Interesting People with Interesting Cars: Jim and his Mercedes

While we were in Vancouver, Washington (across the river from Portland, Oregon) this past weekend visiting some of my wife’s family, I took an early morning walk along the Columbia River’s waterfront, which ran right in front of our hotel. We’d done a lot of sitting while visiting my wife’s elderly grandparents and wanted to stretch our legs while we could. My wife went for a run while I (who had not packed running shoes) went for a walk.

Not sixty seconds into my walk I saw something I couldn’t just walk past: an immaculate 1986 Mercedes 560SL. It was a convertible and the top was down. Washington had the weather for such vehicles, that particular morning being 59 degrees and less than 50% humidity, refreshing for a Tennessean suffering through a sweltering summer back home. I couldn’t find a ding or a scratch on the Mercedes’ paint anywhere. The interior was as pristine as the exterior, and looked like the day it rolled off the factory floor, complete with a car phone by the passenger seat. You were cool if you had a car phone back in the day.

But the whole car exuded cool, really.

As I take the last of my photos, I hear a voice behind me say, “If my car ends up in a movie, I want my cut.” I turn to see a man wearing a dark T-shirt under a puffy vest and short shorts holding a coffee in one hand. He had bed head, just like me that morning. He’s probably in his mid-sixties and I get the feeling he’s comfortable in his own skin. Turns out his name is Jim.

Jim said he had bought the car by accident, basically, while searching Facebook Marketplace for a dining room table in Palm Springs, Florida. When he showed up to purchase the table, he saw this 560SL and told the guy if he ever wanted to sell it, let Jim know. He called the next day.

So Jim bought a Mercedes while shopping for a table.

We talked about the car for a few minutes and he told me the details. The car had been fully restored at some point in its life, and while Jim insisted it wasn’t perfect, I couldn’t see what he was talking about. The white paint glistened. The car was old enough to have mechanical fuel injection and not electronic, but not so new that it had all the fragile, computer-controlled bits and bobs that tend to break on more recent cars. It was fitted with a 5.6L V-8, making only 230 HP back in the anemic car scene of the US in the ‘80s. Mercedes-Benz made the SL for eighteen years, 1971 to 1989, one of the longest production runs of any car. And the 560 was the flagship of the SL lineup, because: V-8.

I should have gotten a photo of Jim, but I didn’t. I’ll do better next time. But it’s always fun to connect with someone over their car. There’s always a story, even if it’s just that they bought it by accident while shopping for home furnishings.

When I asked about the rose on the windshield, he said, “I just found it on the ground and thought it would be funny to tuck it under the wiper. I have that kind of humor, I guess.”

J. Corbett Gateley's Day Off

Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

And since that entire movie was filmed in and around Chicago, it seemed like an appropriate quote to throw into a blog about a long weekend trip to Chicago.

Two years ago, my girlfriend-now-wife, Madison, asked me to come cheer her on in the Chicago Marathon in October of 2023. So I spent 36 hours that trip hanging out with her family, taking the el train at the butt crack of dawn, and chasing Madison around a marathon route. That was my first ever visit to Chicago, and while I thought I had seen it well enough then, Madison disagreed. She said she owed me a “fun trip” to Chicago.

Fire escape. Canon Rebel T7i.

The Orange Line. Canon Rebel T7i.

Waiting on a call. Canon Rebel T7i.

We got into Midway International Airport Thursday night pretty late for an early-30s couple with bed times like old geezers — 11:30pm. Our hotel room was at the Hyatt Regency, right on the Chicago River, overlooking the NBC tower and the Wrigley building from the 26th floor. Being boring adults now, we finally learned to use credit card points to buy useful things like hotel stays, and then got upgraded to the waterfront view, which we weren’t mad about.

I didn’t anticipate our visit to be quite so high-brow as it ended up, meaning we spent a lot of time doing “smart people” things like visiting art galleries and taking architectural boat tours. The Art Institute of Chicago was our first stop after a quick but lovely breakfast on Wabash Avenue, under the elevated Orange Line train tracks. I never really expected to enjoy art museums, but marrying an interior designer who basically went to art school exposes you to lots of new things. Turns out, I do indeed enjoy a good art museum.

Woman at the Piano. Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1875-76

Nighthawks. Edward Hopper 1942

A woman sketching a figurine. Canon Rebel T7i.

One of my favorite paintings is Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, which always felt like a scene from a noir film to me. That painting is part of the Art Institute’s permanent collection, and was featured in the art museum scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. That’s when I realized we were in the same institution featured in the film, and I geeked out because I love that movie.

We meandered through the huge Impressionism section, reviewing the works of Monet and Renoir, before proceeding to the Modern Art section, where I must admit I was too daft to appreciate most of. However, I did discover that I enjoy René Magritte’s Surrealist works, particularly Time Transfixed, which features a train chugging out of a chimney (I didn’t take a picture, so you’ll have to Google that one).

And of course, there was the fan favorite, American Gothic, featuring the farmer and his daughter, pitchfork in hand.

American Gothic. Grant Wood 1930

We did other things during our PTO-induced long weekend, like visit the Bean, walk down Navy Pier, sample Chicago deep dish, make our way to a packed rooftop bar on top of the London House hotel, eat dinner with some of her cousins that live in Lincoln Park, wander down the Riverwalk, etc. But the other highlight of the trip would have to be the Architectural Boat Tour.

Both times I’ve been to Chicago, I was obsessed with the architecture. I’m in construction, so I suppose it’s natural for me to be interested in the built environment, and that part of my brain goes crazy when I visit a big city. But Chicago seems to have done a great job of preserving its history while allowing for innovation. There’s a little old, a little new. The boat tour allowed me to indulge that fascination.

The St. Regis Chicago. Canon Rebel T7i.

Mather Tower. Canon Rebel T7i.

The Merchandise Mart. Canon Rebel T7i.

The boat was like a tiny ferry boat, with an open deck on top with folding chairs set up in rows, and an air-conditioned parlor below. Because so much of Chicago is built right on the Chicago River, boats are an ideal way to see some of the best architecture the city has to offer. It was hot that day and the sun beat down on us relentlessly during the boat ride, but amazingly my lily white skin didn’t get burned during the 90-minute tour. If you’re every in Chicago and have a free minute, I highly recommend an architectural boat tour. Even if you’re not a building nerd, you’ll probably enjoy the stories. Our tour guide even pointed out the building that Ferris Bueller’s dad worked at in the film, making our trip a bit more John Hughes-flavored.

We didn’t necessarily set out on an art-appreciation trip, but it got the creative juices going and my camera shutter was working harder than it has in quite some time. And the flight from Nashville to Chicago is such a short, cheap one that I’m sure we’ll be doing it again sometime, which is good because I wanted to go back almost as soon as we got home, much to Madison’s chagrin (she hadn’t even fully unpacked yet).

“You’re still here?! It’s over! Go home. Go!”

Fathers

If I were any good at this whole blogging thing, I would have wrote this last weekend, but here we are.

It’s been a busy six months, let me tell ya. A wedding (mine), honeymoon, home projects…a veritable whirlwind. It’s been eating me not having written anything in a while, but the juices got going again last weekend, Fathers’ Day in case you were wondering.

My father died when I was just 21. That’s eleven years he’s been gone now. More than a third of my life. He was sick for five years before that, and not in the best of health his entire life. Like Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird, he couldn’t throw a football with me, or help me with batting practice, or teach me to shoot a layup. But he had hobbies, and he shared those with me. Watching Alfred Hitchcock movies, model railroading (he built an enormous, never-complete HO-scale layout in our basement), burning early 2000s rock onto CDs for my sister and me, but especially home improvement projects.

Cutting drywall, framing stud walls, and replacing toilets was the right kind of physical and mental activity for him, and he took me along for the ride. I know things today I’ve taken for granted that all dads teach their sons, only to find out that no, all dads don’t teach their sons to use circular saws at age twelve, or that studs are spaced sixteen inches on-center, or how to wire an electrical outlet. Looking back as an adult, I can imagine the anxiety he might have had in trusting me to work on those things by myself so I could learn. (As an indentured servant, I built an entire cinderblock retaining wall by myself, one of six my father built on our one-third-acre lot).

Not being able to roughhouse or teach me any sports, the nature of our relationship was different than the other dads. I suppose it was the teacher in him (he taught high school vocational agriculture at one point in his life), but our conversations often took deep philosophical turns. I had big questions, and he didn’t shy away from having big answers. He gave me lessons about marriage and fatherhood decades before I would need them. Along with my mother, he instilled a work ethic in me. He taught me the importance of writing thank you notes, and that all good things are worth waiting for.

I don’t miss him everyday like the movies say you’re supposed to. Not that I don’t wish he were here. There are lots of things I’d like to share with him, especially entering this stage of adulthood. It’s just that I don’t think about him everyday. But his lessons are with me whether I think about it or not.

And he’s not the only father in my life.

Papa at his workbench.

Losing my dad at an early age, I suppose I sought out other father figures without thinking about it, one being my grandfather on my mom’s side. Papa, we called him. He was a retired dairy farmer, a Navy mechanic during WWII, and lost his own father when he was just sixteen. When I moved to Spring Hill after college, I was close enough to visit him in Dickson and keep him company while he putzed around in his woodshed. Or we’d take his old Ford Ranger up on the cow pasture and drive around after knocking the wasps nest off the headliner (he always left the truck windows open). Or sit and watch Nashville Public Television after eating Jonah’s Pizza from Charlotte.

In his milking days as a farmer, Papa employed several young men from around town to help him bale hay in the summers. Those hot, sweaty summers ended up being mentoring sessions for the young men that worked for him, and the beginning of lifelong friendships. They were pallbearers at his funeral. Maybe it was just that he had four daughters (to his consternation, at times) and no sons to help on the farm, but maybe it was also that he knew the importance of mentoring young men because of his own experience. I was one of his pupils. In some ways, I had him longer than I had my own father. He passed five years after my dad did.

But Papa wasn’t the only father. There have been others. There’s Steve. There’s Mitch. There’s David. It would take too long to tell all the stories, but they saw me through the darkest of my hours. They encouraged me to take risks and step outside my comfort zone. And if they’re reading this, thank you.

Here’s to the fathers, by blood or not. If you don’t have a father to celebrate, maybe you have a mentor. Next Father’s Day, drop them a note. Especially if they taught you to use a saw.

A Merry Bavarian Christmas

It’s been many moons since I last wrote a post, but it’s not because nothing has been happening in my life. This has been the craziest year of my entire life. So far, I proposed to my fiancé, Madison, flew to Seattle to meet her grandparents, helped plan a wedding, flew to Mexico, flew back to Washington to visit Madison’s grandpa when he got sick, and got my house under contract to sell. But before all of that, before I even proposed, we booked a trip to Austria and Germany.

Let me tell ya, with all that other stuff going on, Madison and I either pushed this trip to the back of our brains, or (at more than one point) thought it wasn’t even possible. If it wasn’t ailing family members, it was last-minute offers on my house. But since you’re reading this post, you probably figured out that we dodged enough bullets to still make the trip a reality.

Madison mentioned wanting to go to Germany as early as last year, and as I later found out, it was meant as a 30th birthday hoorah for her. She said she was going with or without me, and I didn’t want to be the schmuck dropping her off at the airport, watching the plane takeoff from the ground, so I obviously went with her.

Madison in Vienna. iPhone 15 Pro.

The streets of Vienna. iPhone 15 Pro.

A bratwurst kiosk. iPhone 15 Pro.

Café Frauenhuber, frequented by Mozart and makes a heavenly breakfast. iPhone 15 Pro.

I had been “across the pond” just once before, last year when I went to Ireland, but I had never been to mainland Europe, and I had never gone for as long as we were this time (ten days). For that matter, neither had Madison. We both dusted off our passports, threw some clothes in suitcases, and rolled through BNA’s security lines the Friday before Thanksgiving.

Yes, we spent Thanksgiving abroad. While we both love a good turkey dinner, we have limited PTO, especially with all that’s been going on this year, so we decided to travel over the holiday to save a few days of time off at work.

Our destinations were as follows: Vienna > Salzburg > Munich > Berlin.

We actually tacked Berlin on at the last minute, because if we’d gone to all the trouble of getting to Germany, why not see Berlin? Our main objectives were to see as many Christmas Markets as possible (more on those later), see some Alps, and experience some history.

Vienna, Austria

Vienna is a lovely city. It’s old and it’s beautiful. The people are kind and pretty much all speak English. But they do have rush hour just like boring American cities, and we arrived smack in the middle of it. However, all that was forgotten with a fantastic breakfast at the Benedict Café the next morning. I had an omelet with frankfurter sausages and an americano. I didn’t realize it was a cash-only place until after we ate, so Madison was “held hostage” until I came back from the ATM.

The two days in Vienna were some of the coldest days while we were there. Being late November, winter was just beginning to set in, and with the wind whipping through the cobblestone streets the “feels like” temperature dropped a good seven or eight degrees. I wore my grandfather’s Navy peacoat, long underwear, and wool socks and was still cold.

It wasn’t all fighting the cold, though. On day one, we visited the Belvedere, once Prince Eugene of Savoy’s palace, now an art gallery with the likes of Monet and Klimt on display within its walls, which we spent several hours exploring, filling in the rest of our day stumbling upon Christmas markets.

The second day, we jammed several historic places onto our itinerary, such as the Beauty and the Beast-esque Austrian National Library, and the Spanish Riding School, which has been around for a mere 460 years.

Ornate architecture in Vienna. iPhone 15 Pro.

Domkirche St. Stephan, Vienna. iPhone 15 Pro.

Hofburg Palace, Vienna. iPhone 15 Pro.

Austrian National Library. iPhone 15 Pro.

Saddles hanging in the Spanish Riding School. iPhone 15 Pro.

Salzburg, Austria

The night before we left for Salzburg, I realized I should probably look up the rules of the road in Austria, since we booked a rental car to help us explore places off the beaten path. In doing so, I realized I didn’t have the correct license to be able to drive, and promptly freaked out. The next morning, we blazed a trail for the airport where the rental car office was and discovered that our booking company had made a mistake and canceled our reservation, anyway. With the right insurance policy, we could still have rented a car, but at that point I wanted someone else to cart us around, so we bought train tickets to Salzburg.

Trains in Austria are fantastic. They almost always run right on time, they’re comfortable, they’re fast, and they’re smooth. In fact, getting from town to town is absurdly easy in Austria and Germany without cars. The train station in Salzburg was only an eleven-minute walk from our hotel. But then, you can walk from one end of Salzburg to the other in about 30 minutes if you’re not carrying luggage around.

Salzburg is a very small but very old city. It happens to be the birthplace of Mozart (no big deal, right?), and the houses of some of his neighbors growing up were built in the late 1200s AD. That’s right. Some of these buildings were 800 years old. Meanwhile in the U.S., we hate waiting a minute and a half for microwave popcorn.

The streets of Salzburg. Note the building dates near the eaves of the roofs. iPhone 15 Pro.

Salzburg. iPhone 15 Pro.

Descending from the Kapuzinerkloster monastery in Salzburg. iPhone 15 Pro.

Hallstatt, Austria

Okay, I know. This wasn’t on my list of destination cities. But Hallstatt is close enough to Salzburg that we planned on making a day trip out of it. What’s so great about Hallstatt, you might ask? It looks like a postcard, or the wallpaper that Microsoft sticks on your log-in screen, that’s what. We took a train to the old salt-mining town (the name “Hallstatt” is derived from the Celtic word for salt), and crossed the lake on a ferry.

Nestled down in the mountains, Hallstatt might be one of the most beautiful towns I’ve ever seen. The entire place looks made-up, like it came out of a fantasy movie, or like it was made for a theme park, but then you realize that this place is actually the source material for those fantasy movies and theme parks.

The town is built at the base of a mountain at whose top rests a 7,000-year-old salt mine which is still active. We didn’t have time, but you can actually take tours of the ancient salt mine and learn about its importance, dating back to well before Roman times.

Hallstatt had recently received a decent layer of snow which had already melted in the sunnier areas, but in areas where the sun was blocked by the tall looming mountains, it was noticeably colder and icier. Being dressed for slightly warmer weather, we kept to the sunny side as much as we could.

The famous Evangelische Pfarrkirche in Hallstatt. iPhone 15 Pro.

Colorful buildings in Hallstatt. iPhone 15 Pro.

Postcard views. iPhone 15 Pro.

A tree trained to grow up the side of a building. iPhone 15 Pro.

Snow-dusted roofs in Hallstatt. iPhone 15 Pro.

Swan in Hallstatt. iPhone 15 Pro.

Train through the mountains. iPhone 15 Pro.

Munich, Germany

Another train, another city. We arrived in Munich the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and schlepped our over-sized luggage 30 minutes by foot down a long, straight street until backs hurt and patience wore thin. We should have Uber’ed.

Needing to kill time before our hotel check-in, we found ourselves a hearty lunch at a pub called Sappralott, where I had pork roast, dumplings, and a dunkel, brewed right there in Munich. It was definitely one of the best meals (and beers) I had on the entire trip. Madison had a chicken cordon bleu with roasted potatoes that also looked incredible (and tasted incredible…she gave me a bite).

It was late in the day by the time we got checked in, so we decided an indoor activity was good to cope with the early sunset and opted to go to the Pinakothek gallery. They had a display of Old Master paintings by Titian, Rafael, and—what Madison and I were most excited to see—Rembrandt.

The next day became a massive history tour. We watched the Glockenspiel in the heart of the Alstadt district chime twice, once at eleven that we barely made it for, and once at noon, the chimes ringing out over a large Christmas market in the plaza in front of the old Rathaus.

Then, we toured the Munich Residence, home of the Bavarian electors and kings going back to the 1500s. This tour was time-consuming, but fascinating. The Munich Residence is absolutely massive, and unfortunately much of it had to be rebuilt after the carpet-bombing of Munich during World War Two (Munich was both an industrial and cultural hub of Germany, as well as the birthplace of the Nazi party, thus making it a prime target for the Allies). We also went into the treasury and saw the Crown Jewels of Bavaria. All the glittery, sparkly things really got Madison’s imagination going.

The Glockenspiel in Munich. iPhone 15 Pro.

The Antiquarium inside the Munich Residence, filled with busts of the Caesars of Rome. iPhone 15 Pro.

A baroque cathedral in Munich, dripping with ornamentation. iPhone 15 Pro.

Crown Jewels. iPhone 15 Pro.

The streets of Munich. iPhone 15 Pro.

The Munich Rathaus. iPhone 15 Pro.

Berlin, Germany

Berlin didn’t want us, it seems. Getting to Berlin became a comedy of errors, starting with our departure from Munich that morning. We got our breakfast in the hotel and checked the Uber wait times to the train station, which was only four minutes at that point. By the time we got done checking out, however, the wait times had grown to dang near 20 minutes due to morning rush hour, and I started to stress. To make matters worse, the online train schedules showed that our train was running seven minutes earlier than originally. I was counting down the minutes from the backseat of the Uber. “This is going to be real tight,” I whispered to Madison.

We power-walked through the busy train station to platform 25 where a high-speed train sat, the conductor anxiously pacing outside. Our train car was car six, but out of fear of being left, we jumped onto one of the closer first class cars and pushed our bags through the train car aisles on the inside. And good thing, too, because the train started moving before we even got to our seats.

Madison and I could have sworn the train ride from Munich to Berlin was only four hours when we booked our trip back in May, but somehow we miscalculated and the ride took nearly six hours. I got hungry and found my way to the restaurant car, where a grumpy German lady became frustrated at my lack of German language skills, and barely got my ham and cheese sandwich. It was the first time anyone had really been unfriendly to us the entire trip.

By the time we got to the hotel in Berlin, the sun had set, our Uber driver had nearly killed us seven times, and we felt like doing nothing but getting dinner and going to bed. That meant that everything we wanted to do in Berlin had to be done the next day, our last day.

So we got breakfast, and headed off to the Jewish Museum, with a modern new wing by architect Daniel Libeskind, with spaces designed to make you feel the impact of jewish persecution, particularly the Holocaust. Then we found some remains of the Berlin Wall, a hot item on my list, as well as Checkpoint Charlie. After that, we got a pasta lunch at a fun, vintage-bicycle themed café that we learned sat on the very same ground that Hitler’s bunker once stood, the bunker where he killed himself. And to think we just came for the pasta.

After lunch, it was on to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a field of concrete pillars with undulating heights in perfectly straight rows, eerily creating dark valleys for visitors to walk through. Last, we visited the Brandenburg Gate, a must-see for guests of Berlin.

The streets of Berlin. iPhone 15 Pro.

The TV Tower of Berlin, built in the 1960s by the Soviets on the East Berlin side as a display of power and prestige. iPhone 15 Pro.

A shady sidestreet in Berlin. iPhone 15 Pro.

“Fallen Leaves” exhibit in the Jewish Museum of Berlin. Each face is a loose steel plate with a face cut into it that clangs when walked over. iPhone 15 Pro.

A dark tower inside the Jewish Museum, meant to evoke the feeling of helplessness within the jewish community during the Holocaust. iPhone 15 Pro.

Checkpoint Charlie. iPhone 15 Pro.

A cute pedestrian traffic signal invented in the East German days known as Ampelmann, who has his own cult following in Berlin. iPhone 15 Pro.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. iPhone 15 Pro.

The author and Madison at the Brandenburg Gate. iPhone 15 Pro.

Christmas Markets

The moment you’ve all been waiting for. What the heck is a Christmas market? In a way, it’s exactly like it sounds. Vendors set up booths and sell Christmas ornaments, sweet treats, arts and crafts, and glühwein, a hot, spiced wine that warms your very soul in the cold weather. They are cheery places with wonderful smells, twinkly lights, and crowds so thick you can hardly move. These markets only set up in late November and run through December, and most cities aren’t very forthright about when they begin and end, so we were fortunate that we saw so many.

And we saw many Christmas markets. We saw at least two in every town (excluding Hallstatt), and in most cities we stumbled across as many as four markets. “Stumbled” is the right word, too. We never once had to look up the location of a Christmas market, because inevitably they were set up at a plaza or location we already wanted to go. Either that, or they were set up on a busy street we had to walk down, so we’d stop in and take a lap before walking on.

Madison was on a mission to find an authentic Christmas pyramid, a charming holiday decoration with a fan on top spun by the heat of a few small candles, which slowly spins a Christmas diorama below. We found several in Vienna and Salzburg, but the one she finally decided on was a lovely, handcrafted one we bought below the Glockenspiel in Munich. The man who sold it to us had a handlebar mustache and an almost stereotypical German-Swedish accent. When he handed us the box with the pyramid inside, we wondered how the heck we were going to get it home with all our other goodies, but we managed to fit it inside my duffle bag (after emptying it of almost everything else), and got it home safe and sound.

Madison enjoys a bite of Trdelnik, a sweet pastry baked on a wooden roll and covered with sugar. iPhone 15 Pro.

Vendor in a Christmas market. iPhone 15 Pro.

Traditional German figurines in a Christmas market booth. iPhone 15 Pro.

Christmas ornaments on display. iPhone 15 Pro.

Madison prepares to take a drink of glühwein. iPhone 15 Pro.

The Rathausplatz Christmas market in Vienna. iPhone 15 Pro.

The End

It was a trip for the personal history books. I got to see mainland Europe for the first time, spent a solid week and a half looking at some very old buildings, and celebrate my fiancé’s 30th birthday in style. I’m thankful that the trip became a reality. It was touch-and-go at several points in time, but we made the trip in spite of all that, and Madison and I are both glad that we did. If you ever get the chance to experience something like this, take it. And don’t be afraid to travel in winter. As long as you pack appropriately, winter in Europe can be a beautiful place. Besides, they don’t have Christmas markets in July.

The ride home. iPhone 15 Pro.

The Stuff Fiancés are Made Of

Seventeen months ago, I went on an online date with a girl named Madison. It was only my third date on the dating app Hinge. The first girl I went out with asked me who my favorite Disney princess was (she really did). She said I could text her the answer that night, since I wasn’t sure on the spot. That night, I responded with a joke that apparently didn’t land because I never heard from her again.

The second date was a simple coffee date in Wedgewood Houston where I did all the talking.

The third date was with Madison. We met at Pharmacy Burger in East Nashville and had root beer and tater tots with our burgers. It turned out she worked in a career field adjacent to mine: she’s interior design and I’m construction. I walked her back to her car determined to get her number, because up to that point we communicated only through Hinge. I went in for an awkward hug in which my chin collided spectacularly with her shoulder. I joked that I wouldn’t be able to speak with an injured jaw. “I don’t care as long as I get your number,” she said.

And so the mood was set from then on. I’m in love with a comedian. It’s one of my favorite things about Madi. I tend to be an old soul, and at times even flirt with the prestigious title “curmudgeon”. If you know me well you know I have a few reasons to be. But Madi makes me younger (even though she gives me crap about being 31 years old). When I’m tired and in no mood to laugh, she makes a face or a voice with the exuberance of a small child, and my stone exterior crumbles into laughter.

Madi keeps me young in other ways, too. She’s always pointing out dogs. I grew up without pets and though she teases me about my lack of outward emotion towards them (and my displeasure at wedging themselves between her and me on the couch) I’ve learned to appreciate their funny little personalities. Also, I now know what “cute” means. Not from any innate understanding, mind you, but in a pattern-recognition sort of way. “It’s cute!” she’ll say as she shoves an Instagram post in my face, or points out the car window at an old house with ferns on the porch, or a printed dress in Target.

Notice how hard my hands clutch my knees at the Space Needle.

Then there’s all the ways she pushes me outside my comfort zone. In Seattle a few weeks ago, she made me stand on the glass floor in the Space Needle. It wasn’t natural, but I did it (I played footsie with the glass a few times before trusting it with my full weight). Then there’s the way she makes me leave the house later to get to a flight. “No,” she says, “we don’t need to be at the airport three hours early.” Or how we play board games together, which, as a self-professed disliker of board games, is challenging. But she insists I’ll have fun once I get started, and she’s usually right.

On June 1st, I asked her to marry me behind the columns of the Parthenon in Nashville. I treated her to a manicure and pedicure while madly texting my friend Jordan, who acted as our secret paparazzi. She knew something was up when I started texting like a sixteen-year-old girl, because I hardly ever use my phone when we’re out and about. Afterwards, I suggested we get ice cream at Jeni’s, but didn’t let her sit down to eat it. “Let’s take it to Centennial Park!” I said. She looked at me as if to say “are you crazy?” but then considered the mani/pedi I just paid for and she agreed. Then I power walked through the park with Madi and backpack in tow, the sky threatening rain, furtively texting to make sure Jordan was in position as we approached the Parthenon. I never saw him, but he insisted he was there.

Down on one knee. Photo by J Kinard.

I stopped in the colonnade and said, “I made you something.” It was a book of sketches I had done, depicting moments in our relationship. It ended with a sketch of me proposing to her. The caption said “Will you Marry Me?” Madi said yes before I had even fished the ring box out of my backpack, which I did with some difficulty. I told her I needed to do it right, so I said it out loud, verbally. She said yes again.

She puts up with my moodiness, my yelling at cars that cut me off, my sensitivity, my love of James Bond movies. She makes me laugh. She makes me younger. She makes me a better man. And in nine months’ time (no, we don’t have a wedding date yet), I get to marry her.

The Abandoned and Derelict of West Tennessee

As a kid growing up in Clinton with family spread across the state, we made quarterly pilgrimages to pay visits to our grandparents in what felt like the far-flung corners of rural Tennessee. My mother’s widowed father lived in Dickson, which was only about three and a half hours away from our house in the foothills of the Smokies, but Daddy’s parents lived in Huntingdon, which was a solid five hours from our house, west of where the Tennessee River crosses the state for the second time.

Our ritual was to load our little red 1995 Toyota Camry to the gills with creature comforts, avoid fighting with my younger sister, and then “go west, young man.” We would visit my mother’s father, whom we called Papa, first and then leave Dickson for Grandmother’s house, two hours west. Daddy preferred taking the interstate from Dickson, but Mama liked taking Highway 70. I fell in Mama’s camp, because as I got old enough to drive, I realized how tremendously boring it was to take the Interstate through West Tennessee, with nothing but cotton and soy fields to entertain you for hours until Jackson sprang up out of nowhere.

But along Highway 70, there was loads to look at. The two-lane ribbon of strangely orange-colored asphalt snaked its way from Dickson to Huntingdon (it runs all the way across the long state, in fact) past a host of nearly abandoned towns and buildings. I became fascinated with these places, wondering what happened, why it seemed like these towns used to be so much busier, and what these seemingly empty, half-fallen-in buildings now contained.

I shared all of these imaginings with my photography buddy, Jordan, several times over our friendship, insisting that we needed to trek to West Tennessee to capture images of these abandoned places. For years, it was always, “Yeah! Let’s do it!” but nothing ever materialized. Finally, last summer I said, “No, for real. Let’s do it.” So we did.

The author and Jordan embark on our West Tennessee adventure.

Jordan insisted we travel by paper map only, and I agreed that this was sensible. Only paper maps would do for this sort of adventure. So, armed with our cameras and the chariot of choice for soccer moms everywhere—my Chevy Traverse—we embarked on our long-awaited journey across West Tennessee.

We skipped over to Dickson to simulate the trip I had taken so often as a kid, then moseyed our way through McEwen and Waverly. Waverly was one of the most interesting places we passed through. Jordan and I discovered a beautiful old Greyhound Bus station that had been converted into a chamber of commerce building at some point (though it looked like even the chamber of commerce had given up on it), with a blue tile façade and shapely Art Deco lines. There was an overgrown drive-in movie theater that looked as though it hadn’t seen action in quite a while. But the most interesting place was Dixie Radiator Service, complete with a rusty Studebaker mounted on a pole.

While we stopped to take photos of the old Studebaker, a white Chevy truck made a U-turn out on the highway and stopped to pull in. The older man driving truck said it was his shop, and was happy to tell us how long that rusty old car had been mounted up there, and how so many people loved to stop and gawk at it. The encounter ended up being one of the more enjoyable moments of the trip.

Jordan assesses a shot. iPhone 13 Pro.

Dixie Radiator Service’s friendly owner stops to chat. iPhone 13 pro.

An old Greyhound Bus station. iPhone 13 Pro.

An overgrown drive-in. Kodak Portra 400.

Our next stop was just outside of Camden, Tennessee, where a dirt race track was nestled in the split between the bypass and Highway 70. I’d seen so many of these places over the years—bars, bowling alleys, race tracks—always driving by when nothing was happening. It served to build a mythology in my mind. Did these places ever open up to the public, small though that public might be? Or were they permanently boarded up, like so many of the abandoned houses with caved-in roofs I saw in Ireland. In many ways, a journey through rural America wasn’t so different than mine was in Ireland. Little towns springing up along two-lane roads out of the countryside, forever looking as though their heydays had passed, if they ever had heydays.

An empty dirt track. iPhone 13 Pro.

Underneath the stands. iPhone 13 Pro.

It was nearly lunch time when we made it to Jackson, Tennessee, which would be our turnaround point. In keeping with our “repurposed Greyhound Bus station” theme, we stumbled across a restaurant that had turned an even larger station than Waverly’s into an eatery with atmosphere. I ordered a steak sandwich, and it was delicious.

After lunch, we had to decide which direction we would go to get back home. We didn’t really want to back track and revisit all the places we’d already seen, so Jordan exercised his duties as navigator and chose a new route, one I’d never been on as a kid, along Highway 412, which runs east-west like 70, but a good bit further south.

Jordan waiting on our food. iPhone 13 Pro.

Steak sandwich at the Greyhound Bus station. iPhone 13 Pro.

Paper maps only.

After a quick coffee run and a spilt latte on the console of the Traverse and part of my shorts—followed by profuse apologies—our navigator had a route home mapped for us, with a series of little towns to explore between Jackson and Columbia. We visited Decaturville, Perryville, and Hohenwald before landing back in Columbia, which is basically my backyard.

There’s not much for me to tell about these little towns, at least not from our journey that Saturday afternoon. You’ll have to do your own digging if you want their history. Our objective was to photograph old, interesting, derelict places along the way. The photos can tell the story.

I’m not sure if the mythos I’d built about West Tennessee’s fascinating abandoned places lived up to the hype in Jordan’s mind, but he’s a good sport, and the deep philosophical discussions we had along the way were as much fun as the sights, themselves. We probably discovered as much about each other as we did rural Tennessee that hot July Saturday.

Do yourselves a favor and travel by paper map through strange and mysterious places every so often. You never know what you’ll find. It might be a steak sandwich.

A collapsed building in Decaturville, TN. Kodak Portra 400.

Flaking paint. Kodak Portra 400.

Rusty Oldsmobile. Kodak Portra 400.

An abandoned sawmill in Perryville, TN. Kodak Portra 400.

Old firetruck still serving its town. Kodak Portra 400.

A sleepy shop in McEwen, TN. Kodak Portra 400.

Madison's Marathon

The very first day I met my girlfriend Madison, she told me she had signed up to run the Chicago Marathon. Munching on tater tots at Pharmacy Burger in Nashville on our first date back in February, I had no idea what this would entail. Later I found out it entailed months of training, a twenty-mile bike ride carrying support snacks and water (apparently I rode too far ahead to be helpful on a few occasions), and witnessing how fatigue can toy with emotions during a run. I didn’t know enough about marathons then to realize Madison was crazy, so just ate my tater tots and said, “Wow! That’s cool!.”

For months, Madi trained with progressively longer and more arduous runs. Some evenings after work, she would run for four or five hours on a treadmill just to get the time in. I’ve never run a marathon before, so all this preparation seemed more than daunting, and more akin to torture than enjoyment, but I admired her tenacity. Call me a sap, but it warmed my heart when she asked me to come cheer her on in Chicago.

Madi’s parents, Tony and Marci, met us at baggage claim at Midway Airport in Chicago. October in Tennessee is warmer than October in Chicago, in case you were wondering. We stood with tensed muscles as the chilly Chicago wind whipped through the breezeway while we waited on our Uber to arrive and take us to their hotel. I would stay with Madi’s cousin Ryan since the hotels were booked before Madi even knew me.

Inside the convention center. iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Our competitor with her race bib. A marathon is 26.2 miles, in case you didn’t know. iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Objective number one was picking up Madi’s race packet from the convention center amidst a sea of other runners and spectators. The Chicago Marathon is a World Marathon, so people from all over the world got yelled at by the convention center crossing guards in equal measure.

That night, we met up with Ryan and his girlfriend Maggie, as well as Madi’s brother and sister-in-law, whom I hadn’t met yet. We had a lovely time eating burgers and fried pickles at a restaurant across from Lincoln Park, by Lake Michigan. Then I left with Ryan and headed to his townhouse for some shut-eye (after watching the Notre Dame game. He’s a big fan). I slept in a guest bed on the third floor in a room soon to be occupied by a new roommate, complete with a loosely assembled desk, which I managed to wreck loudly at 4:30 the next morning in my efforts to get ready and meet Madi before the start of the race.

Madi and her dad near the start line. iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Madi and me the morning of. Photo courtesy of Madi’s mom.

I caught the el-train full of runners down to the hotel and met Madi and her parents for breakfast, then walked a nervous Madi to the start line in Grant Park. She wore an old flannel shirt of her brother’s to protect against the Chicago chill until she had to toss it at the start. The scale of what she was about to attempt began to set in both for her and for us. There were cops and helicopters and spectators and DJs with speakers. We had to say goodbye to her before she even got to the start line, a sad fact of life after the Boston Marathon bombing.

Then, we waited.

Once the race started, Tony, Marci, and I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon running from spot to spot where we knew we could see her to hold up signs and cheer her on and make her laugh. I was terrible at spotting her in big crowds of runners, and missed her on two occasions early on in the race. It got easier as the race went on. I walked my own half-marathon that day trying to keep up with Madison. Seriously. I walked fourteen miles.

A sea of runners. iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Halfway through. iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Madi had told me during her training that fatigue and low blood sugar would do crazy things to a runner’s emotions, but I hadn’t seen it first hand until that day. Madi had read that guys in Chinatown — around mile 21 — would dress up in dragon costumes and dance along the course, but as she approached she saw some of the dancers shedding their costumes, which started the waterworks. The pain she was in by mile 21 didn’t help. She did end up seeing some other dragons, closer to where her parents and I were standing, but then seeing us made her cry. She nearly made us all cry when, with quivering lip, she approached the barricade to get a few snacks. Seeing her cry made her mom tear up. Seeing her mom tear up made her dad tear up. Seeing her dad tear up made me tear up. I was in shock as the tearful chain reaction gained momentum. I had never seen her cry before.

“You better go,” her dad wisely said, knowing she shouldn’t break her stride for long. “You can do it. Pain is temporary! Achievement is for a lifetime!” he called after her as she ran off again.

We caught her a few more times before the finish line. I ran ahead of Tony and Marci to catch her a few extra times (and I do mean “ran” — in boots). When she hobbled into the finish paddock (ominously called the “family reunification point”), I scoured Grant Park and found her, texting her parents directions through the convoluted paddock. Madi was tired, but she finished. A well-earned medal hung clanking around her neck, nestled under a space blanket they gave to each finisher.

At the finish. iPhone 13 Pro Max.

I’m proud of her. Madison did what not many people have done, fighting through the training, the pain, and the emotions to get there. She’s tough. Tougher than me.

Sadly, I didn’t get to spend much time with her after the race. I had to catch my flight back to Nashville, so after just 36 hours in Chicago I was in the air again. They say parting is such sweet sorrow, and that’s especially true of your girlfriend after completing major lifetime achievement.

That entire trip was a trip of firsts. I had never been to Chicago before, and it’s a lovely city, one I’d like to go back and visit when I have more time. I had never ridden an el-train before (it’s a great way to see the city). I had never witnessed a marathon before.

The Chicago skyline. iPhone 13 Pro Max.

And in April, Madi and I are running the Nashville Half-Marathon together. She talked me into it (and yes, it was of my own free will as Madi would like everyone to know). At least now I know what I’m getting myself into. Besides, there’s a medal and space blanket in it for me when I finish.

Tailfins, Chevrolet Wallpaper, and the Tri-Five Nationals

If you know me at all, you know I’m a gearhead. I like cars. Working on them, reading about them, gawking at them. And while I haven’t always been interested in their inner workings, I think I’ve always appreciated a beautiful automobile. And my first obsession was with the Chevrolet Bel Air. I guess it was those bodacious tailfins and all the glittering chrome. While my sister and I were spending the week at my grandparents’ house one summer, my mom gave my bedroom a makeover that included a glossy blue ceiling fan like in a ‘50s diner and wallpaper running along the top of the wall with ‘55, ‘56, and ‘57 Chevy Bel Airs.

A “gasser” sits outside the drag strip, waiting for the next race. Nikon N2000 on Kodak Ektar 100.

A driver focuses on the “Christmas tree”, the light starting the race. Nikon N2000 on Kodak Ektar 100.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who was obsessed with these space-age grocery-getters, because every year in Bowling Green, fans of the Bel Air come out of the woodwork to see their vintage favorites rip down the drag strip at Beech Bend Raceway and line the grounds with their cheery-colored sheetmetal. This emergence from woodwork is called the Tri-Five Nationals. Like a blooming’ eejit, I missed the event last year due to a brain fart regarding which weekend it took place. But this year, not even a thunderstorm scared me away. After a quick, sodden stop for barbecue in White House, Tennessee waiting for the storm to blow over, my friend Alex and I headed north to the raceway, a Mecca for rednecks who love loud cars going fast in a straight line. What could be more American?

Two Chevies face off. iPhone 13 Pro.

Drivers and officials between races. Nikon N2000 on Kodak Ektar 100.

Beech Bend is a strange place: part waterpark, part amusement park, part haven for petrol-burners. The grandstands look as though they were slapped together in the 1960s, and then every ensuing year were glanced over and declared “good enough” with a grunt from the proprietors. The boujee seats have the same sort of chairs my elementary school auditorium had, while the other grandstands had humble wooden bleachers so open-air that they could swallow small children.

We wandering with grins plastered on our faces through the aisles of the restored Chevrolets sitting on the lawn outside the drag strip. I snapped pictures on my old Nikon film camera as we went. Eventually, we plopped ourselves down on a splintery plank in the peasant grandstands under the cover of a humble tin roof, watching cars more than twice my age burn rubber and go faster than they had any business to. I crammed a couple of Walgreens earplugs in my ears to prevent the hearing aid industry from making an extra buck off of me. Drag cars are loud.

Sleeping beauty. Nikon N2000 on Kodak Ektar 100.

Reflections in the water. Nikon N2000 on Kodak Ektar 100.

We sat there watching cars blaze down Beech Bend’s quarter-mile track until I ran out of film. Only I didn’t run out film. I got to the end of my roll, and for some strange reason the camera kept shooting. It was then that I realized that all the awesome shots I had taken were on an imaginary roll. Desperate to capture a few good shots on film, I quickly loaded the camera with a real roll of film and got busy trying to recreate all the shots I’d taken out on the lawn outside. (Bloomin’ eejit)

Camera woes aside, the Tri-Five Nationals didn’t disappoint, and the year of waiting was worth it. My love for those cars hasn’t disappeared. Now if only I had an extra $80,000 lying around to buy one and fulfill a childhood dream. Ah well. I can always buy the wallpaper.

A parade of Bel Airs. Nikon N2000 on Kodak Ektar 100.

Trailer queen. iPhone 13 Pro.

A Scrawny Tennessee Kid in New York

Months ago, my girlfriend, Madison, and I were talking about a way for me to meet her parents —who live in Connecticut — and Madison thought it would be fun if we met up with them in NYC. She was right, of course (but don’t let it go to your head, Madison). Since I was small, I’ve been dreaming about visiting the almost mythical city, the backdrop for superhero flicks, Meg Ryan rom-coms, and The Godfather; this in spite of coworkers who insist it smells like piss and garbage. Maybe it does, but I liked it.

I first met Madison’s parents, Tony and Marci, in a pre-war tea parlor in Chinatown, eating pork buns so good a southerner might give up his accent. Because of modern marvels like FaceTime, I already knew what they looked like, and we’d spoken before, but now I got to hug her mom and shake her dad’s hand. Madison and I wanted a day to ourselves the first day, so they just popped in long enough to say hello and admire our pork buns before heading to Lower Manhattan.

New York is a street photographer’s dream. I brought a film camera with me, being the old soul that I am, but in a stunning turn of events I shot more on my iPhone camera than my trusty film camera. (This is the part where my film camera Fredo-kisses me with a look on it’s imaginary face that says “how could you?”) In a city where 8 million people live on top of each other, there’s a great candid shot at every turn. I was living my best life.

I’m fairly certain I’ve never walked 14 miles at a stretch my entire life, but I did in New York City, and with frequent stops for photos that caused Madison to run into me over and over. From Battery Park and Wall Street to Hudson Yards, we hoofed it all over that bustling island, and me with a work laptop on my back so thick it could stop an armor-piercing bullet (I was expecting an important work email that never came). My shoulders were chafed from the backpack straps.

Men chatting on the street. iPhone 13 Pro.

A cyclist leaves the subway. iPhone 13 Pro.

Friends. iPhone 13 Pro.

Friday, we explored the city with Madison’s parents, giving me a chance to get to know them. I discovered that Tony imparted his daughter with his hunger for the absolute best parking spot, and Marci imparted her with the desire not to be touched when she’s warm. It’s eye-opening seeing your girlfriend’s origins, an experience where you often find yourself saying, “it all makes sense now.”

The gang visited all the normal New York stops: Central Park, 5th Avenue, Tiffany’s, the Lego Store, Rockefeller Plaza, the New York Library, Grand Central Station, and so on. As a train nerd, Grand Central Station was one of my favorite stops. Our train back to Connecticut — where we stayed two nights at Tony and Marci’s house — departed from there. It’s a happn’in place with a lot of marble. And pretzel vendors. I bought one for the train.

Madison and I walk around in NYC. Photo courtesy of Madison.

The Chrysler Building. iPhone 13 Pro.

The Met. iPhone 13 Pro.

New Yorkers on 5th Avenue. iPhone 13 Pro.

Grand Central. iPhone 13 Pro.

Madison’s parents were very kind. They put me up in Madison’s brother’s old room, the one with eyeballs that Madi painted in the closet. Her mom washed my dirty clothes before I put them back in my suitcase. Her dad paid for nearly all our meals. “Y’all made the trip up here,” he said. “It’s the least we can do.” I don’t know about all that, but they were very nice. And they told me funny stories about Madison, which was the whole point of the trip, anyway.

They dropped us off at the airport on our last day. Tony found a good parking spot and they went all the way to the security gates with us, where we said our goodbyes, then watched at the barrier until we were all the way through the TSA line, which took a long time because Madison must’ve tried to smuggle contraband in her bag. With looks of growing concern on their faces, I used my freakishly long arms to give them a thumbs-up above the sea of heads as the TSA agent finally zipped Madi’s bag back up. They smiled and waved as we walked towards our gate.

Tony and Marci made me feel welcome and showed us a good time — and more importantly, embarrassing childhood photos of Madi. I’d go back to New York in a heartbeat, piss and garbage smells n’all.

Madi and I with her parents. Photo courtesy of Madison.

The Grand Prix

The sound is huge and electrifying. It’s something you’ve only heard in the movies, except now it’s real, penetrating the foam earplugs crammed in your head. You watch as the safety car leads the way during the warm-up laps, the drivers zig-zagging their cars to warm the rubber tires. A parade of loud colors goes by. They complete one slow lap, then another, and another. Then the safety car barrels down the track, away from the mob of antsy race cars, and ducks behind the concrete barrier. The drivers approach the flag stand. A race official waves the green flag. What sounds like a pride of hungry lions devouring their prey envelopes a cheering crowd. Old men turn into little kids and little kids stare with mouths agape.

Brake rotors glow red as drivers approach corners. The smell of excess gasoline and burnt rubber make a sweet aroma that would otherwise be putrid. A car hits the barrier. A collective “AWW!” from the crowd roasting in the grandstands under the August sun. Fire-suit clad emergency responders clear the debris, and the green flag emerges again. Then it’s over. The last lap is finished. A winner sprays the first two losers with something fizzy in a glass bottle.

The black marks on Korean Vets will be there for months, but the track will disappear. No more concrete barriers or grandstands or food trucks or vendors under tents. It’s like a solar eclipse of automotive fever dream, one that gear heads anxiously wait for all year. And it’s incredible it happens here in Nashville.

Hometown Hamburgers and Other Adventures

Home is where the heart is. That’s what they say.

I’ve lived in the Nashville area for almost seven years now, but I grew up in a small East Tennessee town called Clinton. Clinton is one of those funny little places with small town drama, sleepy Saturday mornings, enough antique shops to choke a mule, and a quirky charm all its own. Nestled in the Tennessee Valley along the Clinch River, it’s just a stone’s throw from Knoxville, another town dear to my heart, having gone to school at the University of Tennessee. Go Vols.

One of my old friends got married yesterday, and for the first time in my entire life, I had a “plus one” to accompany me. I asked my girlfriend, Madison, if she would be willing to come with me and make a whole day trip out of it. Just like every other hair-brained idea I come up with, Madison thought it was a good one.

Madison is from Connecticut, but she’s actually been in Nashville longer than I have, just not long enough to lose her Northern accent and stop receiving all the “You ain’t from ‘round here, err you?” comments from us rare Tennessee natives. Even though she’s been in Nashville a long time now, she hadn’t made her way to East Tennessee to explore yet, so I took it upon myself to show her around.

We stopped in Clinton first. To be honest, there are times I miss the mountains, the valleys, and the rivers of East Tennessee so bad my heart aches. I feel like my blood is in the clay soil there, and I wanted to show Madison this magical place. Always the good sport, she “oohed” and “ahhed” over all the places I pointed at and stories that went with them. And always the foodie, she leaned heavily on me to come up with a good local place to eat (absolutely no chain restaurants were allowed on this trip).

Enter Hoskins Drug Store.

As I struggled to think of a place, Hoskins popped in my head like a kernel of Orville Redenbocher, and I was suddenly so excited I nearly scared Madison. Hoskins is an old-fashioned drug store with a soda fountain, oozing with stories from every dusty corner. We ordered some burgers and onion rings and seated ourselves in one of the ancient red vinyl-clad booths that demanded good posture. Having just driven two-and-a-half hours, I needed to visit the facilities, which took me past some old wooden phone booths in the back by the medicine counter. I smiled as I envisioned a man in a felt hat slipping a dime into an old pay phone, and then walked on briskly because I drank too much water in the car.

Madison cheesin’ hard as I snap a picture from the booth in Hoskins. iPhone 13 Pro.

A pimento cheese-infused Hoskins burger with onion rings. iPhone 13 Pro.

The burgers were phenomenal. The beef was crisp, cooked on a griddle seasoned with nearly 100 years of love and clogged arteries. Madison decided it was worth the hype.

We had to eat fast to get to the wedding on time, so Madison got her dress and heels and went into Hoskin’s bathroom to change, while I did my best Clark Kent costume change in the driver’s seat of my Corolla, sideways glances from passersby included. We made it to Knoxville for the wedding with fifteen minutes to spare.

Once again, Madison was a champ for watching all these strangers from my old church hug my neck, and letting me introduce her to inquisitive friends over and over again. We made lots of small talk, some not-so-small talk, watched hardened men sob at the sight of the beautiful bride, and ate some cake before making our exit.

When you forget to take a real selfie, car selfie’s are the next best thing. Madison and the author in the author’s car. iPhone 13 Pro.

With our appetite for extroversion exhausted, we piled into the car once again and headed for downtown Knoxville. I showed her UT campus first, showed her where my geography lectures were, my old professor’s offices, the building I failed chemistry in, and so on. Then we decided to stretch our legs and walk around World’s Fair Park.

When I first described the Sunsphere to Madison, she had never heard of it, and didn’t understand why or how a giant golden ball on a stick was placed so prominently on Knoxville’s skyline. It’s a strange thing, to be sure, but explaining that it was part of the 1982 World’s Fair helped a little bit. Nevertheless, she was impressed seeing it in person.

Madison at the base of the Sunsphere. iPhone 13 Pro.

Madison thought it would be funny to return fire while the author photographed her. Photo courtesy of Madison.

After the Sunsphere, we walked around in Knoxville’s charming downtown for a while, snapping photos and seeing the sights. A random stranger asked me what kind of camera I was shooting with. Then I saw another guy walking around with what looked like a film camera, so I decided to pass the friendliness on. That’s how we met Steve and Caitlin from the U.K., who were lovely to talk to, there on holiday in the States after a wedding in New Jersey. Steve and I talked film photography for a while, followed each other on Instagram, and incited snide remarks from Caitlin and Madison, who impatiently waited for us to finish geeking out.

Thus ended our trek through Knoxville. It was time for pizza.

Meat lover’s pizza from Big Ed’s. iPhone 13 Pro.

When I told my mom and sister that we were going to East Tennessee, they wasted no time in telling me “You’ve gotta take her to Big Ed’s”. Madison had looked up some places to eat almost the instant I told her about the trip, but I had to steer her in a different direction, towards this dive pizza joint in Oak Ridge. She looked it up as soon as I told her about it, and loved the look of it.

If you haven’t been to Big Ed’s in Oak Ridge (and you either live in East Tennessee, are visiting East Tennessee, or are on excellent terms with a Door Dash driver), you need to go. The atmosphere is wonderful, a dark room with photos, bowling trophies, little league plaques and vintage advertisements enough to look at for days, not to mention the tables and chairs that have seen the butts of countless loyal patrons since 1970. There’s just something in that pizza sauce.

Big Ed’s Atmosphere. iPhone 13 Pro.

It was a perfect trip. I got to see old friends, Madison got to see a piece of where I came from, and we both got to eat some dang good local food. We couldn’t believe we managed to squeeze it all in, having left home without a well-defined itinerary and lots of things on our list to see. I guess she was a fan, because she’s already talking about going back, which is no skin off my back.

Home is where the heart is.

Ireland

There’s a reason they call it the Emerald Isle. It’s incredibly green. I saw this for myself last week. I suppose I’ve found Irish culture interesting for a while now, and that fascination has only grown in recent months. So, feeling froggy, I got on Google Flights out of simple curiosity to see how much flights were. Thirty minutes later, I had a flight booked to Dublin.

At first, I was okay with the idea of going it alone. Ireland is a very safe place. But my friend Sawyer heard about the trip and was just crazy and wanderlusty enough to up and decide to go with me on a whim. Which was a good thing. In the four hours after landing in Dublin with no cell service, navigating the Irish neighborhoods, figuring out the mass transit system, and asking strangers for directions to St. Patrick’s Park where we met up was a lonely, stressful experience. I would have hated being there by myself.

The River Liffey flowing through Dublin. Canon Rebel T7i.

One of the many ruined structures we happened across. Canon Rebel T7i.

I could bore you with the transcript of our trip, but instead, I’ll give you the highlights and let the photos I took speak for themselves. Here are some of the coolest things we did in Ireland:

Rented a car and drove on the wrong side of the road.

Had Sawyer and I not been brave enough to drive in Ireland, we would have missed out on some of the best scenes of the whole trip. I was anxious about driving on the wrong side (the left side) of the road. Sawyer was anxious about driving on the wrong side of the road and driving stick shift. I gave him a quick lesson in Cong, and he learned quickly (if not a little stressfully) after that. He was a seasoned professional by the time we turned the car in.

Sawyer at the wheel of our rented Peugeot. Canon Rebel T7i.

The roads in Ireland are so narrow that it was all I could do to hug the inside dividing line and keep my outside wheel out of the puddles and potholes. Some roads are so narrow that you have to back up a ways to get to a wide spot if you meet another vehicle, such as an asphalt patching truck in Northern Ireland. After three hours of this sort of driving my first day out, I was completely exhausted. It took some time for blood to flow back into my knuckles.

Driving through a town. Canon Rebel T7i.

Country roads. Canon Rebel T7i.

Drove to Cong, where The Quiet Man was filmed.

I’m a classic movie nerd. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Quiet Man, a movie by John Ford starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. In the 1950s, it wasn’t common to film on location, especially with bulky Technicolor cameras, but John Ford, who was from Ireland, was determined to film this movie in his home country.

Getting to see Pat Cohan Bar where Sean Thornton punches Will Danagher through the wooden door was a big deal to me, even though we couldn’t eat lunch there (I didn’t do my research and found out that the bar was closed the day we were there). As a consolation prize, I bought a woolen cap like the ones they wore in the movie and a refrigerator magnet. That’s the same as eating inside Pat Cohan, right?

Pat Cohan Bar in Cong. Canon Rebel T7i.

Saw a brilliant Irish rainbow.

It rains nearly every day in Ireland. There’s also sunshine nearly every day. That’s what makes the grass so very green. It also is the perfect recipe for huge, brilliant rainbows to form in the heavens. Driving back to Dublin on our first day through the country, we saw an entire rainbow from one end to the other, and a double rainbow a few minutes later. We gawked at it like small children. There was no pot of gold at the end.

Rainbow over the road. Canon Rebel T7i.

Got stared at by blue-collar Irishmen in a bar.

In America, most bars also serve food of some kind. Being late in the day, we stopped at a roadside hole-in-the-wall called Paddy’s Bar, hoping for some grub. Inside, the restaurant was dark and the tables empty. The only light was at the bar, where a dozen Irishmen sat chit-chatting, pints in hand. The conversation abruptly stopped and all eyes turned to us as we walked in. After an awkward few seconds, Sawyer finally plucked up enough courage to ask the bartender if they served food.

“Lemme see, what dee is ut? Wednesdee? Noo, we don’t be sarving any food on Wednesdee. Wuch, way err ya headed?”

“Uh, that way,” Sawyer said, pointing vaguely in the direction we’d been pointing the car.

“Ah, you’ll want ta be goin’ down the road ta Bridge House. They’ll be sarving food.”

“Okay, thanks.”

It was the most Irish thing that happened the entire trip.

A corner building with clock in Dublin’s City Centre. Canon Rebel T7i.

The Temple Bar area in Dublin. Canon Rebel T7i.

Street scenes in Dublin. Canon Rebel T7i.

Visited Giant’s Causeway.

Giant’s Causeway is a natural wonder of Ireland formed by volcanic activity a long time ago, creating the most interesting hexagonal pillars of rock jutting out into the ocean. At least, that’s the scientific explanation. The mythical explanation is that an Irish giant challenged a Scottish giant to a fight, and bridged the gap between the two land masses (you can literally see Scotland from Giant’s Causeway) with stones in the water. Later, after some trickery, the Scottish giant destroyed the newly made stone bridge to prevent the Irish giant from crossing to his side. While the whole “volcanic activity” thing might be more accurate, I like this explanation better. It’s more colorful.

Giant’s Causeway at sunset. Canon Rebel T7i.

Partook in the Eucharist at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral was founded in 1191 in what is now the heart of Dublin as a Roman Catholic cathedral, but is now the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland. Sawyer and I thought it would be something special to go and partake in the Eucharist with fellow believers while we were there in Ireland, and we were right. In case you were wondering, they are a “one-cup” church. Sawyer and I didn’t sit at the front, either.

Ate a full Irish breakfast at an irreverent cafe.

After St. Patrick’s Cathedral, we went looking for an authentic Irish breakfast, something that eluded us during the road trip portion of our stay. Once again, Sawyer came through with the Google reviews and found a place called Stage Door Cafe. We almost didn’t stick around, because there was a bit of a line (or “queue” as they say), and the man taking orders was a bit abrasive at first. Once we got in, however, we had the best eating experience of the whole trip.

The restaurant was decorated with the occasional lewd statue, and the cook, a jovial man with a red and white beard, spoke in terms that would make a sailor blush. But he spoke with a smile and struck us as the kind of guy who only made fun of you if he liked you, and he made fun of everyone, particularly Germans.

An Irish breakfast. iPhone 13.

Were incredibly lucky at Killmainham Gaol.

Having checked everything off our original itinerary, we found ourselves needing something to round out the last day of our trip. I really wanted to learn more about Irish Independence, and Sawyer found out that visiting Killmainham Gaol, a no-longer-used prison, was one of the top rated things to do in Dublin. So we made the long walk from Dublin City Centre to the outskirts of town, to the prison where so many Irish political prisoners had been held. When we got there, we found the tickets were sold out for the day.

But we had to go the bathroom, so the doorman gave us passes to the free museum inside.

We wandered around the museum exhibits for a while, reading about the 1916 Easter Rising and the ensuing fight for Irish independence from Britain, when a compassionate tour guide between engagements rounded everyone without a pass up and asked us if we wanted to see inside the prison. We, of course, said yes.

Inside Killmainham Gaol prison. Canon Rebel T7i.

There are so many more things I could write about the trip. The vivid green memories will last in my mind for a long time. If you ever get the chance, I would highly recommend it. It’s worth the jet lag you’ll feel when you get home and start blogging about the trip.

Brylcreem and Penciled-On Stocking Seams

Thank goodness for Brylcreem and penciled on stocking seams.

Chances are, a few generations ago, your grand-pappy or great grand-pappy met your grand-mammy or great grand-mammy at a dance, his hair slick enough to lubricate flathead Ford and her with fake “nylons” painted on due to war-time rationing. Imagine a dance hall with a small swing band thumping away on a stage, the haze of Lucky Strike cigarette smoke lingering in the air. On the floor is a crowd of couples twisting, spinning, turning, dipping. A few girls are sitting by the far wall, not dancing. A guy with shiny hair eyes one of them through the gaps in the dancers and the cloud of smoke. He makes up his mind. He’s going over there to ask her. His heart starts pounding. What if she says “no”?

Back in January, I went to a dance at the Williamson County Performing arts center. The small theater where the dance took place had several tiers of upholstered seats, a stage for the 16-piece live band, and about five square feet of hardwood for a posse of dancers big enough to make the fire marshall start lobbing obscenities. After a short lesson with just enough information to make you look like an “idiot” instead of a “complete idiot”, we were set loose.

The band was marvelous. As a recovering jazz nerd, I was almost tempted just to take a seat in one of the comfy theater chairs and listen to them instead. That wouldn’t require any courage. I could sit there and not worry about rejection. But no, I was on a mission, doggedly determined to be like James Bond that night.

I think I danced with ten different girls. I’d never met a single one of them before. It’s a marvel that a woman would let herself hold hands with—and avoid getting stepped on by—a strange skinny guy who’s barely got any moves, but they did. The thing is, so many girls were in the same boat. They weren’t that great at dancing, either. One girl was stiff as a board and looked completely terrified. Another girl danced with me like I was a terrible bore with moves so simplistic that I probably got them from the back of a cereal box. One girl was tense, but laughed at every mistake she made with the kindest smile, trying to make conversation.

Having gone to the dance by myself, there wasn’t much to do but treat everyone to an Irish goodbye when it was all over with. There was nowhere to just hangout and talk if you weren’t dancing, so getting to know people was tough between songs. That, and I was tired from the long weekend and all the asking-girls-to-dance, so I took the cowards way out.

Still, I have to admit I was proud of myself. I felt like I’d witnessed an ancient ritual I’d never seen before. An ancient ritual that our grand-pappies and grand-mammies participated in. But it’s not a dying ritual. More niche perhaps, but not dying. I was shocked to see how many people my age and younger were there, and in retro garb, too. No, swing dancing is alive and well.

And I love swing dancing. I plan on going back, in case you were wondering. There’s something mysterious and wonderful about stepping in time to an infectious, syncopated beat with someone else. As the Lovin’ Spoonful said, “it makes you feel happy like an old-time movie.” Who knows, maybe none of us would even be here if our ancestors hadn’t met out there on the dance floor.

So I say, thank goodness for Brylcreem and penciled-on stocking seams.

An Ode to Friends

Sometimes a thought just hits you out of nowhere, like a poorly thrown baseball at a kid-pitch little league game.

Driving home from work last night with the dotted lines on the pavement zipping by and the headlights of a tailgater uncomfortably close in my rearview mirror, it occurred to me: I have some good friends.

Let me clarify this.

I went through high school and college like everybody else. School-age kids are dumb and mean. I know, I was one of them. I had good friends, of course. But I also had bad friends. Friends who only hung out with me if there wasn’t a better offer. Friends who bailed on me time after time. Friends who were nice to me one-on-one but picked on me to win points with a crowd.

But I’m not just a victim here. I’m just as guilty of all those things as the kids who did them to me. I even bullied kids in school. I’m not proud of it. Maybe I don’t deserve to have good friends. To this day, I have a selfish streak a mile wide. Often, I only want to talk about me. I don’t always ask how my friends are doing until I’ve told them how I’m doing. Maybe my friends struggle with the same battle on the inside and just don’t show it. With friends like me, who needs enemies, m’right?

But in spite of my shortcomings, I have some quality friends these days. On Sunday, one of them paid me a compliment publicly in front of a crowd of people. The day before that, another friend drove an hour from Hendersonville just to talk and hand me tools while I worked on my rusty old truck. Yesterday, one friend texted me out of the blue and told me that a piece of advice I’d given him was ringing in his ears.

So driving down the road yesterday evening, a warmness fell over my chest as these thoughts churned through my head. I matter to someone. Multiple someones. Why should anyone care what I think? And yet, there are people in my life that ask my opinion. They tell me how nice I look today, or that I did a good job of this or that. That hasn’t always been.

If the joyous tear-jerking moment in It’s a Wonderful Life is to be believed - that the man is truly rich who has friends - then I have arrived.

Hopefully, if you’re reading this you have some friends like mine, who think about you enough to send you a message during the day. Hopefully, you have people that value your opinion and want you in their lives. If you don’t, I think you’ll find that there are indeed several people in this world that do want to know you. Go find them and make their lives a little richer.

Christmas in Columbia

Christmas hasn’t always been a happy time for me. Something about losing a parent takes some of the sparkle off the lights dangling from the Christmas tree. For several years after Daddy died I was indifferent towards the holidays. I wasn’t in a good frame of mind. I found it mildly irritating when Mixed 92.9 played Christmas music for two…whole…months in 2020.

It’s not like I went around shouting about boiling pudding or stakes of holly in people’s hearts. I just wasn’t into Christmas.

But I’m in a better headspace now. I have more peace. I’m feeling festive. I even cooked a pot of chili to a Christmas playlist on my phone while I filled my whole house with the lingering smell of garlic and onions. My sister walked into the kitchen while I cut up a bell pepper and said “You’re feeling festive.”

The courthouse lit up for the holidays. Canon Rebel T7i.

The line at Muletown Coffee before the parade. Canon Rebel T7i.

Festive enough that I went to the tree-lighting in Columbia, Tennessee this year. Three Saturdays ago, my friends informed me that they were going and that I was welcome. No one told me that they lit the tree after a parade, not that I minded. A Christmas parade would’ve sounded more interesting than lighting a Christmas tree, anyway. Parking in downtown Columbia for an event takes way too much effort to watch a guy in a Santa suit flip a switch and then turn around and leave. If I’m going to go to the trouble of finding a good parking spot, I might as well have candy hurled at me and watch the local Rotary Club float scoot by.

The parade was warm. Not the air. The air was cold. I mean the parade brought back the warm and cozy feelings of yesteryear, watching the parade in my hometown of Clinton. When I finally accepted Hot Hands from my friend Jordan, my palms matched the feeling in my heart. My friend Mitch was among the group standing with me behind the galvanized barricade. We found a spot near Muletown Coffee, where we met his son Dayne’s “friend” who is a female. A vetting process for this “friend” may or may not have taken place that night by us bystanders in the know, watching the young couple while they talked in low voices nearby.

Getting a better view. Canon Rebel T71

Discussions in the crowd. Canon Rebel T7i.

Floats floated. Dancers danced. Lords a-leaped. One guy with the Smyrna Ready Mix float gave us half a bag of candy. High school marching bands went by in ugly Christmas sweaters. It was wonderful.

Since that parade, I bought a Christmas wreath at Krogers, which is real and rains needles on the floor when you look at it the wrong way. It took me four tries and an hour of effort to hang it. My little pre-lit artificial Christmas tree has a fun little Santa hat sitting on top of it, casting a warm glow on my keyboard as I type this.

If you’re out there and Christmas isn’t fun for you, I hope it gets better over time. Don’t feel like you have to be happy. Own your feelings and savor them, whatever they are. But when you’re ready to vacuum up pine needles from your front hallway and hang a Christmas wreath, I’d be glad to lend you some double-sided tape.

In daddy’s arms. Canon Rebel T7i.

Interesting People with Interesting Cars: Jesse Woodby

I love characters. Every now and again you run across someone you just have to get to know better. There’s something about them that draws you in and makes you want to know more. I also love things with character, particularly cars. When you run across an interesting person with an interesting car, you’ve just got to get their story.

Such is the case with Jesse Woodby. Aside from having a sexy first name, Jesse is one of those people you want to be friends with. I’ve only known him for a year and a half. Half that time we didn’t know each other well. But we became fast friends commiserating over old trucks. Since then, we’ve become like brothers.

Jesse cuts hair on the quaint town square in Athens, Alabama. Having no time for a cut the past few weeks (and my hairdo beginning to resemble Albert Einstein’s), I decided to drive down to his shop this past Saturday. I walked in to his shop, King’s Corner, where he greeted me like a long lost friend.

“Wazzup, J! You lookin’ shaggy, dude. C’mon, have a seat. I’m-a take care of you.” His speech is a fine mixture of country twang and hip-hop artist.

Jesse gives the author a much-needed cut. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

In addition to being a barber, he’s also a gospel preacher, but for my money there’s not a heck of a lot of difference between the two. While he cut my hair, a friend of his, named Brandon, walked into the shop. Jesse greeted him with the same enthusiasm and rapper twang. Brandon had a look about him like he’d seen some things. He happened to be passing through, and he wanted to say hi to Jesse, and update him on a tough family situation he was dealing with. I could tell he and Jesse talked regularly about it. As I said, there’s not much difference between being a barber and a preacher.

But Jesse’s seen some things, himself. His dad was an alcoholic that beat him and his mom. His father had kidnapped a police officer and done time in prison. His mother remained faithful to him the whole time he was locked up. He was released early on good behavior. One cold Ohio night, his dad came home particularly drunk and knocked his mom senseless, then passed out on the couch. Later that night, his mom grabbed up some clothes for her and little Jesse and whispered, “Come on, Jesse. We’re leaving.”

They spent that cold night in a battered women’s shelter. Jesse was ten years old.

He and his mother made their way to Alabama, where his grandparents lived. At one point, his father found out where they were and came down to take Jesse away, but his grandparents went and got the sheriff. That was the last time his father bothered them.

Backing out. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Life went on for a while. The Woodbys settled into Athens. But an emptiness grew inside Jesse that went unchecked all those years. A grief. Jesse turned to pills to fill the emptiness. He told me it was nothing for him to take an entire pack of Lortab 10 in a day.

His skin turned yellow. He went to the doctor, who said, “Son, if you don’t quit doing what you’re doing, you’ll be dead in a year.”

That night, Jesse sat down with his mom and confessed everything. He’d kept his addiction from her until then, but she’d known something wasn’t right. She sat wordlessly as he told her the whole story. When he was finished, she didn’t chastise him. She didn’t shame him. She prayed over him.

Something changed right then and there. “I know some of us church folks don’t like to talk about feelings,” he said, “but I felt something happen to me. I felt a transition. It was powerful, man.”

By the grace of God, he’s been clean for eight years now. He became a father of four overnight when he married his wife Holly and her three kids, and has one of his own with Holly now. He’s a great dad. He wouldn’t admit it, but I’ve seen it, myself. He makes voices and farting sounds and everything that growing kids need.

Jesse’s truck, “Rosie”. Photo courtesy of Jesse Woodby.

Jesse drives a 1985 Ford F-150 named Rosie. He’s quick to point out it’s the same year Back to the Future takes place. He has trouble finding flux capacitors at Advance Auto Parts. He was helping a friend move out of his house when he noticed the old truck just sitting in a field on the property.

“What are you gonna do with that old truck?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said his friend. “Probably scrap it.”

“Oh no you ain’t! What do you want for it?”

“Want for it? I’ll give it to you!”

Rosie was in bad shape. She had been T-boned and left to rot in that field years ago. The engine was dry of all oil. The tires were flat. The gas line had been nibbled through by feral squirrels looking to wet their whistles on the good stuff. Yes, Rosie was rough.

Behind the wheel. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Jesse had her towed to his house where the rehab began. He slowly nursed her back to health, one piece at a time. He repaired the gas line with some fuel-resistant J.B. Weld. He got new tires put on. He got the engine running. Now he’s working on the body. His love for Rosie is something special. They have a bond, and he never gives up on the old girl. You can tell there’s a lot of him poured into her.

Rosie has a bench seat and a column shifter. She’s a long-bed. No four-wheel-drive. No frills. She’s just an honest old truck with a pokey V-8. Driving her is an experience that takes you back in time. It takes you back to a time when you had to pay attention to the gauges, because your engine might overheat, and you might have to end your photoshoot early. Yes, Rosie has character.

There’s something there, Jesse rehabbing old Rosie after all he’s been through. But I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Jazz Night at Americano Lounge

If you didn’t know it, I’m a jazz nut. In the sixth grade, when band became an option for snot-nosed Clinton Elementary School students, I wanted in. I didn’t come from a family of athletes. My mom was in band, and I was convinced I had no hand-eye coordination (that turned out not to be true), so I wanted to follow in her footsteps.

My mom rattled off the list of available instruments we could play from a paper the school sent us. Saxophone wasn’t on the list. I knew nothing about saxophones other than they were the only cool instrument. My mom informed me that I had to suffer through the clarinet before the band director would let me play saxophone, so I did, ear-splitting squeaks and all.

Fast forward to middle school. I didn’t know anything about jazz other than it was cool. See a pattern here? I joined the middle school jazz band because I wanted to play the cool music. At one point that year, the middle school and high school held a joint jazz band concert. The middle school band played stuff like the Pink Panther theme, the theme from Peter Gunn, and just about anything else written by Henry Mancini.

Then the high school band took the stage.

They played “In the Mood”. I was entranced. The place was jumpin’. My appendages twitched involuntarily to the rhythm. I’m sure I had a stupid smile from ear to ear on my pudgy middle school face. From then on, I was hopelessly in love with jazz.

The drummer holds nothing back. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Thursday night, I was hanging out with some friends in the Wedgewood Houston neighborhood in Nashville. We were out shooting photos to celebrate my friend Jonathan’s recent acquisition of a new Sony camera. As we finished up our photo shoot, we walked past a place called Americano Lounge, a coffee shop / cocktail lounge dressed up like an old-school speak easy inside. Jazz leaked through the door. I saw a saxophone. We went inside Americano.

Come to find out, the first Thursday of every month is jazz night with a five-piece band. Delicious. I watched the band play “Strasbourg St. Denis” with the same stupid look I had at that concert in middle school. After the song, I walked up and asked if they knew “Stardust,” one of my favorite jazz standards that everybody-and-their-brother has covered since Hoagy Carmichael wrote it in the 1920s.

The piano player, a laid-back guy named Alexander Murphy (a terribly appropriate name for a jazz musician) said, “Yeah, I think we know that one. Chase, you know ‘Stardust.’ Cool. What key? G? Yeah, man, we know ‘Stardust.’ We’ll play it after this next song.”

I stood in a café full of sitting people like a dork. I stood near a column watching the band play, with an intensity like unto a swooning fanboy. I crouched down with my camera to snap a few photos, hoping they wouldn’t mind (not that they could argue with me while they played). Murphy’s fingers danced across the keys. The bass player’s head bobbed to the beat. The drummer wore every feeling on his face as he played. It was wonderful.

When they got done with ‘Stardust’, I walked up and thanked them. Murphy pivoted on the piano bench to face me. “Hey man, can you send me those photos when you’re done?”

I laughed. “Sure! I was afraid you guys wouldn’t even want your picture taken.”

The drummer smiled. “Nah,” he said. “Musicians eat that stuff up.”

Alexander Murphy on piano, ladies and gentlemen. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

A Week with "Montana" Will

“I would like to have seen Montana…”

These are the dying words of Captain Vasili Borodin, played by Sam Neill, in The Hunt for Red October, one of my absolute favorite movies. Like Borodin, I had not seen Montana before, either. But unlike Borodin, I wasn’t shot by a ship’s cook before I could see it, and I’m grateful because Montana is gorgeous.

In fact, I had never seen the Pacific Northwest before. Neither had “Montana” Will before January of 2022. Will’s story is stranger than fiction, with the highest of peaks and the lowest of valleys. Will has been a rodeo bull rider, incarcerated, run heavy construction machinery, homeless, ministered to inmates, hit by a car, and wowed employers with his grit and work ethic. The circumstances by which he ended up in Montana are too dark to describe here, but suffice it to say that a rated-R movie could be made about them.

Will’s best feature is his enormous heart. He would literally give you the shirt off his back, and help you in a pinch, whether it be building a porch at your house, fixing your car on the side of the road, etc. So when the opportunity came to go visit Will, (who moved to Montana by himself in his truck) a few of his friends sprang for the plane tickets and seized the opportunity.

Mitch poses for the camera before we pull out of Spokane, WA. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

On the road to Montana. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i

A logging yard by the road. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

To begin the journey, I flew up to Spokane with Mitch, a short Hawaiian man that I consider an adopted father, complete with corny jokes (not that I don’t make a few of those, myself). Shiela, a mutual friend of ours and Will’s, went up three days before we did, the idea being to overlap visits and provide him with friends for as long as possible. From Spokane, Mitch and I drove through Idaho into western Montana.

Never having seen the Northwest before, I couldn’t stop looking out the window at the mountains covered with pine trees. As a kid, I grew up reading Model Railroader and looking at toy trains in hobby shops, so seeing all the criss-crossing railroads carving the mountains was a joy. We passed a few logging yards along the way, timber being a part of the economic bedrock in this section of the country.

We arrived in Troy, Montana after a three-hour drive from Spokane. Cell service was spotty at best the whole trip, but between dropped calls we deduced that Will and Shiela could be found at the Silver Spur Saloon in Troy, the best place to eat in town. I spotted Will as soon as we entered the saloon as he perused the menu. I walked right up to him and punched him in the shoulder. He stood up and gave me one of the tightest hugs of my life.

“Montana” Will cleaning a stick for cooking s’mores. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

That night we camped at a campground nestled at the point where the Yaak River and Kootenai Rivers meet. It was a beautiful place to spend the night. I felt like I was in a scene from True Grit, the part where Mattie Ross goes to the river for water and meets the man who killed her father. Will had everything we needed to camp packed into his truck, minus the little bit of camping gear my friend Jordan lent me. Only a week before we arrived, Will lost his job with a wildfire-fighting company due to their government contract being terminated (there were no more wildfires for them to fight). So Will was essentially homeless in Montana.

I’ve been camping plenty with some of my friends over the past few years, but I’ve never camped with a homeless man before. Most of us who camp do it for the challenge of it; we do it for fun. Will camped for survival, and watching him set up his camp was a learning experience. He had two tents, a big one for the three guys and a small one for Shiela. We set up our tents, and then set about making a fire. We gathered up some deadfall from around the campground, and then Will approached the fire pit with a can of gasoline.

Mitch and I eyed the gas can with more than a healthy dose of skepticism. “What are you doing with that, Will?” I asked.

“I’m startin’ a fire.”

“You’re gonna blow yourself up!”

“No, I ain’t. You gotta let the vapor go away before you light it.”

I wasn’t convinced, so I watched from a safe distance as Will lit the fire. To his credit, he still had eyebrows and a shirt sleeve when he was done, so I guess his method works. But I probably won’t be employing his method on my campfires. Will emphasized the importance of being able to quickly make a fire when you’re homeless. In the winter, it can be the difference between life and death, he said. It made sense that he wouldn’t want to mess around, and start his fires with the quickest method he knows how.

The Yaak River. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Will and Shiela. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Will’s “efficient” method for starting fires. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Shiela gets ready for s’mores. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Mitch and Shiela pose with their marshmallows. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

We ate s’mores that night around the campfire, like good American campers. To avoid being too friendly with the grizzly bears, we stored our food in one of the bear-proof containers nearby. Then we got ready for bed. The whole day, it had been in the mid-70s outside and was really quite comfortable. I wore a plain white T-shirt with an unbuttoned collared shirt and jeans. When we laid down to sleep, the temperature had dropped to the 60s, but I wasn’t worried about being cold.

But come 3 o’clock the next morning, I woke up with my exposed face uncomfortably cold. I made a lot of noise scrounging around in the dark, pulling the long underwear out of my duffel bag and putting them on in the dark. When we got up a few hours later in the gray foggy dawn by the river, I was bundle up in my coat and beanie. Meanwhile, Will peeled potatoes for our breakfast by the fire barefoot in a flannel shirt. He took one look at Mitch and I in our winter coats and muttered, “City slickers.”

A barefooted Will peels potatoes for our breakfast. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

The author bundled up on a “warm” Montana morning. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Morning on the Yaak River. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

We ate breakfast and broke camp to get ready for the next leg of our journey to Kalispell, just outside Glacier National Park. We packed up our tents and put the extra food back in the cooler, while Shiela scrubbed out the breakfast pot with a rock and a bar of hand soap. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The drive from Troy to Kalispell was beautiful, naturally. Montana doesn’t have a bad side.

A lake along the road to Kalispell. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

A picturesque Montana farmhouse. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Kalispell is a decently-sized city for Montana, with a population of around 24,000 people. We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast called Lonesome Dove Ranch, where we would sleep in a pair of cavalry tents with wood plank floors furnished with beds.

We dropped our stuff off at Lonesome Dove, and then headed into Glacier National Park. The week we were there was the last week of the season for the Going-to-the-Sun Road, a feat of engineering building in the early 1900s that meandered up a beautiful gorge in the West Rocky Mountains.

I have never seen mountains that tall. I grew up in East Tennessee, where the Great Smokey Mountains were the tallest things for hundreds and hundreds of miles. But the Rockies dwarf the Smokies. I couldn’t stop gawking at the majesty of the massive formations looming over me. I felt like an insect by comparison.

Going-to-the-Sun Road was challenging for me. Mitch drove us in our rented Toyota 4Runner. The road was a narrow two-lane road the clung to the edge of the mountains, with a precipitous drop on one side. Going up the mountain, there were times I couldn’t even see the guardrail out of the car window, only my impending death as I imagined our car tumbling over the edge. I shut my eyes sometimes and pretended we were on a boring interstate instead. Mitch grew up on Maui, where scary narrow roads on mountainsides were part of everyday life, so he was used to such drives. I was simultaneously grateful for his experience behind the wheel and annoyed that he was enjoying himself instead of white-knuckling it all the way up. The driver can’t enjoy himself at a time like this, right? Our lives are at stake!

Mitch skips a rock on McDonald Lake. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Shiela walks on a pebbly beach at McDonald Lake. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Mountains loom above the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. Taken on Canon AE-1 with Ilford Delta 100.

Going-to-the-Sun Road. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

The valley stretches out below us on the way to Logan Pass. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

The view from Logan Pass. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Mitch drives untroubled by the sheer drop just a few feet away. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Weary from the drive and the emotional high of seeing God’s glory manifested in geological wonders, we trudged into camp and got some showers. Tuesday night would be the last time I showered for the rest of the trip. It sounds gross, but that will be important later.

We roasted hotdogs, and then turned in for the night. That night was the coldest night of the whole trip, and honestly I was miserable. The bed-and-breakfast provided some propane heaters that only lasted about four hours into the night. The beds had plenty of thick covers on them, but they just weren’t enough for me. A friend back home had given me some Hot-Hands to take with us on the trip and told me to place them under my kidneys if I got cold. They helped, but I was still cold. I slept in my winter coat under the covers that night.

Morning was a mercy. It meant no more pretending to sleep, and that I could get up and move around to get warm. It made everything feel new again, even if I was exhausted from sleep deprivation. We had breakfast at Lonesome Dove’s dining room. The coffee, which I was definitely looking forward to, was basically hot water. According to Will, that’s just how they make coffee in Montana. Both Will and I prefer stand-up-and-bark coffee. After breakfast, we snuck back to his truck and made our own on his tailgate. And it definitely barked.

Will records a message for his church family back home in Tennessee, telling them how much he loves Montana. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Breakfast at Lonesome Dove. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Shiela’s flight home was that Wednesday afternoon. Will took her to the airport in Kalispell for an emotional goodbye. Their relationship is a special one that has seen him through the darkest days of his life. Needless to say, watching her get out of his truck and head into the air terminal was hard. He caught back up with Mitch and me at Chic-Fil-A for a bite to eat, and he was unusually quiet, with a far-away look in his misty eye.

He cheered up a little when we went back into Glacier, where we set up camp for the night and killed time before church in Kalispell.

Given Will’s past, he knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of “church hurt.” Religious meanness rears its ugly head when people learn of Will’s story. Or sometimes it rears its ugly head just because. Visiting a church while living in Troy, Will got the feeling he was unwanted there, and sought out a new group of Christians to plug into.

We went with him that night to the church in Kalispell, where they held their mid-week Bible study. Mitch actually ran into some people he knew from his time preaching in Georgia, and was able to explain Will’s situation to them in order to get him a job and a place to live there in Kalispell. It definitely felt like a '“God thing.” As of writing this, Will now has a job and a place to live thanks to the Christians there that night.

Mitch sits on the water at McDonald Lake. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Avalanche Creek. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

The trail to Avalanche Lake. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Mitch leads the way. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Avalanche Lake. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

We spent a very wet Thursday hiking up to Avalanche Lake, a five-mile round-trip through scenic vistas, climbing through different parts of the same gorge we drove up the day before. The views were breathtaking. It drizzled on our way in, then cleared up as we approached the trail’s end. Avalanche Lake is fed by the Sperry Glacier, which sits at the top of a high ridge above the trail.

It’s amazing to think of the Salish and Kootenai tribes that lived here hundreds of years ago, and the explorers who carved the trails leading to these beautiful places. But I also got the feeling that, as beautiful as this place was, it was a hard country to live in. Winter was right around the corner, and that version of Montana threatened a harsher existence than the pleasant one I got to see.

By the time we got back to the car, it was raining outright. We were cold and wet, and ready to get back to camp. When we did, we found that our hopes of being dry were dashed due to the leak Will’s tent had developed, soaking the bottoms of our sleeping pads and mummy bags. As the rain cleared, we built a fire to dry out our gear.

Will and I talked by the fire that night. After a week of camping together, we began to see each other’s idiosyncrasies. I had grown somewhat irritable not having any time to myself, and gone off by McDonald Lake earlier that day to re-center.

“Thank y’all so much for coming’” he said as we watched the fire burn. “I know I ain’t always the easiest to deal with.”

A pang of guilt came over me. I have a selfish streak a mile wide, and it had shown itself on a few occasions during the trip. “It’s good to be here with you,” I said. “You may have noticed it by now, but I can be pretty ornery, too.”

“I know you can,” he replied candidly.

Sitting by the fire, I conducted an informal interview with “Montana” Will. I asked him about his relationship with his mom and dad. I asked him how he left his home state of Florida. I asked him about his wife cheating on him, and he was gracious enough to answer my questions and tell his story. I shared a few things of my own with him, like how my father had been sick for several years, that I was close to him, and that I lost him when I was 21 years old. That night was special. We were both willing to lower our defenses and learn about each other. There’s just something about a campfire that makes people want to open up.

Friday morning, our last morning, we broke camp and drove back to Kalispell to drop Will off at his truck. He gave us both big hugs and thanked us for coming to see him. Mitch prayed. Then we hopped in the 4Runner and made the trek back to Spokane.

Swapping gear in a parking lot in Kalispell. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

The trip was eye-opening in a few different ways. First, I got to see a new part of the country that I had never seen before.

Second, I got to spend quality time with someone who’s lived a much different life than me, with different goals and aspirations. We look at Will’s living situation and think, “Oh, that’s terrible! To be homeless like Will…” But Will is happy. I can’t tell you the number of times he tried to convince us to move up there with him to Montana. He’s completely fallen in love with the place. Sure, he doesn’t always have four walls and a roof over his head. But he’s satisfied, and I learned that I need to be happy for him.

Lastly, in one tiny glimpse, I had an idea of what it was like to be homeless, though I wouldn’t be so bold as to say I’ve come anywhere near truly experiencing it. Watching how Will survived over the years without a permanent dwelling place, cooking food, making fires, surviving…it was sobering. After three days of not showering, I became painfully aware of my own body odor and how greasy my hair looked. Going through security at the Spokane airport, I kept the hat on my head until the last possible second so that no one would see my hair. I changed out of my grimy clothes in a stall in the men’s room. I rolled on another layer of deodorant to cover up my stink. I can only begin to imagine what it must be like to go through life being self-conscious of yourself in public, begging for a shred of dignity.

I pulled into my driveway at 3 o’clock Saturday morning after our connecting flight out of Denver was delayed due to weather. As tired as I was, I showered before I got into bed. I felt brand new after that…you know, except for being deliriously tired.

Our week with “Montana” Will was the trip of a lifetime. Hopefully, I’ll see him up there again before too long.

“Montana” Will. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

On Location with the Frost Brothers

I’ve been a movie nut my whole life. I really didn’t stand a chance, since my parents were always eager to share their favorite movies with me in my formative years. Armed with Blockbuster Online, an early but short-lived competitor to Netflix, my parents subjected me to all sorts of movies and TV shows that they grew up with. So it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that Casablanca is my favorite movie of all time, or that John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and Steven Spielberg are some of my favorite directors. And while these films and directors definitely inspired me to write novels and short stories, I have yet to break into filmmaking.

But others watch their favorite films and become inspired to follow in the footsteps of these great directors. The Frost Brothers are of this sort.

I’ve known Zach and Jeremy Frost for five or six years now, who I met through our mutual friend Jordan Kinard. Ever the movie-buffs and always comparing notes on their picks for this year’s Oscar nominees, the Frost Brothers took their passion for film and got serious, especially in the past three years. Frost Studios has already made several short films with investor backing, and their latest project is the daunting 48 Hour Film Project.

Jeremy and Zach discuss the next scene from the back of the golf cart. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

The 48 Hour Film Project is a competition in which filmmakers are given a prompt on Friday evening at 7 o’clock and have until 7 o’clock Sunday evening to upload a fully finished 4-7 minute long short film. Film crews are given a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue that they must use in their short films in order to be considered by the judges.

You can imagine how difficult it would be to cobble together a good-looking, good-sounding, coherent short film in so short a period of time.

This is the 3rd year that the Frost Brothers have competed in a 48 Hour competition, and their experience shows. I was lucky enough to join the crew on set at their filming location this year at an enchanting greenhouse located right in the middle of East Nashville. They had already scouted the location prior to receiving the prompt, but when Jordan, their producer, standing at the 48 Hour headquarters, phoned and said their category was “Fantasy” they quickly realized how well-suited it was for their film.

The co-directors scope out the greenhouse for their shot. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Zach discusses cinematography with his brother. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Jeremy watches a shot remotely from the monitor. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Their crew was small, but professional. Zach operated the camera, a serious-looking rig with lots of gizmos I wasn’t well-acquainted with. Jeremy called many of the shots, holding a monitor with a live feed from the camera, which even allowed him to manipulate it remotely. Jonathan was on the sound boom, always just off-camera and sometimes crawling into uncomfortable positions to capture the sound without being seen (up to and including laying on the ground beneath a table, just below the actors). Jordan was their producer, making sure that everything they needed for all their shots was on-hand and ready to go; things like a suit that their main character wore, an aerosol mist for dramatic effect, and water bottles to drink.

The day I was on set there were two actors in character. The main character, Evan, was played by Colin, whom sports fans may recognize as a popular social media personality. The other actor, Ryan, played Evan’s brother, who blows up explosively in one scene depicting a confrontation between the two. Both did a fantastic job performing their roles.

It was fascinating to watch how the two co-directors deftly shot the same scene from different angles, getting the material they needed efficiently and then moving on to the next shot. Skulking around with my old-school Canon AE-1 35mm film camera, I snapped photos whenever I could, trying to be out of the way. The AE-1 has that ideal shutter sound iPhone’s mimic when you hit the shutter button, only louder. So when I snapped a photo during a shot, sound rolling, Zach turned to me and said, “Jesse, I don’t think you can take any more pictures during the shots.”

I felt really bad after that.

The Frost Brothers focused on their take. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Ryan delivers some explosive dialogue. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Jordan on standby, ready to recite a line to forgetful actors. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

After shooting the confrontation scene, the crew got a bite to eat. Jordan arranged for sandwiches to be brought to the set for a late lunch (it was 3 o’clock by this point), and everyone gathered around some picnic tables inside the greenhouse for a bite to eat. After some laughs and a little rest for their tired feet, it was back to work.

Lunch on the set. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

It was after lunch, however, that progress began to grind to a crawl as fatigue set in and mental faculties faded. Even Zach and Jeremy, who normally finished each other’s sentences in this creative environment, struggled to make decisions and keep things going. Such is life during the 48 Hour Film Project. While 4-7 minutes of film may not sound like much, it takes a lot of work to put something together that makes any sense, much less put it together in a weekend.

Zach and Jeremey spent the next hour on the golf cart roving around the compound trying to find the best location to shoot the next scene. Meanwhile, Colin, dedicated to his role, was handed an electric trimmer and told to get rid of his beard, cutting it down to a mustache. He didn’t hesitate. Jordan whipped out a suit in Colin’s size and prepped him for a scene depicting a grave-side service.

Jonathan and I kicked back and relaxed for a while, chatting until he was needed to operate the sound boom again.

The crew heads for its next shooting location. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Zach shoots a grave-side scene amongst old tombstones. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Colin and Jordan. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

I had it easy the whole time. I had no responsibilities. It was me who asked to be there that Saturday afternoon, not the other way around. I thought it would make a cool blog post, and I think I was right about that. But when all was said and done, I showed up well rested and left when I got tired and hungry. These guys stayed up late for multiple nights and ground out a coherent short film that looked good and sounded good.

Jordan later told me that it was down to the wire, uploading their submission. They had a version of the film with a narration and one without a narration. With minutes left until the deadline, Zach turns to Jeremey and asks, “Which one do we submit?” After a long, thoughtful pause, Jeremey replies, “I don’t know.”

With seven - count them - seven seconds to spare, they uploaded the version without the narration.

Setting up the finale in the greenhouse. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Afterwards, the crew made sure I was invited to the screening, which took place at the Regal in Opry Mills. There were enough short films submitted to warrant four separate screenings, each with about ten short films. “The Soil of Time”, as their film was called, was in Group C. After having watched all the films in their screening, I can confidently say that Frost Studios really stood out, producing a short film with a professional look and feel that not all the others necessarily had.

But that’s not to knock the other filmmakers. The 48 Hour Film Project is hard. Putting anything together in that short a time is impressive. There were some very interesting films shown that night in Group C’s screening, films with excellent comedic timing, clever uses of space and composition, and some keen editing.

It was a pleasure to witness what goes on in the making of a short film. It was also a pleasure to see friends I’ve known for years in their natural habitat, one I’d never seen them in before. Honestly, I’m not sure if I could hack it, staying up for hours on end. I don’t do well being sleep-deprived. I get accused of being a grandpa regularly as a result. But I’m intrigued by this competition, and wouldn’t mind hanging out on set a little more in the future…so long as I don’t take pictures during the shot.

Jonathan takes a moment’s reprieve while the crew shoots a silent scene. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Watch Frost Studio’s short film “The Soil of Time” here:

The Tennessee State Fair

Once named the Wilson County Fair (and still is in some radio ads), the Tennessee State Fair is truly a slice of everything this great state has to offer, with rides, fair food, exhibits and competitions on just about any subject matter that little old ladies and farmers could dream up. I can just hear the competitors now, bragging over their entries, thumbs tucked behind overall-straps, “My pig is the biggest in this here state.” “Oh, yeah? Well I done grew me the biggest melon in these here parts.” Or Mildred from down the street casts a sideways glance at Peggy’s finest canned goods on display and remarks, “Oh, your pickles look almost as good as mine did last year.”

Located in Lebanon, Tennessee, the State Fair is centrally located along I-40, within fairly easy reach of both West and East Tennesseans, and with a lot more room than the Nashville Fairgrounds now has to offer post-soccer stadium.

The fun isn’t just limited to quilting competitions and livestock, although those are worthy struggles. There are, of course, the midway rides like the Ferris wheel, so-called “fun” houses, bumper cars, and all those sneaky carnies promising massive stuffed Pikachus in payment of some ridiculously hard feat of hand-eye coordination. Then there’s the truck and tractor pulls, the live music, the funnel cakes, and, last but not least, the people-watching.

Yes, there’s something for everyone at the Tennessee State Fair.

Alex surveys a collection of antique tractors. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Growing up, our little Anderson County Fair in Clinton, Tennessee was a real hometown event. Baking in the hot sun and bumping into friends you haven’t seen since elementary school in shadow of the corn dog stand was as cozy and familiar as eating mama’s cornbread. Being an East Tennessee ex-pat, the Tennessee State Fair harkened back all those cozy feelings from home, to the point where I almost expected to run into my high school ag (that’s “agriculture”) teacher in the livestock barn. This year (my first year), I went with my friend Alex, one of my oldest friends and fellow Clinton ex-pat living in Nashville.

This fair was on a much grander scale than anything we saw in Clinton, however. The Tennessee Valley Fair in Knoxville might have come close to the size of this one. Alex and I wandered everywhere, hardly finding a corner to turn where there wasn’t something else to see. If it wasn’t food vendors, it was a woodturner carving a bowl on his trailer-mounted wood lathe, or a booth set up to raise money to restore an old steam locomotive, or a tent filled with exotic animals from other continents.

A blacksmith pounds iron into shape at the anvil. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

A group of bluegrass “pickers” warms up before taking the stage. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Despite the pleasant weather, people line up to quench their thirst with some tangy lemonade. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Oddly enough, even parrots are on display at the state fair. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

If you can get past the smell (and you should), the livestock barns are always a colorful and lively place to be, with hens clucking, sheep bleating, and the earthy whiff of poo mixed with wood shavings that remind a body of where their ancestors came from. Despite growing up in a suburban neighborhood, I participated in sheep shows at county fairs in my younger years through a sponsor that my daddy used to work with in 4-H. Being in the livestock barns brings it all back to me every time, even if I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sandals.

Local high school FFA (Future Farmers of America) chapters were well-represented in the barns and agricultural exhibits, manned by their teenage members. When I was in high school, the seniors seemed like men, strong and sinewy with facial hair sprouting from their jawlines. Then I look at these high school kids and realize just how young we actually were. My high school days were a strange hodge-lodge of ag kid activities and band kid activities. I was in marching band, but I took classes in livestock judging. I played “In the Mood” in jazz band, but climbed into test pits for soil judging. I guess when one grandfather is a dairy farmer and the other a gospel preacher that grew watermelons on the side, agriculture becomes a part of your life, even if your life takes place on Maple Street.

People walk past an inflatable “Corn Maze”, one of the agritourism attractions at the fair. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

An antique Farmall tractor sits on display. Canon Rebel T7i.

You would think someone my age would prefer hanging out on the midway at the fair and nauseate myself on a bunch of rides. But I’m an old soul, and I actually love going through the exhibit halls. I’m particularly fond of the artwork and photography, and in case you didn’t know, there are some very talented artists in Tennessee. Some of the work was simply jaw-dropping. I’ve participated in fair photography competitions before, but seeing the displays at this fair, I began asking myself why I didn’t submit anything. The boring but true answer is that it just didn’t occur to me. Maybe next year.

Other exhibits showcased the veggies that the green thumbs of our state grew this year, everything from peppers to watermelons. The behemoth watermelon that won the blue ribbon was truly a grand gourd. I don’t know enough about tomatoes and zucchini to identify a good one, but I’m glad the judges do. I killed a succulent after not watering it for an embarrassingly long period of time which shall not be disclosed in this blog post. I did not ask myself why I didn’t participate in the vegetable competition.

Peppers on display in the exhibit hall. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

The blue ribbon-winning watermelon. Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Since I rode to the fair with Alex, I had to call it quits at 8 o’clock that night to get home at a reasonable hour. So even if I had been tempted to ride any of the midway rides that night, I didn’t have the time. As a kid, the rides were all I cared about. Just try taking your kids through the canned good displays. I give it five minutes before they whine, “Mama, I’m bored. When can we ride some rides?” But as I got older, I cared less about the rides and more about the collection of skilled work from the community around me that otherwise wouldn’t be shared beyond friends and family.

But the little kid in me still wanted to see all the bright colors and happy sounds of the carnival rides, so Alex and I exited the fair through the midway. The place was packed, with people lining up to ride like it was Disney World. Maybe for some folks, this was Disney World. I still don’t have much interest in being on the rides, especially the ones that make you puke like a character in The Sandlot, but I do still love looking at them.

If you haven’t been to the Tennessee State Fair, I can now wholeheartedly recommend it. If you’re new to this great state and want to experience its character, I also recommend it. If you love funnel cakes, I recommend it. For me, it’s a reminder of who I am and where I came from, as well as a chance to admire my talented neighbors for their skill.

And if you think you can grow a bigger melon than farmer Dan, go for it.

Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.

Taken on Canon Rebel T7i.