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Made in the USA, Yeeha!: A Discussion with Kim Provost of Brevard, NC

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By Casey Brown and Margaret Bryant, 2013

Not many children will lie and claim they are Native Americans. When Kim Provost, owner and founder of Hunters and Gatherers in Brevard, NC, was about six years old, her grandmother gave her a piece of Native American jewelry with the signature turquoise stone. That sparked her fascination with Native American culture, especially its artifacts like jewelry and artwork. Now, her appreciation, love, and fascination with the culture and art have translated in her professional life and in her store.

When we arrived in Brevard, we promised each other we would stop at any store that looked interesting. We wanted the authentic small town experience on our last day in the mountains. But at first, we hadn’t had that great of luck. As we wandered down the road, we came across a mariachi guitar player named Bobby who was sitting outside of a sandwich shop. While talking to us, he mentioned he would be performing outside of his friend’s store to support her political campaign. He was referring to Hunters and Gatherers, the little hole in the wall shop, nestled amongst iconic small town stores like Brevard’s Celestial Mountain Music and the White Squirrel Shoppe. The sign proudly declared that it was a “Made in the USA” established. Intrigued, we decided to check it out.

When we entered, it felt as if we had just crossed over the threshold into crafty wonderland. Shelves and tables overflowed with trinkets, pottery, and tiki candles made from Heineken bottles while handmade leather goods, like belts and shoulder bags, hung thoughtfully from hooks and racks lining the walls of various sections of the store. We wandered through narrow hallways, a result of all of the items packed closely together, careful not to knock anything out of place. The rich leathers and vibrant turquoise jewelry accents the rest of the items nicely.

When Kim first opened the store eight years ago, she had to settle on only a portion of her inventory fitting the image of the store, while the rest was what she considered as cutesy. She explained that “cute” items got her off the ground, though it wasn’t ideal. She clarified that she is not a purist. We would define her more as homegrown. In the shop’s first few years, she had to hunt down artists and crafters, which was tiresome in addition to running and working at the store. Now, they come to her.

Currently, there are close to forty local artists and crafters and over one hundred additional artists across the country. Most made in the USA stores are currently online and although Hunters and Gatherers has a website, Kim is proud of the fact that they operate in house. After speaking with her for little over an hour, and being shown around the store, it is clear that the store is a beautiful reflection of its creator.

For Kim, the store is not only an extension of her personality, but it has also been a place where those close to her could gain artistic recognition. One of those people is her mother. A longtime painter, she had hundreds of different sized paintings of wolves, horses, flowers and other natural settings, all lying around the house. With Hunters and Gatherers, Kim has offered her mother a place to hang her work and since then, her mother has had many of her pieces sold.

“I don’t think [pieces] are worth buying when they’re on their own,” Kim said, referring to the more enlightened art purchasing experience a person can have when they can see a full collection of an artist’s work. This is why Kim sets up separate nooks for each artist in various parts of her store. Her mother’s section takes up half the length of the store’s back wall.

Kim Provost grew up in Detroit, MI and attended Michigan State University. Throughout her life, she planned on pursuing a variety of careers. Originally, she was going to be an attorney, but then Kim changed her mind. She wanted to be a forest park ranger. So, she switched her major to Natural Resources and Outdoor Education and after graduation, she searched for jobs in Alaska and fell in love with the outdoors, eventually becoming an outdoor educator.

However, in 1988, she asked her boss if she could attend an outdoor education conference in North Carolina. Her boss was hesitant, knowing how easy it is to fall in love with North Carolina landscape and the quaint Southern lifestyle. Kim assured him that this would never happen. She went to the conference and when she returned, she put her letter of resignation on her boss’ desk. She was moving to North Carolina.

After talking to Kim for close to an hour, she gave a personalized tour of Hunters and Gatherers. Each section of the store had a story worth telling. Kim showed us the leather cowboy boots, belts and other accessories that she had just shown at a rodeo. They attend every year. Towards the end of our tour, a mild-mannered friend of Kim’s came into the store. As it turns out, she is one of the featured artisans at Hunters and Gatherers. Her craft is making jams and she spoke very highly and proudly of Kim and her work. It was clear to us what a special impact Kim’s dream has had on the community of Brevard.

Now, after nearly 25 years working and living in Brevard, Kim is running for Brevard City Council. She wears her candidate pin broadly. For her, running for office was the obvious next step to give back to the small town that has given her so much.

“It’s my time to step up and serve my community,” Kim said. “I’ve been able to have my dreams come true, and I want to keep Brevard a cool place.”

Mayor of Murphy Profile: Bill Hughes

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By Hillary Dooley and Nicole Esplin, 2013

Bill HughesThere’s something about Bill Hughes. Something that makes you want to tell his story.

Traveling gets a person used to meeting new personalities every day, as we search for a new story to entice readers to read our bylines.  But with Bill, there was something more about him.  Something that you can’t plan to find readily. Bill Hughes is a modern-day living legend; the kind of man that will never die in Murphy. He’s the kind of man you can imagine enshrined as a statue, casting his brass gaze over Main Street.  Bill’s a man whose impact will be around long after he passes from his beloved town- his self-proclaimed goal. “The town of Murphy had been good to me,” Mayor Bill Hughes said. “It has allowed me to be moderately prosperous.  I was thinking of ways that I might pay it back.”

Hughes was born in Murphy, N.C. in 1938, and grew up with his mother and grandfather, who worked on the L&N Railroad.  Hughes’ first fond memories of Murphy lead back to the L&N railroad depot. One of his most memorable experiences happened when he was 6 years old. Inspired by the new story of the American Hobo, he climbed onto an L&N Railroad boxcar and headed for Atlanta. “I was just a wanderlust boy,” Hughes said.  “I rushed and jumped onto the boxcar.  When the train stopped and I got out, I thought we were in Atlanta.” What Billy Hughes thought was Atlanta turned out to be Culberson- the next stop over from Murphy. Billy was soon spotted by a man who worked with his grandfather, and was promptly taken home. “My grandfather was called and I still remember him coming in his 1937 Chevy to the depot,” Hughes said.  “That was the longest ride home of my life.”

The L&N depot in Murphy closed down in 1974, and Hughes has been working to get the railroad reinstated.  His passion for the industry is apparent in his cluttered office, filled with historic railroad mechanisms. “We’ve got switch locks, we’ve got telegraph tees, we’ve got this adding machine, and my grandfather had this first computer right here, which he bought used in 1911.” Hughes pulled a few more trinkets out from the bookshelf behind his leather desk chair and carefully brought them over for our benefit. As Hughes explained crossties, switch locks, ½ fare punches and date nails, I couldn’t help but let my eyes drift from the items to Hughes’ face.  None of this railroad memorabilia was new to Hughes, but his face was filled with nostalgia and awe. We imagined that Hughes had been making the same awe-struck, excited expression since he was introduced to these objects as a boy down at the depot.

Bill continued on the long story of his life in Murphy, punctuated with milestones and his favorite memories.  Bill’s face lit up as he recalled the first time he met his wife of 53 years. “When I married Barbara, she was majorette, main cheerleader, voted most attractive in the senior class, homecoming queen and the prettiest girl in town,” Bill said.  Bill laughed and continued, “I don’t know yet how I swiped her; I guess it was my irresistible charm and intelligence.” Everyone listening laughed with Bill and smiled as Barbara, sitting next to Bill, blushed. “Bill is three years older than I am, so I didn’t know him at first,” Barbara said.  “We met outside the drug store.”

As Bill continued describing his high school years in a typical small town during the 1950’s, we felt the real-world slip away and imagined walking down the street to the old Henn theatre, where Bill worked as a teenager. “The days of the ’55 and ‘56 Chevys, the ’57 Plymoths and Pontiacs. In the afternoon, all the kids went to Parkers drug store.  You’d hang around at the drug store, play records and we would drink Cokes and so on like that.  Occasionally, you’d do a little dancing and some sort,” Hughes said. “That’s it.  You cruise up and down the street.  If you get a date you know you cruise; we had drive-ins where you drive up, they put the creole on, all that.  A kind of life that’s gone now, but it was a lot of fun while it was happening.” We closed our eyes and imagined a life with no cell phones, no last minute plans to meet after school, and an assured trust on a Friday that everyone would be at the drugstore to celebrate the end of the week.

“At night, we’d pull our cars in, we’d hang out there, we’d turn one of the car radios on to WLAC Nashville, and we’d listen to John Richburg‘s Rock ‘N Roll Show all night long,” Hughes said. “He’d play Little Richard, Fatts Domino, the Cadillacs.  We’d sit there and listen to the radio and there was a never-ending debate about which car was the best.  I’ve seen kids almost come to blows about which car was the best, but that was the ‘50s.  And it was a great time to be a kid.  Some of the fondest memories go back there.” After Bill graduated in 1956, the majority of his class left Murphy while he stayed behind to attend college in order to become a teacher.  Bill became a teacher when he was 20 years old, and taught 6th and 7th graders at the White Church Elementary School seven miles down the road from Murphy. When the position of principal was vacated, Bill submitted himself for consideration.

“When I applied to the job I got it and I was 25 years old,” Hughes said.  “I was the youngest principal in the state for the size of the school.  I loved the job, we got right into it, I made a lot of friends. The people in the community, knew me, and they trusted me.” Bill’s accomplishments in his 33 years as principal reach beyond those of his predecessors; his school system was the first in the county’s history to receive state accreditation, and he organized the first Pre-K and Kindergarten classes in the county. Hughes also developed a mold for the beginning three years of primary school- teachers attend to children more individually for these years by allowing the children to dictate the pace of their education. This program still exists at the school.

Bill attributes much of his success as principal to the teachers he worked with. “When I walked in to school the first day, the staff came in. I spotted 6 teachers who had taught me in the grades,” Hughes said. “They were working for me, but I realized that was not going to work; I was still going to be working for them, because I wasn’t Mr. Hughes, I was still Billy. They just simply took me under their wing and I attribute my success there because they took care of me the first 5 years I was principal, just like I was one of their students.” Bill’s career as a principal continued for 33 years until he retired in 1997. After working as police commissioner on Murphy’s town council for 10 years, Bill decided it was time to completely repay his town. It was no surprise when Bill was elected mayor; nor has it been during each of his four reelections. “I’m full-time mayor,” Bill said.  “I’m here all the time.  I get here at 8 o’clock, I leave at 5.  I’ve always had what I call an open door policy.  That door you see there stays open all the time.  You don’t need an appointment to see me, you just walk in.”

Bill oversees all of the town’s departments, including the library, the fire and police forces, and the water works.  He credits Murphy’s continued success to the collaboration the town council members and volunteers who came together to make Murphy a town that is like no other and a town that provides for its citizens. Bill’s smile became bigger as he began to describe the talent of the citizens in Murphy. “Whether it be jewelry making, wood working, anything along that line; weaving, cloth, the whole bit- you name it.  Painting of all kinds, watercolor, it gave all of these folks an opportunity to come out and to present their wears on this occasion.  And we found there was a tremendous amount of talent and a big art colony here that just had not had an opportunity to be exposed, and it is now, and it’s really, really fantastic, some of the talents we have here.” Every Friday night these talents are on display at the Art Walk, an event that has replaced drive-Ins and “cruising” for Bill and Barbara.  On Saturday morning, instead of sleeping in after a night on the town, Bill and Barbara walk down to the Farmers Market in downtown Murphy.

The town is currently working on developing a 10-mile mountain bicycle trail and improving its Riverwalk trail, which Bill feels strengthens the feeling of serenity and awe in Murphy. He says, “You know, water has a tranquil effect on people, and as you walk along, especially in the fall, and you can see the reflection of colors into the water, it’s almost spiritual.” He pointed to his desk and as he picked up stack after stack of paper it became clear that the 75-year old mayor still has plans for Murphy to preserve the magic of Murphy and ensure that its citizens prosper. Bill has a 10 year plan for every aspect of city operation, explaining that “you’ve gotta know where you’re going, you can’t be haphazard anymore.”

“I wanted to be of service,” Bill said.  “I wanted to pay the debt back to the community. And when you walk away, if you can say you’re leaving more behind than you took with you, then you’ve accomplished that.” At the end of the day, Bill has led a life that has impacted the town and people of Murphy. With two successful daughters and a wife who works alongside him, Bill can look out across the town and know he’s left something behind.  Driving home, Bill looks at the old oak trees lining his driveway. They grow together in an arch, and the sunlight shines through the branches. He says, “the spirits seem happy here.” If he’s right, it’s because they’re happy seeing Mayor Bill Hughes of Murphy returning home safe and sound.

Local Franklin Farmer Profile: Joe Deal

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By Nicole Esplin and Hillary Dooley, 2013

Seven boxes of apples sit directly to the left of the entrance, and some of the largest sweet potatoes I have ever seen sit in a container in the center of the rustic open room with red paint and dirtied white walls. More wooden stands in the store were filled with peppers, beans, squash, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, field corn, and onions. In the back corner, a small sign directs customers out the door to the cornfields, which on this October day had just opened its seasonal corn maze. For $5, customers can live the life of a field mouse, scurrying around and getting lost in a sea of amber corn.

On this unusually hot October day Joe Deal, the primary owner of Deal Family Farm, sits in his cluttered corner office, rummaging through paperwork. A cashier stands behind the register, monitoring the produce. On any other day, Deal can be seen working in the fields out back or managing his field hands.  As a father, field hand, and manager, Joe Deal works to bring produce to Franklin, North Carolina and its surrounding towns.  He grew up farming with his parents and grandparents, who opened the Deal Family Farm in 1951. “My dad and I still farm together, so it’s my dad and myself now,” Deal said. “I’m third generation.”

When you think of a conventional farmer, Deal has it all.  His athletic frame, callused hands and flannel shirt fit the description.  His office emits a feeling of organized chaos, and pictures of his children provide evidence that Deal’s outside life is ever-present.  A whizzing fan blows outside air into the non-air conditioned office and an open file cabinet hints at the constant managerial tasks that must be kept up with.  Deal’s friendly, open personality seems necessary for the current state of the farming business.  He’s a firm believer in farming for the good of the entire population, and works hard to provide for his customers and keep his workers happy. “I currently have 13 field hands hired right now,” Deal said. “They’re basically starving to death where they live in Mexico, so they like working.  Most of them are family with the crew that I have that has been coming for 16 years.”

While working to provide for his family and keep his workers fed and healthy, Deal concentrates his farming ideals on creating the most good for all of society.  Deal doesn’t take the popular organic stance for all of his vegetables; he believes that farming so everyone has produce and food to eat is most reasonable. “If everything became organic, a lot of people would starve to death,” Deal said. “If you live somewhere that averages 10 inches of rain a year and you didn’t have all the bacteria and fungus problems that we have here at least in the mountains it may work, but we average 50-60 inches of rain per year here.  We get disease pressure.” And with a growing world population, Deal believes the only option for the future of farming is conventional farming. “If I tried to go completely organic, probably 1 out of 5 years, I would have a good crop.  Other years, we would have reduced yields, a lot more headache.”

Deal’s main crops are apples. The farm usually produces about 5,000 bushels on 9 acres, and they have 13 different varieties. The Deal apple grove is small, but it is the only one in the county. The Deal Family Farm is a local vendor for Ingles grocery store, and they also sell wholesale in Raleigh. Today, Deal is selling Grimes Golden, an older variety with natural blemishes and specks. He mentions how the powdery mildew on the apples doesn’t hurt the apple except for appearance, and again I’m reassured that I made the right decision stopping at this road-side stand and talking to Deal.

“You can see the [produce] growing and most of the time you can see my five kids running around out here and eatin’ apples or eatin’ tomatoes,” Deal said as I took the first bite of my Golden Grime.

Crowder’s Forge

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By Noah Manneville, 2013

Warren Crowder is a local- not a native- to Columbia, North Carolina. Though he went to high school in Columbia, he is a self-proclaimed nomad who spends most of his time traveling around the state to improve his metallurgy skills. A blacksmith by trade, Crowder has been working with metal for the past four years but has had an interest in the art of metalworking all his life. He takes particular pride in his tools — he keeps a plethora of hammers of all sizes, tongs, calipers, and other tools— none too complex, but all necessary. A self-proclaimed pyromaniac, Crowder says, “It isn’t fun unless it’s at least 1400 degrees.”

Crowder began his official training at the College of Albemarle in Manteo, North Carolina. He studied welding technology under enamellist Catherine Osgood and blacksmith Randy Hodges, a member of the Kill Devil Hills Cooperative. When asked why he chose metalworking, Crowder replied “It’s a passion. I just hope I can eat off it these days.” Though he wasn’t forging anything at the time I met him, Crowder is constantly reexamining and reworking his old items, and pens new ideas on paper before even lighting a fire.

Unlike other artists, Crowder does not focus on any specific region with his art. He is inspired by myths from all over the world, and his work reflects this interest — most of his pieces are based on mythology. An impressive work of Crowder’s is an intricately formed wolf’s head, meant to represent a kamui, an ancient Japanese god worshipped by the ancestral inhabitants of the Japanese islands. Crowder explained that the original worshippers of the nature gods were small, hairy, blue-eyed residents of the northern Japanese islands, much different in stature and culture from the current Japanese majority. Crowder has also formed a magnificent bust of Odin, the most powerful character in the Norse pantheon of gods. True to myth, Crowder’s Odin has one eye, and on the back of the head, ancient runes spell out Odin’s name. Crowder has also drawn from African and Arabian myths, which have inspired him to create a bust of a legendary Benin king and a sculpture of the Eye of Ra. Nowadays Crowder is expanding his repertoire to encompass enamel work, including shell enameling (much harder than pure metalwork because of the delicacy of the shells) and jewelry. He posts photos of his work online, and works in conjunction with other architects at the Kill Devil Hills Cooperative, though he is not a member. His work is a labor of love, one that he has made into a career.

When I met Crowder at the Scuppernong River Festival in Columbia on October 12, 2013, he was seated behind a small, unadorned table with his works on display. When I asked him about the story behind a certain piece, he would jump into the tale with enthusiasm and vigor. He seemed to take great pride in the fact that his art was keeping the tale of these displaced people alive. I realized that this was not just the case for the kamui; Crowder’s art is helping keep the very skill of blacksmithing alive. In an age where factories produce everything we rely on, the idea that forging something out of metal with no purpose other than beauty is an idea that we, the products of an electronic age, rarely comprehend. Crowder is one of the few who understands the beauty in a solid piece of raw metal, and by extracting that beauty with fire and hammer, he proves himself an innovator.

Domtar Paper Mill

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By Noah Manneville and Dannie Cooper, 2013

The Domtar Paper Mill in Plymouth, NC has been and continues to be the largest and most important source of income for Washington County over the past century. Opened in 1937 by the North Carolina Pulp Company, the mill itself has changed hands twice in its long history, having been bought by Weyerhaeuser in 1957 and then Domtar in 2007. At its peak, the mill employed over 2,000 people, (practically half of the population of Plymouth) making it the largest employer in Washington County, which it continues to be despite cutting down to just 450 employees.

The current mill manager, Dennis Askew, has been working at the Plymouth mill for 25 years and was promoted to manager five years ago. Dennis was born and raised in Plymouth. He met his wife, Lisa, in high school. “We were high school and college sweethearts,” she says. At age 19, Dennis began working at the mill, working part-time while studying civil engineering at North Carolina State University. Lisa studied politics at Campbell University, and then at the University of South Carolina Beaufort where she majored in nursing. They married in 1987 after graduating from college, and moved back to Plymouth, where Dennis continued to work at the mill while Lisa found a job in home health.

As we drove around the mill, Dennis’ knowledge and experience became evident. The way he describes the mill’s process makes it seem like he has held every job in the plant. He often highlights the extent of modernization in the mill, taking special pride in the mill’s most recent production highlight- lignin, a complex chemical compound that has potential as a fossil fuel alternative. Dennis explained that the mill itself no longer makes paper; it now produces two main products for sale. The first is fluff pulp, wood that has been chopped into chips, soaked in water, bleached, and dehydrated. The fluff pulp is used in feminine hygiene products, diapers, disposable medical gowns, and sanitary cleaning pads, such as the ones companies like Swiffer use. Most of the fluff pulp is exported through the Norfolk port in Virginia, where the Domtar mill enjoys the title of the port’s largest exporter.

The mill uses Loblolly Pine trees, the same tree that can be seen planted universally around the mill grounds to make all its products. About 300 loaded trucks pass through the mill every day, each carrying about four tons of un-stripped lumber. The wood is all local; trees felled for processing at the mill come from within 100 miles of the plant. Upon arriving at the plant, the trees are debarked in a rotating steel drum before being passed along a conveyor belt to be either processed immediately or removed and stacked in piles reaching over fifty feet tall. The bark and sap from the trees is retained and then burned to make electricity, which means that the mill produces no waste and converts enough thermal energy to remain entirely self-sufficient. In fact, the process is so efficient and there is such a large volume of material that the mill is able to sell excess energy back to the state power grid.

“Working in the home health field, I can see the demand for the products the mill makes,” said Lisa, who noted that disposable medical gowns were in high demand in her field. But this isn’t Lisa’s only tie to the mill. Lisa’s father and grandfather also worked in the mill. “Without the mill, the town would not survive,” Lisa said. She described Plymouth lovingly, but feared that the historic town was dying as places like the Domtar mill became less reliant on manpower and more computerized. It’s no wonder she feels this way either.  With her grandmother, parents, and her family including her twin sons, Hunter and Chance, all living in Plymouth, the future of the mill affects her entire family, as well as their beloved hometown.

Mocksville’s Town Cat

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By Chelsea Vollrath

 

As Paige and I sat in Restaurant 101, we both gazed out of the restaurant’s big front windows, taking in the sites of Mocksville while enjoying our lunch. Our eyes traced the main street as far as the windows would allow based on where we were sitting. We watched as a steady stream of men and women walked by, some stopping in the various shops lining the street, others continuing on to destinations unknown to us. One man in particular caught our attention. The metal knee brace on his left knee inhibited his walking ability and caused him to linger in front of the window longer than most passersby. Hadn’t he passed before? Wasn’t he just on this side of the street?

 

Considering the speed at which he was walking by the window and the number of times I saw him pass, he held my attention throughout most of the meal. I wondered why he kept walking by, seemingly without a specific destination in mind. I wanted to talk to him and find out more about him; dressed in a tattered denim shirt with a six inch rip down the back, acid-washed jeans, the knee-brace, heavily-worn work boots, and a backwards hat, he just looked interesting. I was too timid to approach him, though, so when we finished our meal we didn’t pursue finding him to start a conversation and just began our exploration of the town’s small shops and businesses. After leaving the first store and heading to the second, we passed him sitting on a bench on the sidewalk. We smiled politely and intended to keep walking, despite my interest in him, until he stopped us.

 

“Hey! Hey girls,” he called out to us. “Come here, I need to tell you something.”

Paige and I exchanged a skeptical glance, questioning if we should go talk to him. We chuckled, and turned around.

“Hello, sir. What’s up?”

He motioned with his index finger, encouraging us to come closer; we obliged.

“I want you to make me a promise.”

Again, Paige and I looked at each other, laughed, and nodded our heads in agreement. “Okay, what is it?”

“Stay beautiful. Just, stay beautiful. You’re both beautiful girls…and, and I just want you remember to stay beautiful.”

His words were muffled and difficult to understand, but his message was clear. We thanked him for his kindness, quietly laughed to each other and proceeded to walk on as he continued calling out after us.

 

We walked into the bookstore and talked to the storeowner, but when we left, the friendly townie was still sitting on the bench where we’d left him. We walked by him again, and this time as we were approaching, he initiated conversation. He asked us if we remembered our promise to him. We stated we did, but he proceeded to repeat himself. When he finished babbling about our promise to stay beautiful, we seized the opportunity to learn more about him; well, as best as we could. We asked how long he’s lived in Mocksville and he quickly responded he’s lived in the town for his entire life, calling himself “The Town Cat.” Yet again, Paige and I exchanged confused glances. The town cat? What does that mean? When we asked him, he seemed surprised we didn’t understand. He explained everyone calls him cat because he can’t remember people’s names so he calls everyone cat. “Cat” continued to tell us that, due to an accident that occurred when he was 16, he is paralyzed on the right side of his body and doesn’t have a good short-term memory. I was tempted to ask him to tell more about the accident but, afraid of offending him, I didn’t press the issue. I was still processing his explanation of being “The Town Cat,” anyway.

 

We tried to get him to comment on Highway 64 and its influence on the town, hoping he’d have more incite than most considering he’s lived there his whole life. That was wishful thinking.

“This is what I can tell you about Highway 64,” he began. He turned his hat around to be facing forward, before continuing. Pointing to his left, and then to his right, he explained, “It goes that way, and that way.” Again, we laughed. He hadn’t given us much information, but he certainly was amusing. We needed to move on, but before we did, Paige asked to take his picture. He agreed, but first insisted that he turn his hat backwards to show the hat’s message: “FBI: Forever Believer in Jesus.” He formed the shaka on his left hand.  “I want you to get a picture of how I always am,” he explained, and then Paige took the picture.

 

I shook his hand, told “Cat” it was nice to meet him, and wished him well before we continued on. He continued gesturing with the shaka, rotating it back and forth for emphasis, and reminded us, yet again, to stay beautiful.