If you’ve been stalking me properly, you know that for the last few months I have been dying to get the f out of Tucson, Arizona. I’ve lived here for almost 15 years, and lately the heat and the lack of water, grass, and real trees has been doing bad, bad things to my brain. I need out. I want out. I’m getting out.
Now, Hendersonville, NC. In the Blue Ridge Mtns of western NC, it’s only 22 miles away from Asheville, NC, which I’m very familiar with, having lived there off and on my whole life, and half my family being from there or still living there. Beautiful area.
Hendersonville’s mayor recently proclaimed it “the friendliest city in America”- sounds nice, right? Although I suppose it’s not that hard to be friendly when your population is only ~10,000, according to the 2000 census. It’s also known as “the city of four seasons”, which sounds very nice coming from a city of the seasons of “hot” and “cold”.
So, do you live in or near Hendersonville, or have you ever? Is it a nice place to live- good schools, low crime, etc? Let me know!
From what I hear it’s very big for retirees. Which makes it similar to Asheville. Of course as you probably know in recent years Asheville has become very popular with young “hip” people, not just retired folks.
There is a joke about retired people in the NC mountains - they are called “halfbacks” because they move to Florida from up north and then move “halfway back” up north when they move to NC.
Ah, I did not know that it was getting big for retirees. Damn, that’s something I was hoping to escape from! I loooove Asheville- not only is it so pretty there, but yes, there’s such a variety of people there, from new-age crystal-gazing hippies to college students to backwoods hillbillies. Maybe I’ll just move back to Asheville, but I thought Hendersonville might be nice, might have a more “small town” feel to it, but with the conveniences of “the big city” just a few miles away.
There have always been people moving from Florida to western NC- I remember noting that even as a kid. Funny dream I had the other night- someone told me I had to move to Florida and I was crying and devastated and was trying to explain to them the “Florida” tag on Fark.com.
There are other small towns in that area you can check out if you don’t want to move to Asheville proper.
In 1984 a friend moved to Asheville and was looking for an apartment, a few places he called said they only rented to retired people. (he was 24) I think it’s still legal to have that kind of rule in place. I know it’s no longer legal for apartments to ban children but I think condos can be adult only.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with Asheville proper- I just thought that after years of living in the inner city here, I might like the country life for a bit. My dad’s family is from Weaverville, which is a nice little town just outside Asheville, and I even still have a family home there that could be available to me. But I just hate saying the name “Weaverville”- sounds like Bumpkin City, no?
Once when I lived in Asheville, I told my mom I was moving to the Montford area of town. My mom “warned” me that there were a lot of lesbians there- I was expecting to see wild packs of them roaming the streets, on the hunt for fresh meat. It’s not like that at all!
My parents have lived in Brevard for ten years or so, and my niece went to school at Warren Wilson College in Asheville. She is now living in Swannanoa with some other Warren Wilson hippies. My sister (niece’s mother) just moved to Brevard over the Labor Day weekend. They all love it there.
My parents moved there from coastal North Carolina, having tired of the heat and humidity in that area. They particularly like the Music Center there and the annual Festival, which attracts world class musicians. The only complaints I remember them having were about the influence of religion in the area, but that’s a Bible Belt thing.
