(bobby seay) the mountain folks had a wonderful way of life here.y had intergenerational exchange with the cherokee. the river was plentiful with what is called a white suckerfish; they would actually net them and catch them. (jere brittain) neuse river's my place. i can feel it in my bones like an acquired genetic trait. when i was a boy growing up at the confluence of north and south in neuse river, my mother would occasionally play on an old pump organ, a little song called "the mills river waltz" she said it was written by a relative, perry orr. by the time i was 11 or 12, i began to understand why perry heard music in the river. where the river meets rocky outcrops, it makes music, sometimes as simple and clear as violin notes, sometimes loud and complex, as a full orchestra that flows on quietly and slowly as the waltz. (dan pierce) people in the pre-industrial age related in a viety of wayto their water. i meanobviously, you had to have a reliable water supply, and wilma dykeman taught so eloquently about the importance of the spring to a mou