{"id":5928,"date":"2012-06-28T12:20:55","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T16:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/?p=5928"},"modified":"2012-07-01T12:27:41","modified_gmt":"2012-07-01T16:27:41","slug":"standing-up-for-all-of-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/2012\/06\/standing-up-for-all-of-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Standing up for all of us"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>by Vicky Dickson<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"reader.100\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4092\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100-80x80.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nCompared with most writers, Jay Leutze seems fantastically lucky. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>When Leutze sent an agent the first book he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ever tried to publish, he heard the news of its acceptance within a week. That agent then sold the book in two weeks \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to Simon &#038; Schuster. And less than a week after its June 5 release, Leutze\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>Stand Up That Mountain<\/em> made the Southern Indie Bestseller List. Pretty amazing stuff for a first\u00e2\u20ac\u201ctime author.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5929\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5929\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Reader-Jay-Leutze.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Reader-Jay-Leutze.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Reader-Jay-Leutze\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5929\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5929\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jay Leutze, author of Stand Up That Mountain. Photo by David Ray<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nBut the Chapel Hill native\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not exactly a novice. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been writing since he was a kid \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and though he took a detour into the UNC School of Law and then a job opening bookstores around the country, he wrote three as-yet-unpublished novels before getting involved in the saga he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now documented in <em>Stand Up That Mountain<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p>The saga began in 1999 with a phone call from a 14-year-old homeschooled, computer-savvy North Carolina mountain girl. Ashley Cook lived with an aunt, Ollie Ve Cook Cox; her uncle Dallas; and her cousin Freddy, and she was calling about the crack in the foundation of the new house they were building. The crack seemed to have resulted from a nearby gravel-mining operation, an operation that could be seen, and heard, from Leutze\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own mountain retreat. And, it turned out, seen and heard from one of the most scenic parts of the national park running from Maine to Georgia, called the Appalachian Trail. <\/p>\n<p>The Putnam Mine case consumed four years of Leutze\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life and energy. Writing about the case took him another three, since it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a complicated story involving a crooked surveyor; overworked and underfunded bureaucrats; a golden-throated, Harley-riding Southern lawyer; and a retired Superior Court Judge nicknamed the Heel Hound. Attorneys from the Southern Environmental Law Center and representatives from the Appalachian Trail Conference and the National Parks Conservation Association also played a prominent part, along with a host of relatives, friends and foes of Leutze, Ashley and her Aunt Ollie. <\/p>\n<p>As the cast of characters might indicate, it was, in Leutze\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s words, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a great story to live through. My task was to not screw it up.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Because Leutze is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a fighter \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seek drama but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m highly attuned to injustice \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 [and] Ollie and Ashley were relying on me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he dedicated himself to making sure that the Putnam Mine would not, for the next 99 years of its lease, ruin his friends\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 enjoyment of their house or the majestic tranquility of the Roan Highlands. But because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a natural storyteller and a very gifted writer, there was never any danger of his screwing up the telling of the tale.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5930\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5930\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Reader-BigYellow.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Reader-BigYellow.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Reader-BigYellow\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5930\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Reader-BigYellow.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Reader-BigYellow-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5930\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The view of the Roan Highlands from Big Yellow Mountain, the home of Jay Leutze\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mountain retreat. Photo by Robert Dickson<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nLeutze, now trustee and secretary for the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, believes that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153power to change the landscape should come with concomitant responsibility.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Those of us who share that belief, who understand the eternal value of natural places, can only marvel at Leutze\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dedication and that of those who worked with him to fight the Putnam Mine. It was a very tough fight, one in which the outcome was precariously uncertain. So go out and get yourself a copy of <em>Stand Up That Mountain<\/em> to find out just how lucky we all are. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Vicky Dickson Compared with most writers, Jay Leutze seems fantastically lucky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5928"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5932,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928\/revisions\/5932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}