On Missing Trains

Of all the stories posted here-in, this is perhaps the one of which I am least proud.  Stories of drugged and drunken exploits come with moderate bragging rights, travel tales have their own appeal, but this is a tragedy of hubris and stupidity of which I am ashamed.  To begin, some back ground information:

The Amtrak passenger train City of New Orleans passes through Newbern, Tennessee on it's north-south run from Chicago to New Orleans.  My family live a bit more than an hour from Newbern and when traveling home for a visit this train is the most comfortable, most cost-efficient and generally the easiest mode of transport.  I have ridden this train several times and boarded and exited at this station each time.

So, poised to board the train early in the morning of December 26th me and my father (a semi-driver for more than 35 years) arrived at the station, watched a few freight trains pass, and ascertained that the the tracks to our left headed north and the tracks to the right headed south.  We were so sound in our knowledge that when an Amtrak passenger train came rolling up at precisely the time my New Orleans-bound train was scheduled to arrive, that we watched it stop, watched passengers deboard, and watched it roll away certain in our sense of cardinal directions and positive that that train had come from New Orleans and was headed to Chicago.

Newbern is an unmanned station, so there was no one to ask as to how late my train was going to be.  We did however ask one of recently exited passengers from where she originated.  When she said Chicago, I stared at her disbelievingly, then stared at the tracks and realized that we had been wrong.  I had missed the train, or rather, mistook the train, which is probably just as bad.

Deeply shamed, me and my father were.  We studied the tracks for a while and decided that even if we were wrong, we were wrong in the most logical way and that our wrong assumption was the easiest assumption to make.  We drove away, cursing the silly train for traveling north to south in such a haphazard way.  Pride cometh before the fall-- I boarded the train later in the week and arrived safely back in the Crescent City.

Merry Christmas from the Family

I made a half-hearted attempt to avoid the annual pilgrimage to Clarksburg, Tennessee for Christmas festivities, because these types of things always tend to seem far more unpleasant while they approach than when they actually arrive.  It was a quiet bit of welcome respite.  

Behold!  Photos:

with William Arvel Woods

Will and Mary Woods

Nate Moore

Amelia Vestal

Matriarchs

"What things these days..."

Nephews

And to all, a Merry Christmas.

In Memory: Millicent Vestal

(Note:  I didn't writ this.  This is Casie's obit, but I concede that it reaches a level of perfection that I could never duplicate.)

"Millie was found this Sunday morning, October 05, 2008, down by the road in front of our house.  Whether she was hit by a passerby or maybe killed by another dog, we don't know.  She went missing the day that we returned from our California trip and despite walking up and down the road relentlessly this week and checking the ditches, all the sudden there she is.  Our minds are now somewhat at rest for at least we know where she is and that she's not lost or scared.    

 I'm sure for most of you, this e-mail is quite dramatic.  But truth is, I know some of you got along very well with Millie and for those of you who didn't, you at least tolerated her (and for that we are eternally grateful).  There are a lot of dog lovers on both sides of mine and Jeffery's families and having to tell the details over and over will be hard on me, so this seemed a little overboard, but reasonable.   

For those of you that don't know, (and if we remember correctly), Millie was born on Ms. Jennifer's birthday, January 04, 2004.  It's kind of ridiculous to remember a dog's birthday maybe, but considering the circumstances, how could we forget it?  A little hard to when your mother-in-law shared the date with what she used to call her 'first grand-baby'.     

Jeffery had heard from one of those Moore Boys that Sandy and Philip Moore's feist had a litter of puppies with a pug and they were the cutest puppies around.  (Which is why when people asked, 'What kind of dog is she?' we answered, 'She's a FUG'!)  I had been begging Jeffery for a dog, since he was stationed in Memphis, to help with how quiet the house was while he was gone. At first he said no, but when he laid eyes on the puppies he called me and said to go ahead and get dibs on one.  We bought her at about 5 weeks old because Sandy had said the mother dog had quit feeding them and she didn't want them to starve.  The petite pup cost us 25 whole dollars, in which Sandy said  the money from the litter was going into Trevor and Colton's savings accounts.  I never thought I'd buy a dog, but adopt a mutt from an animal shelter or something, but it was a little money and went to a good place to good people and once I saw them, well, honestly, I might've paid more.  When I bent down to look into the dog house all lit up with a heat lamp, I saw all the puppies crouched in the back corner.  But this one was a little nosey and was the only one to check me out.  I scooped her up and said 'This one's mine.'  Out of all of them, she had the curliest tail and the best personality...of course I thought that-she picked ME out!    

 I took her straight over to Gail's house, which some of you know is a short distance away from Sandy and Philip's.  She fit in the palm of our hands and we gushed about how cute she was.     

That night I put her in a box beside my bed, but she cried all night.  I finally put her in bed with me thinking about how bad she must miss her mama and that's when I accidentally started the habit of her sleeping in bed with us.  And whenever she stayed at Elbert and Linda's or my mom's, she had to sleep in the bed with them, too.  Under the covers and cuddled up to either the legs or the stomach.  Everyone accepted her into their homes, their beds, and for the rest of you who liked her, your hearts.  Even Ricky, who I was unsure about Millie being in his house.  I later on found out he didn't want a dog in his house, but the next thing you know when I brought her over to visit, if she whined at the door he would jump up and say, 'Come on, Millie'.  She was almost like a first dog for JT, and maybe the fact that he liked to play with her so much may have made it OK.  

 I know she wasn't the nicest dog to some, but for those of you that she decided to love, she loved you til the day she died.  And for those of you that she took up with right away, like Kacee, JT, Troy and Josh, well, ya'll were special because it really took her a long time in most cases to warm up to people.   For all of you who loved her, who took her in, and even those of you that she may not have liked but you kept trying and trying to create a spark, for those of you who fed her peas from the dinner table and those of you that took her riding around in your cars, for those of you who endured the dog hair on your clothes and let her in your lap anyways, I wanted you to know that I remember all of it, I'm sure she did, too, and I appreciate every bit of it.  We'll miss her dearly, and I guess I'll feel a little guilty for just a little while, but my sister, Gail, said to me the other day, 'Millie had a better life in one day that what most dogs have in their whole lives.'  And that is the dog-gone truth!  We managed to spoil that little dog rotten, and maybe not so much once Amelia got here, but we still found time for her here and there, whether it was Jeffery riding her around on the farm or Amelia and I taking a ball outside to play with her.  She was loved and her life was good.  We just wanted you all to know that."

Return to the Digital Age

Yes, it's true.  I have sold out.

Upon my arrival in Clarksburg, what happened other than the abrupt forcing upon me of a damnable cellphone?  A Samsung BlackJack... what the hell is this nonsense?  My parents demanded I take the thing-- no! I cried--  It shall meet the same watery fate as my last phone.  It shall be cast into the brown depths of the Mississippi river, never to annoy or bother again.

But, wait-- I can access e-mail from here.  And sort of surf the web.  And man, aren't text messages swell...

Oh well, I'll save my rebellion for some other day.

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.

Leisurely Existence

Holy hell- I haven't done a goddamn thing in almost a week. I haven't had the luxury of laziness in quite a while, but with money earned in Washington and low property value in Knoxville I've been able to be absolutely antiproductive since my arrival.

I spent a little time looking for jobs, but after the second manager told me that "We aren't hiring now-- we're just collecting applications" I got so frustrated that I simply stopped looking. Collecting applications? What utter nonsense.

On Friday I went to a Tift Merritt concert at the Pilot Light and got drunk off High Life-- the show was unremarkable.

I've seen the sunrise everyday this week-- my sleep schedule is fucked.

Tomorrow, I'm going into the mountains for an unspecified amount of time. Call it a zen retreat.

However, I should be in West Tennessee on the first of August.

Unrelated tangent: I wish Katy Perry would die.

"Like Austin, without the hype..."

What am I doing here, in Knoxville Tennessee?

Not that it's a bad place, just unexpected. Has this become a literary pilgramage? Seemingly I have come to the banks of the Tennessee river to pay homage to Cormac McCarthy-- like Suttree, without the houseboat. I, in turn, have an efficiency apartment.

Whatever I'm doing here aside, what is this place? What is this vibe that permeates the air? The same sense in old west desert towns and ancient Appalachian settlements. Walking about at night a sense of restlessness, an unrelenting aura amongst these buildings unchanged in 60 or so odd years. The aura of a great, unseen world of trouble and interest bubbling just beneath the surface-- mischief in the night.

I think I'll stay awhile--

Home

It was a sad realization, but I don't go 'home' anymore. I go to my parent's house.

My 'home', the place I grew up, no longer exists except in lackluster photos and memories best left buried. Oh, the tragedy of growing up, growing apart, growing. To be the people you are now you can't be the people you were then, and thus those people are dead and gone. All of them, murdered by children and careers and college and boredom. New people rose from the ashes-- sometimes better, sometimes worse-- and the ashes scattered in the wind.

Sure, in West Tennessee the places are all still there-- the woods and the bridges and the houses and the roads. But the energy is gone. They don't hold mystery, grandeure, excitment anymore. And, when revisited, they're never quite like you remembered-- always smaller, more beige.

Nothing is as futile as buying into your rose-hued nostalgia, and that is a lesson one must learn through experience. Sure, I realized that in a hazy, intangible way years ago, but now-- cut loose and wandering-- it became absolutley clear.

It's too late to drag everything that was out into the light of what is. It's best left in trunks and satchels in closets to be pulled out occasionally and viewed through eyes tinted with the cynicism of the present. You can't go home again. Nothing natural has roots and wings.

Just look at the kid...

So I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a joke to go here...

Maybe something about the duck?  Or something about the '5 Months' card?

But everything was either too naughty to post with a picture of an awesome kid, or too nonsensical to post at all.  And none of it was funny.

Just look at the kid.  That's Amelia Gail.  Cute, huh?