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The Keepers John F. Blair, Publisher Wayne Henderson, renowned luthier and guitar picker, was at the White House accepting a National Heritage Award when he encountered Bea Hensley, equally noted blacksmith. They quickly discovered they had much in common. The irony was that they had lived their lives barely seventy miles apart yet had to travel to the nation's capital to meet. The mountainous border area shared by Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee is rich in old-time masters like Henderson and Hensley, artisans who follow techniques passed down over hundreds of years. The Keepers introduces a cross-section of such people. Primitive artist Arlee Mains makes cornhusk dolls, dreamcatchers, and oil paintings that sell faster than she can produce them. The Spencers perform traditional music and show their dancing skills somewhere in the mountains every week. Orville Hicks tells Jack Tales passed down by famous relation Ray Hicks and generations of the Hicks clan. In a time when the arts and crafts of the pioneers are often practiced in imitation, the men and women in these pages—keepers of the old ways—honor the teachings of their forebears. This is a glimpse into their lives.
Excerpt In the mountain woodland where Bill has chosen to stay, he is the envy of visitors. They laugh and say to him that his surroundings are as close to paradise as they expect to come. "I feel the old-timers who were born and raised here feel the same way. I've heard of mountain people who are a little shy to say their land is beautiful, but I'm not one of them. I love it here. Always proud of it. Good country. Good people. The older ones are getting gone now, but . . ." There is an aroma of the woods, rich and slightly sweet, a scent different from any known in the lowlands. Bill is uncertain how long the purity of his surroundings will last; he wonders if his granddaughter will grow up to live here; he hopes she will be able to protect a precious heritage but fears that preservation will be difficult. He is mindful of all that is taking place even on once-remote Stone Mountain. He sees the first stages of development: surveyors marking off lots, bulldozers tearing out woodlands, signs on trees that tell of property being auctioned off to satisfy estates. He still explores the mountains, though not to the extent he did in his youthful days. At times he and his wife will put an old boat into the Watauga River at Guy Ford, a place where pioneers crossed the water with their animals and wagons. From there they float through wild and uninhabited mountains, winding over rocky shoals all the way to Watauga Lake in Tennessee. They could "throw in" at the ford and reach the lake sooner, but they choose instead to follow the river's meandering course, taking in the wilderness, stopping to stretch and walk on some secluded shore. Often on Sunday afternoons, with work arranged tidily in his closed shop, Bill and his wife walk in the mountain woods.
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