People up North, and in the lowlands of the South as well, have a notion that there is little or nothing going on in these mountains except feuds and moonshining. They think that a stranger traveling here alone is in danger of being potted by a bullet from almost any laurel thicket that he passes, on mere suspicion that he may be a revenue officer or a spy.
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Call it the American Custard Apple or the West Virginia Banana, but it’s neither apple nor banana. It’s the Paw-paw (Asimina trilob), the largest native fruit of North America, and it grows throughout Appalachia. There are about seven other members of the genus Asimina, all growing in the southeastern U.S. Mature pawpaw trees produce fruits 2" wide by 10" long, which turn from green, to yellow, and then black as they ripen in the fall.
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You could have checked to see if the bees had been flying low, observed the size of the acorns on the trees, or paid close attention to how foggy recent mornings had been in order to gauge what kind of a winter it'll be.
Easiest of all, you could have gotten yourself over to Banner Elk, NC last weekend to the 30th Woolly Worm Festival, where more than 1,400 of the little critters competed for the honor of proclaiming the official winter weather forecast.
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A "haint" is an unsettled or angry dead spirit; the term, like "hag," is of Germanic-British origins. A haint can range from a ghost to an undefinable something that scares the bejeevers out of you. In the same way a haint tale covers everything from a ghost story to a yarn about an odd event.
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"Thanksgiving and Christmas were our favorite days. The turkey and ham dinners were the best foods I ever knew. The turkey would be purchased live and dressed out the day before. I will always remember the wonderful smell of the dressing cooking. I don't think anyone makes this dressing, also called stuffing, anymore."
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