Exploring the Valley

Love On The Corner

• PC PRODUCTIONS • Season 2 • Episode 2

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What happens when a single word becomes a weekly promise to your town? We sit down with Ruth Pittard to follow a winding path from childhood trips through Black Mountain’s craft scene to a tiny, solar-powered home and a public ritual that turned protest into presence. After three decades at Davidson College, Ruth uprooted her life, found an unlikely lot by a retention pond, and—against a ticking clock—built a compact, efficient house that fits her environmental ethic. The build beat expiring solar subsidies by days, and her yard now reads like a living essay on low-impact living: rain barrels, soil building, and more than ninety newly planted trees.

The heart of the story lives on the sidewalk. Sparked by a local editorial asking “What is your line in the sand?”, Ruth chose to stand for what she wanted more of: love. With a hand-painted sign and her grandchildren’s help, she took a place in the town center and waved. Soon, neighbors joined. Honks and smiles followed. A five-year-old later stood for the full hour, holding the sign like it was made for her. The Love Bugs, as locals now call them, show up each Wednesday with a simple method—arrive calm, make eye contact, and send kindness down the lane of moving cars. No performances, no slogans, just a steady practice that has quietly rewired how a community greets itself.

We also explore the science behind that feeling. Ruth is training in HeartMath, a research-backed approach to heart-brain coherence that links compassion to better health, clearer thinking, and stronger teams. It’s not heart versus mind; it’s the power of both, aligned. If you care about community building, sustainable living, or how small acts create outsized impact, this conversation offers an intimate, practical playbook for showing up with intention. Subscribe, share this episode with a neighbor who waves back, and leave a review with one word you’d put on your own sign.

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SPEAKER_00:

Ruth Pitter, I am really glad to have you here today. You're one of my favorite people in Black Mountain, and we met maybe a year and a half ago. Um, but I wanted to bring you in today. Well, we'll talk about why in a few minutes, but tell me a little bit about why you when did you start coming to Black Mountain and why and how long have you lived here? Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I came as a child to Black Mountain because my mother was a handiwork person and came to the Yarncrafters Guild or whatever the big handcraft festival is in the fall. We came when you uh when it took hours to get here. Where'd you come from? From uh Conover, which is not far not far, but far enough to be car sick twice because the road was not the road we travel now. And so I grew up as a child coming through Black Mount or by Black Mountain, and then as an adult, I worked at Davidson College, and three of us to would take a purposeful vacation day in the middle of the week to come to Black Mountain to eat at the veranda and to go uh Christmas shopping or celebration in Asheville at at the big craft stores. And and what's the street where w funky things happen? I mean, clothing, funky clothing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It used to be keep Asheville weird is their tag.

SPEAKER_01:

So a lot of it.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, lots of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Three times a year we did that and announced we were going because we took a vacation day to do it. Always eating in the veranda and stopping at Seven Sisters for me to buy a pair of earrings. Okay. Because I have that many years of one year. And then to go to Asheville. So I I really met the town as an adult and bypassed it as a young person, but was really familiar about where it is and it was really tiny then.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Yes. Yes. Well, I grew up coming here too, and so yes, I I have a hard time remembering what all is here. I remember the Sobel House and Tyson and Tanner Factory Outlets, and that's about it.

SPEAKER_01:

Tanner. That's it. That's because we came with my mother to the there was a Tanner outlet. Right.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's what I remember as a child.

SPEAKER_01:

But but yes. So that's how I got here. And and then when I well, that's a much longer story. I left uh work after 30 years and meandered uh in uh for ten, living on people's couches and living across the country. Yeah. And my family thought I was crazy. They they might not be wrong. I think that's probably true. But I ended up, I thought, I'll just try Asheville. And that took a morning to figure out that was not where I wanted to live. I just wanted to visit there. And I drove back through Black Mountain by the Realty uh at the square and Keller Williams, and no one was there but but one person, and she said, You need to live here. I'll find you a place. So you did. And yeah. That's funny. And we ended up, I thought, well, I couldn't find a house, couldn't find a rental house. And for I mean, just a series of events. I'm on the lot that has the water retention pond for the entire neighborhood. So my lot's about the size of a postage stamp. A big postage stamp. Which meant and they just recently had decided that someone might be able to live there, but it's 1,200 square feet minimum. Well, that was bigger than the lot. So they said, Well, you can build your house there at 600 square feet. And you did. And Josh Scala, who is green built. Okay. Is was out of work. He's in the neighborhood. And he said, You got four months? We can build that house in four months. We didn't even have a plan.

SPEAKER_00:

That's cool. I've been in your house. It is a really adorable house that's efficient. Like the the floor plan? You did that without a plan. Like he just decided to be a good one. Well, we just made one up as we went. Well, doesn't look like it. You did a good job.

SPEAKER_01:

And he's Greenville. So I got i it was I moved in the 5th of December and January 1, four of the five subsidies for solar disappeared. Uh-oh. So I had five. Had so I had to move in and in four months by by the end of December. And he finished it exactly on time.

SPEAKER_00:

So builders can finish on time.

SPEAKER_01:

That's what I just heard. He is the best. People who come to that house say it, I mean, it was almost lead certified. It is it and that was my dream. I've been an environmentalist all my life. Literally. And it happened just unfolded. That's cool. I love that. I love the story. I like it when things do that. That's right. That's right. Yeah. So I took care of my mother for five years, which meant that we weren't paying someone to do that. So in the end, because I had no money, in the end, I inherited exactly enough money to build this house.

SPEAKER_00:

Cool.

SPEAKER_01:

It was crazy.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, it was exact. Providence is my favorite theological term. So it is. I love when things like stories like that happen. Unfolding. That's right. I love it. I love it. So all right. So one of the things that I didn't know about you when I met you. How did I meet you? I met you, I think it was Gatewood. Yes. Called me and said that your daughter. Tell me this. Do you remember? Because she had called, because I had just had surgery.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. That's right. And needed some help. That's right. And she called Gatewood and Gatewood suggested you and you showed up. That's right. I mean there's a lot of people. We really did.

SPEAKER_00:

That was like minutes before we chamber world started. That's right. That's right. That doesn't sound good, but it's okay. But it's completely clean. It's fine. But well, the shower's clean too. It totally is. But so we met that way, and that was minutes before the chamber job came open, and they had and I started volunteering there. And so I ended up not getting to help you a whole lot, but a little bit, and we had a really good time. And I got to light a candle for you.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, so that's right. Thanks. You would get the job.

SPEAKER_00:

I did. I did.

SPEAKER_01:

We talked a lot about what you wanted to bring to the job. That's right.

SPEAKER_00:

I love, I love that. That's cool. So then after that, after all of that, I found out that you were what I call, I don't know if you know this word or not, but I call you one of the love bugs. I just heard that and I like it a lot. Well, I I I didn't know anything about the love bugs, except for that I named them that because every Wednesday afternoon, early evening, if you drive through the middle of Black Mountain, you see these crazy people who are adorable and they're standing out there with giant signs that say love on them. Would you tell me why? And you were the one who like came up with the idea or whatever. Will you tell me the story about that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, because it's this story is indicative of the story of my life, the story of my house, the story of how things emerge. When I I worked at Davidson College for 30 years, that's when I uh stopped. I stopped after 30 years. For some reason, everyone thought I was crazy because I really couldn't retire. But it's I was early a demonstrator against things, against the war, mostly against war. And I had a history of that in college, even though I was married and and had a child, we s we did that. Just I've always been for peace, but uh demonstrated, especially at the beginning in college, against that's what it was like college students were against the war. And so uh another a faculty member and I started a a prevent war uh uh group for a year. And when when someone drew a logo for us, it was a gun with a slash through it, like no guns, and I thought, whoa, I don't want a gun on the front of this. And so it started a query for all of us about what are we really what are we really wanting through our efforts? We want peace. So we formed a peace group and everything changed. Wow. When you're for something and you're for it for creating that something that you want, then your creativity goes crazy and your love of humanity goes even crazier because you recognize the potential. So for the rest of my time there, uh which was over 20 years, we had a peace group. We studied peace, the great peacemakers, the great leaders of peace, and and it was faculty, staff, and students, and it was just it's what you wanted to go do rather than what you were uh you had really harsh feelings around. Right. So that worked in my life. I was pro-good parenting rather than preventing bad pre you know, it it really formed my worldview.

SPEAKER_00:

It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

So here when the uh families started getting separated at the border, uh a child psychologist who lives here and has dedicated her life to healthy parent-child relationships understood that both parties were were traumatized in that activity. And she felt really strongly, so strongly, that she made a sign and stood in protest in Black Mountain against that and met with with mixed, as you can imagine, just mixed reaction. And then she wrote an editorial that made me cry. It was so beautiful about why she did it and why she would do it for both for the general health of everyone. And her final her final uh question at the end was, what is your land your line in the sand? What would make you do something that you never thought you would do? And I thought, oh, that's a good question. It's a beautiful editorial. And so I spent all week thinking, well, I think I know. I mean, I don't I don't really know. And I and I'm gonna be for something because I'm not gonna write a protest sign. I don't want to cause division. And and so my grandchildren came that weekend and I said, We're gonna make a sign. We don't know what to put on it yet, but we're gonna make a sign. What do you think when you know what what's a word that that reminds you of me? And and the oldest, my granddaughter said, Well, you talk about it all the time. I said, Well, what is it? She said, Love. Oh, that's so sweet. So they made my first sign. Of course. You still have it? I I do. Okay, actually. And it said, Choose love. Okay. And and so I thought, I'm gonna go stand where she stood with that sign. And she came the next week, took one look at the sign, laid hers down, came over and said, If your sign works, I don't have to have mine. That's great. And left and hasn't been back since. She said to join you. Well, so uh the first time I stood by myself and no one I one person doesn't work very well. I I mean nobody honked, nobody d did anything, and I thought, okay, I'll do that. But it I'll have to think about it a little bit. So the next week I tried it again, and then the third week, my neighbor, uh Robin Styles, I guess I can mention her. Sure. Yeah, uh, said, Can I go? She went in and took a little circle uh and wrote the word, and so she came and and it was very different because there were two of us. And then the third person, I think, was Laura Staley, who doesn't live here anymore, and she joined the next time, and then Larry Perlman. And so that was the core group for a long time. And and we talked about what we wanted to accomplish. We really have a a procedure, and that is we beforehand really dedicate ourselves to encourage to growing that feeling. And as people pass, we make eye contact if we can and and wave, because a wave is like a shake your hand, a transfer of that. It's not about us. We've had a lot of people want to come perform, you know, like dance or sing or play the play the cello or juggle or which is fine, but that's not what we want to come from our standing. And that is an exchange of a really dedicated, loving spirit through the wave into the cars they go by with eye contact if possible.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's how I know it's Wednesday afternoon when I start hearing the honking down the street up. So I said, Oh, it must be time to go home because it's starting to honk.

SPEAKER_01:

That was eight years, but no, it's seven years ago. I always forget. Really? Oh, yeah. Wow. It it was and I should know, but I think it's seven. This is the seven, September the 26th, seven years ago, because the town actually recognized five years of it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, how funny.

SPEAKER_01:

I personally have missed twice. I was in an operation once and had COVID once, but I think it's the most dedicated I've ever been to one thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Now you can't plan COVID, but you could have done the surgery around that. I I'm sorry. You couldn't. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

But but we really uh and there are about eight of us now that are are regular. Dedicated. Yes. Yeah. And intentional. Yes. Uh all people will meet me in the grocery store, don't know my name or anything, but it's like She's the love bug. No, you didn't look at me. Oh. I said, uh I'm sorry. Sometimes there are lots of people that I can't. I promise next week I will look. And sometimes it's dark. That's so you really can't. But that's the thing that people notice. They really notice. So I think we're doing something that at least moves from us into people, especially the children. And there was this just made everything worthwhile. A five-year-old and her mom came this year and said, Can we stand? I said, Yes. And and as long as people, you know, are are willing really to be there, anybody can stand. And it's called the public square. That's right. And we did check with the police to make sure we were okay. The and she said, Oh, can we hold a sign? And the little girl said, I've wanted to do this all my life. How sweet. She's five. It's a long time. And her mother said, Every Wednesday when they come in home from they wave. And she stood the entire hour with that sign and wave.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's good.

SPEAKER_01:

And so yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's we love the love bugs, and that's how we know when it's Wednesday, which is halfway through the week. Thank goodness. I'm always happy when it's Wednesday.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and it is interesting for those of us who hang that word around our necks. It's it's a responsibility to represent the word. And it really sometimes it's really hard. Yes. But we all take it seriously that that that's a claim and and it keeps it keeps me more often than not in listening mode rather than if you can believe it, I believe it. As much as I talk. It it's about uh not judging and not not being impatient and all those good things.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks. Well good. So good. So when you're not being a love bug and you're not at your house, what do you like to do? I love to garden. Garden.

SPEAKER_01:

I garden since I was a child.

SPEAKER_00:

Is there a garden club here or does the Black Mountain Beautification Club kind of Yeah, no, they're this place?

SPEAKER_01:

Or they're both full of knowledgeable garden gardeners who take it very seriously and are experts. I'm more of a spontaneous gardener. I like to plant things. I've planted over ninety trees since I've lived here. I just love to plant things and I can I move them a lot too. There you go. Yeah. I I don't like to there's not much I don't like to do. So and I'm lucky that way.

SPEAKER_00:

Nearly everything interests me. I don't have the attention span for gardening. I like to plant it, but then I don't yeah, doesn't it? I love keeping the follow-up order in it.

SPEAKER_01:

an environmentalist so there's always something to do here. That's true. This is a wonderful area for being involved in in how the earth fares and all this. My my space, I collect my own rainwater, I have solar power, I am dedicated to most things that are are in a solid solid environmental living. I'm trying to be one earth dependent and it is really hard. I bet it is I I wouldn't I conserve water and and electricity and all those things and I build soil. I don't use any I don't use any artificial stuff. Huh so it's that takes time.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah that makes sense. Yeah makes sense trying to make still eat at veranda frequently I haven't much I don't eat out much.

SPEAKER_01:

No I don't eat this well I do actually I do but I don't have really I just don't eat out that's one of my dedications when I'm uh limited in money.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

And I love to cook. I wish I loved to cook.

SPEAKER_00:

I wish I did.

SPEAKER_01:

Well I met your mother you know my mother's an amazing yes I took her class. That's how I knew you existed. Well there you go I made bread for 50 years.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah well it's not genetic to tell you that it's unfortunately not genetic. I do have other great qualities but but cooking we all our things. That's right.

SPEAKER_01:

But but I am I'd I've signed up for heart math to be a trainer for heart math. What is heart math? It's a scientific study of love moving in the world about what physically happens to you when you that when you use your heart to make decisions along with your mind. And I've never heard of that it's beautiful they study they study positive reactions and have the science behind the fact that compassion is way more healthy than not compassion. And there are more nerves from your heart to your brain than any other part of your body.

SPEAKER_00:

That's interesting. So the whole power of positive thinking whatever is physical physical too. Durman Vensonpeel was my brother's graduation speaker from high school so that's why I think of yes and as kind of a pioneer maybe before they studied it.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh they yeah studies maybe the last 10 years. That's what I was gonna say is like he knew it but he didn't yeah and after 911 for instance they measured energy across the world and so much of the world was was compassionate during that time because of the the upset. That's interesting. Yeah I'll be excited to hear more about that heart math heart math and there are all sorts of things you can do with organizations about how to build teams around heart rather than mind just mind. It's not like they're against the mind. Right. Well you gotta have but it's the combination of heart and mind that's the strongest. Very cool uh if you want to change the world which is this I know you have to study this learn a little bit more about it. So that's what I'm gonna while I'm here in the spring I'm gonna take a class to be certified to work with individuals.

SPEAKER_00:

So you're finally going to be certifiable.

SPEAKER_01:

I knew it I knew it yeah and I'll have my little diploma to this so I can talk about love.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right so you can talk about it like you haven't shown it for years. Right. So well well thank you so much for coming today. I really appreciate it. I always love visiting with you and a whole lot more today. I always learn something when I talk to you know uh curiosity we killed a cat but it's also interesting yeah yeah and thank goodness we're not cats right um yes all right well thank you for coming I appreciate you 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