Pistol Creek

Was Daddy the first person to sell Igloo Ice Chests in Blount County? I don't know the answer to that but he probably was the first (and only) person to take his motor boat down Montvale Road in order to check on people one time when Pistol Creek overflowed and flooded all the nearby houses.

And Jeff, Vicki, and I were probably the first (and only) kids to float on inner tubes in the Sterling's field another time when the creek overflowed. Not the smartest idea, come to think of it. I'm certain the creek water was moving pretty swiftly and we most likely did not give the respect it derserved. But it seemed perfectly natural, hauling inner tubes out to the field. Although, now that I think about that, where did the tubes come from? I think we may have had a blow-up raft, too. It must've been summer.

Pistol Creek. The section that ran down below our house along the edge of the Sterling's field and through the backs of nearby yards was the scene of many an adventure. "Swimming," one time. I put that in quotes because it was a creek, not a river. I must've been pretty little to actually submerse myself. I seem to recall Mom being pretty mad at whoever I was with for that, probably mostly because even forty+ years ago that creek was not viewed as particularly sanitary. (If nothing else, there were plenty of cows upstream.) Or maybe she was mad at me because I went in fully clothed and sneakered.

Standing on the driveway bridge, throwing rocks, tossing sticks, poking at the dead, bloated muskrat that was stuck on a branch that jutted out into the water.

Catching crawdaddies. Lots and lots of them. There's a trick to it. Crawdaddies shoot backwards when they're trying to escape. So after you've carefully lifted rock after rock until you find one hiding, you have to carefully position your net, container, or hand behind it before you startle it. If you're lucky, and it's not, it'll propel itself into your catching device.

One time Robbie and I decided to catch a bunch and sell them for bait. This was not a successful venture, for us or the poor crawdaddies. Looking back, I actually feel pretty bad about that. Prior to this ill-thought-out activity, I think we mostly just caught and released them.

Hands down, the best adventure was digging under the bridge. Robbie had discovered some old bottles that were buried there. I'm not sure why he was digging around there in the first place but he let me in on the secret and we spent several hours over the next few days, unearthing bottles of all shapes and sizes and colors, all obviously quite old. Apparently Robbie had discovered a former trash pile. Or perhaps the dirt fill for the bank of the bridge had come from the dump. We also found pieces of porcelain dolls and buttons and tins and other household items. It was a fantastic treasure hunt!

It seems we may have also tried fishing occasionally but to no avail.

Today the creek is still there, running along Montvale Road, its banks overgrown with weeds and bushes. The bridge is there, too, although in complete disrepair, both ends blocked to prevent people from walking on it. The Sterling's home has been gone for quite some time although I don't know when it was torn down. I just know I kept driving by the field and finding myself thinking, "Something's not right. What's missing?" until I finally realized the house as well as the back apartment building and garage were all gone. Many structures have gone missing from that neighborhood.

But for now the field and creek and woods are still there, just waiting for some sort of development. The land was up for auction not too long ago. It may be difficult to sell because there's long been talk of widening the road which would end up ruining a good part of that property. My prediction is that one day I will turn onto Montvale from 321 and there will be a mini-mart and gas station sitting in the middle of the field.

The Case of the Missing Neighborhood

OK, so I wanted to start this entry off with hard dates but I obviously am not using the right search language to find out when the Lamar Alexander Parkway (State Route 321) was built through downtown Maryville. So for now, let's just say sometime in the 80's. I think that's close enough. I know Mom and Daddy had already moved to the farm and I was no longer living in TN when it happened. Otherwise, I believe it would have been seared into my memory because its construction cut an ugly swath through my old neighborhood.

In order to "align" and widen 321, construction gouged out huge chunks of the surrounding areas, creating a diagonal pathway that resulted in the demolition of businesses and homes: West End Drugs, where I was almost killed by a runaway car when I was 4 or 5 and where I stole Odd Rod cards when I was in 4th grade. All the homes of my friends that lived on Highland. The apartment building my uncle owned. The apartment building next to our house. The apartment building across the street that had the cool garages where we played. The little homes along Pistol Creek. The big ol' home in the woods where the neighborhood "witch" (in other words, elderly, cranky, slightly senile lady), Mrs. Lyles, lived.

Then the Taj Mahal was built and even more of the neighborhood was demolished: the fruit market, the barber shop, more homes, yet another road. Where we once had a perfectly normal-sized and functional Municipal Building we now have a perfectly ridiculously large and ostentatious building with a grand lobby of unused space. It is a classic example of people getting too big for their britches.

And over the years the high school expanded and in so doing, demolished more homes and roads, mostly in order to build parking lots (no one drove to school when I attended). There's something particularly insulting about lovely old homes being torn down for a parking lot.

Today, I can still walk around the old neighborhood and often do when I'm there. Much of it still exists. But every step is punctuated by the absence of some important piece of my history, and it is disconcerting: this is here, but that is gone. In many ways, I've never really gotten over it. I want my neighborhood back!

The Beginning of the End

In my last post in 2008, I wrote that Sissy and I had made the decision to spend Christmas together. I anticipated this being difficult. Little did I know.

Sissy and I spent a fair amount of time going back and forth to the nursing home to see Mom. She was sleeping a lot. She wasn't really eating. In retrospect, it's clear she was preparing to die.

I can't really remember now very much about that time except that we carried on. We brought her clothes Maggie had bought for her, checked in with the nurses, tried to feed her, talked to her, held her hand, sat with her, kissed her forehead. Told her we loved her.

We planned to visit her on Christmas Eve day. Sissy called the nursing home the day before and asked that she be dressed and up in her chair in the Day Room when we arrived. We wanted to eat lunch with her (well, feed her).

When we got there, we went to the Day Room but Mom wasn't there. We asked a nurse where she was but no one seemed to know what was going on. Someone called someone else who said she would bring Mom. We waited. No Mom. Finally, we decided to go to her room.

Mom was in a chair outside her room, slumped over, with something gross coming out of her mouth. It looked like vomit. She didn't respond, wouldn't open her eyes. She looked dead.

Sissy and I started crying. What the fuck was going on?! Was she dead? What was wrong with her?

It was that moment when I knew that if she wasn't already dead, she would be soon. She really was going to die.

I stayed with Mom while Sissy went and got one of the nurses. Mom wasn't dead, but something was obviously wrong. She felt hot. She was sweaty. "Oh," the nurse said, "She has a bladder infection. I should have called you."

Damn right you should have!!! And you should not have gotten her out of bed! Dammit all to hell.

Needless to say, we did not spend Christmas Eve with Mom. We made sure she got put back to bed and was receiving treatment for the infection. We spent the next few days checking in on her. She was responsive only a few times after that. Within a few days, we received a call from, and met with, the hospice nurse, who advised us that Mom was dying. We made the decision to put Mom on hospice. Within a day of that decision, a week after our harrowing Christmas Eve experience, Mom passed on quietly with Sissy at her side.

Hello, Ruby Tuesday

I'm not exactly sure how the McDaniels ended up having real estate dealings with two of Blount County's Big Wigs: Ruby Tuesday and the Coach. But we did.

Granddaddy left the store to Mom. This was when I found out that Granddaddy owned it all along. He built it with O.K. Spears, the father of one of Daddy's good friends, Oliver Spears, who owned a furniture store out off East Broadway. Oliver's son, Tommy, one of my classmates, eventually bought the store from Sissy and me.

Daddy continued going to the store for several years after he retired. It was his home-away-from-home. As previously mentioned, it was a place where his friends and colleagues frequently stopped by to say hello and visit. In addition to the taxidermy and such, he eventually installed a couple of tables filled with Indian artifacts he had found over the course of his life time. He kept the row of chairs and the fridge filled with Coke. Though there was no T.V. in later years, everyone still sat in the chairs and chewed the fat.

However, eventually the Parkinson's prevented him from driving and he stopped being able to go down there on his own. At this point, he and Mom decided it was time to sell. Sissy, heroine of the family saga (I mean this), took it upon herself to get it ready. She spent hours cleaning and sorting and packing. She found a company to do an estate sale.

I just realized that I did not attend the estate sales for the store or the house. I mean, I knew I didn't but it just now hit me that I didn't. What was wrong with me?! (Well, I lived in California, that's what.)

I'm not sure how long after the estate sale happened that Ruby Tuesday expressed an interest in the building. But in January of 2003, they signed a twenty year lease with us and, thankfully, agreed to leave the underground gas storage tanks in place, rather than force Mom and Daddy to pay to have them removed. Soon after the lease was signed, RT began extensive, and expensive, renovations.

Although there are many things about that corporation that are baffling (it is run as a real strange mix of good ol' boy, home spun country-ness and high falutin' big spending that is part of a very strange business "plan"), I have to give them credit on the transformation of the store. They took a stark, former gas station and turned it into a gleaming modern showcase of a building with fancy fixtures and landscaping. We figure they spent a million dollars.

The building became an employee training center. The top floor was, for a while, not only their training kitchen but also their flagship restaurant, open to the public, a place to try out new dishes and ideas. The second and third floors were an employee recreation center, housing massage rooms and a gym.

Sissy, Mac, a friend of Mac's, and I had dinner there once. It was a very strange thing to be sitting in my Daddy's store drinking an alcoholic beverage. In addition to that unsettling oddness, Mac was in a very manic phase at that point in time. He brought his camera and, oblivious to the fact that the restaurant was full of diners, went around taking pictures of various and sundry architectural features. To say that the staff and diners looked at him with wariness, suspicion, and a touch of horror would be an understatement. Of course, attempts to get him to see that maybe he shouldn't be doing that without permission were met with his usual derisive dismissal of our concerns. What do we know? We're women!

The restaurant didn't last very long and now, for the past eight or nine years, the building just sits there, unused as far as the outside world can see. It's become Maryville's very own Willy Wonka Factory. No one is ever seen going in or coming out.

And thus the mysterious fates of our family buildings began.

Mom, Pt. 2

Mom tried her hand at several different lines of work before finally finding her true passion. As previously mentioned, she worked in some government department during WWII as a decoder of some sort and she worked in an insurance office after the war. Before the war, during college, she worked in the laundry. I'm guessing she did other things that I don't know about.

Sometime after I was born she got her real estate license, became a notary public, and did some substitute teaching. I remember going with her to one of the schools once (I guess she had to pick up or drop off something). She took me into the classroom. In one corner was a dunce cap!

Then, when Sissy was 16 or 17, Mom decided it was time for her (meaning Sissy) to get a job. So she went to the library to pick up an application. However, instead of giving it to Sissy, she filled it out herself. And thus she found her true calling in life at the age of 48. She began working at the Blount County Public Library in 1970. By 1975 she'd earned her M.L.S. and had been appointed Director.

At that time the library was in this very cool old brick building across the street from Daddy's store (The building now houses Dandy Lion's Gifts). What a life I had! I could hang out at the store, "work" there, go on deliveries, play, shoot hoops, then mosey on over to the library to hang out and read. I felt so special being able to visit Mom there! Going to the library in the summer was especially fun because the children's section was down the awesome winding staircase in the basement and it was cool, temperature-wise. (There was no air conditioning in the building.) I remember one summer joining the reading program and reading every single Hardy Boys book in the series.

Mom was a forward-thinking person and was instrumental in developing and implementing the Friends of the Library. That legacy is huge. She also oversaw the library's move into a larger building (that now houses city or county offices). Most importantly, however, she was a staunch champion of keeping controversial books on the shelves. She was adamantly opposed to censorship. In this way, she was a True Librarian and my hero.

Really, I can't tell you how proud I was that she was my Mom. She was well-liked and respected and loved by many. Every time I visited her at the library I felt proud. I'm not just exercising my Southern right to hyperbole, either. I was proud.

Daddy In A Nutshell, Pt. 3

Daddy was an outdoorsman, an adventurer, and I was Daddy's little boy. Who knows whether I was born into it or groomed for it? I suspect the former, that Daddy was just playing to my strengths. After all, he tried with Mac and Sissy and they would have none of it. Me? I took to fishing and shooting and traipsing through plowed fields like a duck to water.

Daddy ran a furniture store. To this day, even after many times asking to have it all explained to me, I don't really understand how it all came about. I know that initially Daddy and Granddaddy worked together. Granddaddy owned the store. Clyde, Mom's brother also ran a furniture store, just around the corner. That street was full of furniture stores, which was in and of itself curious. I think there used to be four on one block. I guess Maryvillians bought a lot of furniture back then.

However, by the time I came along and started spending time at the store, Granddaddy had moved on to work with Clyde. I'm not sure when they moved their store a few blocks away. I seem to recall being in the original one a few times before they moved.

Think of Daddy's store as more like the jail in Mayberry. Less of a business, more of a hangout. Although Daddy did sell furniture and he never locked anyone up, as far as I know. But my memories are that Daddy cared much more about the people that were constantly stopping by than about the business end of things.

Daddy had a row of rockers and chairs set up on the first floor, along with a TV, and a refrigerator that was always full of Coca Cola (in bottles, of course). When there was a ballgame on, his friends would show up and they'd sit and smoke cigars and watch it on the TV.

A big part of the opening and closing routine was setting up the Igloo ice chests outside. The building used to be a filling station and the islands were still there (along with the tanks underground which would prove to be a bit of a headache when it came time to sell many years later). In between the islands, Daddy would make a pyramid formation using the ice chests. He was very proud to carry them. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is one of his firsts: The First to Carry Igloo Ice Chests in Blount County.

What can I say? That store was Daddy, through and through. One wall was full of signs and letters and photos he'd collected and tacked up. "Gone fishin'." A photo of his unit. Plaques about his ancestry. A wall full of taxidermy that included an owl whose eyes, I swear, would follow me around the store. Hornets' nests with a sign that said, "You won't get stung here?" A huge moose head. Lava Soap in the bathrooms. Man, can I remember THAT texture and smell! Signs in the bathrooms, too. (Friendly reminders, if you will.)

His office was in what used to be the elevator shaft. He had this fantastic roll top desk that was just chock full of interesting items. A drawer full of pocket knives. One filled with pens. Buckeyes. Coins. All sorts of little things he had collected that I loved to go through and look at, time and time again.

The counter was in front of the office. On it sat a register and a box of McDaniel Furniture Company matches. Underneath was a cash drawer which had a secret combination that involved switches that had to get pulled in the right way in order for it to open. Even as an adult I felt a strange sense of pleasure and power every time I opened it because I knew the secret.

On the counter there was also, at least for a time, a display of fishing lures that Daddy and a friend made and sold. And the top was glass and underneath the glass Daddy had put more notes, cards, photos, etc.

The store had three floors. "Three floors of furniture!" it once advertised. The top floor was the show area. Dressers, chests of drawers, chairs, desks, framed pictures. (One was of Jesus holding a baby lamb-I had this in my room at home for a while but for some reason when I looked at it upside down while lying in bed, it freaked me out so back to the store it went). There was a brief period in time when I "worked" for Daddy. My tasks consisted of cleaning the mirrors, dusting, and sweeping the tile floor. He showed me how to ring up customers although I'm not sure I ever did. I felt very grown up the day he taught me how to decipher the information on the tags.

The second floor was where the beds were, I think. It was only a half floor. Part of it was storage. For some reason the storage area was mysterious and going into it felt daring.

The bottom floor was really my favorite for many reasons. 1) Daddy kept the linoleum down there and when he had an order, he would let me mark the cut by snapping the chalk line. I loved the chalk line! 2) He put a basketball goal in one of the garage bays and would move his truck on rainy days so I could shoot hoops. 3) One end was the garage. The building used to be a filling station. This meant there were car lifts, grease, tools, and all manner of exciting boy things to explore and get into. Daddy had an employee named Fred who apparently didn't mind me hanging around. He would let me drill holes and nail things and sharpen tools and carry on. 4) I loved opening and closing the huge garage doors. 5) The ceilings were really high. Halfway up one wall, above the workbench, 10 or 15 feet off the ground, was a huge rectangular opening. This was the old coal chute. As I could never really grasp how that would work, it fascinated me. (I'm surprised I never climbed a ladder in order to look in there!)

Daddy was never one to let business get in the way of what really fed his spirit. (I am so like him in so many ways and this is one of them.) So every Wednesday he closed the store at noon and took off on some sort of adventure. Blackberry picking. Collecting walnuts. Looking for arrowheads. Fishing. Hunting. A drive somewhere with his best friend, Jeff. Visiting. (Daddy knew everyone, another way he was kind of like Andy of Mayberry.) Sissy continues to be amazed that he did this. Not the adventures. The closing the store every Wednesday. Being my Daddy's daughter, it makes perfect sense to me.

Nomad for Life

I really should've been born a Bedouin or a Mongol herder. Then I wouldn't question my nomadic behavior nor would it be looked at askance by friends and family. It would be accepted, by myself and others, that that is who I am: a nomad.

Does this mean I have some deep-seated psychological problem that interferes with my desire and ability to put down roots? Yes, of course.

AND I am nomadic at heart. A wanderer. An explorer. Adventurer.

They say home is where the heart is. Well, my heart has been with me everywhere I've lived. Truly, I have loved every place I've ever lived. Well, OK, maybe not loved, but the places I haven't loved are few and far between and, at least, I've enjoyed living in those places.

Not too long ago, a friend asked me why I was moving, again. She said, in a way that was meant to be cautionary (and came across as judgmental), "Everywhere you go, there you are." And, of course, this phrase is usually used in both ways. But I had a very freeing epiphany at that moment. Yes! Everywhere I go, there I am. What fun!

I just have way too many interests and a desire for adventure to tie myself down, to settle down.

So why the move back to TN to buy a house? Two words: home base.

And I'm framing it as settling in. Into myself.

How will I have chickens, goats, bees, you ask? Well, I may not have them, not yet. (I love to volunteer.) Or if I do, I will ask for help. A novel idea for me, a lesson that I have been slowly learning over the past three years. It turns out that if I ask for help, I usually get it! Besides, Sissy is just dying to have chickens and goats. Do you see where I'm heading with this?

Yes, I am a Nomad and I've finally come to believe that it is better for my mental and emotional health to acknowledge this aspect of my character and, rather than try to change it or suppress it, accept it so that I can work with it in a more conscious way.

So, a twist on the "build it and they will come" mantra from Field of Dreams: Build it and I will go and come back!

Mom, Pt. 1

Mom was born in 1922 in a house on Sevierville road. There was a midwife in attendance. The house still stands and I always took great pleasure in asking Mom to point it out to me when we drove by. My mom was born there!

She grew up in Rockford with her parents, Bessie and Hobart Williams, and her brother, Clyde. Granddaddy took over and ran his father's mill, imaginatively named The Rockford Mill. (I'd never thought about this before, but I do think my creativity comes from Daddy's side of the family. For sure my craziness does!) Parts of the mill race dam are still visible from the greenway parking lot. The road on which the mill stood is now called Williams Mill Road.

Their house sat back from the road, on the other side of the river. There was a narrow walkway/bridge that connected the mill with the property where the house sat. Mom took Sissy and me once to see the house. We drove back to the house on this overgrown road. It looked abandoned but I remember that once we could see the house, we could tell it was occupied, run down as it was. It seemed very backwoods to me. A little scary.

Mom had a scar on her chin from falling and cutting it on the chicken coop when she was a kid. She thought it was ugly. I thought it was really cool.

I remember talking with her one time about whether or not I was a "surprise" baby (7 1/2 years younger than Sissy, 10 years younger than Mac). She confirmed that I was and told me she was, too. "Hole in the rubber," she said. I was completely flabbergasted. I had no idea there were rubbers back when Granddaddy and Grandmom were having sex! I also felt kinship with Mom.

Mom was athletic, loved basketball. Unfortunately, when she started menstruating, she had such bad cramps and heavy bleeding, she couldn't play during her time of the month so she quit. (She had a hysterectomy when I was a kid. She most likely suffered from endometriosis.)

Mom went to Maryville College and graduated Cum Laude with a degree in History.

During WWII mom got a job with the government decoding messages. I thought this was the coolest thing ever. I remember her telling me that /e/ is the most frequently used letter in English. I've recently wondered why she was not recruited to work at the then top secret Oak Ridge project. Maybe she was and chose not to do that. Anyway, her job took her to D.C. She told me she hated it there.

Upon her return from the war, she worked at an insurance agency. It was here that she met Daddy, who came in one day, most certainly looking very dashing. I can so picture him standing in the doorway, handsome, charming, funny. And mom sitting at her desk, pretty, smart, and also funny. They had great senses of humor. I wonder what they talked about, how he asked her out. I wish I could've been a fly on that wall.

Daddy in A Nutshell, Pt. 2 WWII

Daddy, and all four of his brothers, were in WWII. They all made it back alive, although one of them suffered a grave head injury and was in a coma for a few days. He came back with a plate in his head. And another one survived the Bataan Death March.

Daddy was a lieutenant with The Army Corp of Engineers. As best as I could understand it, he and his men built and repaired airfields, roads, and bridges. As far as I know, they did not engage in direct battle, although they may have had to defend themselves.

Update 2024: Daddy was one of the three commanders of an all-Black Engineer Battalion, one of a handful that actually went overseas. Company B, 847. (insert photo)

Everything about his involvement is vague, to say the least. He told us a few stories which are now little more than sketchy memories.

Before he shipped overseas, he was either on a military transport train to Florida that wrecked, or was in the vicinity when it wrecked. Regardless, he was involved in trying to rescue people from the burning wreckage. He saved at least one young girl. This experience left a deep scar on his psyche. He was never able to recount the event without getting very emotional.

In fact, Daddy was never able to tell any story about the war without getting very emotional. That's why we never heard that much, I guess. It's only recently that I realized he no doubt suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

There were a couple of stories that he could tell without getting teary, like the time he went out and shot a deer and brought it back to his troops for them to eat. Or the time that he and his men stayed in a castle, in Austria. He apparently won over the owners because we have photos of him partying with them. He looks very suave and debonair. Quite relaxed.

Sissy and I found quite a few photos of women, as well as cards and letters from women to Daddy, in his sacred foot locker. I'm looking forward to giving everything a thorough going through upon my return and once it is in my possession. I should find some really good material for this blog. Or, at least, be able to fill in some gaps.

Family Stories

Allegedly, my father's mother was kidnapped by Cherokee Indians when she was a child. That's the story I heard. I know no details. I find it more than a little suspect but then, who knows? Maybe she was taken as ransom for a gambling debt. Of course, the image I had as a child was of a wild-eyed Indian swooping in on his horse and snatching her up in one arm while letting out a war whoop. Too many cowboy movies.

A family story I know to be true because I've read the newspaper clipping is the one in which my granddaddy (Mom's father) shot and killed a man who broke into the mill when they were living in Rockford. Even if I hadn't read the article, I would believe this one. Granddaddy was a pretty unsentimental, pragmatic man. I can well imagine him shooting someone who trespassed.

Mac claimed that Uncle JB was in the local mafia. Another highly suspect claim, especially given the source. However, I am pretty sure JB was a gambler and a drinker and mixed up with the wrong crowd. And after he died (he had been living in that two bedroom house in Alcoa), Daddy found a wad of money stashed under the mattress.

Daddy's sister, Bella, apparently had a drinking problem. Of course, I didn't know this when I was a kid. All I knew was she and her husband owned The Princess Motel on 411. One time we went out there for Christmas. They gave Mac an Invisible Woman. Strange gift.

I would have never known she was an alcoholic except one time after Mom and I had taken a walk at Ijams in Knoxville, I told her I wanted to stop at a package store and get a couple of bottles of wine to take over to Sissy's. You'd have thought I'd just said I was going to get a gun and go rob a bank. Mom whipped her head toward me at the speed of light, eyes wide with fear and dismay. "Oh, Laurie! You're going to be like your Aunt Bella. You know she had a drinking problem!"

A couple bottles of wine, Mom. To share with two people. For the weekend. But thinking back on this now, I realize she knew a lot more about whatever addictions, alcoholism, and craziness ran in Daddy's side of the family than I did. She was probably right to be worried.

As I've written elsewhere, I don't remember a lot about any of my aunts or uncles on Daddy's side of the family. It just seemed like there was something not quite right about some of them. And, after a certain point (after Granny died in 1974?), I just never saw any of them again. It always felt like something had happened, or Daddy didn't want to be around his brothers and sisters. Just something that felt weird. I sure wish I could dial back the clock and be an observer of their lives. That would probably answer many questions.

Last year I did go and visit my aunt in Florida. She is the last one of the nine siblings that is still alive. (Although, she may have died since I saw her. You'd think my cousins would let me know, but I'm not so sure.) Before last year, the last time I saw her was when I was five. We took a family trip to Florida. Actually, I believe that was when I met her. She had three children who were teenagers: Ronnie, Judy, and Larry.

On this recent trip, I got to see Larry and Judy. Aunt Kitty lives with Larry. Larry and Judy don't speak to Ronnie. That trip deserves a story of its own, another time. The most significant and completely unnerving part of that trip was the fact that Kitty not only looked almost exactly like Daddy (apparently it wasn't just the brothers who looked alike), her mannerisms and way of talking were identical to his. It was like sitting in the room with Daddy.

Morning Musings

You'd think that by the time we're in our fifties we'd be so well-versed in the experiences that demonstrate that life is unpredictable-expect the unexpected-that we would stop believing that we can somehow see into the future. But we don't. We persist in believing that we are able, from our tiny, limited perspective in the here and now, to foresee what will happen, what's in store. We continue to operate from a place of foregone conclusion, no matter how many times we are surprised by life's twists and turns, certain that if this, then that.

I think it's because living with the discomfort of not knowing is unbearable for most of us. We humans like to be in control! How dare Life throw us curveballs?!

I mean, it does seem to be our knee jerk response, our default setting.

I love Arthur Ashe's response to the being asked if he ever wondered, "Why me?" He said, "Why not me?"

When unexpected wonderful things happen, we love to thank God. When unexpected "bad" things happen, we blame God, ask how He could've let such a thing happen, ask what kind of God he is.

Who's fickle?

I do not believe God is an entity that has a personal stake in my life. I think of God as a force, a creative force, that is in motion, constantly unfolding in ways that I simply cannot predict or imagine but if I tune in to the Harmony of the Spheres, let go and ride the wave, somehow everything seems to shimmer with Life and Light. Whereas if I fight the force, rail against it, try to make it be other than it is, freeze it in time by clutching at it, everything feels dull, lifeless, frightening. I can certainly exercise my will, but I feel exhausted and unhappy while doing so.

Let Go and Let God. Good Orderly Direction. Go with the flow. Let Go and Let Flow.

Life feels better this way.

Cat & Mouse, More About the House

I've failed to give an accurate picture of what went on after Mac died, in large part because I wasn't there and, because of that, I'd forgotten a lot. Sissy reminded me yesterday. But before I get into that, it's high time I gave her her due. She's the one that was left dealing with everything on a day-to-day basis for...a year? More? I returned to CA. She claims she's forgiven me, but I'm not sure. I think I better watch my back...

So, this part is accurate: We knew the Coach and his Wife wanted the property and they knew it. It was, really, a foregone conclusion. And if we'd agreed to let "their people" handle everything, agreed to a selling price that was a quarter of what it was worth, I'm certain they would've been very gracious about it all. After all, they are known for their philanthropy.

But we didn't, on either count.

I am also accurate in portraying them as money-grubbing, power-playing, self-important a@@holes who greatly misunderstood and underestimated all of us. They truly believed that being good neighbors would get them what they wanted. They also truly believed that we were ignorant country bumpkins.

They should've done their research.

Going into negotiations, Sissy had Daddy's words etched into her brain: "Don't you let them have that property for nothing. You get every penny that it's worth."

So, because we had no intention of bending over and, well, you know the rest, let the games begin! As soon as they realized we were not just going to hand over "their" property, they began an incredibly distasteful, ungracious, bullying campaign of Cat & Mouse: now we want it, now we don't. Do this, do that. Wait, we didn't mean that.

Because they wouldn't commit to anything, we were left having to move forward as if we were selling to someone else. This would not have been any big deal except, if you remember, the interior of the house had been decimated by (the) AfterMath. If we wanted to sell it, we needed to get it fixed up. So that was the choice we made.

Unfortunately, that choice meant that Sissy was the one left dealing with everything: real estate negotiations (don't think that just because we were moving ahead that the Coach had stopped playing games), insurance, selecting tile and paint and so on, contractors, taxes, and whatever else came up along the way. All on top of her regular job.

We also made the decision to have the foundation fixed.

Everything was to the tune of about $45,000. Plus the endless headaches.

Then finally, after the house was completely fixed up and looked beautiful, the Coach and his wife start acting as if maybe, maybe they did want to buy everything after all. And thus began some major Nickel & Diming and them acting as if they were paupers or something.

Do you remember that this Coach, after a long career with the university, was fired with a $6,000,000 severance package? You read that right. Yes, poor babies.

But nickel and dime he did, right down to the bitter end, when the Coach made us pay $500 for a copy of the tax assessment that he already had. There was no mistake that this was punishment for having the audacity to go toe-to-toe with him.

He not only put us through the paces, he put our Realtor through them, too. She got punished for signing on with us. It was incredibly childish behavior. A spoiled brat who wasn't getting his way.

But finally, we "won."

Of course, you've seen what they did to the house. Bricks removed, basement and carport removed, porch removed. By the time they had finished with it, it was half the house it used to be. And the last time Sissy and I saw it, it was still jacked up and sitting in the middle of a field, empty and falling even further into disrepair. Wasted. All that time, money, and effort wasted.

This is why I say our relationship with the Coach and his Wife was "complicated."

How It All Began

Top left: Mac and Sissy
Top right: Sissy, Mom, Mac
Bottom Left: Mac
Bottom right: Mac

Daddy, Mac, Sissy

Hooked on Rooks

Perhaps my love of crows, or rooks, stems from the one and only regular social activity I ever remember my parents engaging in as a couple: games of Rook with their friends, Pete and Betty Lobetti.

I don't remember ever playing, but I was totally fascinated with the cards. And I loved when Pete and Betty came over because there were people other than our family in the house. Mom put out snacks. Pete and Betty paid attention to me. And Betty Lobetti. You can't beat that name with a stick.

After Daddy died, the day of his funeral, his best friends, Jeff and Betty (a different Betty) were getting ready to go. They were in separate rooms and both heard a sound in another room. They went to see what caused it. There, on the window sill, was a crow tapping at the pane. Betty turned to Jeff and said, "That's Kyle, saying good bye."

So, in more recent times, I'm drawn to crows because I associate them with Daddy, in particular, but because folklore connects crows with death, with Mom and Mac, too. For the entire school year year after they'd all died, there would often be three crows hanging out in the yard by my classroom when I arrived early in the morning. "Hello, Daddy. Mom. Mac," I said. And smile, because I liked having them with me.

Daddy In A Nutshell, Pt. 1

Daddy was born March 25th, 1921. He was one of nine children. Believe it or not, I would have to pull out Mom's genealogy charts to list all his brothers and sisters and put them in the right order. I didn't know any of them very well. By the time I came along (the youngest of all the cousins on both my Mom's side and my Daddy's, as well as the youngest in my family), most were married and living elsewhere. Well, JB and Uncle Paul stayed close by, and I did spend time with them, especially with Uncle Paul when he worked at the filling station, but over time my memories of them merged. It was kind of hard to keep them straight because they looked alike. All the brothers looked alike. It was
weird.

That's Daddy on the left and, I think, Paul and JB (JB and Paul?) on the right. See what I mean?


Daddy's father died before I was born, so I know basically nothing about him. I've guessed, however, that there was something a little cockeyed about him, even if I can't put a name to it. I do know that when Daddy was still a kid (8 or 9?), the whole family moved to a two bedroom house on Dalton Street in Alcoa. His father went to work for the Aluminum Company of America. (Yes, that's why the town was named Alcoa.) I have no idea how long all eleven of them lived in that tiny house. I do know that at some point Daddy "moved" into the basement. He made a pallet on and slept in the coal bin. He showed me where.

According to Daddy, he was born in Bumpus Cove (in Erwin) on the Nolichucky River (the Toe River on the North Carolina side). His birth certificate says Jonesborough but I like his story better.

Erwin is infamous for being the place where a circus elephant, Mary, was hanged after killing her handler. This happened in 1916, before Daddy was born, but I'm sure he heard stories. Kids probably visited the sight of her hanging and tried to scare each other. I never thought to ask him.

Daddy's family was poor. He used to tell a story about a neighbor buying him shoes because he didn't have any.

The only other story that I remember him ever telling me about growing up was when he and his brother (James, I think) had gone out blackberry picking. (This was an activity Daddy continued throughout his whole life. I have vivid memories of him coming home and telling me he had to take an alcohol bath in order to kill all the chiggers he'd picked up in the blackberry bushes.) On their way home, they had to cross a railroad trestle. Somehow, they got caught on the middle when a train was coming and didn't have time to make it off the trestle. According to Daddy, James climbed down under the trestle and hung underneath, then Daddy climbed down and hung onto him until the train passed overhead. Although I have a hard time understanding exactly how or why this happened, I know for a fact that it is the story Daddy told me.

Alcoa boasts a swimming pool that was built during the CCC/WPA era. It has beautiful stonework typical of that period. It also has a whale head fountain coming out of one side. (It's a very strange object and, when I was little, its big, dark mouth where the water came out of scared me.) Daddy always claimed he helped to make it. It's only been in recent years that I decided to "do the math" and realized that he would've been 10 or 11 when it was built. I think it's far more likely, knowing Daddy, that when the workers were building the pool, he talked his way onto the site and got himself invited to hang around and "help." Maybe they let him paint it. Or hand the actual builder a tool or two. 

Daddy made a lot of claims in his life about "being the first" to do this or that in Blount County. I wish I could remember the specifics of all of his self-proclaimed firsts. It'd be fun to try and verify some of them. As it is, his claims (except about the fish head fountain) will forever stand uncontested.

Nursing Home Comeuppance

In Nursing Home Fiasco, I wrote that Mac's belief that there was a conspiracy was misguided, that it was really just a case of rampant incompetence. Now I'm not so sure.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/jan/11/maryvilles-colonial-hills-nursing-center-to-all/

It's telling that the administration deflected all responsibility.

Nursing homes aren't closed for no good reason, and they certainly aren't closed without multiple investigations and reports and chances to correct violations.