walked the crests of the ridges at morning, and remembered. And so it was inevitable that one day I'd leave the city to return to the land of my people.

............

1958. Daddy and I lived in a drafty little house of weathered boards and battens, under the spreading branches of ancient white oak trees. Below the house was a small lake. It was January and bitter cold. I'd get up early and throw some more coal into the heater, and then build a fire in the cookstove and make breakfast of biscuits and Karo syrup. Sometimes Daddy would eat, most times not. He didn't get out of bed much any more, save to go out to the toilet. Daddy and I had plans--come summer we were going to stock the lake with trout and run a catch out business. Only Daddy was dying of cancer.......

No one was ever sure if it was the cancer or the heartbreak that got him. After all, he'd had the cancer for years and years. But everybody said it was the beginning of the end when Mama left, and took the baby with her. Mama had her reasons, and I guess I know what some of them were, but that's my secret and hers. But it wasn't long after Mama left the Welfare Department decided it would be better if little Gary were placed in the Masonic orphanage. I can't remember now who it was that took him, but I remember watching the little fellow go. He was so young and so trusting. And I remember Daddy, and the pain that was in his eyes, the hopeless, helpless anguish that he couldn't hide. Those were sad days, and there was no remedy for them; nor for those that followed, when Gene had to go too.

And finally, with snow crunching under my feet, I stood on the hillside at Grandma's for one last look at the frozen fields and bottoms along Flat Creek. That morning it was my turn to go. I knew it would be a long time, a very long time, but I had made up my mind - I'd be back someday, somehow, to stay.

I never saw my father again. He turned 50 years old the next Christmas. And in the spring he died. They buried him on a hilltop at Panther Creek, over in the Smokies where he came from.

Now Daddy never had much and he didn't leave much behind. It must have been the hardest thing he ever did when, too sick to continue and having no one to continue in his place, he sold his interest in the Rose Lure Corporation to his partners. Some said it was only fair. After all, they had furnished the money to get started. Certainly that much was true, for if Daddy had any money, he spent it. He had no interest whatever in acquiring things, and saw no reason to save. Daddy lived in the present. To him it was more important being a free man, tramping the woods and the riverbanks. He was a crack shot with a rifle, and no fisherman in the county could hold a candle to him. Of that there was no dispute. Obie was the king of fishermen.

Yet those same hands that cleaned the fish and skinned the deer and rabbits could sew a fine seam, repair a bicycle, solder a pot, deftly make a fine adjustment on a knitting machine. Daddy had a keen, inventive mind and the touch of a skilled craftsman. These he used to create the things which contributed to his enjoyment of life, like the fishing lures. He was a friendly sort of fellow, a gadabout. He wasn't your model father, but I loved him too much to hold that against him.

They said he was almost a full Cherokee, but I was never able to find out for sure. In the years that followed I did a lot of genealogical research, corresponding with Ruth Bump, a researcher from the McCall-Glazener branch of my family. Ruth helped supply the missing links in my mother's family tree. But each time I tackled the Rose side of the family I ran into a dead end a few generations back. I was a young woman then, busy with a young family, and gradually I let the historical research slide. But I kept the papers and the letters in a box under the bed. Once in a while my husband would bundle us up and take us all to the mountains, and I'd get to see Flat Creek again. We'd visit Grandma, and then go over to Gloucester where Mama lived. I'd almost forgotten the promise I'd made to myself one bitter February morning many years before - someday to come back, to stay.

..........

Then one morning I began to remember. In spite of a good job and good friends, I was not happy. Within was an endless void, a vast, aching emptiness; and sadness so great my throat hurt continuously from holding back the tears.I had come to the city from the small town where I lived before. Before the mind bending, gut wrenching divorce that broke both my heart and my pocketbook, that left me stripped and vulnerable, bereft of anything that might do me any material or emotional good. It had been three years, but the hurt was still as fresh as the day it happened. The wound just wouldn't close.

And added to that, Mama had died. And Grandma had gone to live with Aunt Martha. I was depressed, almost to the point of suicide. The changes had devastated and disoriented me. Nothing made me happy. Nobody needed me, and if I needed somebody, well that was just too bad for me, or so I thought that early spring morning.

I was getting out of the car at the parking lot when something just said 'Close your eyes.' And so I did. A sun drenched scene came sweeping out of the far reaches of my memory, of tender young stalks of corn in long even rows, sleek cattle grazing on the new grass, and Flat Creek glistening in the morning. I heard the sould of a distant waterfall, and for one brief instant there was Grandpa, and we were at the mill grinding corn. The little mill house shook and rumbled like a great cat purring, as water rushed down the mill race, turning that ancient turbine wheel. Grandpa held a cloth sack under a chute, gathering the fine meal as it fell.

Suddenly the soothing sounds of Flat Creek and the mill house grew loud and raucous. My eyes flew open as tall gray buildings closed in around me. The honk and screech of heavy traffic jarred my senses. But now I knew what to do. I reached into my purse and drew out a key. J.T. had given me the key to the padlock on Grandma's back door.

..........

And so the spring and summer passed. I took comfort in weekend trips back home. From the city to Grandma's house at Quebec was a three hour drive. I'd take Highway 11 through the peach fields in South Carolina, past the great stone outcroppings at Table Rock, and on to Highway 178, the narrow winding road leading through Rocky Bottom and over the mountain into Transylvania County and home. If I were traveling in the daytime I'd stop at the stone foundain just under the ridge, right below the North Carolina state line. It was a cool and moss covered watering place built long ago by the CCC workers. I'd been there before, with Grandpa, on his rare trips from Quebec to Pickens and back. By the time we'd get that far up the mountain from Pickens his T-Hound, the old A-model truck, would be needing a drink.

I made a number of acquaintances at the fountain, talking to anyone who'd talk to me. Once in a while I ran across a distant relative from one of the outermost branches of the family tree. It was a healing time. I was putting down new roots, slowly taking hold of a new life. My brother Vance had given me some of Daddy's fishing lures. He'd been trying to make a go of the Rose Lure business, buying it on the installment plan from the two ladies who had been owners with my father, back when the Rose Lure Corporation was a viable business entity. Vance had not been successful, but before he returned his merchandise to Daddy's former partners, he'd given me a few of the lures. I treasured them, and well that I did, for they became a link in a golden chain, connecting me to a self I'd lost somewhere in the pain and confusion of the past.

Late that summer I made plans to spend a long weekend in the mountains beginning the Friday of my birthday. Some inner urging had prompted me to offer my genealogizal collection to the Transylvania County Historic Properties Commission and I figured Friday would be a good day to deliver those papers. I pulled the tattered cardboard box out from under the bed for the last time, and gathered the many charts and letters together. I thought about Ruth Bump, my distant relative friend who had painstakingly done the research and typed the charts and long letters. Her work was one of love, love that the spanned ages, times and places, reaching back to touch the generations that had come before, I was sorry I stopped writing her back, because eventually I lost track of her. Ruth was quite a bit older than me, and I assumed that she'd died.

The evening of my birthday Mrs. Schlunz, president of the Historic Properties Commission, telephoned me at Grandma's to thank me for the McCall-Glazener papers. I was surprised when she mentioned the Glazener family reunion which was to be held on Sunday, as I hadn't heard about it or read about it in the paper. 'Oh, yes,' she said, 'Ruth Bump, the genealogist, will be there. In fact, I understand she's here in Transylvania County right now, visiting for the first time.'

My mouth fell open. Ruth Bump! I was elated. And at the same time a shiver ran down my spine. The coincidence was too uncanny. What ever had possessed me to dig out those papers after all these years and give them to the Historic Properties Commission on this day? One week hence, and I'd have missed Ruth altogether. Maybe I never would have known she was here, or still living for that matter.

Maybe I'd have missed something far more significant than Ruth, even....

Mrs. Schlunz had given me the names of two persons I could call for details about the Glazener reunion. I dialed the number beside an oddly familiar name, one I seemed to remember, from far back in time.

Rheuemma Reid answered at the other end. She furnished the information I needed, and as we continued chatting and exchanging relatives on the telephone she suddenly exclaimed, 'Oh! You don't mean your daddy was Obie Rose! Oh, my goodness, why your daddy was one of my best friends! I worked with him at the hosiery mill. Why he and my husband used to go fishing together.' Then she left the phone and I heard her telling her husband who she was talking to. When she came back, she said, "My husband Leo's tickled to death. We want you to come see us. We both thought so much of Obie. Margie, I'm going to tell you something that you probably don't know--everybody that knew your daddy loved him.'

Tears stung my eyes. I hadn't cried about Daddy since I was 16. Rheuemma couldn't see me though, and she continued her animated spiel, 'Oh, I am so glad to hear from you, for I have something for you, something that was your daddy's that he gave me to keep for him until he should call for it. And he died and he never did ask me for it. It's a fishing lure.'

I dried my eyes on my shirttail and smiled. Like little fish, wonderful memories were nibbling at the strings of my heart. Fishing was usualy serious business with Daddy, but once in a while he would take us kids with him. How I loved it! I knew Daddy was the best fisherman in the county, and I was the king's kid, his barefooted, stringy-haired kid, wearing a feed sack dress, but oh, so proud.

'It's a different one,' she continued. 'It's not the same as the one he made and sold so many of. I've kept it all these years. I didn't know what else to do with it. I never knew what happened to you children. Several times I asked my husband what should we ever do with it, and he would always say, 'Just keep it,' and so I kept it, but it belongs to you. It's yours now.'

My birthday spinner was a simple piece of folded brass. It was held with thread to the top of a sheet of paper and below it was a typed statement, 'This is to certify that I, Hardie Obie Rose, of the above State and County am the inventor and sole owner of the herewith attached and enclosed 'ROSE SPECIAL SPINNER'.' Daddy's signature was at the bottom along with that of the notary public. The date was December 9, 1950.

I counted the years. 1950 to 1983. Thirty-three years. I couldn't believe it. Yet I had to. There was no denying the authenticity of the document I held in my hand, nor the reality of the curious little spinner, precursor of the Rose Lure.

That night I lay awake a long time and wondered. Was it merely a series of remarkable coincidences - the McCall-Glazener papers, Ruth Bump, Rheuemma, and finally this tiny treasure, held in trust for me as it were, until my 41st birthday? Or was there some strange and wonderful secret I might discover some day that would explain it all?

At Thanksgiving that year I visited my new fiends Leo and Rheuemma Reid. We were having a cup of coffee and a good laugh about something when Leo turned and looked straight at me and said, 'You are so much like Obie' And then he smiled, 'You know, he was quite a fisherman.' And Leo began to tell a story, 'Why I remember one time we were fishing up on Frozen Creek and Obie pointed and said to me, 'Leo, throw your line in over there.' I looked where Obie told me to throw in my line and the water was clear as glass; you could see all the way to the bottom. There wasn't no fish in there, so I didn't pay any attention to what he said. And then directly Obie pulled a big trout right out of that very hole where he'd told me to fish. He was the only man I knew could catch fish where there wasn't any. Your daddy was a magician, you know.' And with that Leo's eyes twinkled and an odd silence fell around him.

I never said anything but I couldn't help wondering what he meant; and it didn't seem right to ask just then. It was true that Daddy had a sort of sixth sense when it came to the outdoors. We always said it was due to his Indian blood. But magic? That seemed a little far fetched, unless....Well there was one thing - the spinner, my treasured birthday sinner. Now that would always be an unexplained wonder.

The rest of it I could account for. Take Ruth Bump, for instance. I let nine years go by without writing to her. Then when I finally did try to get in touch with her, my letter was returned marked 'Addressee Unknown'. Right away I assumed she had died, when in fact she had married and moved to a new home with her husband.

And, the fact that I called Rheuemma to find out about the Glazener reunion. That was not so strange. After all, the name had had a familiar ring. I'd heard it before, sometime, to be sure. And, even if I hadn't learned of the Glazener reunion and called Rheuemma when I did, I would have found her sooner or later. For I met her son not too long afterwards at my cousin's house. I would have had my spinner, eventually.

And the Historic Properties Commission would have had my papers sometime. I always thought they were important. That's why I saved them for so many years in the first place, and why, when they became a burden, I offered to share them with other genealogical researchers instead of throwing them away.

So it all would have happened anyhow.

But the timing of that sequence of events held the magic. By doing the things I did when I did them, following some inner logic, a way was opened for my father to send me, across the veil of time and space, a gift for my birthday - a precious treasure, made by his own hands, and held in safekeeping 33 years, for me. I couldn't understand it, and never will explain it. But that day I opened my heart to whatever kind of love would do this for me; and after that, my life was never the same.

.................

During the year following, I made many trips from the city to Quebec. I saw the South Carolina peach fields in full bloom and sniffed the pungent odors of crop dust on balmy summer evenings. Some Monday mornings I'd catch the sun's first long rays as it clambered up over Table Rock while I sped in my little Chevy, back toward the city. Then, one purple twilight in October 1984 I stood on the hillside at Grandma's for a long, long look at the North Flat Creek Valley. Rows of corn stretched over the bottoms, their withered blades rustling slightly on the breeze. The hayfield had grown up in wild asters, and there were no cattle any more. A new house stood where Great-grandpa McCall's had been. Other than that, not much had changed in 27 years, except for one important thing - I never went back to the city.

In November I worked at an alterations shop in Brevard for three days. As fate would have it, during those three days a spry old woman came into the shop to have some sewing done. This old woman, I discovered, was the last living shareholder of the now defunct Rose Lure Corporation. She very graciously helped me establish contact with the owner of the remaining Rose Lure supplies and equipment. My brother Gary sent me the money and I bought the Rose Lure business for a fraction of what the cutting cnd crimping dies alone were worth. In March, just before trout season opened, we were in business.

Once again Daddy's fishing lures put food on the table. That year was extremely hard financially. I was in a new job, selling real estate on commission, which is no easy thing to do in the dead of winter in the Carolina high country. The lure sales kept me out of the food stamp lines that spring as they had done for my brother Vance some years before. People remembered them, and remembered Daddy. And they bought the Rose Lure.

It's been some time now since that rare October evening when in Grandma's cookstove I kindled my homecoming fire with twigs and pine cones. Though it wasn't easy, I managed to stay at Quebec, to plant corn and beans and rows of dahlias in the bottoms that Great-grandpa and his father before him cleared as new ground so long ago. And, as the seasons turned, rich fields and green pastures sprang up within my soul, filling the empty spaces, bringing me joy.

My friend Leo Reid died while I was still in the city. I never did get to ask him if he really believed Daddy was a magician. But I guess I know the answer now. It's like Ralph Jarrett said. There's no such thing as magic in this world. It's just that some things are meant to be; there are fishermen's tales, and then there's destiny. If there's magic it's in the believing, and Daddy believed he was a fisherman.

...............

Author's end note: This story is true. These events actually happened the way they are recorded here. Is there magic in this world? Well maybe, maybe not. But, God has a destiny for individuals. Obie Rose was born to fish. What were you born for? In your heart you know. God tells us that before we were formed in our mother's womb he knew us. That puts us in a subordinate position to him. He longs for relationship with us, and bridged the unfathomable gap between eternal Spirit who he is, and mortal flesh that we are by coming to us as Jesus, son of God and son of man. Jesus bridged heaven and earth for us and by his sacrificial death continues to offer us the opportunity to pass from the kingdom of this world, which has an end, into the everlasting kingdom of God. It is called "salvation" and Jesus is THE ONLY WAY. God is not willing to lose even the least one of us; he pleads with us, but he will not force us to come to him.

I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for. Then you will call to me. You will seek me, and you will find me because you will seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:11-13 Good News Bible

©Marjorie Rose Owen
Little Panthertail Mountain
Lake Toxaway, NC