Exploring the Valley

Roots And Return

• PC PRODUCTIONS • Season 1 • Episode 8

Share episode

What if the place that raised your curiosity also raised your confidence? We sit down with Jack to trace a path from creek-stomping summers in Montreat to choosing Black Mountain as an adult, and the story is full of unexpected lessons about freedom, belonging, and everyday access to nature. This is a portrait of the Swannanoa Valley as both a sanctuary and a springboard, where spontaneity thrives and community keeps a gentle eye out.

Jack pulls back the curtain on what “low-stakes mistakes” look like in a town that knows your name. From the first legal bar nights where someone always has your back, to the trailheads you can reach with a short drive and no planning, the valley turns well-being into a daily habit. We also wander into Europa, the beloved shop that curates European heritage—tartans, pottery, chocolates—into one inviting space. It’s a reminder that small towns can host global experiences when curation meets care.

Food fans will find plenty to chew on: stalwarts like My Father’s Pizza and Trailhead, new cravings at Bush Farmhouse, a nod to Berliner Kindl, and a growing list that makes choosing dinner delightfully hard. Along the way, we talk about why Black Mountain feels self-sufficient without being cut off. Asheville, Charlotte, and Atlanta stay within easy reach, making big concerts, airports, and weekend sprints simple, while the mountains remain your daily view.

If you’ve ever wondered whether a smaller place can hold a bigger life, this conversation offers proof. Stick around for stories that feel like home, practical tips for exploring the valley, and a fresh look at what it means to build roots with range. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who misses the mountains, and leave a quick review so others can find us.

Send us a text

Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Exploring the Valley. This is Cheryl Hyde, the director of the Black Mountain Swannanoa Chamber of Commerce and the Black Mountain Visitor Center. On this podcast, I'll be your guide to the people, places, and stories that make our community special. Each episode will share the heart of the Swannanoa Valley, from local businesses and hidden trails to festivals, history, and the voices of our neighbors. Whether you're a longtime resident or a first-time visitor, you'll find the pride of our community and the magic of the mountains right here. You're listening to Exploring the Valley, where local pride meets lasting magic. You're in for a ride, so buckle up. Good morning, Jack Shaloski. I am so glad to have you here. And this is sort of a different take on what we usually talk about because of the guest that we have today.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, thank you for having me. It's wonderful to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, good. We're glad you're here. And why is it different that you are a different person? Why is it that you are a different kind of person than we normally have on here? You want to tell them or you want me to? Okay, Jack is actually my firstborn. He's my older child. I have two boys. And Jack lives right here in Western North Carolina. Okay. So I really wanted to have you up here because I wanted you to talk about coming here in the summertime and then deciding to live here as an adult. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about when you would come and visit your grandparents, what you would do, and what kind of adventures you would go on.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So coming up here in the summertime would be primarily the time we would come up here, additionally Thanksgiving and every once in a while in between, but mostly summertime. All through growing up, I couldn't even begin to tell you the first time I was up here. It was probably far too small to even be conscious. But the a lot of the stuff we would do growing up was spending summer with them and going to camp and clubs in Montreat and then one exploring the valley and various different places around town, just getting out of I hesitate to say big city life, because it wasn't where we we live. It was a suburb of Atlanta, but this is substantially less urban than even that. So it was a chance to get out into the world and see more natural, varied environment than than was home.

SPEAKER_00:

True. You also had a lot more freedom when you were here.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I did also have that.

SPEAKER_00:

You have a helicopter mother, for sure. And when you got to come up here, you got to kind of explore on your own. Indeed. And I think that's different for most kids.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was it was very freeing is such a unhelpful word, but it was so I learned a lot of things about myself and how to do things than I would have realized otherwise. I got a chance to make simple minor not minor but inconsequential mistakes that you can then learn from in a more what's the word I'm looking for? Safe? Safe, but but a lower stakes um environment than at home when you where you know everybody and you you're gonna hear about it at school the next day and all of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Cool. So you you would come here. What do you what do you think when you s when you think of visiting them, what other than visiting them, do you think about with the creeks, the mountains, the what what were your sort of hiding places, your place that you would like to focus on?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it would be uh creeks and hiking primarily around predominantly Montreat, but various parts around the whole area. Spent some time out in Piscoat National Forest and all over really western North Carolina, but centered around here. And really I I struggle to find my or to name a place that felt like mine because the whole area and exploring and finding new things was part of the main attraction to it.

SPEAKER_00:

Very cool. But then as a kid, we we don't, I mean, I think all of us don't think about beyond the you know what we do, and we don't really think about any you you lived in Montreat as a kid or you visited in Montreat as a kid, but as an adult, you chose to come back and live here for a while, even with your even with your grandparents, and then you moved on out into the big world like a big boy. And and tell me what you learned when you all of a sudden had the freedom to go explore elsewhere as a grown-up.

SPEAKER_01:

Ooh. I'm not sure if this is how you meant the question, but I'm going to intentionally misinterpret it this way of how what did the freedom make me appreciate differently? Was I didn't realize until moving back here and and being in this area again how much I'd missed it. I didn't realize how much I valued the ability to just go disappear into the woods for a couple of hours on very short notice and be fine. Not not have it be planning a trip to go and explore or go hike somewhere and uh I've got to take two days off work and book a hotel and and and the ability to just say, you know, I don't have any plans this afternoon.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's go wander around. Cool. I like that. So you talk about the woods all the time, but as the working at the chamber, I wander around and talk to the different businesses and restaurants all the time. And people will say, I heard the other day that you're Jack's mom. And it's hysterical. Well, it cracks me up because I'm like, How do you we have different last names? How did you connect that we were? And people, I think that it you're kind of a local legend. People know who you are, and it kind of surprises me almost every time.

SPEAKER_01:

You give me far too much credit, I hope. Um, as that that is, I don't know how I would handle that, but interesting to hear that you hear it more.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, nothing bad. They don't ever tell me any of the good gossip. Um, there's gotta be something. Yeah, it's either you or your uncle I hear about all the time. But that's there you have it. All right. But tell me about when you you finally could go. You were old enough, you can go go to bars and things like that and watch games or hang out with people. And there were certain places you liked to go. I know this because people tell me now. But tell me a little bit about being a grown-up in Black Mountain.

SPEAKER_01:

It was so I was living here when I turned 21, when I became legally allowed to do things. It was a wonderful, I'm going back to earlier, a relatively low, not low stakes, but everybody kind of knew each other. So if you were gonna possibly do something you shouldn't, you're gonna run into somebody you know that's gonna say, eh, or it will take care of you. We'll make sure you're okay, was nice to have in hindsight.

SPEAKER_00:

So beyond, beyond Montreat, beyond Black Mountain, beyond even the Swannanoa Valley. I know that your grandparents were good about taking you on trips, and you went lots of really cool places. You've been all over the country. Trips that I would like to have gone on. I always said, ma'am, can I just get in their suitcase and ride with them? But there wasn't space. I know. My mother always said there's not enough room for a mini marshmallow in this car. That was her expression.

SPEAKER_01:

Not exaggerating.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. Okay, Jack. So here's the thing. I am constantly in awe of the fact that you know things. You can watch a video and you remember or retain so much information that it always astonishes me. One of the things that I find interesting about you is that every time you come to town, one of the first places you always go is Europa. I know very little about Europe itself. I mean, I know where it is, I know a little bit about it, but you have studied it mostly because of your love of Le Mans. Did I do that right?

SPEAKER_01:

It was a pretty pretty good pronunciation, I'll allow it.

SPEAKER_00:

Anyway, but but tell me a little bit about why that's your store, why that's your place that you seem to always want to go.

SPEAKER_01:

I it I find so many things there that couldn't ex- I hesitate to say couldn't exist anywhere else, but would struggle to exist in a vacuum. They only can survive as a store because that is their image. That they have uh the collection of all the stuff that you see on uh Facebook or wherever that is like, oh, that's a very cute, interesting thing from let's say Belgium. And you don't have necessarily the time and money and everything to go to Belgium just to see this thing. And you can't have a store for just this one type of chocolate, let's say. But if you bring in a collection of all that area, it can exist together and you can have all of the really cool stuff from different places you've seen in one place.

SPEAKER_00:

So if somebody is listening to this and they have no idea what Europa is, tell us what that what that store you keep saying things. Tell me what else they have in there.

SPEAKER_01:

They have all kinds of different ceramics pot I don't know if pottery is the right term. Forgive me if that's not correct, but it's a place that you can go in and find all kinds of different crafts from different places, such as different all kinds of different tartan from different Scottish clans where you can look up your heritage and find your correct thing and order it in whatever you would like. They will have they may not have it in stock, but they have the ability to get it for you relatively quickly and at a pretty reasonable price, I think I can say. They also have pottery from all over Europe, different socks, cards, soaps, things that you wouldn't think necessarily Ooh, I want to go look at that. But while you're there, it's a wonderful thing to consider different cultures than your own and different ways of doing things.

SPEAKER_00:

Cool. I like that. I uh I like to go in there just and I'll I'll try when I go just to focus on one item so that I can learn something about it because it's overwhelming to a girl like me. So when you are eating dinner in Black Mountain or Swannanoa, where do you like to go eat?

SPEAKER_01:

I go various different places. I the old classics of my father's pizza trailhead, hard to get away from, but I'm trying to branch out some more. And I've been wanting to go to the South African restaurant, forgive me, remind me its name.

SPEAKER_00:

Bush Farmhouse.

SPEAKER_01:

Bush Farmhouse, thank you. And really enjoy going to Ole's and all of those. I keep meaning to go to the German restaurant whose name I cannot pronounce properly.

SPEAKER_00:

And I try Berliner Kindle.

SPEAKER_01:

Berliner Kindle. Okay. I guess I overthink it.

SPEAKER_00:

It is that is exactly what I do.

SPEAKER_01:

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00:

You're good.

SPEAKER_01:

Also, love some good French cooking. Okay. So I gotta get there. But there are many other places that I want to try and others that I have, and and I'm sure that I'm forgetting. And forgive me, local restaurateurs. I'm not if I've not named you, it's not because I don't like your food. It's because I'm just a little bit overwhelmed by choice, which is a wonderful s predicament to be in.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. You're not the only one. I mean, it is funny sitting at the visitor center and people come in all the time and they're like, where do we eat? And you think, I've got 38 restaurants to tell you about big guy, and you don't know where to start. So I I get it. You're not you're not alone. All right. In closing, is there anything I should have asked you about or something you want to talk about about Swannanoa Valley?

SPEAKER_01:

Ooh. I think it's one of those wonderfully special places that you don't really recognize how much you appreciate it until you've left and come back and realize the things that you didn't uh uh didn't even know that you uh appreciated until you missed them. Like the ability to just go and and explore on a moment's notice. The fact that it is a small enough community, uh, but that has 98% of anything you could possibly need. It feels like such a great little small town with neighboring small towns without being so isolated. It doesn't feel like you're in the middle of Alaska, where you're a hundred miles away from the nearest anything if you need severe medical help, if you want to go see a big concert or something like that. It's a great m microcosm of uh having your own little area where you're self-sufficient and everything's fine and you're good. But if you want to branch out and go see further see things further afield, it's much easier connections to get to than it could be other places that I've been. I don't see myself I couldn't I couldn't live in New York or Chicago. I couldn't do that. But I like the ability to get to places like that quickly for if I want to just take a weekend. It's easy enough for me to do that. I'm not planning crazy connections and trying to get out. It's I'm close enough to Asheville, Charlotte, Atlanta. It's not not necessarily day trippable, but it's it's an easy, it's not a daunting thing to look at. But I always find myself coming back to here.

SPEAKER_00:

Fabulous. Thank you very much. You make me sound like I knew what I was doing. You sound really smart. I guess you are really smart, but thank you very much for coming in today and for being on our podcast. And I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for joining us on Exploring the Valley. Until next time, keep celebrating the pride of our community and discovering the magic of the mountains. In the meantime, you're free to move about the valley.