[CatHerd]

Asheville has been overrun by the granola crowd, leftover hippies and trust fund babies from California. Some say it started with the Rainbow Family Gathering back in 1987, but I don’t know about that. New Age crystal shops, Wiccan bookstores, etc. were already popping up in Asheville and Black Mountain around that time. Anyway, it’s no surprise they want to copy the ways of their homeland back west.

[Wallace T.]

Ironically, much of western North Carolina was pro-Union during the Civil War, as was the case in Eastern Tennessee. Slavery never took much of a hold here, and the mountain people saw no point in fighting for the low country plantation owners. They were mostly self-sufficient and had little need for cheaper English and French imports vs. the more costly Yankee manufactured products. However, what the Confederacy couldn't suppress, nor New Deal/Great Society bribery, the influx of rich liberals has: the independence of the mountain people.