A Tourist in Mayberry

Part 2/1) The Riverview Retirement Community: How It Came to Be

Fact about Mount Airy: Voted one of the best places to retire in the United States by Forbes Magazine.

Western North Carolina, from the foothills to Asheville and Murphy and Cherokee and the surrounding counties, has always been a heavily recruited area by the FBI, the CIA, the Secret Service and other lesser known, covert government operations. These recruited men (almost always men) from the western part of the state come from rugged families who live off the land and are used to slaughtering farm animals or hunting game to feed their family. They can walk through the woods full of dried underbrush in pursuit of prey without making a sound. They are known for their ability to handle a gun and their marksmanship. They understand killing. They follow orders. They can work alone or as part of a team. They make obedient soldiers. Men here are known for their toughness, their crudeness, and most of all their loyalty to a code similar to the code of the enemies they are to be set upon. You cannot buy or create an inherited trait that probably can be traced back to at least as far as the Confederacy or farther back in history to Scottish and Irish ancestors in the region. These men have been historically wronged, and they are eager to right the wrong and fight the enemy, whether it is wealthy landlords, landed gentry, Yankees, enemies on foreign soils, communists, or the mob. Some recruits are already criminals before recruitment, due as much to circumstance as greed, which makes them eager to prove their worth and gain some respectability.

Over the last hundred years, the United States government invested heavily in the men, and the occasional woman, in this area and they are naturally interested in preserving this asset. What better location to do this than Mount Airy, North Carolina? It is situated right off of I-77 and easily accessible from the north or south. 1-77 intersects down the road a bit with I-40 which runs from the east coast to the west coast. All of which makes Mount Airy centrally located to all points north, south, east, or west.

It is not by chance retired FBI agents and other clandestine Washington, DC personnel end up on the outskirts of Mount Airy, NC in the Riverview Retirement Community. First of all, Mount Airy, North Carolina, the real life hometown of Andy Griffith of Mayberry fame, is the quintessential hometown in all of the United States. The Mount Airy Museum of Regional History touts the town's most important claim to fame. Painted on the exterior wall of the museum is: "Mount Airy - America's Hometown". While even the word "hometown" may not appeal to some past jetsetters and movers and shakers, a majority of older Americans are nostalgic for a return to a quieter lifestyle, especially when the quieter lifestyle includes beautiful scenery and things to do and see, and does not include someone trying to kill you. And, even if it does, well, there's safety in numbers.

This beautiful area, full of adventures worth taking, appeals to all kinds of federal retirees - those who were technology experts and people managers and those who were field operatives. Besides their monthly pensions, there are a few former office manager retirees at Riverview who receive a monthly stipend for their roles as watchers and problem solvers because you never know when a former field agent might snap. While the majority of the retirees are harmless, there are a handful in the Riverview Retirement community who have seen too much death, even from the good guy side (if there really is a "good guy side" in world politics). There are also a handful of trained covert personnel who can literally kill you in the blink of an eye. Some of these were never officially on the FBI/CIA/DEA/ATF/ETC payroll but were used over the years for operations that did not need to be traced back to Washington.

Most of these type of agents do not make it to retirement because their lifestyles off duty are often reckless with too much alcohol, or weed, or speed, or a confidence and bravado that will get you killed quicker than any other vice. There is the occasional agent who is careful, intelligent, and methodical enough to survive. They can retire in secret to anywhere in the world, but they are paranoid for a reason. They know enough about their government to know there is no hiding if they want you. Also, they are tired, and after years of living on the run, they want to settle down. They trust only what they know, and several of the covert agents depend on each other. Some of them fell in love and survived, which is more difficult than infiltrating the drug cartel and taking out the boss. Loyalty is these agents greatest quality, and they are most loyal to each other. This is how a group of these agents, called The Wild Bunch, ended up at Riverview. They were together for years and trusted each other with their lives. They have each other's back and can prove it by the scars on their own backs.

Riverview started as a modest retirement community in the 1960's. Beautiful lots by the river were attractive to retirees, especially when the government decided Mount Airy was close enough to Washington, DC that in an emergency, if brilliant minds or assassins were needed, they were close enough to be utilized as consultants or, if necessary - hired guns. The government decided select retirees would be offered a free lot and a building allowance if they "decided" to settle at Riverview. Of course, there are other retirement "destinations" for retired government workers with a specific skill set, most on foreign soil in exotic locations, but many skilled workers have "been there, done that". Some long for normalcy. Some long for home.

As the years went by, the population aged and required additional health care so a rehab facility/nursing center was built in the center of the community. These days it stays full. There is an Alzheimer's unit that is kept locked so wandering residents stay put. Staff on this ward are locals who were notoriously secretive about goings on because there are bonuses for those who are close mouthed and jobs to be lost if you are not. You never know what will come out of the mouth of the residents on this hall. Some ask about their daughters or their sons or their jobs or their husbands or lovers, but one nursing assistant, before she was let go, insisted a resident there whispered to her one day, "Give me the hammer. I think he's still breathing."

Riverview is a boon to the community, who know little about the secret society developed right under their noses, but find the whole notion of retired secret agents to be quite the novelty. The retirement community employs about 150 full-time and part-time people and includes cooks, nurses, nursing assistants, groundskeepers, and administrators. This is a blessing in a town where the majority of its knitting mills and furniture plants moved to foreign soil.

The residents in the retirement community are respected and revered. Sometimes, some of the more famous are used by local law enforcement as consultants. There was a case written up in the Mount Airy News where the SBI came from Raleigh to get some help from two DNA experts who solved the cold case of a murdered couple. The headlines read:

"Over the Hill Gang Solves 10 year Old Case"

The story written in The Mount Airy News was picked up by the Associated Press and carried in newspapers all over the country. It made the local reporter, Geoffrey Guthrie, a local celebrity. Years later, Geoffrey Guthrie became nationally famous after he wrote about his friend, The Collector, the most famous criminal in America at the time. For years, The Collector lived and secretly killed and kidnapped right under the nose of the law and right in the town represented by the mythical town of Mayberry, right smack dab in the middle of America's hometown.

Author's Insight: The idea of Riverview Retirement Community is inspired by rumors of retired FBI agents living in nearby Lowgap, NC.