JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

Until two weeks ago, my wife -- a born and bred Southern Californian

-- had never seen the magic of the fall season. We looked longingly at

travel folders of New England in October, but that’s as close as we got

until some dear friends who live in the southeastern corner of North

Carolina invited us to visit and we decided to combine it with a trip to

the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which bisects Tennessee and

North Carolina.

Hitting the full colors of fall -- that brief period just before the

leaves start to flutter down in a gentle red and yellow rain -- is mostly

a matter of luck, and we were very lucky.

We could pass through every stage of this magnificent process simply

by climbing higher into the mountains. We did that for two delightful

days before moving on to only the slightly less dramatic beauty of the

hills in which our friends live, near Brevard.

We had time to think and to feel, which is all too rare in our

high-octane world. Hopefully, we’ll remember some of the things we

pondered.

First, I guess, is the instant recognition that the only way to

experience this country is by car. Seeing it from urban airports is not

to see it at all. But doing it by car with time to wander and explore is

very much like visiting a foreign country. Rural northern Georgia is as

different from Orange County as southern France or northern Italy. And

the adjustment can be just as complicated.

We rented a car at the Atlanta airport and drove to the Smokies,

stopping en route for the night in Gainesville, Ga. Our first culture

shock was being unable to find the Sunday Atlanta Constitution anywhere

in town the following morning. This became a kind of obsession, repeated

unsuccessfully in each town we passed through.

When we arrived at our motel nestled in a breathtaking panorama of

color near the entrance to the park, I still didn’t know the results of

Saturday’s college football games -- the first time that had happened

since I couldn’t find a Herald-Tribune in southern France.

But I knew that Jim Harvey was running for sheriff in Union County

because his signs seemed to be planted every hundred yards along the

highway (I saw none for the presidential candidates in any of the

counties we passed through; only the candidates for sheriff were

visible). And I knew that you could buy a “New mountain home with land”

for $85,000 near Bryson City.

We stopped for lunch -- Sunday dinner in north Georgia -- in a tiny

town named Blairsville at a restaurant next door to an honest-to-God five

and dime store. We had fried chicken, lima beans, cole slaw, mashed

potatoes awash in thick chicken gravy and sweet corn for a total bill of

$7.10. We shared our meal with folks coming from the several Baptist

churches in the town, one of which had a sign out front that read: “Get

your exercise; walk with the Lord.”

The signs we encountered throughout our visit told us much about the

locals -- information that would surely be useful to political

candidates. A large supermarket, for example, announced proudly that it

was “American Owned.” A motel sign told us that its “Dinning (sic) Room”

was open. A quite large sign outlined in lights said proudly that the

shop underneath provided “Christian Plumbing.” I couldn’t decide whether

Jesus would find this amusing or irritating -- but I had plenty of time

to speculate.

Smoky Mountain Park has no entrance fee and no sleeping or eating

facilities within the park. Just miles and miles of undulating, heavily

forested mountains, breathtaking viewpoints and jovial streams like

arteries pumping clear, cold water to all the living, growing things.

It also has an innovation that every other state and national park

might well emulate called “Quiet Walkways.” These signs are posted

throughout the park and lead the visitor to easily navigated trails into

wonderfully isolated places.

We shared a picnic along one of them beside a stream that provided the

most irresistible music I know -- that of exuberant racing water.

In the reading we did prior to our trip, we were told that the black

bear population in the Smokies is greater than any other national park.

One article even described what to do if you come nose-to-nose with a

bear. Don’t run, we were instructed, and -- if necessary -- fight the

bear off.

This was information my wife found disquieting, and I spent more time

than I should trying to imagine how one fights off a bear. Happily, we

weren’t confronted with this problem.

But we had lots of time to ponder the lessons of autumn. I kept

playing in my head one of my earliest memories of the theater: Walter

Huston singing the plaintive “September Song”:

o7 “Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December,

But the days grow short when you reach September.

When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame

One hasn’t got time for the waiting game.”

f7 I hear those lyrics differently now than I did then. On our

mountain walks, I chose to see the explosion of autumn color surrounding

us not so much as a wistful fading away as an expression of the

Technicolor richness of a full life that will be renewed in the spring.

That’s the thought I took along to the home of our friends, who also

haven’t “got time for the waiting game.” But the richness was there, too,

and my wife and I brought it home with us.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.