[at-l] Mountain Moma's Redux

[cballs@mindspring.com (Curtis Balls)]

I meant to post this a few days ago when this place popped up on the list
but I was too busy with life to be bothered with the likes of you all.
This is just a little taste of Momas.  There's more to Mountain Moma's than
the eye can absorb on first glance.  I think most hikers miss it.  Now that
I've fallen back into the Internet dungeon, I'm posting this page from my
1999 journal for those who want a little time-out from the bickering.

Loving Balls




4/25 ~ DAVENPORT GAP (milepoint 234.1)

We walked into Spring down the Gap to the world famous Mountain Moma's
today. The warming sun is stirring the full palette of greens beginning to
paint the forests in the canopy of life; the birds are busy with their bird
business and there is pandemonium and jubilation in the movement of all
things. The landscape and all its inhabitants are pregnant with the annual
miracle of regeneration, profligate and wanton, as it has been for eon upon
eon.

If anyone tells you that the Appalachian Trail is all downhill from here,
don't you believe it. There's always another up, usually pretty much
following close on the heels of the down you just came down. In fact, I'm
beginning to suspect that this Trail is up and down all the way to Maine
although I can't prove it because I haven't walked it all yet.  I have
walked enough of it to know that most people are full of baloney about it.
But I suppose if you need to believe that the Trail is smooth and flat and
all downhill from here, knock yourself out. I understand. Sometimes I think
I'm related to Zeus.

Mountain Moma's was simply stellar. She has a few "cabins" set up for the
hiker's where they're packed in bunkhouse style. Two of the cabins have
names like hotel suites. I stayed in the Honeymoon Cabin because I liked
the rose color and the little hearts that were carved all along the door
and window facings.  The other cabin, the Hiker's Hilton, and had a deer
head mounted over the door that scared me - that dead head and empty eyes
staring at you every time you went in the door! Yikes!  The other "cabins"
were little car trailers, circa 1955. There was an old school bus painted
green with pink curtains parked beside the store from which I half-expected
to see Ken Kesey or one of his Merry Pranksters amble out of, a John Deere
tractor, a brand new shiny red pick-up, a white van with Mountain Moma's
name and address on it, an assortment of other cars and trucks parked
around and "Jesus is Lord" and "God is Almighty" decals, stickers and
license plates stuck to everything.  The place is trippy.

The inside of Mountain Moma's, which someone explained had been built as a
school (it's really just a long room about 100 feet by 25 feet and about 15
foot ceiling), is decorated in the most eclectic collection of Americana
country-kitsch imaginable. Mountain Moma has collected it all.  There is
the obligatory Elvis art along with the Marilyn Monroe and James Dean
posters intermingled with really tasteless, badly done airbrushed
"portraits" of Native Americans done in the style of popular romance book
covers, all wispy, sexy poses. There's the NASCAR collection and the Aunt
Jemima collection and ceramic plates with gold embossed crucifixes.  There
are several of those of course.  Mountain Moma has pictures of her family
set around with these things that decorate the walls and shelves overhead,
including the upright piano. Finding a piano here, an indication of some
cultural refinement, is ersatz amidst the mountains of kitsch mounted in
every available space.  When I got there a teenage boy was playing a Mozart
piece that only added to the sense of weirdness and magic of the place,
like "Baghdad Cafe." He was a member of the Audubon Expeditions Institute.
Their bus was parked out front and there were about dozen or so adolescents
loafing around inside and out, eating mountain Moma's world famous
cheeseburgers and looking for all the world like the suburban white kids
that they are - that look of affected poverty, premature phony
world-weariness and self-satisfied smugness that tipped you off, despite
their poverty dress, that here were kids who have been given - well,
everything - every opportunity and nearly every desire and every whim
satisfied or placated. They live better than 90% of the people on earth and
as a result feel, either despite or because of the high-mindedness of their
academic interests, that they are entitled to everything the world has to
offer and that the world belongs to them. And they are not wrong in their
assumptions. They looked like they were from New Jersey. And yet here they
were in Mountain Moma's, back in the hills and hollers of North Carolina,
soaking up the local "color" and trying to learn to appreciate the
hillbillies.  Bless their hearts.

After the Mozart recital, the piano was taken over by another boy not
nearly as talented or accomplished as the first one.  He played the same
five notes a little too loudly for a little too long. Finally Mountain Moma
went over and whispered to him, we assumed asking if he would play
something different and a little softer.  He started playing, one
deliberate, petulant note at a time, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" just as
loudly. From behind the counter Mountain Moma, drying a dish, stared over
the back of the piano at him with fire in her eyes and said, "I own that
piano too." He got the message and went back to his cheeseburger and our
peace and serenity were restored. You don't trifle with Mountain Moma. I
don't believe she would have slammed the keyboard cover shut over his
hands, but I'll bet if he had kept up his shenanigans she would have jerked
the stool out from under him.  She's big enough.

Oh yes, Mountain Moma sells cheap cigarettes too. A lot of cheap
cigarettes. There's a full wall of shelves loaded with them and signs hung
in all the windows so you can't miss the opportunity to smoke your brains
out, cheaply.  If that's your plan,  Mountain Moma's is the place to be.

I loved Mountain Moma's. Carolyn (Mountain Moma) and her assistant, June,
were pleasant, friendly, helpful and patient with all the hikers.  There's
a great menu too, another indication that these folks have a wicked sense
of humor.  The atmosphere was inviting and relaxed and you just wanted to
loaf around and smoke and eat and smoke and tell bigger and bigger hiker
lies and smoke until it was time to go to bed and smoke.  Mountain Mom's is
never going to be a chain. It's one of a kind and just as authentic and
true as a velvet Elvis. It's high camp, country style. God bless you
Mountain Moma and Praise the Lord! Yahoo!

Posted by Curtis Balls on May 18, 1999.