European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 09, 1980, Darmstadt, Hesse Hotel now obliterates View of the mountains from Asheville boarding House right where Thomas Wolfe lived. Pain. It s not Only the sheiks in the Mideast but the sheiks in Houston. I Don t expect favors from saudi Ara Bia but i also Don t expect Exxon to Rob me. And if Detroit had been responsive to our needs i would now be driving a Small american car instead of a Dat Sun. The leaders in the Aulo Industry could not Sec what every plumber and bus Driver and postman in Ash Villa saw a Long time ago that we need cars with More Gas mileage. So Why should i buy american a town of 57,000, richly endowed by nature and partially bleached by nun Asheville rests somewhat restlessly or a High plateau at the Confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa Rivers. Its chief industries arc tourism textiles lumber paper and furniture. Most of the surrounding farms which produce tobacco apples tomatoes and other vegetables Are Small and increasingly More Farmers have to Moon Light in factories to survive inflation. The mountains Are still there although one Ridge a Happy necking ground in Thomas Wolfe s youth known As Beau Alcher now bears a shocking Gash for an expressway. There has been some pollution of air and Stream but much less than elsewhere. The Summers Are still Cool mostly in the 70s, making this stretch of North Carolina an attractive part of the Sun Belt enticing Rich floridians to build summer Homes in the mountains while dismayed natives watch the Price of land climb even higher. To the West the great Smoky Mountain National Park is still irresistible so much so that tourists have made it the first National Park to require traffic lights. Beauty Here like Beauty everywhere these Days brings mixed blessings. So does change. Merchants followed Home buyers in the classic Rush to the suburbs leaving much of Down town Asheville empty or crumbling and the City Desper ate for tax Revenue. An argument rages Over whether to spend $35 million to build a big downtown shopping mall in the Hope of luring shoppers Back. Crimes of violence Are Down somewhat but thievery is up. Asheville took longer than much of the nation to lock its doors but they Are locked now. As the Price of Silver Rose so Many housewives were Locking up their family Silver in Banks the Banks ran out of Large Safe Deposit boxes. In the old Days said Nancy Brower Asheville times columnist we had to Bury our Silver against you Yankees. Now we have our own Homegrown in the seep of change one Man s horror becomes role to s nostalgia. Trying to go Home again. Thomas Wolfe lamented thai they were levelling the old wooden Battery Park hotel for a 16-Story steel and Brick building stamped out of the same Mold As if by some Gigantic biscuit Cutter of hotels that had produced a thousand others like it All Over the fifty years later by which time the new Battery Park hotel had become a Touchstone of his youth another writer came Home to lament that the hotel was being abandoned. Its rooms were too Small its convention facilities too meager to interest any of the chains. It is now being redone As an apartment House. Historically North Carolina was the first of the 13 colonies to vote for Independence the next to the last to ratify the Constitution and in the civil War one of four Border states which wavered Over secession but finally joined the confederacy. Most of the state s Large plantations were cast of Asheville which accounts for the fact that the Western part of the stale has fewer Blacks and More republicans. In parly registration democrats still outnumber re publicans 3-to-l, a ratio which is More important in state politics than National. Western North Carolina largely conservative went for Eisenhower and Nixon. Carter carried the area with ease in 1976, mostly because he seemed like a Nice Southern boy but this year is expected to have a closer Battle if the opposition i Ronald Reagan. Neither Man is Selling this electorate afire. People Don t Sec much difference Between them. People question Carter s competence and Reagan s age and impel ill Bate to flip a Coin said Wade Wilson of Dillsboro whose own meteoric career in politics May say More about the mood of voters these than either Carter or Reagan. Wilson returned Home one night from a rotary meet " it s not Only sheiks in the Mideast but sheiks in Houston. I Don t expect favors from saudi Arabia but i also Don t expect Exxon to Rob me " ing when his wife said guess what what you be just been elected no Way. I was t you won on a Wilson swept greater Dillsboro population 194, be cause the incumbent had the temerity to talk Aboul Rais ing taxes. He serves now Wilh an Hal is explained by the fact that the Job pays nothing and the official duties include being roasted out of bed at night to unplug a sewer or fix a water line. The reluctant mayor works for an Oil company and travels every week through seven counties of Western North Carolina where he finds people bugged by inflation apprehensive Aboul the Economy and reluctant in business and their private lives to spend Money on any thing More than they absolutely need. Nothing nobody is turning people on these Days he reports. Everything is turning them in town and country inflation saps people s lives and plans like a pernicious anaemia and undermines the old american ethic that Security awaits those who Hork hard and sate i Cir Money. Mobile Homes now motile the Lovely hillsides shelter for the Many who can l afford the Price of a conventional House. In Biltmore Park the Rich suburb of Asheville even doctors and lawyers have begun to buy second hand clothes in the next to new shop run by the Junior league. High up in the mountains past the yellow ribbons Hung from mail boxes and Telephone poles for the Ameri cans held captive in Iran in a place called Canada town ship near where the Hardtop runs out Jesse Brown snaps the calluses Over his plaid shirt and holds Forth on he nation s Economy next to the pol Bill cd stove in his Small general store. People been cussing everybody from the president to the sheriff for High prices. I quit pumping Gas and Sellin Coffee cuz 1 did i want them cussing on in town and country people grumble about govern ment about the High Cost of bureaucracy and stifling regulation Aboul we lure recipient who drive up a supermarkets in big cars and pay Wilh food Stamps. City councilman and county commissioners arc should Down for even mentioning the possibility of a tax hike. In his rage and frustration one taxpayer at a Burke county meeting whipped out a scissors and Cut off the lie of a county commissioner. In 1980, in the United Stales of America said a recent editorial in the Asheville Citi in about the Rise in income tax cheating the social contract Between the governed and the governors is in Siw 9. 1980 the stars and stripes Page 15
