Have you seen the article about Asheville and prayer in high-school football games in the Sept. 25 issue of The New Yorker? That was my high school. I thought Mark Singer did a decent job, giving the community a lot of credit. Truth is, Asheville has changed tremendously since I grew up there.
Today’s Asheville has room for Wiccans, but when I was in high school, another school’s drama club was forced to cancel on-campus productions of a play that had supernatural elements in it (no, not Macbeth).
The fundamentalist ministers in The New Yorker story are the same people who wielded such large influence when I was growing up. The one thing that seems to have changed is they are learning to speak the language of multiculturalism.
I didn’t hate Asheville growing up (I certainly knew there were worse places to live), but it’s definitely more fun now, as the article makes clear. The funny thing is that I’m reading about my hometown in The New Yorker like someone who’s never been there, thinking, “Gee, this town seems worth a visit.”
