Letter: You can’t go home again

Posted on by Letters
ANOTHER TIME: The noted author’s historical marker stands in downtown Asheville. Photo by John Penley

For all my life, Asheville, my hometown, has always been a sanctuary city for me ever since I enlisted in the Navy and left home. It was always a place where I could go back to and visit and heal. To get off the road when I was hitching around the country, when I got out of the service, and when I got out of federal prison after a year inside for protesting against nuclear weapons.

When I got gentrified out of the East Village in New York City and after camping with Occupy D.C., I got a ride back home. After spending two years taking care of my stepfather, James Penley (former assistant superintendent of Asheville City Schools) and attending his funeral. And that time, I was back there after just reaching Mexico City and learning my mother, Pantha Penley (teacher at Hall Fletcher) had died and having to turn around and go back home, where I stayed with my stepfather and went insane from his dementia.

Anyway, Asheville was a lifetime base camp, but I just realized it will absolutely never be the same or even close to what it was to me ever again in my lifetime. My condolences to those who lost loved ones and to those who are trying the best they can to put Asheville back together again. For me, Thomas Wolfe said it in his book, You Can’t Go Home Again, which I never will.

— John Penley
Lake Havasu City, Ariz.

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