North Carolina People; Bland/Ann Simpson, Authors, "Into the Sound Country"

That evening ladies and gentleman Blanton and Simpson are really a unique couple in North Carolina. He is a teacher a writer professor at the university musician who's played in all the important places on the East Coast. She's a conservationist and environmentalist photographer and when you put two creative people together like that something very wonderful happens and this is what happened into the sound country. We're going to meet and talk with and about this book just a few second North Carolina people is brought to you by Wilco via banking investments in financial services for individuals businesses and corporations. What Kovio. We are here let's get started. Land I can tell I'm reading this wonderful book that this book has been in your genes for all your life almost it's such a wonderful story so wonderfully told and your pictures

compliment the narration. And but you're you're from the sound country too so I know it's a double authorship here but I wanted to take you to put this together. About five years. A good deal longer than I thought it was going to end so there were days when I thought it would it would never end. And I would be ribbed fairly mercilessly about the not ending nature of the sound country target 15000 square miles into two or three hundred. And it's especially hard when you when you start a project like this and then have a child after a year it slows things down. That's what makes this book wonderful all the children walk in and out of it that they do. But you know as I said for half a century I've driven through this part of the country and words like alligator and Scuppernong and go Madam escape they're all familiar. Bring them easily but I have never turned off 64 enough to really get acquainted and what

you've done here is to tell a wonderful story about growing up in that wonderful land. Well thank you. It is some of the most beautiful real estate in eastern America I think. And. We certainly like to encourage people to turn off and turn off more often and take the slow road which is going to be the old 64 is going to be the former main road with some of the new roads if you want to down there it will be the back road here fairly shortly. So just observing that they and they've bypassed Jamesville pretty soon we get a four lane road from Williamston to Plymouth. You know it's a high speed straight to the outer banks but we're going to miss something when we do that. But I want to talk to you about some pieces of this book and sections of it jumped out at me the whole the whole business of the Scuppernong river the basin there the ships that used to come in. A fascinating story about sinking one to keep it from being captured.

How do you run up on all this history. Will we have a great goldmine over in Chapel Hill called the North Carolina collection. And they know us over there is a pair of inveterate miners were in there picking away at their card catalog. We have a lot of resources in terms of written materials that have been saved. And I think with as much family as I've had my mother's family from County for about three hundred years even now. You tend to hear a story or two. But you obviously trace all those connections but you're so meticulous about this you give me the Latin name of every plant. Most plants when you want to do this with birds and all kinds of creatures that are large and small that are through these great regions of. That took a lot of work or house trying to you know worked in North Carolina. Good. And yet it has some wonderful pictures.

You must've taken up several thousand before you have stood out in Jews but weren't you. George we took a great many and that was one of the hardest parts of the book if I may say so. We had photographs spread all over our house for months on end trying to decide which ones really really portrayed the east. For us the small things that we see when we go on aren't our trips out to the coast and through the coastal plain. There are small things like Scuppernong spray on poles and that sort of thing but they're not flashy sunsets and big expansive views for the most part but they're they're the things that really mean a lot to us. The birds building trees in the midst of the Cedars. You wrote about the room. You got them all photographed in here. We do we do we have a lot of things. Things like that because of the river the Albemarle Sound that's on the cover of the book. Fishing

boats there are pictures of fishing boats that I took back in the 70s and some of those boats are not in existence anymore so it's a special thing to be able to mix some of our own history and the things that we've found in the Carolina collection with the pictures of more modern day Coastal Carolina land that the Roanoke River how really significant was it that all of it meant. Say it in the history of our state the first hundred years. Was it that powerful a force. I believe it was one of the most significant pieces of water around and we were floating tobacco and produce out of the valley. Once we got around the rapids there and floated on down and ate and was was very afraid even collectively as a tent was afraid of its position in commerce because it's so it's right up there above the mouth of the road to where the mouth that you want when the

business was going at was built they said Elizabeth city's going to get all this traffic approaches from our world it's going to go up that way and they're going to bypass even the Rogue River is going to be less important. But and to an extent that was that was true but you still see I we saw a lot of barges with full logs full of timber sitting on their own a river just two days ago. So it's still a very important. He said water and it's from a conservation standpoint with the efforts have been made just in the last few years in the run up bottom lands been a lot of land preserved with the absence of Nature Conservancy you know George Pacific gave a huge conservation easement So it's a very important hardwood bottom land swap not just from the standpoint of production timber and what can be shipped out by the river but from Habitat. It's a very important part of the Eastern what's left of the Eastern wilderness.

And you come from this region of course which you've been associated with the Nature Conservancy and with Ducks Unlimited and with everybody else who's in an environment that if you come by that nest Naturally I did as a matter of fact growing up in in the small town sea level in Carteret County really instilled in me an appreciation of the land and the the waters and all the wildlife that goes along with it. And when I got to you and see I wanted to be a marine biologist until I ran head on into chemistry and decided that it's probably not for me. And went into journalism and learned photography. This is followed me all these years even though I went into journalism I applied it in the environmental field for the last several decades and have learned quite a bit over time about the plants and the animals all over the state. Well in the scenes you describe it here where you put the boat on top of the V Debbie in the Gulf and

you wind up on some river and you go paddling up and down it came quite naturally to you. Working with bland that it did it did and as a matter of fact I met bland originally through the environmental work he was a I was staff person and he was a volunteer helping with some writing projects and I have known for a long time that he's had a deep interest in and the land and the waters of the state. It makes me appreciate him even more. Landi Kosen this is something most people don't know much about I'm sure. You chose to put a whole chapter in this book on the significance of this phenomenon. What is it. What's what about it today. Well I think in the vernacular because it would be best called a rippin thicket and it's just that the scientists call it an evergreen shrub bog community there are a lot of variants on that but it's a very it's a jungle and very thick hard to walk through.

The areas that are essentially trapped like Carolina bays were because information places are heads of streams. Areas between you know old Dunes from you know the ancient ancient ages and places where water has trapped and informed the Indians call it a cosigner. Of course it is the way John Lawson spelled it swamp on a hill not a not a bottom land swap where the river is spreading out into the into the forested silt areas you know at flood times but a trapped wet area that may endure quite long times of dryness. So it's what periods are irregular and these scrubby very thick very dense scrubby undergrowth. Then come up there in a lot of men have been cleared obviously most of men been cleared that are in

North Carolina but over that that formation which is identifiable. It most of the proposals and America were in North Carolina and now most of those are gone but we're trying to find out now because in the lakes that area between Phelps lake and Pungo Lake in Lake Madam escape. Now that the that's become a national wildlife refuge we're trying to find out if the proposals that were torn up to make initially Malcolm claims super farm if they can be turned back by making them wet rather than right on the water off. Then we turn back into the coast or at least some form of that former jungle it's a very important habitat and that's going to ask you did have it had the migratory birds fly north and south. I expect so and I think you know certainly bear and deer and critters like that don't mind get scuffed off as much as is weak minded.

And I never did know. Maybe I've just forgotten what you write in here about the effort to point out that I'm a skeet it seemed to me is overwhelming to somebody they tried was going to whip you every time but George Washington thinks that. They really reduce it to bottom land at one time in history and some portions of it. Yes it was formed for a generation. But then that nature just took over and the more they on the men gave up that right yourself I put in steam chimneys down there pumping water out of that great workers I just couldn't keep it dry enough long enough to grow huge crops in that like and now the old pumping station that's remaining Manusky to starve been turned into a visitor center and they have plans to make it to a lodge for old school groups and and other visitors and it's a wonderful place to go to watch wildlife watch birds during the fall and winter.

You write almost with lovingly about the great trees in this region and I can't conceive of a cypress four feet in diameter. These loblolly that reach an eighty five hundred feet in the sky they must be very old trees the cypress are certainly all there. That's the cypress down a Black River are supposed to be the oldest or among the oldest trees east of the Rockies. I believe you and I have trees get big get a lot bigger a lot faster than that so these these trees that my dad took me to see down big flat a creek and best pick candy when I was just a boy. They were enormous three and well three foot diameter breast height I think they got trees those. Those things probably grown up since the Civil War because they were old furrows in there that a forester showed me said this is this land was farmed.

Until the Civil War or till after the Civil War. So those trees worked nearly as old as those old Cypress. Well have we have we been successful in conserving some of the development of the region always Bre always gets ahead of conservation sometimes what does happen in some places like the Black River down in the southeastern part of the state. There is a large conservation effort there and we took a wonderful trip with our young son and daughter during the research for this book on the Black River and early very early spring. Saw some of these things large trees the Black River. As a matter of fact it's gotten to be a popular place for for canoe trips for lots of tourists and eco tourism efforts to get started. So that's one of the best examples that we have in the Pamlico and the Albemarle of course where they the sounds that gave life to the whole region they were there with the energy of America in the beginning.

What about the rivers now today and the degree of pollution and what you say you want to make of this study for this book. When you were playing what you seen in the last 25 years. Yes but I think what you can't see and that's what's more worrisome than what's happening down there in the. The muck and the mire down under the waters. Of course North Carolina State scientists identify the very deadly bacteria of Styria and microorganisms that Flagyl it and that's very upsetting and serious concern but I think now that we know what that is and we know a lot of the other problems with those rivers we know there's too much nitrogen in those rivers. We have I think as good a chance as we ever did and maybe better because there are a lot more people who are aware. Of this problem and a lot more people who are

ready to say OK what do we need to do. You know 20 years ago people said we couldn't have a bottle recycling bill that never happened while we have it. It was said we couldn't have legislation said we had to get rid of phosphates in the war. We couldn't have it but we have it and how can we reduce nitrogen in those nutrient sensitive watersheds by 30 percent. I think we can if we want to and I think people want to come with. We have strong leadership from Mark masonite in the Senate Joe Hackney in the house we have David North who used to run people who told me her foundation is running the clean water management trust fund which is putting out millions of dollars to help clean up the waters not just in the coastal plain but own up Madison. Madison County on down. It's all across the state. I think that the drive to keep the water clean if it's already if it's still clean

and to clean it up where it's where we've lost it or losing it is is very strong as much as I want to keep on this team and there's a whole other interesting sad you too I want to but know that you love the music. Like oh you mad music man in North Carolina you do so many interesting things. Red Clay Roberts and you shows that you've had a Broadway and Lincoln setter and could do it all these. What's next for the robbers and for you while the ramp of the restaurant is right now let me go on leave this fall. They're out doing full moon the clown show the same Cisco in this month in Seattle next month and back to Broadway in November. I'm not sure we're going to expect will restage kudzu it closed in late June it forwards in Washington I expect ninety nine will see us with another staging of that show and there are a couple of things that are

percolating along but I think the ramp will get out of place in concerts and 99 which is great fun show and I hope you see that with him in New York it is one night I was there so you were there when the ambassador theatre that gets a dose of Southern music it was wonderful and you have careers moved you were not at the Institute of Government. Why is it working all of us that have after a couple decades in the environmental field institutes wonderful director Mike Smith persuaded me that there was work to be done over there. The institute is a part of you and c and works mainly with has worked mainly with public officials throughout the state. You know you name it we probably have it officials type of thing. But the institute is now branching out into some more. It has a greater need for fundraising now branching out into civic education for children and kindergarten through 12th grade and that's something that

Bland and I have a particular interest in mainly because if we're not educating our future citizens then we want to have these advocates around later on for the streams and in rivers in North Carolina so it's an exciting effort for me to be involved in and I'm glad that the institute is has listened to its public officials when they said we need to be paying attention to the future generations of citizens coming along and make sure that they see a strong relevance between government and their own lives. Well if you were to as recorded in this book go any indication the response of those you go have an edge to. All right professor of creative writing you know out there this term but teach in the spring. Yes sir back at it again. Yes sir. Trying turn out some more. Right they turned themselves out really. We we referee the workshop sessions and

encourage where we came from but it's pretty exciting. Small but exciting program to be part of. You write so so wonderfully in this book. Thank you. And obviously it's something that is a part of you but you find writing something that comes most writers to me it's very hard work but getting the right word the right shading of a phrase or sentence. You find it you find creativeness that way. You enjoy writing that way. I enjoy it I don't I don't find it hard I find it a little slow. And like I said when I was in some of these codes and swaps in text anyway I felt like I'm not going to get out of these piney woods I feel like there's travelers in the 19th century was of these. These words are interminable. I'm just I'm not real fast. I would probably have trouble with a daily bread line. I want respect for journalists to go get the story and convert it to something that is so true and convincing.

For the next More expect will you ever get lost at the Woods. Is not. He's a great navigator. No he is not in these adventures. I got lost with my dad one time when I was a little bit turned around in the little finger of the Dismal Swamp. I didn't know we were lost. I knew that my feet were getting wet. Well now you write in some detail in here about tar pitch interpret what this industry meant and it's virtually disappeared. But at one time it was probably the biggest commercial in the whole sound country was it not. It wasn't and we were shipping out tens of thousands of barrels of tar and pitch rosin and then we you know once we got turpentine we got distilleries we we were able to convert the resource into even more fish were able to do the distillation right here. But it was huge. But

we. Went through that great forest along with pine forest. There's still some remnants of it but it was a coastal plain and you know from own up above against Chesapeake and on down into the Deep South it was a huge forest and beat up the wells. So it was one of the great or awful social crimes that he knew of was the ruination of that forest that it wasn't put back and you know replant it. We just we went through it. He was he was a fierce advocate in his day. But what about the alligator reserve Now you write about so many bears being read in this part of the world I haven't seen what I've come across the road but I know they're in there but they're really that that particular preserve more is really oriented toward animals. The Red Fox the deer the bear they all in there and that some quantity the bear.

The bearer of our big in the Dismal Swamp and I've seen him in there I haven't seen him down the alligator preserve I just know that they're from the from the reports and the Okefenokee swamp on down to GA but those are two of the big black bear coastal preserves in eastern America or here in our state. When you were trekking through the wilderness like this you have to walk up on one of these critters. Deer Utes totally surprised by animals. I have never run across a bear at least in the coast in the mountains now and then but never at the coast and you almost had an encounter with one. But we do see deer and other forms of wildlife. The scariest thing is to be walking down a road where the earth has grown up a canal you know the road is built with the fill there and and a flush of wood duck because that duck or ducks will come booming out of that little canal and ten feet from you and you its just its loudest earnings job.

You actually saw the Maaco light. You're right. I saw as I told you I saw you light. That kind of stench and it was danced around down the tracks for a better part of half a minute and then went away and everybody about 40 people there where I saw it what it was I don't know. Ghost stories of North Carolina but you were there. You know it was it looked like a little flickering light from a kerosene lantern and it didn't there was no match flare. It was just all of a sudden the light was there. Maybe somebody was playing the Make a light had that lantern behind his or her back and just you know step aside brought the light up and it was pretty thrilling. There are a lot of kids there and they were all her people and it moved it moved side to side around a bit and it described a great arc and seemed to be to disappear off into the swamp. That was the legend that job you'll ALWAYS job loss to see and he's still out there looking forward to the ladder looking for the connecting Hey you scared you.

I did intrigue me. I mean if if I'd been there about myself out of it together but without having this great audience there I felt protected. I will stand near the back and you weren't alone that particular day I was in the law on that one but I've heard about it and they can make a light song and let you win. I can tell you two would trade this experience for you they get the world putting this book together and all that went and now we want to know what we want more of it. Do it again. There's another one in the works Yes I'm thinking about another. We're going to cover song remote territories islands out in the sounds of river Smokey Island for example. Probably monkey. There's some about monkey on their own but we'll go from one end of the year from Virginia South Carolina and try and find some fairly obscure places probably mostly that you can only get to about but here it is ladies and gentleman into the country by and by inception.

You're a collector of North Carolinian it's a must for your library. Just want to have a great review about a great region of your bookstore. Get yourself a copy. I felt really excited. Thank you for joining your friends. Thank you so that you are and I am. North Carolina people has brought to you by I won't go via banking investments and financial services for individuals businesses and corporations walkover. We're here let's get started.