Mountain of My Dreams: The Middle Years

By Richard T. Antony

In the late 1970s, Richard convinced his wife, Sandra, that they should leave their promising professional careers and comfortable suburban lifestyle to start an azalea nursery in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. With no horticultural training or business experience, few mechanical skills, and absolutely no idea what they were getting themselves into, numerous adventures followed. In the second book in the planned four-book series, Richard continues the couples colorful story, a story of triumph and despair, of high expectations and harsh reality, and of the people who touched their lives along the way. In the tradition of such classics as The Little House on the Prairie and Waltons Mountain, Mountain of My Dreams shares the true story of two ordinary people and their memorable, often remarkable 25-year journey. Much more than just another back-to-the-land chronicle, this is a heartwarming tale of a man, a woman, and their belief in each other. If youve ever wondered why the less-traveled road is less traveled, you need to read their story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 10, 2004
• ISBN: 9781418404918

Richard T. Antony

Richard Antony lives in beautiful Rappahannock County, Virginia with his wife, Sandra, and their two children, Christopher and Allison. When not repairing their aging farm vehicles or Rube Goldberg-inspired potting line, Richard manages information technology programs at SAIC. His first book, Principles of Data Fusion Automation, reveals what he does during his day job. Mountain of My Dreams tells the other side of his story.

Book preview

Prologue

No wonder skies upon you frown;

You’ve nailed the horseshoe upside down!

Just turn it round, and soon you’ll see

How you and fortune will agree.

The Lucky Horseshoe (James Thomas Fields)

Shared joy is joy doubled.

Shared sorrow is sorrow halved.

Anonymous

When I heard Sandra scream my name, I knew something dreadful must have happened. Dropping the posthole digger, I ran toward the sound of her voice. As I crested the hill, Sandra saw me and yelled again, Our house is on fire! My God! How could this be possible! We hadn’t even moved in.

Since 1975, Sandra and I had been living in a comfortable three-bedroom house in the Washington, DC suburbs just a mile from my office. We enjoyed the neighborhood, the neighbors, and our highly productive vegetable garden. When the spirit moved us, we played tennis at the nearby recreation center or took meditative walks in the extensive woodland area that surrounded our subdivision. Life had been good.

Then came my inspiration to give it all up and move to the Blue Ridge Mountains to start an azalea nursery. I never would have come up with the idea if we hadn’t bought a 25-acre parcel of rural land for our distant retirement. Family and friends alike seemed unable to grasp why we’d want to give up our pleasant surroundings and promising professions to become farmers.

It would have been impossible for me to defend our plan for the simple reason that I didn’t fully understand it myself. Having grown up in the suburbs, I had only a vague notion of what our planned lifestyle makeover would ultimately entail. Neither Sandra nor I had any horticultural training or business experience. I knew next to nothing about farm life, rural living, or dirt roads. Still, I couldn’t wait to learn about these things.

Without a doubt, the decision to start a plant nursery completely altered the course of our lives. By 1979, we had built an experimental nursery in our suburban backyard intent on learning as much as possible about growing azaleas on a commercial scale. As a result, we spent nearly every evening caring for our azaleas. We worked even harder on weekends-clearing land, building a two-story barn, installing an irrigation system, and constructing growing zones. By 1983, we finally realized that we could no longer operate a growing operation in Virginia while living in Maryland, a realization that ultimately led us to convert our new barn into a two-bedroom home. It had taken more than 50 weekends to complete the task, but we now had a comfortable little cottage that offered us all the creature comforts. In just a few weeks, we planned to put our Maryland home on the market and move permanently to Long Mountain.

Now this.

Get away from the house! Move away! I shouted louder than I had ever shouted in my life. I knew Sandra must have heard me, yet she remained motionless, holding Christopher close to her. Then over my pounding footfalls and labored breathing I heard her shout back, It’s our house in Maryland.

When I reached Sandra, I grabbed her heaving body and held her in my arms. Christopher stood between us, crying. Oh my God, what happened? I asked. Donna’s on the phone. Can you talk to her? Sandra said, unable to say more.

Chapter 1 : The Ecstasy and the Agony

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows

Helen Keller

We can see in the puddle

Either the mud or the reflection of the blue sky, just as we choose.

Lucy Fitch Perkins

Reflections

A romantic vision of the future had prompted me to decide to alter the direction of our lives. It took Sandra a while, but she eventually came to embrace the idea of moving to Long Mountain. We both saw the merit of growing plants for a living. Although childless when we came up with the idea of moving to the mountains, we felt even more grateful now. Our son, Christopher, had literally grown up in the country.

In the New World Order, both parents left each morning for their jobs, returning exhausted ten or more hours later, often too tired to contemplate preparing healthy meals, let alone spending quality time with their kids. As a young girl, Sandra’s mom had been there for her, just as my mom had been there for me. They’d prepared our meals, watched over us when we got sick, and driven us to school when it rained. Moms rarely seemed to do these things anymore.

Neither of us thought much of the New World Order. We’d gotten married because we enjoyed being together. Yet, if we had remained on our former path we’d end up spending the majority of our lives in separate universes. Now that we had a son, I wanted both of us to be there for him. I’d been a Weekend Dad far too long already. By operating a plant nursery on Long Mountain, I would be there for both Sandra and Christopher.

I knew I’d need to keep my engineering job for a few more years-until the nursery became profitable. Once that happened, I would quit my job and begin working full-time in the nursery. Besides feeling confident that living on Long Mountain would vastly improve the quality of each day, living a simpler life seemed the surest route to both happiness and fulfillment.

Transitional analysis

I knew the nursery would eventually become too large to manage on weekends. It still bothered me when Sandra and Christopher began remaining behind when I returned to Maryland on Sunday evening. While I worked my engineering job, Sandra did her best to stay on top of all the nursery chores. Being separated bothered me, but knowing that was Sandra outside all day in the blazing sun doing things I could have done if I’d been there bothered me even more. As if that wasn’t enough to feel badly about, my family had to live in an unfinished barn. All of these things severely blunted my former enthusiasm for our lifestyle makeover project.

Regrettably, weekends afforded little opportunity for family-centered activities. Building a nursery and caring for thousands of plants took a great deal of time. Rather than getting easier each year as I’d predicted, we seemed to be working increasingly harder, making me wonder how I’d thought that growing plants would lead to more quality family time. Once I returned to Maryland, all unfinished nursery work fell to Sandra, hardly an inducement to set aside time on weekends for R & R.

Once the denial stage finally ended, I discovered what had appeared obvious to both family and friends. We had a problem. As if estrangement weren’t bad enough, the simple life continued to elude us. Rather than becoming simpler, our lives seemed to be growing more complicated.

When Sid Mank, our Rappahannock County neighbor, first made the observation in the early 1980s that we had a tiger by the tail, I dismissed the notion that our lives might somehow be out of control. None of our present difficulties had been unexpected. We understood that the early stages of our project would present significant challenges. I knew I’d likely be living apart from my family for a portion of the time. What bothered me now was that I couldn’t see things improving any time soon.

Looking back on the early years of our marriage, living in the suburbs, growing a significant portion of our own food, shopping just a few miles from home for everything else, it seemed we’d lived a rather simple life. We had two reasonably new cars and two good paying jobs. We lived in a comfortable house a short bicycle trip from my office. Now, in addition to caring for a toddler, we owned three old cars. Both of us had two jobs. We owned two houses and operated two nurseries. As our Virginia nursery continued to grow each year, we found ourselves working longer and harder than ever before. Instead of slowing down as we approached the edge of the cliff, we’d shifted into overdrive.

We clearly needed to make some dramatic changes. Selling one of our houses, closing down our experimental nursery, and getting rid of at least one of our vintage vehicles would certainly help. Although getting rid of any of our vehicles seemed unrealistic, selling our Maryland house and moving permanently to the farm seemed essential. Split-based operations might be good business models for large corporations, but in our case, the concept seemed destined to wreck our dream, and possibly our marriage.

One thing couldn’t be more apparent-the success of our entire project hinged on me finding a new job. Because I’d need to drive at least 75 miles to reach most of the Government agencies I might be able to transfer to, I began warming to the idea that I needed to switch to private industry, a move that would cause me to forfeit nearly twenty years in perhaps the best retirement system of them all. If I intended to live with my family at our farm, though, I didn’t see any other option. Consequently, I updated my resume, began attending job fairs, and arranged interviews ata number of firms. Despite an earnest effort, nothing remotely appealing turned up.

Intent on leaving no stone unturned, I sent my resume to several regional headhunters along with a carefully worded cover letter explaining that I could not relocate. Yet, virtually every offer I received over the ensuring months came from companies located in New York, New Jersey, and Florida.

On the rare occasion when an opening appeared in Northern Virginia, it would invariably be in Arlington or Alexandria. A rush-hour commute from our farm to either of these locations would take two hours, unless, of course, it was raining, someone happened to be changing their tire on the shoulder, or it was a Friday. If I accepted a job that far away, I wouldn’t see my family much more than I did now. In the end, maintaining my position at Harry Diamond Labs seemed like the best bet.

It’s conceivable that I would get used to the long daily commute. At some point, though, it might make sense to consider renting an efficiency apartment near the Labs. If the roads happened to be icy, there’d been a serious accident on the Beltway, or I felt too tired to spend five hours on the road, I could send the night there instead of traveling home.

Although the sounded perfectly reasonable, I could see where this arrangement would end up taking me. At first, everything would appear to be working fine. Month by month, though, I’d be staying at the apartment more and more often. Before long, I’d be spending the weekdays in the city and traveling down to the farm on Friday evenings, a routine that sounded far too familiar.

The final puzzle piece

Through it all, the applications, the waiting, and the stress-provoking interviews, Sandra remained confident that I’d find the right job. I wanted to believe her, but as the months rolled by, my hopes faded. I was putting the final touches on my latest technical report when the phone rang one afternoon in the early spring. Indistinguishable from any other ring I’d heard in the course of my day, it didn’t take me long to understand that this might be the most important call I’d ever received.

Hello, this is John Ingrams, the voice on the other end of the line said. I’m a Branch Chief at Vint Hill Farms Station. John proceeded to tell me that his organization had just received authorization for a new position that he wanted to fill as quickly as possible. One of his employees, Terrance Cronin, had told him I might be interested in working at Vint Hill. Could you come for an interview next week? he asked.

Too excited to formulate a more intelligent sounding reply, I answered, Sure, trying to rein in my exhilaration.

How about Monday afternoon around 1:00 p.m.?

Vint Hill Farms Station, a small US Army Post located just 37 miles northeast of our nursery had been the principle focus of my job hunting once we began seriously considering starting a nursery. I’d called thepersonnel office numerous times over the years, always receiving the same message. At the present time, we have no openings in your job series. After hearing the same story so often, I’d abandoned all hope of ever working there.

I’d met Terry Cronin several years earlier at a three-day short course on Expert Systems. We hit it off right away. Over the next two years, I ran into Terry at two other courses. During a mid-morning break at the second course, I mentioned that Sandra and I hoped to move to Rappahannock County one day and start an azalea nursery. Uncannily, Terry remembered both my story and my name.

I arrived at the beautifully manicured post 30 minutes early, straightened my tie, and reviewed a list of items I wanted to make certain I didn’t forget to mention, as well as a number of questions I had about the position. At the appointed time, I walked to the guard post in front of Building 260 and told the duty officer I had an appointment with John Ingrams.

John appeared a few minutes later and led me into a small conference room. Seated at the long table were Calvin Eanes and Bill Mitchell. John described the nature of the position then asked me to review my previous job experience.

The interview seemed to go quite well, with the interviewers treating me more like a guest than an applicant. John eventually asked if I had any final questions. When I said, No, all rose. I shook hands with the men, and John escorted me beyond the secure area. In parting, he told me I should expect a call from Personnel as soon as he completed interviewing all the candidates.

When I reached home that afternoon, I called Sandra at our farm. She wanted to hear all the details. I admitted that I felt very positive and believed I had a decent chance of being offered the position. Sandra seemed elated.

Before I hung up, though, I cautioned her that the offer might not be forthcoming. In truth, I had no idea how many other people had applied for the position or what their qualifications might be. I needed to accept the fact that someone else might be selected. Despite very real concerns, I remained optimistic.

The next week passed with no word from Vint Hill. I tried not to dwell too much on the scenario where I got the job, we moved to our farm, and the three of us lived happily ever after. Still, the thoughts played out so nicely.

I kept myself occupied by focusing on my research project at the office and putting in long hours in the garden and in our backyard nursery in the evenings. When I’d heard nothing after nearly 10 days, my confidence began to erode. Then, the call came.

I felt a mixture of excitement and dread as the Personnel Specialist went through the preliminaries, stating that all the applications had been ranked and evaluated. Although I appreciated her interest inbeing thorough and professional, I just wanted to know whether I had gotten the job. Fortunately, she didn’t hold me in suspense much longer. You have been selected for the position, she said in a matter of fact fashion. You have one week to decide whether you will accept the offer.

The woman then proceeded to repeat her name and give me her phone number so I could call her back once I’d made up my mind. At this point, quite unceremoniously, I blurted out that I accepted the offer.

People normally take a few days to consider an offer, she returned, in a helpful, almost maternal manner. It would be best to talk it over with your wife. It’s an important decision. Make sure that you feel comfortable with all aspects of the job description. Also, be sure to take into consideration that you might be forced to relocate.

Following this final statement, I came very close to bursting into tears of joy and admitting that this offer had been the answer to nearly four years of prayers. Instead, I said I felt certain my wife would agree with my decision.

In that case, we will need to discuss a starting date. How about the first week in October? Perfect, I said. I thanked the woman for her assistance and hung up. The keystone of our entire project had just slipped into place. I felt like the luckiest man alive.

Although both of us had been working as hard as we’d ever worked in our lives, the job offer forced us into turbo mode. We needed to get our Maryland house ready to sell, transfer the plants in our backyard nursery to Long Mountain, remove all the nursery structures, seed the back yard, and put the house on the market. We had to arrange for movers, change our mailing address, have the utilities switched off, and take care of dozens of other details.

At the office, I had forms to file authorizing a Permanent Change of Station. My on-going research projects had to be either transitioned to someone or completed before I left. Somehow, through it all, we still needed to maintain our growing operation on Long Mountain.

With only two months before my scheduled start date, it seemed impossible to accomplish all that lay before us. Precious little time remained to sell our house. In all likelihood, we’d need to move before it sold. Although an unoccupied home would likely fetch a lower price, I knew we had to keep this and other such concerns in perspective. I’d landed a job that would allow me to live with my family in our new home on Long Mountain. And, that’s all that really mattered.

Labor Day Weekend, Take 2

Except in 1980, Sandra and I had spent all our Labor Day weekends in Detroit visiting my grandparents. Sandra had been 7 months pregnant that year. We’d been in high spirits at the start of that holiday weekend. Before the weekend ended, Sandra had gone into premature labor and our baby had died. The most difficult thing either of us had everfaced, we struggled with depression for many months. Only after adopting three-month old Christopher did the deep scars on our souls begin to heal.

I awoke early Saturday morning, five years after that tragic weekend, feeling incredibly optimistic. Bright streams of sunlight flooded the master bedroom through the east facing dormer windows of our former barn. I lay as still as I could so as to not disturb Sandra, all the while letting my thoughts wander. My recollections covered a lot of territory-meeting Sandra, our first date, then, years later our honeymoon. Memories are such wonderful things. Images of favorite places flashed through my mind. I recalled fragments of conversations with people I knew and loved. Mostly, I thought about the happy times that lay ahead once we were living fulltime on Long Mountain.

Undeniably, the past few years had been a struggle. We’d been saddled with heavy workloads. Both of us had suffered periods of self-doubt. Then, at a pivotal moment in our lives came the job offer that made all the pieces fall into place. Although preferred not to dwell on it, I knew we’d been unbelievably lucky. If the offer had not come when it did, it’s entirely possible our back-to-the-land scheme would have unraveled. We’d stayed the course, and miraculously everything had come together.

In just four weeks, I would no longer be a part-time husband and father. The three of us would be able to watch the sun rise and set, day in and day out, over our little homestead nestled on the back side of our mountain, protected from the winds and nourished by the quiet beauty that surrounded us. As I lay there, a spectacular day on the rise, no place else on earth seemed as perfect as this modest room, built by our own hands, on the mountain we hoped to call home for the rest of our lives.

Eventually, Sandra stirred. Once she woke, we crept quietly downstairs, careful not to disturb Christopher. Breakfast finished, I headed out to start on my chores and Sandra went upstairs to wake our son.

With so little time left before our move, Sandra planned to take full advantage of the three-day weekend. She wanted to give our new home a thorough cleaning. She intended to spend a portion of one day working on Christopher’s bedroom, hanging new pictures and arranging the clothes and toys we’d already brought down. We both wanted our son’s new room to be as cheery and as functional as possible.

My first task of the long weekend had me digging 18 postholes to construct a bin-like affair for holding stacks of nursery containers. I’d selected what I hoped would be a convenient location, southwest of our house and at the edge of the woods. Because we’d need to store hundreds of stacks of pots in at least five different sizes, the structure needed to be quite large. The oppressively hot morning made digging tiring, but I kept at it. If at all possible, I needed to complete the project by mid afternoon. Then, came Donna’s call.

I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the receiver lying on its side on the top of our breakfast bar.

I’m sorry to have to bring this news, Donna said.

Tell me what happened, I said breathlessly, my mind reeling.

I was watching television, Donna replied, when I heard a knock on our door. It was the neighbor at the end of the block. He had been walking his dog and heard your smoke detector going off as he passed your house. He said he went to the door and knocked several times. When no one answered, he went to Charlotte Waite’s house and told her to call the fire department. Then he came across the street and knocked on my door.

When I opened our door, I saw black smoke pouring from your chimney and through the upper story windows. I couldn’t see any flames. A few minutes later, the first of three fire engine companies arrived. A fireman later told me that the first company put out the blaze. My body trembled as the implications of Donna’s words began to sink in.

Donna went on, You’ll be pretty upset when you see your house. The fireman broke most of the windows and there’s debris lying in the front yard. I haven’t been inside, so I don’t know how much damage you’ll find. The county fire inspector asked me to call you. He said he will secure your house until you arrive. As she completed her story, I knew she had to be looking out her front window. The last fire truck is just pulling away.

By now, my legs had begun to shake uncontrollably. My heart pounded as I tried to grasp what I’d just heard. I thanked Donna and asked her to let the inspector know we’d be there as soon as we could, warning her that it would take us at least two hours.

In a state of utter despair, I hung up the phone. Just five minutes earlier, I had been thinking how close we’d come to finally realizing our dream. All the years of hard work and dedication finally seemed to have paid off. In just a few weeks, the last major sticking point in our lifestyle overhaul would be history. It had taken just 5 minutes to go from feeling on top of the world to feeling the world was on top of us.

Sandra stood nearby her arms wrapped tightly around Christopher in a desperate attempt to protect him from something none of us yet fully comprehended. She sobbed, her body still convulsing. How could this have happened? What will we do now? Sandra asked. We may have lost everything.

I walked over on wobbly legs and encircled my family with my arms. No, I said. We’re fine. No one got hurt. Nothing else really matters.

I held Sandra tightly for several minutes. I fully believed what I’d just said. The fire had been put out. We could do nothing to change what had already happened. We would return to our former home and deal with whatever we found. Somehow we’d cope.

I hurriedly put away my tools, locked the house, and packed the van. From as far back as I could remember, my night’s sleep had been periodically troubled by two recurring nightmares: one involving a house fire, the other, a car accident. We got into the van and drove into my first nightmare. It would be seven years before I’d face down that other dreaded dream.

So, once again, on the weekend that honored laborers everywhere, our world imploded.

Homeward bound

We spoke little during the trip back to our home in Maryland. Sandra did her best to distract Christopher and prevent him from thinking about what had happened or what we might see when we arrived. Although just four, Christopher understood our house had been damaged. It broke my heart when I heard him ask Sandra, Will my toys be okay, Mommy? Above all else, we needed to keep our little boy from being traumatized.

The idea that our house had burned seemed almost unimaginable despite the fact that in a major metropolitan area like Washington, DC, house fires occurred all the time. Almost every night the evening news featured a reporter asking distraught family members how they felt after losing a child or elderly parent, plus all their belongings.

I knew I shouldn’t blame the reporter for doing his or her job. Still, the questions seemed so demeaning, trivializing one of the darkest moments in a person’s life. Why must a victim share his private grief with the rest of the world? Besides, what can