Many of the region’s fall festivals remain in limbo as we go to press. These people will be diving into the cool season full force in their own ways just the same.
Everett Houser
Blackwater Falls State Park, West Virginia, serves as both a place of employment and as a hobby for area native Paulita Cousin (inset).
Fall may be a bit unpredictable this year, but these keepers of autumn traditions stand tall for the season, even in the face of uncertainties about travel and festivals.
SOUTH CAROLINA: See Fall All in One Place
South Carolina Botanical Garden’s Sue Watts recommends both leaf color and the goldenrod for fall viewing.
Sue Watts can enjoy practically the entire span of plant habitats of South Carolina at Clemson. She just steps into different sections of the South Carolina Botanical Garden.
Here, you can follow from the Blue Ridge to a maritime forest, all within a short walking distance.
“You can also see the fall changes in the state. So it’s pretty neat,” Watts says.
“Fall is a fantastic time to visit the South Carolina Botanical Garden,” says Watts, the garden’s education program director. “The garden is full of blooms and life. Bees, butterflies and birds abound—the Butterfly Garden is at its peak at this time of year.”
The garden is open to the public, but with restrictions. Check here: clemson.edu/public/scbg
The fall is also the best time for South Carolina’s state wildflower: Goldenrod, Solidago, Watts says.
“There are different species of goldenrod throughout the state. It is typically the yellow flower you see lining the roads in the fall. It does not cause allergies.”
Watts, 55, joined the staff 16 years ago.
Along the way, she fell in love with the trees of Clemson University, bursting with fall color.
Courtesy of Clemson University
The restored Hunt Cabin, on the grounds of the garden, was originally built around 1826.
“It’s wonderful,” Watts says. “On campus, we have so many wonderful trees that change colors.”
That includes many native oaks with leaves turning red and orange, she says.
Question: Why do leaves change color?
Well, that’s actually just a breakdown of chemicals as the days grow shorter and the weather turns coolor, Watts says.
The orange, red and yellow colors are “always” present in the leaves, Watts says, but the green you see in summer masks those colors during warm months.
FOOTBALL? IN THE MOUNTAINS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, A HOPE
George Bennett
As we go to press the fate of college football for fall 2020 is still undetermined. But George Bennett will be roaring for Clemson University—even if coronavirus realities make playing football unpredictable this fall.
“I want to be as optimistic as I possibly can,” Bennett says. “Every business in Clemson depends on football season, when as many as 80,000 people come.”
At 87, the gregarious Bennett ranks far beyond your typical Clemson fan. For one, he’s a trendsetter. He’s the originator of the $2 bill tradition and partly why a cannon fires after every touchdown by the Tigers.
Bennett is a 1955 Clemson grad who returned to work at the school in 1967, taking a post in the athletic booster club office; he stayed until 1979 then returned from 1993 to 2004.
Yet Bennett’s Tiger enthusiasm began a half-century before 2004. “I was the head cheerleader in 1954,” he says. “We had all-male cheerleaders.”
Then came those $2 bills bearing the face of Thomas Jefferson. It was Bennett’s idea for Clemson fans to load up with $2 bills marked with Tiger paws and spend them whenever they go to out-of-town football games.
“Everywhere we go in a football season, when we go out of town, or especially in the bowl games, we take $2 bills with us,” Bennett says. “Nobody uses a $2 bill. So it shows the town how many Clemson people showed up at a game.”
Bennett lives at Clemson with Nancy, his wife of 60 years. “And we love everything about Clemson,” he says. “It’s a really pretty place. And it’s just something every weekend. Tailgating at Clemson is a big deal. Fall is just a wonderful time of year.”
WEST VIRGINIA: Crazy in Love with a Park
Paulita Cousin
Come autumn, Paulita Cousin puts on a funny hat and takes off into the backwoods of Blackwater Falls State Park.
“The fall colors are spectacular,” says the ebullient park naturalist.
At 48, Cousin is going on 26 years as a naturalist at the state park in Tucker County, West Virginia, where thousands come to “ooh” and “ahh” at the park’s picture-perfect waterfall, especially when seeking to see fall colors.
“October has the yellows, the oranges, the reds,” Cousin says. “What’s so unique about Blackwater Falls is if you look in the canyon, you get a good contrast. The north-facing slope is green. The south-facing slope is where all the fall color is. So we have the whole spectrum of colors that they can see.”
Other than Blackwater Falls, Cousin recommends hiking in the park to Pendleton Point Overlook.
“Autumn is absolutely my favorite time of the year to hike,” Cousin says. “Tucker County is gorgeous and striking in the fall. The fall asters and goldenrods light up the landscape with occasional other favorites such as ladies tresses, bouncing bet, boneset, white snakeroot and gentian.”
Into the forest of the state park, Cousin finds hardwoods “with the maples and sourwood showing those reddish hues and trees such as black cherry and tulip poplar bringing in the yellow hues of fall.”
In turn, Cousin says, the conifer forest adds the dark green contrast to autumn’s vibrant colors.
“Even if I didn’t work here, I would just always be traveling back to Blackwater Falls. It’s a very special place.”
That’s why she wants to show it to visitors.
“I’m loud and proud,” Cousin says. “I’m very passionate about nature and not afraid to be goofy. You will see me wearing crazy hats. Or I will crawl around and get people interested in nature, especially kids.”
GEORGIA: Squeezeboxing in Helen
Dan Witucki plans to play this fall at Bodensee, a Helen restaurant.
Dan Witucki has a squeezebox he plays on his chest. And when he comes to Helen, Georgia, he hardly gets any rest. This year, though, with cancellation of Oktoberfest, Witucki now plans to play nightly, starting Sept. 11, at Bodensee, a German restaurant near the center of town. Even so, Witucki says, you’ll still find plenty to see and do in Helen.
Tubing on the Chattahoochee River remains viable through September. Specialty shops are open. And fine German cuisine at Bodensee Restaurant.
Witucki says he often heads in the fall to Helen, a town that transformed itself a half century ago into a Bavarian-style village called “Alpine Helen.”
“It was a logging town for years, and the only people who came to town were lumberjacks,” Witucki says. “And a lot of these lumberjacks were of German extraction.”
Most of the time, Witucki lives in Orlando, Florida, where he’s played many seasons of stanzas at Disney World. Yet he’s also a part-time resident of Cleveland, Georgia, where he has a second home on Goat Neck Road in White County—less than 10 miles from Helen.
“And I come up to Helen and I hang out with all those beer-drinking German friends and play music at the Festhalle there,” he says. “It’s like turning the hands of the clock back. The Festhalle is what put Helen on the map.”
With or without a festival, Witucki loves Helen.
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Helen, Georgia, has adapted a Bavarian style for its downtown.
“It reminds me of Germany—the lay of the land, the weather. The weather is absolutely glorious,” he says. “You get up there at night, and it cools off and sometimes you need a jacket.”
In the void for Oktoberfest in 2020, consider this North Georgia scenic drive: Start in Cleveland, the site of Babyland—the home of the Cabbage Patch Kids. Follow Ga. 75 for about seven miles to reach Helen. Here, the traffic slows. Go a couple miles through town. Then follow for a couple more miles to reach Unicoi State Park to see a variety of color-changing trees in autumn.
KENTUCKY: Pumpkins and Mums
Rich and Charline Meadors celebrate autumn in a big way at their Sally Gaps Farms.
Across the mountains of eastern Kentucky, Rich Meadors is known as “the Pumpkin Man.”
Meadors shows a good time for all in the fall with hearty autumn decorations at Corbin, Kentucky, as well as the streets of London, Williamsburg and Barbourville.
Meadors is actually quite the pride of Williamsburg, where his family operates a farm and large pumpkin patch along the Cumberland River.
Meadors uses horses to perform about 85 percent of farm work, “We’ve got five tractors,” he says, “but we still use the horses.”
Those animals are also used for horse-drawn wagon rides when Meadors opens his farm for tours. Please check ahead: 606-524-4722 or sallygapfarms.com
Here, every child goes home with a free pumpkin: what’s all part of the divine plan that Meadors says God told him to follow.
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Cumberland Falls is a highlight of any eastern Kentucky visit.
Once, Meadors had a nearby farm. He built his wife, Charline, a dream house. And they figured they would live there until their golden years.
Then, one day, the 40-year-old Meadors had a vision of God telling him to move elsewhere and plant pumpkins. That, he did. The Meadors couple, with four children, bought an old farmhouse and got to work in the fields.
And the pumpkins?
Well, during that year in 2012, the vines looked awful. And, before long, Meadors got frustrated. He stood out on his farm, in the middle of a drought.
And he just started to question why.
It seemed like everything was going wrong. But, Meadors says, that’s when God intervened.
“He just told me to just walk out in those vines and see what’s out there,” Meadors says. “And they looked awful—the sorriest-looking vines they ever looked in your life. And, God as my witness, I walked about three feet, and my foot hit a pumpkin.”
Then another.
Rich and Charline Meadors' Sally Gaps Farms.
“There were more pumpkins that year than I have ever grown,” Meadors says. “It was the best year we ever had. And I had lost my faith. God don’t need it to rain. He just wants a willing vessel to go plant that stuff in the ground. If you do your part, God will do His.”
Besides pumpkins, the family also grows produce: green beans, cabbage, cucumbers and corn.
They also have many mums.
“We raise about 20 acres of pumpkins and just under 10,000 mums,” Meadors says. “We raise an extreme amount of mums. Everybody loves to have a mum on their front porch; it just makes you smile. And we take a lot of pride in our mums.”
TENNESSEE: Apples, One Way or the Other
Standing on the streets of Erwin, Tennessee, Tracy Darr boasts the biggest booth at the annual Erwin Apple Festival on the first weekend of October.
This year, though, due to the coronavirus, the 50-year-old Darr remains unsure if the Erwin Apple Festival will go on, she says.
She’s hopeful.
Tracy Darr’s family operates Stanley’s Produce in Johnson City, Tennessee, where the fall focus is strong.
“Fall is my favorite time of year,” Darr says. “You’ve got the changing of the leaves, and it’s crisp and cool outside.”
From the Tarheel State, Darr imports apples from a farm at Hendersonville. Then she turns those apples into tasty Tennessee treats.
If the festival does not occur, don’t fret: You can still find Darr in nearby Johnson City, Tennessee, where her family operates Stanley’s Produce, 3308 West Market Street, with a deli and bakery about a half-hour from Erwin.
Talk about being busy with customers in September and October.
“They’re coming in to get pumpkins, straw, bales of hay, apples,” says Darr. “I usually have 30 different varieties of apples right then. And gourds. Everything to decorate. And that, of course, is when people want fried apple pies, apple dumplings and apple cider.”
Darr also offers molasses, honey, pumpkin rolls and apple butter. “It’s harvest time. And we’ll have everything there that we’ll have at the apple festival.”
Why the success?
Well, just take a taste of Darr’s apple pies, made with dried-and-fried apples.
“We make them the old fashioned way with dried apples, which people don’t do anymore,” Darr says. “We hand-bake each and every pie. Everything we do, we do old-timey.”
And if there isn’t a festival—or even if there is—Darr suggests a leaf drive:
From Stanley’s Produce in Johnson City, follow U.S. 11E to downtown Jonesborough. Explore the downtown district. Then take Tn. 107 from Jonesborough to Erwin, seeing colorful leaves near the Nolichucky River.
NORTH CAROLINA: Gathering ‘Round the Campfire
For three months, Earl B. Hunter Jr. traveled all over the country to various campsites with his two young children. Yet, in all that time during 2017, at 49 campsites in 20 states, this African-American man saw few, if any, other Black families camping.
But, that lack of “Black folks” simply inspired Hunter to later launch a marketing company called “Black Folks Camp Too”’ at a conference in Asheville, North Carolina, in 2019.
Earl B. Hunter Jr. says his company, Black Folks Camp Too, combines his marketing expertise in the RV industry with his encouragement for Black Americans to go camping, as he does.
“We promote equality in the outdoors. We help the industry and the Black folks meet at the campground,” says Hunter, 44, a former sales executive in the RV industry.
“And its not just Black folks that love what we’re doing,” Hunter says. “It’s white folks, green folks, yellow folks.”
Hunter believes superstitions might have been keeping America’s Black population from camping. “There’s a lot of generational fear,” he says.
That’s not what Hunter wants.
“Black folk don’t need permission to go camping,” says Hunter, who lives at Pisgah Forest, North Carolina, near Brevard. “We don’t need permission, but it still feels good to be invited.”
And that’s especially true for the fall, he says, and especially around the campfires of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“We believe the campfire is the most important thing to the movement. To enjoy the outdoors, we’re trying to encourage more Black folks to go around the campfire,” Hunter says. “And camping in the fall, you get a chance to see those leaves change. For me, I love camping in the fall.”
VIRGINIA: The Clown of Fall, and of Much More
Mark Cline: “Lexington [Virginia] is just one of those towns that just looks good in the fall.”
It’s getting dark on a Saturday night. And Mark Cline is just getting his “street theatre” show started. It’s billed as a ghost tour on the streets of Lexington, Virginia. But it’s just as much a comedy-and-drama act.
Cline is an eccentric artist who created the famous “Foamhenge” that once stood at nearby Natural Bridge and mimicked the even-more-famous Stonehenge.
Today, at Natural Bridge, Cline offers an attraction called Dinosaur Kingdom II, which features Civil War soldiers assisted in battle by dinosaurs.
Cline grew up at Waynesboro, Virginia, and now lives near Lexington at Rockbridge Baths with his wife, Sherry.
Cline presents a labyrinth of Lexington lore, highlighting what happened at churches, graveyards and more.
“I love doing this tour,” Cline says.
Even amid coronavirus concerns, Cline has continued his tours—with social distancing and guests choosing to wear masks in the open-air outdoors.
Cline’s workout-of-a-walk originates at the city’s visitor center and then makes its way along U.S. 11, the historic north-south highway that links Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley to its southwest highlands.
Decked out in a top hat, Cline cuts an intimidating figure as he struts the streets with an audience tagging along.
The man is never shy. He knocks on the window of a restaurant. Plays dead in a field. Jumps up some stairs. All the while, he’s sharing stories. Some tales are funny. Some might take your breath away.
“My tour is very different than any tour you’ve ever done,” Cline says. “Most ghost tours are about death; my tour is really about life. It ends with a very positive note. It’s more of a show with a moral to it.”
Likewise, Cline’s tours, held Thursdays through Saturdays, reach their zenith of popularity in October, when leaves burst with fall color in the days preceding Halloween.
“Fall colors, that’s a major plus,” Cline says. “Lexington is one of those small Victorian towns that just look good in the fall. That’s actually my favorite time of year.”
For more info on the ghost tour, visit ghosttourslexintgonva.com.
And here’s a bonus leaf drive for the area: From downtown Lexington, follow U.S. 11 south for about a dozen miles to Natural Bridge—the site of Dinosaur Kingdom II, Natural Bridge State Park and the Natural Bridge Hotel. This route features many chances to see fall leaf color.
NORTH CAROLINA: WOOLLY WORMS WON'T COMPETE THIS YEAR, BUT THE DUDE ABIDES
In Banner Elk, North Carolina—site of the Woolly Worm Festival for many falls but not this one—Jason DeWitt calls himself “Woolly Worm Dude.” For years, DeWitt has stood on stage at the Woolly Worm Festival, where as many as 17,000 people have gathered to watch caterpillars crawl in comical heats.
Breezing into Banner Elk from his home at nearby Linville, North Carolina, the semi-retired DeWitt cuts an imposing figure at 6-foot-4, making it easy to be an emcee.
Due to concerns of the coronavirus, this year’s festival has been put on hold. Even so, DeWitt says Banner Elk is well worth a visit anyway.
“When you’re talking about the third weekend of October, the leaves are at their peak. It’s colorful, bright—all the way up Beech Mountain. The leaves change, and it’s just psychedelic.”
He also suggests a great leaf drive:
Start at the old Banner Elk School, 185 Azalea Circle, at the site of the Woolly Worm Festival. The Banner Elk Park, behind the school, features a walking loop. Explore the downtown shops and enjoy breakfast at the Banner Elk Cafe.
From Banner Elk, take Beech Mountain Parkway up to Beech Mountain to witness aerial views of the North Carolina High Country. Going in the opposite direction from Banner Elk, take Hickory Nut Gap Road for about a dozen miles, en route to Newland, to see leaves in full color.
The story above appears in our September/October 2020 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!