Asheville, NC Has Gotten All Hipped-Up!

by Anna · Published May 1, 2012 · Updated January 30, 2015

Dogwood tree in Bloom, April 2012

For the last 200 or so years, my family has been living in the hills around Asheville, N.C. This means I’ve been going to Asheville ever since I was a baby. While there, I’ve visited my family, driven through downtown, then visited some more family.

In the late 80s, I started insisting that I be taken to the occasional interesting event in Asheville while I was there. Sometimes it was a poetry reading, sometimes a pottery exhibition. Usually the “interesting thing” turned out not to be so interesting after all, which is good because I usually needed to take one of my great-aunts to the grocery store while I was in town.

A few years ago, I figured out that something was afoot in Asheville. Back in Austin, I was wearing a T-shirt from the Early Girl Eatery which has the words “Asheville, NC” on the reverse side, when I was stopped by a couple of women. They wanted to know what Asheville was really like, because they were thinking about moving there.

Then the couple who used to live across the street from me in Austin up and moved to Asheville, saying that it was a lot like Austin was 30 years ago.

Over this past Easter weekend, I went to Asheville for the first time in a couple of years. Since I’ve been gone, the city has hit hipster critical mass.

Damn Girl! playing at the Altamont Brewing Company, West Asheville

In less than a week in Asheville–and without disturbing my family activities–I did a lot of things that I never thought I’d do in Asheville. I ate at a Korean BBQ Taco Truck. I went to a Brewery Co-op. I even bought a tiny hat that’s the sort of hat that passes for high fashion in the Burningman-ish community.

In short, my conservative Asheville ancestors (whom I suspect didn’t mind when Thomas Woolfe was run out of town) must be turning over in their graves.