Saturday, September 18, 2004

It's official!!  JSlash has now been accepted into grad school at UNC-G!!

You spend your whole life trying to do the best you can to raise your parents right and sometimes you reach a point where you realize that you've failed and that they're just as goofy and lacking in common sense as everyone else's folks are.  I reached that point this weekend.

Called Dad Wednesday morning.  "Man, y'all ought to come on down and stay with us for a few days!  Ivan looks like it's going to be as bad or worse than Frances and you've already got half the roads up there closed."  Dad lives above Mt. Mitchell Golf Course which was badly flooded during Frances when the north fork of the South Toe River (or was it the south fork of the North Toe River?) overflowed.  Got an admission from him that he was a bit worried about the tall trees around his house since the ground was already so saturated. Said he'd think about it.

Called Mom Wednesday evening.  "This looks like it could be really bad!  Y'all come on down and stay with us!  We'll figure something out about the cats - just come on!"  Mom lives near the top of a ridge above Celo and had gotten some really heavy winds as the remnants of Frances came through a week ago.  She definitely thought Dad ought to leave but said she'd probably stay.  Got her to at least say she'd think about it.

Wednesday night, talked to Mom again.  Dad was worried but didn't want to go too far from home, so he was at least going to go up to Burnsville and stay the night in a motel.

Mom called Friday morning.  Nervous wreck.  Hadn't slept a wink - winds were worse than during Frances   No power at her house.  No power at Dad's house (and of course he never left to go stay anywhere else).  Could be out for days.  "Well, why don't you both drive on out here if you can find a road that's open.  Don't go to Charlotte since they probably got a lot more rain than we did - come on and you can stay with us."  She said she'd think about it and call me later when they decided what they were going to do.  Meanwhile, all the news reports are of massive flooding (again) in the NC mountains.

Friday, 5:30, haven't heard anything.  Call Dad's house - no answer, no answering machine.  Call Mom's house - no answer, no answering machine.  Call Mom's cell phone and Dad answers.  "Where are you guys?"  Charlotte.  Arrrggghhhh!!  "What the hell are you doing in Charlotte?!"  Well, it was closer.  And Dad hadn't been to Charlotte in awhile.  Hands the phone to Mom.  Oh, they probably should have stayed home because they're out near the Speedway near my sister's house and the motel they were going to stay in jacked up their prices because of some car show and the traffic is so awful [uh... Charlotte! - ed.] that they don't want to go look somewhere else.  So I pull up the Comfort Inn website since Mom had said the weekend before that she likes them and found them a place down at I-85 and Sugar Creek that looked cheaper and gave her the number.  "Call me when you get situated somewhere - if we're not home just leave voice mail."

Friday night, we come in after dinner - no message.  Listen for the phone all night - no message.  Phone rings Saturday morning right after noon [finally!] - nope, this is my mother-in-law calling to check up on my folks.  "No, haven't heard anything yet."  So I finally call Mom's cellphone early in the afternoon.  She answers.  They're on their way back to their houses.  They're already in Marion - almost home. Except that Highway 221 is closed.  And Highway 80 is closed.  And big sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway are closed.  And now Mom passes on that Highway 226A is closed since they came down the day before.

The good news is that they made it home and their power was restored late this afternoon.  I guess the bad news is that they're goofuses.

Posted by Tony @ 11:15:00 pm |  

Friday, September 17, 2004

Unquestionably, the highlight of my trip last weekend with Mom was visiting with my Aunt Bertha and Uncle Marion on their farm in South Pittsburg, Tennessee.  They celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary last month - no, that's not a typo.  Uncle Marion is 91, I think, and Aunt Bertha (my maternal grandfather's sister) is 89 and they still live on and work the farm that they've shared for many, many years.

Let me give you a little context.  My 4th great grandfather, Thomas Russell, was the first person of European descent to own what became known as Russell Cave (now Russell Cave National Monument) near Stevenson, Alabama.  He lived to be 89 years old and his wife Tabitha reached 91.  My great grandfather Alexander Gaines Russell was killed in the line of duty as chief of police of South Pittsburg at the age of 71 (his police whistle is one of my prized possessions).  His second wife (and my great grandmother), born Barbara Tennessee Raulston, lived to be 81 and I remember visiting her twin sister Bertha Texas Raulston at her home in Madison, Tennessee when I was little and I'm pretty sure that she was living on her own there at the age of 84 when she died.  My point here is that at least for Aunt Bertha (and, I suppose, for me) not only long life but long, robust life is not uncommon in our family.

What struck me most about visiting with them was not that they are still alive, but how alive they are.  I've spent interminable hours listening to other relatives 25 years younger than Bertha and Marion talking incessently about who died and who's sick and who just got out of the hospital.  Certainly the subject came up last Saturday, but it was in the course of a conversation rather than the main focus and it was matter-of-factly dealt with and we moved on.  We were much more interested in how things are going on the farm, what living relatives are up to, reminiscing about good stuff in the past (apparently going dancing was a big part of their courtship as well as their early married life - good for them!), the renovations of their church (a beautiful 120-year-old Episcopal chapel) and the South Pittsburg downtown area - that sort of thing.  Sure, they might each need a cane to get around, but they've got more energy than many people I know that are half their age.  And he still opens the car door for her - that's important!  There's no doubt in my mind that they keep each other young.

We did take a drive out to Anderson to the Russell family cemetary where my maternal grandparents and other relatives are buried.  It's a beautiful spot, shaded by an enormous old shagbark hickory and much better cared for than I think most of us realized.  Then they insisted on taking Mom and me out to dinner at one of their favorite restaurants in Sewanee so that we could take a different route back to their place and see more of the area Mom grew up in (I'll have more on the area later).  It was one of the most enjoyable days I've spent in years and I thank them tremendously for it.

I've been thinking about them a lot today as what was left of Hurricane Ivan went right over them.  Mom heard from them yesterday after she'd had some flowers sent to them as a thank-you and they were planning on staying at the house.  I can only hope that they and the rest of my family in South Pittsburg and Huntsville and the rest of the area fared well.  We seem to be survivors, so I'm sure they're fine!

RIP, Johnny Ramone.  Thank you for playing cool guitar solos that even I could play.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Last week's trip to Nashville was very short but made me anxious to get back and spend some time there.  We had originally intended to do some kayaking on one of the lakes on the Little Tennessee before heading down to South Pittsburg, but decided instead to drive over on over to visit my Aunt Jane (Mom's youngest sister) and her family in Lebanon, Tennessee and poke around Nashville a bit.  Jane was busy with a yard sale (apparently it is normal to have Friday/Saturday yard sales in Middle Tennessee - who knew?) so Mom and I drove on into town to visit the old neighborhood.

I tell people that only vaguely know Nashville that I grew up in Shelby Park, but in actuality I grew up in three houses near Stratford High School - on Golf Street, Hayden Drive and McKennell Drive.  The last time I'd driven through the area (maybe 7 or 8 years ago), it looked to me like the whole area had really gone downhill since we'd moved.  I'm happy to say that it really looks a lot better now - not gentrified in any way, just well-kept.  The corner of Porter Road and Riverside Drive still looks like crap, but it kind of always did.  The rest of the area looks amazingly like it did in the early 70's when we moved (I swear there's at least one family still living on Hayden that was there when we lived there over 30 years ago).  There's even still a Krystal on the corner of Cahal and Gallatin Road (although it's not the old curb service place where we sat in the car and ate when I was a kid trying to see how many of those little burgers I could stuff in my fat little face - quite a few, actually).

Shelby Park looks great - we got out and walked up the Shelby Bottoms Greenway (which was built LONG after we moved away) a bit, stopping to take some pictures at the overlook over the Cumberland River - good vantage point to see some of the bluffs.  The park used to stop there at the L&N railroad bridge (the parking lot there had a reputation as a make-out spot) - it's nice to see the flood-prone area along the river put to good use (the greenway extends up past Cornelia Fort Airport so you should be able to get some good runs along there).  We then drove on up Woodland Street into town (nice to see the big "WKDF" sign still glowing as you come across the bridge) and I started to see some of the revitalization that I've heard people talking about - due primarily I guess to the Titans stadium.  Drove around downtown a bit (despite it being Friday afternoon, traffic was surprisingly light - either everyone left took off right after lunch or the only traffic is on the Interstates).  Then went back across the river to the stadium area around Fatherland Street, where Dad was born (now the Edgefield Historic District).  I'd never noticed some of the really cool old churches in that area, so we had to stop and take some more pictures - I'll post any that come out.  (I'm a doofus - I thought I had 3-4 rolls of color film in my case when I left and found when I got there that I only had black and white, which I'd bought to experiment with. We'll see how they come out...).  Then it was out to I-40 to sit in traffic (that IS where everyone was!) on the way out to Lebanon to meet Aunt Jane and a couple of my cousins and their families for dinner.

This was such a quick trip, we didn't make it over to the West End/Centennial Park area, where I also spent a lot of time as a kid - maybe next time.  And there will be a next time.  I really found a lot of reasons to want to come back and spend a week or so exploring.  There were a couple of hotels downtown that were within walking distance of Printer's Alley, the Ryman, 2nd Avenue and lots more stuff to do.  On the other hand, JennySlash has always wanted to stay at the Opryland Hotel (I can't bring myself to call it the Gaylord Opryland Hotel - that's just wrong).  One way or another, I'll get back sometime in the next year or so with JennySlash and we'll catch a show at the Exit/In, visit the Parthenon and the Hermitage, meet mapgirl for dinner finally and really do some in depth discovery.  Oh, the photo is me at Shelby Park, summer of '67...  

Monday, September 13, 2004

I didn't actually see the game as I was out visiting relatives in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, but even Dad is ready to give me the $5 we bet before the season.  I said last week that I didn't think we'd learn a lot about the team from this game, but I'm willing to accept that I was wrong.  We already knew that the defense sucks, but while I can't say for sure having not actually witnessed the debacle, it sounds to me like they suck even worse than I'd imagined.  As Eddy Landreth said, it's kinda hard for them to be worse than last year since they finished next to last in the entire Division I-A in defense, but they seem to be giving it a shot.  Bunting may be gone before Halloween.

Sorry for the lack of posting - just got back last night from a long weekend road trip with Mom.  It was both an opportunity for the two of us to spend some time alone together, which we seldom do, and a chance for us both to travel back to our places of origin, Nashville for me and southeastern Tennessee for her.  It was a wonderful trip, which I'll talk about in a couple of subsequent posts over the next couple of days when I've got time to do them justice.  With the trips to the Nissan dealership (more on that later) and other running around necessitated by having been gone since right after work on Thursday, I won't have time for much tonight.

I do want to let everyone know this - while the media has been covering the hurricane damage to Florida, I haven't seen a lot on the news about western North Carolina.  Well, let me tell you - it was devastated from the rains brought by what was left of Frances.  Some places reported 14 to 16 inches of rain - most got at least a foot.  Asheville was without drinkable water until yesterday.  Many roads were washed out and will be closed for a good while (NC 80 from Marion to the Blue Ridge Parkway is still out, US 64 from I-40 to Rutherfordton was out Thursday night, US 221 was closed north of Marion, the Parkway south of Buck's Creek Gap - those are just the ones that I saw Thursday night)..  Many homes and businesses were flooded out.  Many of the various parks' facilities won't recover for months, if not years.  And that's all before Ivan potentially does as much or more damage.  Dad just sent me an e-mail about the damage to the visitor's center and road into Linville Falls - sounds like it's going to be a very long time before it's all repaired.