Saints in Hell

I never made it to the mountains. I said I wanted to several times, but a combination of mid-90s heat and humidity, afternoon thunderstorms, and the fact that, without a car, it is damn-near impossible to get to Great Smoky Mountain National Park all conspired against me. But I can say that I tried.

I left Knoxville on Tuesday afternoon wandering down Chapman Highway south of town. Within a half hour I looked like I had hopped into a swimming pool fully clothed, so sweaty was I. A combination of my appearance and the complete un-hitchhike-ability of Chapman Highway kept me from getting a ride. Before long, I had given up on my wilderness adventure (as, history will show, heat often makes me do) and decided to go directly to Maryville, where I could theoretically shower and stay with my cousin Tim. So I wandered pathetically into the Frontier Stop and Shop on Chapman to get directions. And the clerk gave me soft-serve ice cream.

Now, armed with directions, I mounted onto another highway. So disenchanted with hitching I didn't even try, just trudging along in the heat, when a car going the opposite direction drove up in the turning lane and offered me a ride. Unsolicited.

Now, while I do not want to say bad things about people who are kind to me, this woman was a little nutty. She had driven past me a few moments earlier, when God spoke to her and told her to turn around and retrieve me and take me with her. As I entered her car, she prudently inquired if I was going to rape or kill her (I didn't, by the way)-- despite my negative response, her boyfriend, with whom she was on the phone with, was not pleased with her decision to pick me up. They phone argued about half the time I was in the car with her, he claiming she should never pick up hitchhikers and her adamently stating she would do whatever God told her. Before long, she hung up on him. This began an awkward conversation where she related to me the joys of Jesus Christ but soon veered into confessions that we were driving through Ku Klux Klan country, and it wouldn't have been safe for me to walk (I wondered why I would have been in danger, seeing as how I am white, a gentile, and easily pass for straight, but never asked). She assured me she disagreed whole-heartedly with the KKK, but then went on a racist tirade that I think was supposed to prove her point...? After all of this, she decided she would take me the extra ten miles into downtown Maryville, and, feeling fairly safe with her, I opted against arguing. Then, about halfway through the out-of-the-way, the phone rang. Not wanting to argue with him, she simply ignored the call. He called back. She ignored the call again. this went on until he had called seven or eight times and I was certain he was certain I had killed her. When she let me out, I was grateful I couldn't be located, because he would have probably beat the shit out of me.

Once in Maryville however, I found it impossible to get anyone on the phone. So I pitched my hammock in a wooded area of a public park and camped out until morning.

And, oddly enough, the same thing happened again the next day. Albeit, there was no ice cream (that was too good to be true the first time), but another person just stopped, picked me up, and took me exactley where I wanted to go, completely unsolicited. He drove a red Liberty, was quite normal, and delighted in my camping stories.

Moral of the story: The weather is god-awful, but the people are not.
Thought of the day: Why don't I spend next summer in Fairbanks, where the summr high is around 70?
Solicitation: If in south Knoxville, patronize the Frontier, and, if it's your thing, say a prayer for Mike and Donna. God knows they need all the help they can get.

These are photos I took at a cemetary while wandering down Chapman Highway-- they aren't particularly related to the prior post, but I'm so delighted by them that I'm loading them here anyway.