- [Elizabeth] Coming up on "Best of Our State"... [gentle music] - [Doug] I just was one of those nature kids.

I was born with this passion - [Elizabeth] An inspiring walk through nature with naturalist, Doug Elliot.

- [Doug] There's always something to see in the woods.

- [Elizabeth] And Northern transplant and comic illustrator, Rich Powell, captures the quintessential Andy Griffith experience.

- [Andy] Both bunchesful of them men wanted this funny looking little pumpkin to play with.

[audience laughs] They did.

And I know, friends, that they couldn't eat it, because they kicked it the whole evenin', and it never busted.

[audience laughs] - That's next on "Best of Our State."

We dip into treasured stories for a look at all the beauty and character of North Carolina.

[gentle music continues] Hello and welcome, I'm Elizabeth Hudson, Editor in Chief of "Our State" magazine.

[gentle music] Naturalist and storyteller, Doug Elliot, spends his days making connections with the natural world.

- [Doug] Sometimes I think that my desire to know about all these creatures is part of wanting to know myself.

- We walk the woods with this cultural treasure to celebrate the people, plants, and animals of the American Appalachians.

- I just was one of those nature kids.

I was born with this passion.

I'd gotten outta college.

I was radical.

I was excited about life, had a BA degree in art.

I was totally unemployable.

So I thought, what could I do if I wanted to explore up into Canada?

We were camping out, and I kept looking around, and there was snow-capped mountains all around me.

So I started climbing up this mountain, and it was like the earth and the sky were one.

So I started just drawing pictures of that.

It was awesome.

So I went down off that ridge, and as soon as I got into the spruce and fur trees, all of a sudden [flapping lips], this big bird flew up.

It was like a grouse, but it wasn't like any grouse I'd ever seen before.

I pulled my sketchbook out, and I started sketching this bird.

And that bird flew away, and I thought, holy cow, I'm a wildlife artist!

Did "National Geographic" hire me?

Well, not exactly.

I climbed up the mountain and started doing it, and I realized right then if I wanted to do something was not wait for validation, not wait for a job, but just go for it with passion, with integrity, with humility, determination.

And it was probably 10 or 15 years later, I was talking to a Native American, and he asked me if I'd ever seen a spruce grouse.

I said, "Why do you ask?

He says, "Well, we consider spruce grouse "to be a messenger bird."

When it comes around, you might pay attention, because often it brings an important message.

And I thought, yeah, I think I know what we're talking about.

And in some ways that comment influenced my life.

[gentle music continues] And I've been living in Western North Carolina for probably the last 30 years.

What attracted to me here was the cultural integrity, basically, many people, who have a deep relationship with the land.

Some of my best teachers have been traditional Appalachian folks and Native Americans and just broadened whatever book learning I could ever get.

And there was this story about the old timers sitting around the store, off on one of these back roads over here, sitting around the store saying, "Yep, it's ole Zeke, he is out there plowing with his mule.

"Yep, had his hippie with him."

[laughing] I think I know who they're talking about, 'cause I certainly have spent my time following the footprints of wise old timers.

[water running] Our drinking water, I only drink a gallon or two a day, and there's a little spring that's a little bit below the house, so we just go and fetch it.

In some ways, that's sort of a pleasant routine.

There you go, fresh, mature spring water, right out of the mountain.

We have running water to the house, but it's creek water.

[water falling] Well the creek does have a little waterfall.

[water falling] And there's a little catchment basin that catches the water and runs through a couple of the settling tanks.

Then we have a buried pipe all the way to the house.

It's clean water, but we don't drink that just 'cause you never know who waded through it the night before.

But what that does, that gives us incredible water pressure, so even during a drought, Yanna can water the garden and keep an irrigation system going.

It's a nice little scene.

Thank goodness, my wife Yanna has a passion for gardening.

- [Companion] All right, looks like we're getting a pretty good pepper year this year.

- [Doug] Yeah, good peppers, man, they are so pretty.

This is great.

I'm trying to keep these tied up.

So this is the time of year when everything is coming in, so our main job now is to celebrate the harvest.

- [Companion] Yeah, let's eat one fresh.

- So we eat as much fresh as we can.

We try to can it.

We try to dry it.

We try to freeze it, so we have enough to last us all winter.

Yanna's so good about that.

She actually takes a tally of how much we eat during a normal year, and then she'll usually preserve about one and a half times just in case the next year doesn't produce real well.

Plants, they have some of the same struggles that all of us have.

How do you get along in this world?

How do you protect yourself from invasive things?

How do you protect yourself from pests?

Often the plants that are most nutritious have something to keep things from eating them.

These are stinging nettles.

The reason they call 'em stinging nettles is 'cause they have little tiny hairs.

They actually inject you with formic acid.

That's the same thing that an ants stings you with.

Sometimes the mountain people call it seven-minute itch, 'cause it gets on you for about seven minutes, but it's usually not much of a problem after that.

My sweet wife, Yanna, she likes to use it as a nerve tonic if she's feeling a little carpal syndrome, she'll actually apply some of that to her hands.

So even though this plant will sting you when it's fresh and live, if you pick it carefully, then you can take it in, [burner sparks] drop it into boiling water, let it simmer for just a couple of minutes, and it'll turn it into a delicious vegetable.

It's one of the most nutritious plants that we have here in the garden.

Mm, they're good!

[gentle music continues] We're all part of this miracle of creation.

And sometimes I think that my desire to know about all these creatures is part of wanting to know myself.

The favorite line my dad used to say, "That boy knows what's under every rock "between here and town," and I still turn over rocks, and I'm still looking for critters, but I'm also looking for the stories that connect those critters, the stories that connect those critters to us.

And so I guess part of my passion has been trying to find more points of contact.

[gentle music continues] Look what's here on this little persimmon tree.

This is a hickory horn devil caterpillar.

This is one of our most amazing caterpillars, and look at the horns on this little devil.

They're absolutely harmless, but they're probably one of our most extraordinary caterpillars, and this one's only about half grown.

When they're full grown, they're almost six inches long.

What a critter.

It'll turn into a great big moth.

My friend, Scott Gooch, always says, "Everything's got its weak point, its vulnerable points."

If you grab the crab from behind, and you can hold it safely.

You hold the rattlesnake behind his head, you can hold it safely.

Hold a possum by the tail, you can hold it safely.

Yeah, look at this rascal, ain't she a beauty?

Let's see, yep, she, [laughs] you know how I can tell?

Look at that, she's got a pouch.

Our only marsupial in North America has a pouch like a kangaroo, and look at this.

Very few creatures in the world that have opposable thumbs, humans and possums.

Humans, we've used our opposable thumbs to build great civilizations.

Possums, they've been using theirs just to hold on, and they have been holding on for a long time.

The first little mammals that showed up after the age of dinosaurs were almost identical to our modern possums.

We maybe let you get back home.

Come on, take care there, little gal.

Sometimes people say, "Oh I can't stand those old possums.

Some scientists did some stomach analysis studies, and they found out that in some areas, half of their diet is copperheads.

I mean, you like copperhead?

[gentle piano music] Oh look at this beauty.

Oh my, this is a black rat snake.

Sometimes people in Carolina, they call these king snakes.

These are the arboreal snakes.

They really like to climb around.

They're the ones that you'll find sometimes in your attic or in your barn.

Well they call 'em rat snakes, 'cause they love rats.

Oh, what a beauty.

People often say snakes are aggressive.

They're very rarely aggressive.

They're defensive sometimes, and sometimes they get really scared, and they'll bite at you, and he'll get his freedom here soon enough.

All right, now we're gonna do the old snake charmer trick.

[mystical flute music] Isn't that incredible, the muscular control of a beast like that?

Look at that, look at how much of his body is straight up.

[mysterious flute music continues] It looks like it's been well fed, which is, of course, good news, 'cause with all the voles and things in our garden, we are so glad have a few of these big fat snakes around.

Some people say, "This is like this little Eden here "with all your gardens and ponds and swamps "and things like that."

[water splashes] But you have to realize that Eden is everywhere.

If we can just sort of tweak our eye, open our heart, and realize it, even if it's a suburban backyard.

Nature just wants to be a part of our life since we are a part of nature.

[gentle music] It's such an honor that people actually want to hear what I have to say, and I'm just so lucky that people think that's of value.

Well, we all tell stories.

When I ask you what you did today, you're basically composing a narrative, that's how we make sense of our lives.

There was the story about the African tribe, and some missionaries brought 'em over a TV.

For the first couple of weeks, the whole village all gathered together, and they just watched that TV, and they watched that thing.

And then after about a couple of weeks, they started going back to the village storyteller.

This is a Dawa story, story from Asia about the guy that was chased by the tiger.

And they asked him, they said, "Doesn't the TV know more stories than your storyteller?"

And they said, "Yeah, it does, "but the storyteller knows us."

He was running for all he was worth.

There was no tree he could climb.

It was either the tiger or the cliff, and he chose the cliff.

He jumped off of that cliff, and as luck would have it, he caught that vine, and he's hanging on that vine, and he looked up, and he saw that tiger looking over the edge of that cliff, and he thought, oh, I'm safe from that tiger.

All I have to do is lower myself down this vine.

He looked down below, there was another tiger pacing back and forth.

He was trying to figure out what to do, and he noticed the vine was just up outta his reach, stretched tight over a little rock ledge, and up on that ledge, and it's just up outta his reach, he saw some movement.

It was a little mouse up there, a little light colored mouse.

That mouse was as light as the day.

That little mouse came up, started nibbling on that vine, and that little mouse went in, another mouse came out, a little dark mouse, dark as the night.

That little dark mouse started chewing on that vine.

That vine kept getting thinner.

That little dark mouse went in, and the light mouse came out, dark mouse went in, and they kept taking turns, the light and dark and the light and the dark, and that vine kept getting thinner and thinner, and he was trying to think, what do I do now?

And he looked and growing out of that cliff was a strawberry, a perfectly ripe strawberry.

He reached out, he grabbed that strawberry, and he ate that strawberry, and he enjoyed that strawberry, and he gave thanks.

And the Dawa say that's the end of that story, and that story's about our life, about how we're just hanging by that little thread of life, and the main thing we can be doing while that thread gets thinner, as the day and the night pass, is enjoy our strawberries and give thanks.

[gentle music continues] [upbeat banjo music] - Northern transplant and comic illustrator, Rich Powell, learned all about North Carolina and football as he illustrated Andy Griffith's famous monologue.

- [Narrator] Meet Rich Powell, an illustrator with an imagination that never seems to take a rest.

His daydreams end up on greeting cards, in newspaper comics, on t-shirts, even in "Mad Magazine."

Some are lifelike, and some have the tongue-in-cheek whimsy he's become known for.

- I would say it's more of an offbeat sense of humor, really kind of a slapstick thing.

I'm no Mark Twain, as far as the writing goes.

- [Narrator] In time, he left his native New Jersey and eventually found our state where he settled in Asheboro and poured himself a healthy dose of Southern culture.

- When I got here, I started drawing cartoons for the local papers.

Originally, the first cartoons were about humor that related to the southern experience.

Started going to a local coffee shop every morning to see a group of fellas there.

They had a great sense of humor, and they gave me so much material.

Growing up here, if you had a cut, kerosene will cure everything, or they smoked this stuff called, rabbit tobacco, I'd never heard of, and chiggers and all of these things.

There was so much material that it was easy.

You could come up with a gag by just going for a walk.

When the pollen comes down here, it's so ridiculous, definitely have to do a pollen cartoon.

So it's good to draw what you know, and what I knew at the time was I was getting used to living in the South.

We have a wonderful antique mall downtown, and on the wall was the record from Andy Griffith, "What it was, was Football!"

I didn't know about it until I moved to North Carolina.

- [Narrator] Long before "The Andy Griffith Show" made him a household name, Andy wrote and began performing a whimsical essay after his graduation from Chapel Hill in 1949.

"What it was, was Football" is the tale of a man who didn't know a football game from a glass of sweet tea when he arrived, unbeknownst at the site of one and got swept up in all the enthusiasm.

- It was a pretty unique record.

It wasn't George Carlin.

It was a comedy record you could get for your family, and everybody could sit and listen to it and get a kick at it.

- [Narrator] Andy's down-home style and his description of that fortunate dilemma was endearing to listeners and started him on the road to becoming a true national treasure when "What it was, was Football" was first released in 1953.

So here's what we've got, Andy Griffith, storyteller of Southern idiosyncrasies par excellence and Rich Powell, illustrator of Southern idiosyncrasies, par excellence, ah huh, sounds like a natural fit to me.

- Andy was a very tough character to draw.

With Andy being like the 13th apostle in North Carolina, I was pretty nervous about getting Andy right, but not just do it the perfect shot of Andy Griffith.

It has to look like my style of cartooning.

[bright music] - [Andy] It was back last October, I believe it was.

We was gonna hold a tent service off at this college town, and we got there about dinner time on Saturday.

- [Rich] Well, you have to pare that down.

You gotta pick what part of that you can draw.

It took place in the 50s, and it was North Carolina.

You really had to think back to the older days.

When you're done with that first sketch, you just like it.

It has life and energy to it.

- [Andy] And different ones of us thought that we ought to get us a mouthful to eat before that we set up the tent.

And so, we got off of the truck and followed this little bunch of people through this small little bitty patch of woods there.

And we come up on a big sign.

It says, "Get something to eat here."

And I went up and got me two hot dogs and a big orange drink.

And before that I could take a mouthful of that food, this whole raft of people come up around me and got me to where I couldn't eat nothing, up like, and I dropped my big orange drink, I did.

Well, friends, they commenced to move, and there wasn't so much that I could do, but move with them.

Well, we commenced to go through all kinds of doors and gates, and I don't know what all, and I looked up over one of 'em, and it says, "North Gate."

And we kept on going through there, and pretty soon we come up on a young boy, and he says, "Ticket please."

And I says, "Friend, I don't have a ticket.

"I don't even know where it is that I'm going."

[audience laughing] I did.

- So we get that whole story in one picture.

We'll have the ticket boy, we'll have him being swept along.

We'll fill it full of all sorts of crazy stuff.

People's legs and arms sticking out.

In the old mags, they'd stick a lot of stuff like that in there, and they'd call it chicken fat, so we'll just throw as much chicken fat in there as possible and make it as funny as possible.

- [Andy] Well he says, "Come out as quick as you can."

[audience laughs] And I says, I'll do 'er.

I'll turn right around the first chance I get.

Well, we kept on a movin' through there, and pretty soon, everybody got where it was that they was a going, and what I seen was this whole raft of people a-sittin' on these two banks and lookin' at one another across this pretty little green cow pasture.

[audience laughs] And somebody had took and drawed white lines all over it and drove posts in it, and I don't know what all, and I looked down there, and I seen five or six convicts are running up and down and are blowing whistles, they was.

And then I looked down there, and I seen these pretty girls wearing these little bitty short dresses and a-dancin' around, and so I sat down and thought I'd see what it was that was gonna happen.

And about the time I got set down good, I looked down there, and I seen 30 or 40 men come running out of one end of a great big outhouse down there.

[audience laughing] They did!

And everybody where I was a-settin' got up and hollered.

And about that time, 30 or 40 come running out of the other end of that outhouse, and the other bank pulled, they got up and hollered.

And I asked this fellow that was a-settin' beside of me, I says, "Friend, what is it that they're hollering for?"

Well, he whopped on the back and he says, "Buddy, have a drink."

[audience laughs] "Well," I says, "I believe I will have another big orange."

[audience laughing] And when I got down there again, I seen that them men had got in two little bitty bunches down there.

They had real close together, and they voted.

[audience laughs] They did.

They voted and elected one man apiece.

[audience laughs] - [Rich] Well I think the good gag we can do here is we can have a closeup of one of the groups of guys picking their man, and I think I'm gonna make our man in front this little guy that's sort of reluctant to go out there, and in the back we're gonna make that they've already picked their man, and he's gonna be a monster of a guy.

- [Andy] And them two men come out in the middle of that cow pasture and shook hands like they hadn't seen one another in a long time.

And then a convict come over to where they was a-standin', and he took out a quarter, and they commenced to odd man right there!

[audience laughs] Both bunchesful of them men wanted this funny lookin' little pumpkin to play with.

[audience laughs] They did, and I know, friends, that they couldn't eat it, because they kicked it the whole evenin', and it never busted.

[audience laughs] And one bunch got it, and it made the other bunch just as mad as they could be, and, friends, I seen that evenin' the awfulest fight that I ever have seen in my life, I did!

- This is the best part now.

This is where I get to really have fun and draw.

I'm just gonna draw this massive pile-on with all sorts of guys, getting slammed and bit and cut.

You don't have to draw the full figure.

You can have a face poppin' out of nowhere and work into this giant pile of action and stuff flying around.

- [Andy] They was runnin' at one another and kick one another and throw one another down and stomp on one another and grind their feet in one another and I don't know what all, and just as fast as one of 'em would get hurt, they'd tote him off and run another one on.

[audience laughing] Well, they done that as long as I set there, but pretty soon this boy that had said, "Ticket, please," he come up to me and says, "Friend, you're gonna have to leave, "because it is that you don't have a ticket."

And I says, "Well, all right," and I got up and left.

And I don't know, friends, to this day what it was that they was a-doin' down there, but I have studied about it, and I think that it's some kindly of a contest where they see which bunchful of them men can take that pumpkin and run from one end of that cow pasture to the other without either getting knocked down or steppin' in something.

[audience laughing and clapping] [bright music] - Thank you for joining us for "Best of Our State."

We have enjoyed sharing North Carolina's stories with you.

See you next time.

[bright upbeat harmonica music] - Well howdy there, farm boy!

- Howdy, stranger.

- Tell me, can I take this road here to Raleigh?

- Oh, I'll reckon you could, but they have enough roads there already.

Plus it's mighty heavy and stuck to the ground real tight.

- [laughs] No, no, no, I mean, does this road go to Raleigh?

- I've lived here quite a few years, that road's never gone anywhere.

It's always been there in front of the house.

Like I told you, it's stuck to the ground real tight.

- No, no, what I mean is if I go down this road this way, can I get to Raleigh?

- Oh, I reckon you could go that way.

- Oh, well tell me, how far is it?

- About 25,000 miles, and there's quite a bit of wet between here and there, but if you go that way it's about two miles.

- Well that's what I've been trying to find out.

[bright upbeat music] Well, only problem is I see that the creek crosses the road there.

Can I get across that creek?

- The ducks cross it every day.

- No, no, I mean, but how deep is the creek?

- There's water all the way to the bottom.

- No, how deep is the water?

- Up to here on a duck.

- [groaning] Oh!

[bright upbeat music] You lived here all your life?

- Not yet.

- [groaning] Oh!

[bright upbeat music] Well, that's a pretty nice little cabin you got there.

Tell me, does your roof leak?

- Only when it's raining.

- Well why don't you fix it?

- It ain't rain!

- [groaning] Oh!

[bright upbeat music] Is that the mail truck coming down the road there?

- No, I reckon that one's female.

- [groaning] Oh!

[bright upbeat music] Well you sure don't seem to know very much, do you?

- Well, I may not know much, but at least I'm not lost.

- [groaning] Oh!

[bright upbeat music] - [Announcer] More information about "Our State" magazine is available at ourstate.com or 1-800-948-1409.