Biltmore
We came to Asheville to see the Biltmore Estate. We had gone to Newport several years ago and toured those homes. I use the word homes in a ridiculous sense; because nothing about them was “homey” They were ostentatious, cold and just silly, especially as summer “cottages”. I expected Biltmore to be more of the same. Something to be seen, more as a museum, than a home. Oddly, I found it quite different.
Not that the place is particularly nice. It is gigantic, spectacular and well worth seeing, but not at all a comfortable place. But – the story is really compelling.
George Vanderbilt was the youngest of three sons born into a very, very wealthy family. Apparently the older boys went into the family business of getting richer. George took his 10 million ( in 1895 dollars) and built a house. He hired the best people to design it and the gardens, and the best craftsmen to complete the job. On the surface, it is about the power of money. But as the story unfolds, something else emerges. George first built homes for all the workers to live in during the construction. Then every detail was aimed at making Biltmore a place where visitors would have every need met quickly and without fuss.
Biltmore had not only an indoor swimming pool of great size, at a time few homes in America had electric lights, the swimming pool had underwater electric lights. It had a full gym in case his guests wished to exercise, stables, tennis, indoor bowling alleys and a kitchen area that would put most major hotels to shame.
The establishment employed about 30 people at all times. And here in lies a real look at George Vanderbilt's soul. A young girl, who had recently lost both Mother and Father, was hired. Barely 15, she found herself carrying a large tray of food, all on very expensive china, to the formal dining room. Young and terrified, she dropped the tray, smashing china, scattering food all over. George leaped to his feet and ------ helped the young girl pick up the pieces. For many years there after he gently teased her about their first meeting.

When the house was built, George was a bachelor, but he shortly found someone willing to marry one of the richest men in America. Yet, despite all the tendencies to make fun, the marriage was deliriously happy. Within a few years, Biltmore had a little girl, 5 St. Bernard’s and up to 30 guests any time the Vanderbilts were in residence.
George was generous to a fault. For example, the local minister would be invited to Biltmore for Lunch once a year. He would write up an account of all the expenses the parish had incurred during the year in an account book and would leave the book on the seat of his carriage. When he returned from a lovely Lunch, at which no money was discussed, he would find the book contained a check that covered all the years’ expenses.

George was considered one of the best read men in America and he constantly shared his space with men of words. In the entire house, I found only two rooms I loved. One was a central sun room that was open and bright and filled with life, and the other was the library. This room is two stories tall, with floor to ceiling bookcases surrounding the room. A circular stair takes you to the second tier balcony that surrounds the room and gives access to the second floor shelves. What I found remarkable was a comment George once made. “ There should always be books and a comfortable chair to read it in.” Well, he made the books available, but I could not see a comfortable chair anywhere in the house.
Which made me think. With all his money and effort, in 1895, George was unable to build a “comfortable” home. Biltmore was notoriously hard to heat. Winter guests would wear woolen everything under their formal attire and still have trouble manipulating forks with frozen hands. The furniture was torturous by our standards. While the food was excellent it took a gigantic staff working from 6AM until 9PM everyday to produce it.
I think about my home. We take the heat for granted, of the 8 chairs in our living rooms, 7 are guaranteed to lull you asleep within 10 minutes and modern cooking appliances make gourmet cooking within the reach of even – well, me.

What could go wrong??
This was the easy week. Before we left for South Carolina, we made a list of things that needed doing. Nothing big. The computer security program needed updating, the ceiling molding in the upstairs needed to be finished and the downstairs bathtub and sink were draining slowly, but the pipes are all exposed and easy to get to. In addition we had the regular run of the mill jobs. The Toyota needed to be defused so it won’t go into overdrive, stop the mail, pay the bills, and exchange books at the Library. Time was not an issue. We were tied up with Retired Teacher’s Monday, The car needed to be repaired Tuesday morning, but I would have the rest of Tuesday, most of Wednesday and all of Thursday. That would give me Friday free for fun and Rotary. (Not that the two are not one and the same!)
I finished with the car around 11 on Tuesday, headed home and started putting in molding. Only molding requires something to attach it to. Normally you would find one stud and measure 16 inches and you would find another. In some early construction they used 12 inches or 18 inches. In our 17 foot hallway the studs are – 10, 13, 9, 21, 17 , 18, 12, 15, 11, 16, 20, 12, and 14. Note this does not add up to 204 inches because of course there are no studs at the ends of the hallway. For many years, these irregularities bothered me, now I just figure it is part of the charm of owning an old house that had previously been remodeled by a “creative” person. But it turned a simple job into a simple but long job. So most of Tuesday disappeared. But I still had time to do that short plumbing job. I pulled the pipes apart, cleaned out the drain, put it all back together, turned on the sink and found it drained easily and quickly ----- into the bathtub.
So ok, I would call the plumber, not an unusual event.
At least I could update the computer security. By the time I went to bed, our computer was completely unsecured, none of the USB ports would work , we could not download any pictures from our cameras and the mouse no longer functioned. Not a bad day in the world of disasters.
Wednesday we drove to Scoharie to attend the funeral of a dear friend’s father. He was in his nineties and had lived life exactly the way I would like to. At age 85, the family felt they needed to take his motorcycle keys away, because he was still riding it regularly. Three weeks before he died he was on a ladder with a drill repairing something. Way to go!!
So Thursday was spent getting the plumbing cleared up, the computer up and running, so that Friday morning could be spent finishing the hallway.
We leave Tuesday for the Biltmore Estate and Kiawah Island, South Carolina. We now have a laptop computer and the plan is to keep everyone informed of our travels while staying in touch. After all, What could go Wrong???

Odds and Ends
When discussing the medical profession, my father would often say,“ They are just Practicing.” Boy did he have that right!!
Last November I cleaned up the last of the leaves and apparently some of the left over mold as well. Within a week I had a pretty good case of bronchitis. Not at all unusual for me – happens every fall if I am not careful. The thing runs its course ---- I lose my voice for a short time, feel awful, then feel better and life moves on. This time I got caught in a time warp. By January ----- time for the Doc.
I was given a bunch of pills, and MR. Neb. Things got better, then much worse. I would go to sleep feeling fairly good and then wake up needing a sewer snake run down my windpipe. Back to the Halls of Medicine. “ Beginning asthma, complicated by post nasal drip.” One month later, back to the Doc. This time we discovered sever bronchitis and definite asthma so bad I would need an inhaler and Advar.
In 1968 sucking white powder down my throat didn’t seem like a good idea and the idea hasn‘t improved with age. Plus I know the history of me better than anyone else.
One of my clearest memories was having croup as a kid. I would be fine, go to bed wake up unable to breath. Needless to say, this caused some commotion. Shortly the big metal humidifier was out, Vicks was on me, in me and being blown at me and I didn’t go to school the next day. Sometime in the late 50’s, I got a real mystery disease. Since only small kids got croup, it had to be a mystery disease. We went to the doctor every week for what seems like months. They did tests, ran a light bulb down my throat, even suggested mental therapy.
The whole thing turned into a bonding time with my mother. I would go to bed at 10 wake up choking at 11 or so, and then we would sit up the rest of the night watching old movies. I learned a lot about her during those weeks.
Anyway, Spring came, the disease disappeared and it didn’t return. I did have some mild bouts while teaching, but usually pretty mild.
This time around, it never got as sever, but it acted exactly like that 50’s version. But this time I had the internet and did some research. Turns out the symptoms perfectly fit chronic croup. Something young children get for no apparent reason and outgrow by the age of 6 or 7. The present cure is a series of steroid drugs.
Well, back to the present. For the first time in life I told the Doctor what we were going to do. Steroids!! She was willing to try it with the admonition that if it didn,t work we were sucking white powder. Remember three months of wheezing badly enough to wake people up? One, six tablet dose of steroids, 24 hours and no wheezing. Since I also had bronchitis, “ one step from pneumonia” I got to take the same Cipro dose given someone exposed to anthrax. But, at least for the time being I seem to be healed. That would make me the oldest croup patient in history.