By ROBERT JUMPER
One Feather Editor
Forward thinking. Progressive. Powerful. Great. Wise. Caring. Proud. Prosperous. All words used by one person or another to describe the people and lands of the Qualla Boundary. And, in many ways, we reflect all those words.
So how do we feel when we are told that we look faded and dilapidated?
One of the first things visitors to the Boundary, whether tourists, businesspeople, or long-lost family members, see in Cherokee are the road signs, billboards, and direction signs that litter the landscape of our community. Another is the condition of homes and buildings in the business district and our community. And much of what they see are aging facades; burnt out, rotting, crumbling buildings; and dilapidated damaged signs and utility fixtures.
We have become experts in the art of patching. Instead of replacing, we “fix” or “patch” things to get the last bit of good out of them. But at some point, being frugal becomes being miserly, so much so that people, local and visitor alike, wonder if the stories of economic success on the Boundary are merely stories.
Right or wrong, we are often judged by our appearance, both personally and as a community. Being clean and pressed makes a statement about our personal and professional integrity. Don’t get me wrong, I know that good people sometimes appear bad, and bad people sometimes appear good. I am just saying that putting our best foot forward often results in reward, and the reverse is true.
When I was a “youngin”, we didn’t have a bunch of choices as to what we wore. Born into a family of limited means, most of my clothes were third or fourth generation hand-me-down things picked up at a church yard sale. Back in the day, churches would gather clothes and other essentials and announce yard sales. Very little selling went on at these events. Everyone knew that needy people would come to these events with little or no money. And everyone knew that this was a good opportunity to give essentials to the poor (with a little proselytization thrown in for free as well). If not for the kindness of these good congregations, my wardrobe back then would have been even worse. Mom always made sure I was clean, but most of the time, she couldn’t do much about the condition of a hand-me-down pair of britches.
As I got older and able to contribute to the family and my personal income, I started contributing nicer things to my family and making a better presentation of myself. For as long as I have been in the workforce, I have been told that appearance matters. Much of a potential boss’ opinion of you or me is that first look at how much and how well we maintain our “look”. And I always felt better about myself when I was clean and pressed.
Our obsession as a society with outward appearance extends to our vehicles. I know folks who live in campers and drive new Lexus SUV’s. There can’t be much question that we, communally, put much stock in appearance, at least at a personal level.
So, it is perplexing to see us, communally, being complacent about the way our Boundary appears. We patch together buildings until they are no longer viable (and sometimes way beyond viability). We seem to have trouble with maintaining curb appeal. Walking the greenways, I typically play dodge the goose or elk droppings, or try not to get tripped up by fallen branches (these are paved concrete pathways). Wayfinding signs, if they exist at all, are faded and dilapidated to the point of looking like they belong to a ghost town. Visitors have to wonder if an attraction is still open when they see a sign that looks like it hasn’t been maintained in years.
I get that we are building infrastructure and resources are being applied to that effort. I applaud, for example, the long overdue overhaul of the sewer system from downtown to Big Cove. Yes, it is inconvenient, but sometimes we must be inconvenienced if we want a better life for our community. And the departments involved in the project have planned to include detailed ways to minimize the stress and impact on our community, including our school system.
I think what is the most concerning thing to me is our lack of focus on curb appeal. Where the water and sewer project paid close attention to the detail when it came to impact on the community, that same attention to detail doesn’t seem to be applied to showcasing the valuable asset of curb appeal.
Sure, we have pretty, new buildings in those places where it became impossible or impractical to patch one together, but those are small areas in the larger footprint of our community.
When I was young and dumb, I was one of those who didn’t give a thought to tossing trash out my car window, but I would never think of tossing that trash in my front yard (or, heaven forbid, leave the mess in my ride). And now when I see that behavior, it infuriates me because I see the land, water, and air in a totally different way than I did in my juvenile days. I know now that my home extends beyond my front yard or my car’s floorboard or backseat.
And being in marketing for a good portion of my career, I know how critically important appearance, a.k.a. curb appeal, is to the economy of a community-not just financially, but from a viewpoint of morale. Just like individuals, our community feels better when we look better. All those positive words and thoughts mentioned at the beginning of the piece come to the top of our minds when we see a well-kept roadside and walkway. We stick out our chests with pride when we see clean fresh signage, well-maintained public areas, and roadside buildings that are new or removed, or invisible because we have either created a natural barrier or privacy fencing to block them from public view.
Surely, the government bears a great deal of the responsibility when it comes to curb appeal, but not all. We all have a responsibility to educate ourselves and our children that throwing our wrappers, cigarette butts, and syringes on our land or in our streams is not harmless. That love for the land, water, and air should be taught like math to young people.
A friend once told me about her experience in a far northern state. She said that everywhere you looked, the roadsides and yards were immaculately groomed. No trash. No overgrowth. It wasn’t due to government maintenance. It was the local homeowners and community groups adopting areas of their community to personally clean up. They used a combination of government-funded materials and private labor to ensure that curb appeal was not just maintained but a focus, beautifully landscaped and coordinated down to synchronizing the types of flora they used.
Even our neighboring municipalities have groups like the Rotary Club, who will select a public area to call their own as far as making sure that their space is properly landscaped and cleaned. Individuals and civic groups volunteer for the “Adopt a Highway” program, a collaboration with departments of transportation, so that the government supplies trash bags and other resources and the community does the work of clean up on selected strips of roadside. Locally, groups organize to do river clean ups in our local streams. There is no question that we can do the work if we only will.
Urge your legislators and executives to put more effort and resources toward the look of our community. Curb appeal is much more important than we think and should be given a high place in the list of our priorities as a tribe.