Tar Heel Memory/October/1,420 words

Last Dance

By Ralph Grizzle

The old apple barn will feel a little emptier this fall. That's because Frank Mast is gone. Pancreatic cancer claimed the life of the Valle Crucis resident in October of last year. The end came quickly but not without pain. Frank had been outside at the campground he manages. When he returned to his house, he sat down in a chair and slumped over in pain, telling his wife Thelma that his belly was killing him. Little did he know how true that was.

A few days later, Frank went to the hospital for tests. Shortly thereafter, a doctor called with the prognosis. Thelma answered the phone to hear that Frank's pancreas was covered with cancer and that there was no way to operate. Having worked in hospitals all her life, she knew the bleak implication of the disease. The doctor asked if she wanted to give the news to Frank herself, but she couldn't bear it. So she handed the phone to her husband and walked outside, where she wept. Frank came out to join her and said: "Don't let me die in the hospital bed. If I'm going to die, I want to die in bed next to you."

First Dance

Frank met Thelma in 1949 at the Valle Crucis Conference Center, an Episcopal mission building. Thelma had traveled over the mountain with a group of friends from Banner Elk for a pie supper and cakewalk at the Conference Center. Frank, who was well known in the area for square-dance calling, walked up on the stage to auction the pies and emcee the cakewalk. Obviously impressed with him, Thelma asked, "Who's that feisty little fellow up there?"

"Gosh Thelma," one of her friends replied, "You don't know Frank Mast? Everybody knows Frank."

And everybody did know Frank. His father ran the Mast General Store, the historic landmark that remained in the Mast family for more than six decades and is now owned by Faye and John Cooper. Charles Kuralt once remarked that Mast General Store symbolized the soul of the South. He was a frequent visitor, lunching with Frank on hoop cheese and baloney sandwiches at the store. Kuralt spent a lot of time with Frank, who was so famous locally that when he and Kuralt were together, the running joke was, "Who is that fellow with Frank Mast?"

Thelma was introduced to Frank on that night back at the Conference Center. It was love at first sight. Two years later, they were married. The young couple moved into an old four-room farmhouse near Mast General Store, where Frank worked with his father. Frank could have pursued a career at the store, but he preferred farming to being cooped up inside.

"His mother and father wanted to give him the store," Thelma says. "So he asked me if I would quit my job and help him run it. I was working at a doctor's office at the time, and I said I would not. I knew Frank didn't like working there and that it wouldn't make him happy, so I said no."

Always a familiar face in Valle Crucis, Frank farmed and did other jobs to eke out a living. He worked at Tweetsie as a night watchman. He opened a campground and managed it. And he continued to call square dances.

He was calling a square dance at the old apple barn when I visited him just weeks before his death. The event was a wedding rehearsal dinner. A few dozen people stood in clusters here and there. Frank stood at one end of the building with a microphone in his hand. "Could I have your attention please? It's been called to my attention that it's square dance time again in the old apple barn."

He encouraged everybody to grab his or her partner and "gather 'round" for an old-time country square dance. 'I can't call worth a hoot if there ain't but two dancers on the floor," Frank hollered to the audience, "so I need everybody out here."

Slowly, the crowd assembled in a circle. A fiddle player wearing a farm cap hit a few licks with his bow. The banjo picker stretched his fingers, picking out a few lively chords. A mandolin player joined in, as did an older fellow who played the guitar with its bottom horizontal to the ground. They played as Frank spoke to the audience.

"I see a lot of folks that we used to square dance with 40 or 50 years ago," Frank said. "It's kind of like riding a bicycle; you don't forget how. And if you do forget, I'll tell you about it." Then Frank said in a high-spirited voice: "Somebody tell them people outside that it's square dance time again in the old apple barn."

A few people came inside and joined the circle. Frank told the crowd to spread out in a big circle "so that it looks like we've got a whole lot of people."

"I know blame well if I can remember how to call, you folks can remember how it's done," Frank said, needling those who remained sitting on the side. "I've got plumb rusty on this. Been about two years. Come on folks. The band's a itching to get going."

Then to a fellow on the side, Frank said: "Bill, you'll never learn any younger. I'll guarantee it. Come on out here."

With everyone assembled, the band began picking and strumming, and Frank began calling.

Let's circle to the right. The other way back.

Break and swing your opposite lady.

Now on your own. Swing your partner.

Let's get a couple of four with four hands around. The other way.

Right hands over. Left hand back.

Break and swing your opposite lady.

Now your own honey baby. Swing your partner.

Onto the next couple and four hands around.

The other way. Put a birdie in the cage. [A lady stepped into the middle.]

Birdie out, and the crow steps in. [A man replaced the lady.]

Break and swing your opposite lady.

Now you're own honey baby.

Lady do-si-do. Gents do-si-do . . .

As the band played, Frank continued to instruct, his left hand in front of him like a conductor directing a symphony, his right hand holding a microphone in front of his chin. Ladies swirled while their men stepped lightly to the music. Every face wore a smile.

Apple Harvest

In the old days, Thelma remembers sneaking up in mid-winter to grab a delicious cold apple from the old barn. But apples haven't been stored here since the local orchards stopped producing more than 30 years ago. Winters it sits empty. And now with Frank Mast gone, it is emptier still.

Frank's death symbolizes the twilight of a time when old-fashioned square dances were common in rural towns like Valle Crucis. His passing represents the end of an era when folks gathered around in empty barns on weekend nights to dance the night away.

The folks in Valle Crucis loved Frank Mast, and he loved them. "He had a heart the size of a washtub," says his brother Howard. "Always willing to help out anybody day or night."

"We always came first," adds Thelma. "Frank put himself last." He raised his own family and looked after two older cousins, both debilitated by Alzheimer's. One night, Thelma cooked dinner for the old couple and set it aside, telling Frank to pull up to the table to eat. "He said he couldn't sit down yet," Thelma recalls. "Said he'd feel better having his supper if he knew his cousins were eating too."

Even as his illness progressed, Frank continued to put others first. He felt badly that Thelma, who had a bad back, had to wait on him. "I'm supposed to be waiting on you rather than you waiting on me," he told her. "It would just tear him up if I so much as got up to get him a glass of water," Thelma says.

It tore at Thelma's heart to watch him die. She told him that they were going to beat this thing. They'd get him better and go deep-sea fishing in Florida, which Frank loved.

They never made that trip, but Frank told his wife that he knew the "good Lord would have a fishing pond in heaven." On her refrigerator, Thelma has a picture of Frank fishing and underneath it a refrigerator magnet in the form of a bucket to hold all of the fish Frank is catching.

It's October, a time of harvests and square dancing, but not at the old apple barn.

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Asheville writer Ralph Grizzle and his wife celebrated their wedding rehearsal dinner in the old apple barn in 1993.