A Quieter Place

My mom and I were getting breakfast recently, and almost the first thing out of her mouth was “Well…I have decided to retire.”

People constantly messaging her, emailing her, calling her to meet deadlines had finally become too much, and she needed less stimulation.  She needed quiet.  I had recently asked her for some photos from our old family albums for my “Hood Ornaments” post, and to help her remember happier, quieter times she decided to flip through them again.  She found one of her grandpa, Grandpa Deal, taking a nap on the front porch of his house in Burns, Tennessee, and it unlocked some old dusty memories that she shared with me one Saturday morning over breakfast at Panera.

When Mama was around eight years old, her parents would drop her off with Grandma and Grandpa Deal for a week every summer.  The drive from their house in Dickson to Burns was a short one, even by the standards of that time, but to a kid it might as well have been Outer Mongolia.  Here she was, not ten years old spending a week with two old people in their seventies.

Grandma and Grandpa Deal had a farm house out in the country.  They only went into town for church and groceries, so there wasn’t much for a small child to do.  Every summer, Mama would get a new Nancy Drew book to read to pass the time with.  Grandpa Deal would go off to mow or feed the pigs or gather eggs from the chicken coop, so the rest of the time was spent following Grandma Deal around while she did chores.

Grandma Deal would wash all the clothes with an old wringer washer, then hang the clothes up to dry.  For Grandpa Deal’s overalls, she’d add a little bluing to the water to make sure they didn’t fade.  When the clothes were dry, she’d iron everything, from Grandpa Deal’s boxer shorts to the bed sheets.  And because she didn’t have a steam iron, she’d sprinkle some water over the clothes before she went to work. In the afternoons, Grandpa Deal would come back to the house and have a nap on the porch swing for a while until it was time for the afternoon chores.  In the evening, it was supper, and watching the news and Red Skelton.  Grandpa Deal loved Red Skelton.

My mom had a twinkle in her eye as she told me all this, but at the same time, a faraway look, like she was describing something off in the distance.  She said, “With all the noise at work, people calling me, and messages pinging, I tried to think of the quietest place I could.  I thought about sitting out on the front porch at Grandma Deal’s house.  There were no cars going by on a busy road.  There was just the sound of hens clucking and maybe some pigs grunting.  That was it.  It was just so quiet.”

I listened intently as she told me her story.  Something told me I’d want to remember it someday, so I came home and wrote it down.  Those of us still working don’t always appreciate the importance of quiet.  We’re bombarded with ads and content all day long.  At work, people constantly demand our attention.  At home, our phones demand the same.  On the road, we jockey for the gaps in traffic to get home just a millisecond faster.  Sometimes, we just need a nap on a porch swing.  Sometimes, we need to go to a quieter place.

Hood Ornaments

My Uncle Tim had 1993 Cadillac DeVille. Driving home from work one day this week, I saw one and a flood of childhood memories rained down. I remember my sister and I riding in the backseat of that thing along the two-lane country roads of West Tennessee, my Uncle Tim — a madman behind the wheel — driving us to church with Grandmother in the front seat. It was the pinnacle of attainable American luxury for its day. It was the last of the ‘80s-era square design, with a chrome egg crate grill, fin-like protrusions at the taillights, and — my personal favorite — a hood ornament (you know you’re in a luxury car if you have a hood ornament). The front bumpers feature a special add-on by my uncle, deer whistles. The plush leather seats had more in common with a La-Z-Boy than they did automotive upholstery. My sister and I sank deep into them, our feet unable to reach the back of the front seats, they were so far away. The interior was a deep, royal blue with brown wood-look accents. It had a big engine, a 4.9L V-8 mounted sideways being a front wheel drive car. The front felt more like the cockpit of a fine boat than a humble driver’s seat. The dash was covered in wood paneling with switches and knobs for every conceivable wish; tactile, carefully engineered switches and knobs. Even the font on the switch labels felt carefully selected. Uncle Tim would toss the chrome column shifter down into drive without a thought, and the Caddy floated along the two-lane country roads. He had a lead foot. I remember once, there was some back road, maybe on the way to my Uncle Jonathan’s house, Uncle Tim sped over a short, abrupt hill. I could’ve sworn we caught air. My sister and I grinned and screamed as our stomachs flew into our throats. “TIIIIIIMMMM!!” my grandmother screeched. I don’t know what look Uncle Tim had on his face because I always sat behind him in the car, but I could venture a guess there was a toothy grin under his gold, wire-frame sunglasses.

The DeVille has seen better days at this point. It no longer tears up the road, suffering from bad gas-mileage and a dead battery. The plastic front fender has a hole in it, and spiders have made a Stranger Things-esque web between it and the forest floor at Grandmother’s house. As Gen Z comes of age and finds charm with the well-made things of yesteryear, perhaps someone will come along, scrub it up, and get it moving again. If I had time, space and money I’d do it myself, but it’s not to be at the moment. I appreciated that car when I was a kid, but I’d love to go back in time and experience driving that cush-mobile as an adult. It would be a dream to see a two-lane road disappearing under hood, the Cadillac ornament proudly fixed on the horizon, deer whistles warning the wildlife to stay away.

Uncle Tim with a niece. Image blurred for respect to the niece.

Interesting People with Interesting Cars: Randy Clifton

This is only the third entry in my “Interesting People with Interesting Cars” series, and its subject isn’t one I had on my bingo card, but an opportunity presented itself and so my third victim was chosen: Randy Clifton, my boss.

One doesn’t normally write blog posts about one’s boss, but Randy officially retires this month, and it occurred to me that I had a few things to say about him on his way out. Good things.

I’ve been with my current company, a large commercial general contractor (who will remain nameless so I don’t get in trouble with our marketing department), for going on seven years now in their pre construction (i.e. estimating) department. The company I estimated for before was a smaller subcontractor, and that job got me to Nashville, but what I needed and the needs of my previous employer had diverged after four years. After casting about for another job in Nashville for a while, I received a message on LinkedIn out of the clear blue sky from a guy named Randy Clifton who saw my profile and thought I had potential.

I met with him early one weekday morning. Stupid early. He drove all the way from Mount Juliet to Spring Hill to meet me at a coffee shop at 6am so I wouldn’t be late for work. He was kind and encouraging, and made me feel like I could make the leap from subcontractor to general contractor; the “big leagues”, if you will. I got the job.

When I got to my current company, I was timid, uncertain, lacked confidence. Fast forward a few years, a few mentors later, and now I’m running my own projects. And big ones, too. My first big project was way more than I was used to because my mentor at work suddenly decided to work for someone closer to home, and I was then in charge of his large, messy project in Florida. That was mine and Randy’s trial by fire together. Randy and I have the same DiSC (personality) profile, it turned out, which has pros and cons. The pro is that we’re both infinitely reasonable people who despise conflict and don’t seek it out. The con is that we’re so much alike that we sometimes butted heads. I remember an occasion on that first project together where I was crunching steel numbers on a hot deadline, and Randy was standing over my shoulder saying, “I need that damn number!”, an out-of-character moment for him brought on by stress. But other projects came after that, and Randy encouraged me and positioned me to succeed, challenging me to do more than I thought I could do many times.

Randy also played the part of life coach. To his eternal credit, Randy would make the rounds through our bullpen at work every day, asking us how we were doing, what we were working on, if there was anything we were struggling with, and was always ready to be pulled into a phone room for conversations of a more personal nature. I’ve known my wife for over three years now (not long in the grand scheme of things, I know), but Randy was there pushing me to take the leap and get engaged. My wife and I owe our happily married life in a large way to the moment he pushed me to commit.

Randy isn’t a bulldog. He isn’t type-A and isn’t overly assertive. But he lead by example, and his word was his bond. He taught us the importance of meeting deadlines and keeping commitments. He taught us the importance of caring about our coworkers on a less superficial level. Through his quiet commitment to his own family — raising his granddaughter Natalie and supporting his widowed mother — he demonstrated what was most important in this life.

How do cars play a part in all of this? You know by now that I’m a car guy, through and through, and Randy has followed NASCAR his whole life and could rattle off the names of drivers that have been gone for ages. Recently, Randy and his wife Margaret decided to enjoy their near-retirement life and buy an old Corvette, a 1972 model. After harassing him endlessly to drive the old Corvette to work, a consolation prize emerged in the form of going with him and Natalie to the Nashville Cars-and-Coffee, held at the Superspeedway in Lebanon. I drove my ‘05 Mustang GT and he drove his ‘Vette. I parked my car next to his, which was with all the old muscle cars from the ‘60s and ‘70s, so I suffered from a healthy dose of imposter syndrome with my 21-year-old entry-level sports car.

Nevertheless, we had ourselves a good time, and I got to take some cool photos of a cool guy with his cool car. So cheers, to a good man and a good boss as he moves on to the next — and more important — things in his life. Godspeed, Randy Clifton.

An Ice Storm in Nashville

It seems more and more the South doesn’t get the kind of consistent winter weather it used to. Because I’m a 30-something-year-old white guy, a switch has been flipped and I read history for fun now, and the non-fiction books I read refer to the prolonged winters of yesteryear, the kind of winters we just don’t see in the here and now. But when we do get winter weather, we get it bad. Some commenters on Instagram (the trustworthiest of sources) were calling the January ice storm a generational ice storm, comparing it to one that hit Nashville in 1994.

It was certainly bad, sure enough. By the end of January, someone at church referred to that January 25th Sunday as January 50th. A good portion of people were without power for well over a week due to the downed lines and icy roads, so it’s no wonder the month felt so long to so many. That Saturday in January as the snow started to fall, I dusted off my old Russian Zorki 4K film camera (in no way similar to 4K digital cameras) and decided to document the winter event in negatives.

Footprints in the snow. Ilford Delta 100.

All things considered, my wife, Madison, and I were extremely fortunate. We were only without power for 12 hours, but not before fearing the worst. Early that week when I realized how bad things could get, I scoured Nashville for an indoor propane heater and rock salt to no avail, every other Tom, Dick, and Harry having the same idea. Multiple trips to multiple stores proved completely fruitless. Resigned to our fate, we resolved to make the most of staying at home, and figured we could at least heat things up on the grill outside if need be (which also proved to be fruitless, but more on that later).

Saturday came and went with only a fluffy layer of snow and a false sense of security. Madison and I went for a quick walk around the neighborhood, short enough we didn’t see much and long enough that ice formed in my beard. We spent the day watching TV and playing Bananagrams one-on-one on our dining room table. The next day, when the freezing rain started, things got interesting. We got a text from our friends Asher and Anna Clarke that their power had gone out, but since we had spare rooms and our power was on, I suggested they come to our house. After deliberating for a while, they loaded up food to bring with them and their two Australian shepherds and make the icy trek to our house in Asher’s Toyota 4Runner. The instant they rolled into our slippery driveway, we lost power.

Icy road near Dickerson Pike. Ilford Delta 100.

The whole crew decided to wait and see what would happen for a while. Madison and Anna Clarke played more Bananagrams while Asher and I tried in vain to use the side burner of my grill to heat up a kettle of water for coffee. Any delusions of grandeur I had about being a manly man cooking on a gas grill in a winter storm evaporated with each wind gust that extinguished the flame. I eventually got water warm enough to make mediocre coffee and then we went inside to get warm.

About the time that Asher and Anna Clarke arrived at our house, they got a notification on their phone that their power had come back on. In an unexpected reversal, it was our friends who now offered for us to stay at their house to weather the storm. I hadn’t envisioned being anywhere but in my own home during the bad weather, and as such I was more than reluctant to pack up and leave, but after some tense deliberations, I came around to Madison’s way of thinking, and I’m glad we did.

A cozy warm house. Ilford Delta 100.

Leaving our neighborhood that Sunday was the first time we’d been out since the freezing rain fell. It looked like an icy tornado had gone through Neely’s Bend. Frozen treetops bent prostrate to the ground, taking power lines with them. Multiple times I careened my unwieldy Chevy Tahoe to the opposite side of the street to avoid making contact with the downed lines. When it wasn’t power lines, we plowed through tree limbs trying not to think about the Tahoe’s poor paint job. I drove in 4-wheel drive with the transmission in low gear to avoid relying on brakes too much, since the road was one long ribbon of ice.

I grew up on a very steep hill in East Tennessee, and anytime we got weather like that, there was no leaving. So now, each winter I relish the challenge of driving in the snow and ice, albeit cautiously. What would normally have been a fifteen-minute drive probably took closer to thirty, but we made it one piece. We spent that unexpected evening enjoying our time with Asher and Anna Clarke, playing games and eating dinner with friends. The house was warm and our bellies were full, so in the end, it was the right decision.

A house across the way. Ilford Delta 100.

Icy neighborhood roads. Ilford Delta 100.

By late that night, after we had gone to bed, our power came back on, as a text from Nashville Electric Service and a notification from my internet router confirmed. It was technically a work day, but I’m sure I spent a good bit of the day driving back and forth to the house to check on the roads and getting packed up and back into our own digs that Monday morning. Madison and I spent the next couple of days working from home.

But with power staying off for so people many that week, there was constant chatter in group texts with Madison’s friends about who lost power and whose power came back on. We eventually hosted one of Madi’s old roommates and spent evenings playing Spyro, The Dragon (after she read my last blog post), thanks to which I have regressed — to a degree — to my old, middle-school gaming ways.

For weeks afterwards, massive trucks carrying brush drove all over town cleaning up the fallen debris. Even today, in March, we still pass piles of tree limbs all over East Nashville. A generational ice storm leaves it’s mark. I’m thankful we came out of it unscathed and very little inconvenienced, especially compared to some, and it gave me an excuse to shoot some film on an old camera.

Sunlight on icy power lines. Ilford Delta 100.

The sun thaws the neighborhood. Ilford Delta 100.

The old carwash covered in ice. Ilford Delta 100.

Thanksgiving in Virginia

There’s a somewhat obscure Christmas movie I grew up with as a kid called Annabelle’s Wish, an animated movie about a little barnyard calf who wants to be one of Santa’s reindeer. It’s a short but heart-warming film narrated by none other than Randy Travis, who sings a song with Beth N. Chapman during a montage portion of the film called “Friends Like Us”. With coffee and creative juices pumping through my head this morning, these lyrics came to mind:

“Seasons come and seasons go, and the world keeps rolling round.

“You’ve got me and I’ve got you, and that’s the sweetest thing we found.”

Mushy and sentimental as they may be, those words were in my brain because times are changing. Thanksgiving was always one of my favorite holidays. We would go to my Aunt Carol’s house in Franklin, TN, which always felt huge as a kid. They had a big bonus room above the garage that served as my Uncle Bill’s study, and me and my cousin Alex would sneak up there to play Spyro the Dragon on their Playstation 1 (I know, I’m dating myself). Getting older, I started to enjoy the more adult pursuits of coffee and sitting on the couch with Papa and Uncle Gary and Uncle Bill to watch the Detroit Lions lose after the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. During lunch, Papa would sit quietly at the head of the table, his shaky hands wielding knife and fork laden with turkey and dressing.

Papa is gone now, and cousins have married and moved away, and the Thanksgiving crowd at Aunt Carol’s has grown small and intimate. Families “wax and wane”, as my Aunt Carol says. I’ve contributed to this change, myself, the past two years, getting involved with my wife and her family. It’s no longer just me I’m making plans with over the holidays. Last year was a 30th birthday trip for my then-fiancé, now-wife, Madison, to Austria and Germany. This year, we spent the holiday with her family near Washington, DC.

A quick tour of DC sights.

My brother and sister-in-law live in Georgetown, a lovely historic neighborhood in DC. We spent the first night and half a day there before heading out into the country where Thanksgiving dinner would actually take place. While in DC, we made a quick trip to the International Spy Museum, peered at the Declaration of Independence, and proceeded to get caught up in the aftermath of the National Guard shooting, unintentionally wandering within three blocks of where it happened. A one-hour e-bike ride later, we escaped back to Georgetown, only to spend another hour in the car to get to Middleburg, VA.

Thankfully, chaos in DC gave way to a bucolic setting in horse country for the next three days. We stayed in an 1807 stone manor house, converted into a vrbo. The house was palatial and drafty, decorated in the finest 18th-century furniture and fox hunting-themed artwork. They had cleverly updated the kitchen and bathrooms while keeping the early-1800s feel, a combination of creaky floors and windows with scenic views. Madison and I were given the option to sleep in either separate twin beds on the 2nd floor or a queen bed tucked into a dormer in a converted attic, only accessible by a sketchy servants’ staircase. We opted for the latter, naturally. It made nighttime bathroom trips interesting, both of us being blind as one-eyed groundhogs without our glasses.

Upstairs in the manor house.

The sitting room.

A view of horse country.

The servants’ stair case

Stairs to the loft.

My brother and sister-in-law, Jordan and Cati, are excellent cooks, and they handled most of the cooking on Thanksgiving day. Jordan was in charge of smoking the turkey on his charcoal grill for several hours. I “helped” him by hanging out with him outside in the frigid Virginia air, keeping the fire pit we stood around fed with fresh wood and smoking cigars. Jordan would get a twinkle in his eye those three days in Middleburg and say, “Jesse, you wanna build a fire?” and off we’d go, just the two of us and a bottle of lighter fluid. My coat still smells like a campfire.

Jordan is in the whiskey business and is quite generous, so he treated everyone to real champagne and rare scotches he’s collected over the years. We sampled his offerings in the kitchen, the countertops strewn with bottles, glasses, pies and other nutritious snack foods. Cati stayed inside where it was warm and wouldn’t smell like smoke, like a sensible person. She and her mom prepped the cranberry sauce and the raviolis, a Cati’s-family Thanksgiving tradition (they’re from Chicago), which were off the wall to the only southerner present, but so very tasty.

The family gathered in the kitchen.

Jordan and Cati’s dog Roz begs for a snack.

A well-smoked turkey

My father-in-law carves the turkey

Instead of Black Friday shopping the next day, the family made the 30-minute drive to the distillery Jordan works at. The biggest draw for me was the collection of ‘80’s and ‘90’s Ferraris the owner of the distillery keeps on the property, including a finicky but sexy Testarossa, one of, if not the first, Ferrari super car. However, we all got to ride in a less-superlative, yet far more reliable ‘87 328 GTS, which looked like a black Magnum P.I. car. Sitting inside it was something special, like being hugged by a fine leather python with knees folded up à la camp chair. Cramped though it was inside, I was tickled pink.

Ferrari 328 pulling out.

Shifting gears in a cramped car.

It was a Thanksgiving like no other, just like the last year wading through mulled wine-sipping tourists in the Christmas markets of Austria. Bitter-sweet thought it may be, traditions change, and I’m okay with it. I’ll always have the memories of Papa’s shaky hands, but now I’m making new ones with the family I’ve been brought into. Every newlywed couple goes through that, I suppose. Regardless of what comes next, raviolis and Ferraris is a pretty good start.

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.