Joan’s 8th newsletter – where am I?
It’s December 3, and today I’ll be moving in with Maryhill Gleason in Sunnyvale for the rest of the month. Maryhill is an old friend (age 89!) who just lost her live-in helper so I’ll be filling the gap until she finds someone else. She’s a slow walker but a quick wit and sharp as a tack at strategy and word games, so we’ll be playing a lot of Upwords and rummy.
So I’m back home again in California, where everything is over-priced and strangers don’t wave or say hello, but the coffee is robust and flavorful and being a vegetarian doesn’t brand me as odd. As I drove into San Jose on November 16, four or five lanes of freeway passed above me. Seems like a fine time to take my thoughts back to beautiful green Kentucky. I first entered Kentucky on September 23 and left October 19, with two brief forays into Tennessee (just as beautiful) and southern Ohio during that time. My most favorite Kentucky stops not already described in the last newsletter were Keeneland Racetrack near Lexington, and the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Renfro Valley.
When I told an old friend in Tucson that I was heading to Lexington for a horserace, he laughed and said I’d be bored. Well, I never saw a real race due to bad timing on my part (no races on Tuesdays), but I was anything but bored at Keeneland racetrack. Keeneland is one of the few racetracks in the world where visitors can get close to the horses. I was able to explore the grounds and stables, observe morning workouts, and patronize the track kitchen. I saw absolutely stunning horses grazing in the green meadows, working out on tracks, and being groomed in the stables. If you’ve seen the movies “Seabiscuit” or the recently released “Dreamer,” you’ve seen the beauty of race horses, and how they’re pampered by their trainers and groomers so they stay beautiful and happy. In the track kitchen, a cafeteria where I had French toast and juice, the walls were covered with photographs of – guess what – racehorses. I heard other people order a bacon sandwich (yup, just a lot of bacon between two slices of toast), an order of taters, and a bowl of beans. When I left driving west past the town of Versailles, I noticed a racetrack scene painted on the town water talk. Maybe I’ll see a race next year. (http://www.keeneland.com/)
Kentucky identifies keenly with its musical heritage, which was displayed especially well at the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Renfro Valley. Their introductory video answered for me the question Jerry asked at the Chillicothe, Ohio bluegrass festival – how did someone raised in Wisconsin become a bluegrass fan? The video gave credit for the resurgence of bluegrass music to the great folk music scare of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, and that is indeed how I got introduced to all kinds of traditional music. The musicians that call Kentucky home include real old-timers and traditionalists such as Roscoe Holcomb, Homer and Lily May Ledford, Hylo Brown, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob Niles, the Osborne Brothers, and of course Bill Monroe. Other Kentucky musicians not-so-traditional are Loretta Lynn, Ricky Skaggs, Rosemary Clooney, Merle Travis, the Judds, the Everly Brothers, Dwight Yoakum, Billy Ray Cyrus, Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul and Mary) and Sam Bush. The list does not include Stephen Foster, who wrote “My Old Kentucky Home” but was born near Pittsburgh, PA, or Colonel Harland Sanders, who invented Kentucky Fried Chicken in the late ‘30s. The city of Corbin holds an annual World Chicken Festival, including a gospel music egg-stravaganza. If you don’t believe me, check out www.chickenfestival.com/sanders.htm .
One entire room of the Kentucky Music museum is devoted to the banjo, its history which began in Africa, and examples of more types of banjos than I knew existed. Another room explained for me the origin of a new phrase I’d begun hearing, “brush arbor.” It was sort of a poor man’s revival tent – a shelter made of log posts set in the ground with poles and fresh, thick brush piled on top for shade, under which people gathered to hear preachers and sing gospel songs. (http://www.kymusichalloffame.com/)
Although I was close to the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea, I decided to save it for another trip because it was late in the day, it was raining, and the cheap motel coupon book directed me south into northern Tennessee. But those cheap motels, advertised at $22.95 and $24.95, had suddenly raised their prices to $45 and $65 because of a special event nearby – the Tennessee Fall Homecoming at the Museum of Appalachia. I now had two tasks – locate an affordable place to stay, and find out about that event. Both were accomplished when I got to the Knoxville hostel. My room cost $15, and the hostel owner/operator had programs for the homecoming event because he belonged to a harp singing group that would be performing there. (Harp singers, also known as sacred harp singers or shape note singers, perform early American hymns in three and four part a cappella style.)
Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville turned out to be a trip highlight. My first day there, I walked downtown with two goals: find the visitors center and some good coffee. They were both in the same place, as well as a free musical performance at noon. Turns out the building houses the visitors center, a small book and crafts sales area, a café, and a public radio station that broadcasts The Blue Plate Special live music program every weekday at lunchtime. On Friday I saw some local singer-songwriters, and on Monday I saw a western group followed by cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell, who had performed at a storytelling festival nearby that had a much higher admission price. In a store window just down the street, I saw some very cool posters that appeared to have been printed a long time ago. Wrong. They had been recently printed on a hand-operated letterpress and were created using old-fashioned cold type and linoleum block artwork. Yeehaw Industries produced the poster for the 2002 Woody Guthrie music festival, and I had attended the 2005 festival in July. Music does indeed shrink the world. (http://www.yeehawindustries.com/)
At the library, I was issued a free temporary library card for a month that allowed two hours of computer use per day, the most generous deal so far. I was almost tempted to stay in Knoxville for a while, but there was a festival calling me back to Ohio soon. So I made the most of this sojourn in Knoxville, and may return for more music and some museums and walking tours I missed. I went to a concert by the Tennessee Sheiks (acoustic swing) at Laurel Music Hall, which had originally been a small church; saw the 1945 Nazi spy movie “The House on 92nd Street” and an exhibit of surrealist drawings and short films at the art museum; saw the outside of the L&N (Louisville & Nashville) train depot, idle and vacant now but in excellent condition with fine wood and stained glass windows; saw the location of and buildings left from the 1982 worlds fair; stood outside the hotel that Hank Williams, Sr. may have died in (whether he died in the hotel or in his car is debatable); ate good vegetarian food several times at restaurants in Old Market Square; and enjoyed a Sunday morning omelet at the hostel that included kudzu. (I’ll explain kudzu later.) That all took three days.
The day I spent at the Fall Homecoming event at the Museum of Appalachia was quite special. It was hard to choose among the four stages of music and clog-dancing. I wandered back and forth, catching other events inbetween such as rail splitting, blacksmithing, basket weaving, soap making, and sassafras tea brewing (it tastes like hot root beer but not as sweet). There are 36 vintage buildings and animal pens on the grounds, including a museum and hall of fame of both bluegrass musicians and just plain folks, which drew me in even though the live music was my primary reason for being there. So I took music back home with me, on a four-hour video of music highlights from 2000. It was a special year since it included John Hartford’s last performance there (he died in June 2001). I made sure to see Ralph Stanley’s performance, however, the third time I’ve seen him this year after he had open heart surgery in June. At the Bill Monroe festival in Rosine, KY on September 28, and here on October 8, he was able to perform a full set and said he was getting stronger every day.
Okay, here’s the kudzu lesson. Kudzu is a vine that is invasive and exotic. When left uncontrolled, it will eventually grow over almost any fixed object in its proximity, including other vegetation. See amazing photos at http://www.jjanthony.com/kudzu/ of kudzu covering trees, small buildings, fences, and even motor vehicles. It is edible, but not a wildly popular food item yet. From an NPR report I heard an unknown number of years ago, I got the impression that kudzu would soon be covering up the entire south, so I was on the lookout for it. Finally saw some driving south of Renfro Valley into Tennessee, and then saw some more, and more, and moreandmoreandmore. It ain’t everywhere, but there sure is a lot where it does take hold.
Kentucky was also where I learned that a song’s lyrics may not be an entirely true tale. As I drove into Knoxville, I started singing the old folk ballad that begins:
I met a little girl in Knoxville, A town we all know well,
And every Sunday evening out in her home I’d dwell …
and ends with the singer murdering his sweetheart. Well, it didn’t really happen in Knoxville, but the city’s tourist brochure comes clean about that. It says the event actually took place in 1744 in Berkshire, England, and the English folk ballad written about it was imported to the North American continent and Americanized.
When I had first driven into Kentucky from Missouri, the phrase “western Kentucky” had a familiar ring to it, and then I remembered John Prine’s song “Paradise.” It begins
When I was a child, my family would travel to western Kentucky where my parents were born….
and the chorus goes
And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg county,
Down by the Green River, where Paradise lay.
‘Well I’m sorry my son but you’re too late in asking,’
‘Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.’
I consulted a map and found the name Paradise, so what gives about it being hauled away? When I found myself in a library in Muhlenberg county, it seemed the right place to check out it out. The Muhlenberg County website says the Peabody Coal Co. did not actually stripmine the site and haul the town away. The Tennessee Valley Authority removed the town (two stores and an unknown number of houses) and built the Paradise Fossil Plant, a coal-fired electric plant, beginning in 1959. I decided not to visit. By the way, Kentucky’s state mineral is coal, and the state musical instrument is the dulcimer.
Kentucky is not paradise to everyone there, believe it or not. In Madisonville, the bagger who carried my grocery purchases out to the van exclaimed how homesick he was for California when he saw my license plate. He was from Louisville but had been living in San Diego until familial duties called him back to Kentucky. (I had thought he looked a little out of place there, with his double-pierced ears and baggy shorts.) He said all available jobs paid minimum wage, and he and his wife hadn’t found anyone with similar values to socialize with.
A couple of farm visits
The Ohio festival I mentioned earlier was the 35th Annual Bob Evans Farm Festival at Rio Grande pronounced Rye-oh Grand), October 14-16. My new friends at the Chillicothe, OH bluegrass festival probably recommended it because the house bluegrass band at the Farm Festival is the Rarely Herd, and one of the band members is Gene’s son, one of the guys I met at Chillicothe. Reconnecting with Gene, Ron the bluegrass deejay, and the Rarely Herd band members meant a lot to me because I had been in the midst of strangers since September 20. The Farm Festival also gave me the opportunity to see tractor square dancers. I am not making this up. Four couples – yes, real women and not just guys in dresses and wigs – actually square danced while driving tractors. They had to be very attentive and agile, and not mind the dust and fuel fumes, and they did a darn good job. Drew a bigger crowd than the horseshoe pitching or the border collie herding, although both of those were amazing and amusing too.
In the late ‘50s, Bob Evans and his wife Jewell began making sausage that actually had more meat and good-tasting stuff in it as opposed to fillers such as cereal that other sausage-makers used. When they made TV ads, Bob and Jewell invited folks to “come on down and visit us” at their Rio Grande farm. Well, people took them up on it. So Bob and Jewell opened a restaurant on the farm on 1962. There are now nearly 600 Bob Evans, Owens Family and Mimi’s Café restaurants in 20 states, mostly east of the Mississippi. The menu and décor is an upgraded Denny’s but way more meat-oriented. I tried eating at a Bob Evans restaurant twice and only found one meatless choice, a basic eggs-potatoes-toast breakfast. Now personally, I think meatless sausage and hot dogs produced now are quite tasty, and it’s easier to raise the ingredients, but in 1962 I’m sure I would have enjoyed Bob Evans sausage.
Bob and Jewell’s former home on the farm is now a museum, with the kitchen left intact because it was their test kitchen in the early days, as well as the setting for their TV ads. The rest of the downstairs was a history of their sausage making, which I hurried past and went upstairs to see the traveling Underground Railroad exhibit. It was there because sympathizers in Ohio provided many safe places for runaway slaves to stop on their way to safer northern states or Canada. The exhibit was small but powerful, with replicas of leg restraints, photos of scarred backs, and drawings of slave auctions. As a humanitarian vegetarian, the exhibits on both floors provoked emotions.
The other farm I visited was, simply, The Farm. Arthur, my housemate in Santa Cruz in 2003, had grown up on The Farm and urged me to visit it, even making arrangements for me to stay with a woman there near my own age. Paraphrasing from The Farm literature, here’s what it’s all about: The Farm community is a cooperative enterprise of families and friends living on three square miles in southern middle Tennessee. It was started in 1971 by Stephen Gaskin and 320 San Francisco hippies as an experiment in sustainable, developmentally progressive human habitat. As many as 1500 people lived there at one time, learned to work together cooperatively, took a vow of poverty upon arrival and shared the resources whether they were plentiful or sparse. Today The Farm has all of the usual implements of village life for its 350 residents plus visitors: grocery store, a school, their own water system, a visitors center, community center, cemetery, Ecovillage, businesses and residences. The businesses include a soy dairy, book publishing company, tempeh lab (they sell tempeh spores) and a mail order business. The Ecovillage conducts hands-on workshops in sustainable building techniques such as solar technology, straw bale and cob buildings (cob is a mixture of dirt, sand and straw so it’s both cheap and durable).
From www.thefarm.org website: “Among ourselves we try to use agreement and mutual respect to generate a friendly working environment. We recognize that there are many paths toward realizing personal ideals and that people have a wide range of individual social values, but as a group, we do not accept the use of violence, anger or intimidation for solving problems. The fabric of our community is created by our friendship and respect for one another, and for our land.” They respect animals, too – everyone’s a vegan (no meat or dairy products).
I stayed with Ramona for two days, sharing her delicious vegan food and immersing myself in the atmosphere of The Farm. (Later, reading a book I bought about The Farm, I learned that visitors who wanted to learn about The Farm life were referred to as “soakers”). Although, admittedly, the early days were difficult with long work days and scarcity of food, the friendships were solid and lasting. Former residents look forward to an annual reunion. Ramona appreciates being able to take for granted the support of others when she needs to make a decision. And I appreciated the peaceful pace and friendliness of everyone I met.
Avoiding Cities and Finding The Heart of Small Towns
Throughout my trip, I attempted to avoid big cities as much as possible. (Yes, I went to the heart of Chicago and Milwaukee, but that was for a special cause – to introduce Meagan to its art and architecture, and I also knew them quite well.) My reasoning at first was because driving the fast, confusing freeways around big cities spooks me, and I wanted to stay away from congested city streets, high-priced parking, unwittingly driving through high-crime areas, etc. A secondary reason was the fact that I really like small towns. I lived for 20 years in the village of Soquel, CA, within walking distance of Capitola Village, and about five miles from downtown Santa Cruz (population of the city of Santa Cruz is about 50,000). I acquired a real appreciation of the smaller size and slower speed of such places. Also, the scenic areas I visited on this road trip mostly happened to be wide open spaces which you can’t hardly find near population-dense metropolitan areas. While I was on my way to some of those near-wilderness areas, I happened upon some delightful finds in small towns, for example:
· Ajo, Arizona (north of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument), population ~5,000 – a motel that offered one-room cabins near an outdoor Jacuzzi and swimming pool, and a bakery/coffeehouse that hosted a Scrabble night.
· Grants, New Mexico (near El Malpais and El Morro National Monuments), population ~9,000 – its main street was old Route 66, a Mexican restaurant patronized by locals served Indian tacos on fry bread, and the espresso bar that had vegetarian soups and sandwiches was an unexpected lucky find.
· Elk City, Oklahoma, population ~10,000 – I camped at a city park on a lake that I found on freecampgrounds.com, then went into town just to use a library computer. I discovered the Route 66 Museum, got in several interesting conversations there, ditto at the supermarket, and left feeling almost like a local.
· Chillicothe, Ohio (near Indian mounds and a music festival), population ~22,000 – founded in 1803, my first experience in a really, really old town with many pre-1900 buildings, brick streets, big old trees, and a home-cooking restaurant that had southern style sweet tea and fried green tomatoes.
I’ll use Central City, Kentucky as an example of how I find the heart of small towns. When I exited the Western Kentucky Parkway, I was just looking for some sit-down time to plan my next move and have an afternoon snack. The fast food joints were near the exit, as were gas stations and motels, which are not the heart of anyplace. While enjoying a McDonald’s soft serve cone, I decided to look for a library to check my e-mail, and drove aimlessly toward what I thought would be downtown. As I got closer, it was easily recognizable by the cluster of older brick buildings and non-franchise restaurants. I turned a corner and there was the library. Further down the street I saw an American flag flying from a tall flagpole – usually a landmark for a government building such as a post office (something else I needed). I also saw a small park, kids walking home from school, women rocking on the porch of a senior citizen apartment building – all signs of a real community. I dawdled so long doing my errands that it was nearly 5 p.m. so I decided to spend the night in a motel there. The town was small enough that I was able to drive past all of them and choose the one furthest from the freeway noise – another benefit of driving further into the town from the freeway exit.
Two slightly larger Kentucky cities had downtowns that were very different. The population of Paducah is ~26,000, and Elizabethtown has ~24,000 residents, not counting the military population at Fort Knox north of there. I exited the freeway west of Paducah and drove for miles along a corridor of big box stores, fast food places, and nicer franchise restaurants and hotels before I reached the heart of the city. The library was across the street from a large park and even had a display rack of maps and tourist information. Although I camped at Land Between the Lakes about 40 miles away, I returned to Paducah to use a library computer. I also visited the heart of the town, which was rich in history – old, well-kept brick buildings, historical markers, murals along the seawall, two big museums and many good restaurant choices.
The approach to Elizabethtown after I exited the freeway was similar, but the downtown was disappointing. Although there were old brick commercial, government and residential buildings, it was missing a few things. I didn’t see any pedestrians. I couldn’t find any retail stores or restaurants, or even a place to park except in the government building parking lots. I wondered where people who worked downtown went for lunch. Although the city’s web site advertises museums, most of them are in other nearby towns. I went to one of Elizabethtown’s two museums, Swope’s Cars of Yesterday (which was inside a car dealership) and skipped the museum of Coca-Cola memorabilia. The library, which used to be near downtown, had recently moved into a big new building between an expressway and a suburban residential area.
I guess the moral to this tale is you just never know what you’re going to find, but it’s worthwhile searching for the heart of a place anyway.
I’m at my self-imposed 6-page limit now. Next newsletter will conclude this year’s trip with my experiences in Alabama and Texas, new territory in New Mexico and Arizona, and Tucson again.
So I’m back home again in California, where everything is over-priced and strangers don’t wave or say hello, but the coffee is robust and flavorful and being a vegetarian doesn’t brand me as odd. As I drove into San Jose on November 16, four or five lanes of freeway passed above me. Seems like a fine time to take my thoughts back to beautiful green Kentucky. I first entered Kentucky on September 23 and left October 19, with two brief forays into Tennessee (just as beautiful) and southern Ohio during that time. My most favorite Kentucky stops not already described in the last newsletter were Keeneland Racetrack near Lexington, and the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Renfro Valley.
When I told an old friend in Tucson that I was heading to Lexington for a horserace, he laughed and said I’d be bored. Well, I never saw a real race due to bad timing on my part (no races on Tuesdays), but I was anything but bored at Keeneland racetrack. Keeneland is one of the few racetracks in the world where visitors can get close to the horses. I was able to explore the grounds and stables, observe morning workouts, and patronize the track kitchen. I saw absolutely stunning horses grazing in the green meadows, working out on tracks, and being groomed in the stables. If you’ve seen the movies “Seabiscuit” or the recently released “Dreamer,” you’ve seen the beauty of race horses, and how they’re pampered by their trainers and groomers so they stay beautiful and happy. In the track kitchen, a cafeteria where I had French toast and juice, the walls were covered with photographs of – guess what – racehorses. I heard other people order a bacon sandwich (yup, just a lot of bacon between two slices of toast), an order of taters, and a bowl of beans. When I left driving west past the town of Versailles, I noticed a racetrack scene painted on the town water talk. Maybe I’ll see a race next year. (http://www.keeneland.com/)
Kentucky identifies keenly with its musical heritage, which was displayed especially well at the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Renfro Valley. Their introductory video answered for me the question Jerry asked at the Chillicothe, Ohio bluegrass festival – how did someone raised in Wisconsin become a bluegrass fan? The video gave credit for the resurgence of bluegrass music to the great folk music scare of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, and that is indeed how I got introduced to all kinds of traditional music. The musicians that call Kentucky home include real old-timers and traditionalists such as Roscoe Holcomb, Homer and Lily May Ledford, Hylo Brown, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob Niles, the Osborne Brothers, and of course Bill Monroe. Other Kentucky musicians not-so-traditional are Loretta Lynn, Ricky Skaggs, Rosemary Clooney, Merle Travis, the Judds, the Everly Brothers, Dwight Yoakum, Billy Ray Cyrus, Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul and Mary) and Sam Bush. The list does not include Stephen Foster, who wrote “My Old Kentucky Home” but was born near Pittsburgh, PA, or Colonel Harland Sanders, who invented Kentucky Fried Chicken in the late ‘30s. The city of Corbin holds an annual World Chicken Festival, including a gospel music egg-stravaganza. If you don’t believe me, check out www.chickenfestival.com/sanders.htm .
One entire room of the Kentucky Music museum is devoted to the banjo, its history which began in Africa, and examples of more types of banjos than I knew existed. Another room explained for me the origin of a new phrase I’d begun hearing, “brush arbor.” It was sort of a poor man’s revival tent – a shelter made of log posts set in the ground with poles and fresh, thick brush piled on top for shade, under which people gathered to hear preachers and sing gospel songs. (http://www.kymusichalloffame.com/)
Although I was close to the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea, I decided to save it for another trip because it was late in the day, it was raining, and the cheap motel coupon book directed me south into northern Tennessee. But those cheap motels, advertised at $22.95 and $24.95, had suddenly raised their prices to $45 and $65 because of a special event nearby – the Tennessee Fall Homecoming at the Museum of Appalachia. I now had two tasks – locate an affordable place to stay, and find out about that event. Both were accomplished when I got to the Knoxville hostel. My room cost $15, and the hostel owner/operator had programs for the homecoming event because he belonged to a harp singing group that would be performing there. (Harp singers, also known as sacred harp singers or shape note singers, perform early American hymns in three and four part a cappella style.)
Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville turned out to be a trip highlight. My first day there, I walked downtown with two goals: find the visitors center and some good coffee. They were both in the same place, as well as a free musical performance at noon. Turns out the building houses the visitors center, a small book and crafts sales area, a café, and a public radio station that broadcasts The Blue Plate Special live music program every weekday at lunchtime. On Friday I saw some local singer-songwriters, and on Monday I saw a western group followed by cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell, who had performed at a storytelling festival nearby that had a much higher admission price. In a store window just down the street, I saw some very cool posters that appeared to have been printed a long time ago. Wrong. They had been recently printed on a hand-operated letterpress and were created using old-fashioned cold type and linoleum block artwork. Yeehaw Industries produced the poster for the 2002 Woody Guthrie music festival, and I had attended the 2005 festival in July. Music does indeed shrink the world. (http://www.yeehawindustries.com/)
At the library, I was issued a free temporary library card for a month that allowed two hours of computer use per day, the most generous deal so far. I was almost tempted to stay in Knoxville for a while, but there was a festival calling me back to Ohio soon. So I made the most of this sojourn in Knoxville, and may return for more music and some museums and walking tours I missed. I went to a concert by the Tennessee Sheiks (acoustic swing) at Laurel Music Hall, which had originally been a small church; saw the 1945 Nazi spy movie “The House on 92nd Street” and an exhibit of surrealist drawings and short films at the art museum; saw the outside of the L&N (Louisville & Nashville) train depot, idle and vacant now but in excellent condition with fine wood and stained glass windows; saw the location of and buildings left from the 1982 worlds fair; stood outside the hotel that Hank Williams, Sr. may have died in (whether he died in the hotel or in his car is debatable); ate good vegetarian food several times at restaurants in Old Market Square; and enjoyed a Sunday morning omelet at the hostel that included kudzu. (I’ll explain kudzu later.) That all took three days.
The day I spent at the Fall Homecoming event at the Museum of Appalachia was quite special. It was hard to choose among the four stages of music and clog-dancing. I wandered back and forth, catching other events inbetween such as rail splitting, blacksmithing, basket weaving, soap making, and sassafras tea brewing (it tastes like hot root beer but not as sweet). There are 36 vintage buildings and animal pens on the grounds, including a museum and hall of fame of both bluegrass musicians and just plain folks, which drew me in even though the live music was my primary reason for being there. So I took music back home with me, on a four-hour video of music highlights from 2000. It was a special year since it included John Hartford’s last performance there (he died in June 2001). I made sure to see Ralph Stanley’s performance, however, the third time I’ve seen him this year after he had open heart surgery in June. At the Bill Monroe festival in Rosine, KY on September 28, and here on October 8, he was able to perform a full set and said he was getting stronger every day.
Okay, here’s the kudzu lesson. Kudzu is a vine that is invasive and exotic. When left uncontrolled, it will eventually grow over almost any fixed object in its proximity, including other vegetation. See amazing photos at http://www.jjanthony.com/kudzu/ of kudzu covering trees, small buildings, fences, and even motor vehicles. It is edible, but not a wildly popular food item yet. From an NPR report I heard an unknown number of years ago, I got the impression that kudzu would soon be covering up the entire south, so I was on the lookout for it. Finally saw some driving south of Renfro Valley into Tennessee, and then saw some more, and more, and moreandmoreandmore. It ain’t everywhere, but there sure is a lot where it does take hold.
Kentucky was also where I learned that a song’s lyrics may not be an entirely true tale. As I drove into Knoxville, I started singing the old folk ballad that begins:
I met a little girl in Knoxville, A town we all know well,
And every Sunday evening out in her home I’d dwell …
and ends with the singer murdering his sweetheart. Well, it didn’t really happen in Knoxville, but the city’s tourist brochure comes clean about that. It says the event actually took place in 1744 in Berkshire, England, and the English folk ballad written about it was imported to the North American continent and Americanized.
When I had first driven into Kentucky from Missouri, the phrase “western Kentucky” had a familiar ring to it, and then I remembered John Prine’s song “Paradise.” It begins
When I was a child, my family would travel to western Kentucky where my parents were born….
and the chorus goes
And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg county,
Down by the Green River, where Paradise lay.
‘Well I’m sorry my son but you’re too late in asking,’
‘Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.’
I consulted a map and found the name Paradise, so what gives about it being hauled away? When I found myself in a library in Muhlenberg county, it seemed the right place to check out it out. The Muhlenberg County website says the Peabody Coal Co. did not actually stripmine the site and haul the town away. The Tennessee Valley Authority removed the town (two stores and an unknown number of houses) and built the Paradise Fossil Plant, a coal-fired electric plant, beginning in 1959. I decided not to visit. By the way, Kentucky’s state mineral is coal, and the state musical instrument is the dulcimer.
Kentucky is not paradise to everyone there, believe it or not. In Madisonville, the bagger who carried my grocery purchases out to the van exclaimed how homesick he was for California when he saw my license plate. He was from Louisville but had been living in San Diego until familial duties called him back to Kentucky. (I had thought he looked a little out of place there, with his double-pierced ears and baggy shorts.) He said all available jobs paid minimum wage, and he and his wife hadn’t found anyone with similar values to socialize with.
A couple of farm visits
The Ohio festival I mentioned earlier was the 35th Annual Bob Evans Farm Festival at Rio Grande pronounced Rye-oh Grand), October 14-16. My new friends at the Chillicothe, OH bluegrass festival probably recommended it because the house bluegrass band at the Farm Festival is the Rarely Herd, and one of the band members is Gene’s son, one of the guys I met at Chillicothe. Reconnecting with Gene, Ron the bluegrass deejay, and the Rarely Herd band members meant a lot to me because I had been in the midst of strangers since September 20. The Farm Festival also gave me the opportunity to see tractor square dancers. I am not making this up. Four couples – yes, real women and not just guys in dresses and wigs – actually square danced while driving tractors. They had to be very attentive and agile, and not mind the dust and fuel fumes, and they did a darn good job. Drew a bigger crowd than the horseshoe pitching or the border collie herding, although both of those were amazing and amusing too.
In the late ‘50s, Bob Evans and his wife Jewell began making sausage that actually had more meat and good-tasting stuff in it as opposed to fillers such as cereal that other sausage-makers used. When they made TV ads, Bob and Jewell invited folks to “come on down and visit us” at their Rio Grande farm. Well, people took them up on it. So Bob and Jewell opened a restaurant on the farm on 1962. There are now nearly 600 Bob Evans, Owens Family and Mimi’s Café restaurants in 20 states, mostly east of the Mississippi. The menu and décor is an upgraded Denny’s but way more meat-oriented. I tried eating at a Bob Evans restaurant twice and only found one meatless choice, a basic eggs-potatoes-toast breakfast. Now personally, I think meatless sausage and hot dogs produced now are quite tasty, and it’s easier to raise the ingredients, but in 1962 I’m sure I would have enjoyed Bob Evans sausage.
Bob and Jewell’s former home on the farm is now a museum, with the kitchen left intact because it was their test kitchen in the early days, as well as the setting for their TV ads. The rest of the downstairs was a history of their sausage making, which I hurried past and went upstairs to see the traveling Underground Railroad exhibit. It was there because sympathizers in Ohio provided many safe places for runaway slaves to stop on their way to safer northern states or Canada. The exhibit was small but powerful, with replicas of leg restraints, photos of scarred backs, and drawings of slave auctions. As a humanitarian vegetarian, the exhibits on both floors provoked emotions.
The other farm I visited was, simply, The Farm. Arthur, my housemate in Santa Cruz in 2003, had grown up on The Farm and urged me to visit it, even making arrangements for me to stay with a woman there near my own age. Paraphrasing from The Farm literature, here’s what it’s all about: The Farm community is a cooperative enterprise of families and friends living on three square miles in southern middle Tennessee. It was started in 1971 by Stephen Gaskin and 320 San Francisco hippies as an experiment in sustainable, developmentally progressive human habitat. As many as 1500 people lived there at one time, learned to work together cooperatively, took a vow of poverty upon arrival and shared the resources whether they were plentiful or sparse. Today The Farm has all of the usual implements of village life for its 350 residents plus visitors: grocery store, a school, their own water system, a visitors center, community center, cemetery, Ecovillage, businesses and residences. The businesses include a soy dairy, book publishing company, tempeh lab (they sell tempeh spores) and a mail order business. The Ecovillage conducts hands-on workshops in sustainable building techniques such as solar technology, straw bale and cob buildings (cob is a mixture of dirt, sand and straw so it’s both cheap and durable).
From www.thefarm.org website: “Among ourselves we try to use agreement and mutual respect to generate a friendly working environment. We recognize that there are many paths toward realizing personal ideals and that people have a wide range of individual social values, but as a group, we do not accept the use of violence, anger or intimidation for solving problems. The fabric of our community is created by our friendship and respect for one another, and for our land.” They respect animals, too – everyone’s a vegan (no meat or dairy products).
I stayed with Ramona for two days, sharing her delicious vegan food and immersing myself in the atmosphere of The Farm. (Later, reading a book I bought about The Farm, I learned that visitors who wanted to learn about The Farm life were referred to as “soakers”). Although, admittedly, the early days were difficult with long work days and scarcity of food, the friendships were solid and lasting. Former residents look forward to an annual reunion. Ramona appreciates being able to take for granted the support of others when she needs to make a decision. And I appreciated the peaceful pace and friendliness of everyone I met.
Avoiding Cities and Finding The Heart of Small Towns
Throughout my trip, I attempted to avoid big cities as much as possible. (Yes, I went to the heart of Chicago and Milwaukee, but that was for a special cause – to introduce Meagan to its art and architecture, and I also knew them quite well.) My reasoning at first was because driving the fast, confusing freeways around big cities spooks me, and I wanted to stay away from congested city streets, high-priced parking, unwittingly driving through high-crime areas, etc. A secondary reason was the fact that I really like small towns. I lived for 20 years in the village of Soquel, CA, within walking distance of Capitola Village, and about five miles from downtown Santa Cruz (population of the city of Santa Cruz is about 50,000). I acquired a real appreciation of the smaller size and slower speed of such places. Also, the scenic areas I visited on this road trip mostly happened to be wide open spaces which you can’t hardly find near population-dense metropolitan areas. While I was on my way to some of those near-wilderness areas, I happened upon some delightful finds in small towns, for example:
· Ajo, Arizona (north of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument), population ~5,000 – a motel that offered one-room cabins near an outdoor Jacuzzi and swimming pool, and a bakery/coffeehouse that hosted a Scrabble night.
· Grants, New Mexico (near El Malpais and El Morro National Monuments), population ~9,000 – its main street was old Route 66, a Mexican restaurant patronized by locals served Indian tacos on fry bread, and the espresso bar that had vegetarian soups and sandwiches was an unexpected lucky find.
· Elk City, Oklahoma, population ~10,000 – I camped at a city park on a lake that I found on freecampgrounds.com, then went into town just to use a library computer. I discovered the Route 66 Museum, got in several interesting conversations there, ditto at the supermarket, and left feeling almost like a local.
· Chillicothe, Ohio (near Indian mounds and a music festival), population ~22,000 – founded in 1803, my first experience in a really, really old town with many pre-1900 buildings, brick streets, big old trees, and a home-cooking restaurant that had southern style sweet tea and fried green tomatoes.
I’ll use Central City, Kentucky as an example of how I find the heart of small towns. When I exited the Western Kentucky Parkway, I was just looking for some sit-down time to plan my next move and have an afternoon snack. The fast food joints were near the exit, as were gas stations and motels, which are not the heart of anyplace. While enjoying a McDonald’s soft serve cone, I decided to look for a library to check my e-mail, and drove aimlessly toward what I thought would be downtown. As I got closer, it was easily recognizable by the cluster of older brick buildings and non-franchise restaurants. I turned a corner and there was the library. Further down the street I saw an American flag flying from a tall flagpole – usually a landmark for a government building such as a post office (something else I needed). I also saw a small park, kids walking home from school, women rocking on the porch of a senior citizen apartment building – all signs of a real community. I dawdled so long doing my errands that it was nearly 5 p.m. so I decided to spend the night in a motel there. The town was small enough that I was able to drive past all of them and choose the one furthest from the freeway noise – another benefit of driving further into the town from the freeway exit.
Two slightly larger Kentucky cities had downtowns that were very different. The population of Paducah is ~26,000, and Elizabethtown has ~24,000 residents, not counting the military population at Fort Knox north of there. I exited the freeway west of Paducah and drove for miles along a corridor of big box stores, fast food places, and nicer franchise restaurants and hotels before I reached the heart of the city. The library was across the street from a large park and even had a display rack of maps and tourist information. Although I camped at Land Between the Lakes about 40 miles away, I returned to Paducah to use a library computer. I also visited the heart of the town, which was rich in history – old, well-kept brick buildings, historical markers, murals along the seawall, two big museums and many good restaurant choices.
The approach to Elizabethtown after I exited the freeway was similar, but the downtown was disappointing. Although there were old brick commercial, government and residential buildings, it was missing a few things. I didn’t see any pedestrians. I couldn’t find any retail stores or restaurants, or even a place to park except in the government building parking lots. I wondered where people who worked downtown went for lunch. Although the city’s web site advertises museums, most of them are in other nearby towns. I went to one of Elizabethtown’s two museums, Swope’s Cars of Yesterday (which was inside a car dealership) and skipped the museum of Coca-Cola memorabilia. The library, which used to be near downtown, had recently moved into a big new building between an expressway and a suburban residential area.
I guess the moral to this tale is you just never know what you’re going to find, but it’s worthwhile searching for the heart of a place anyway.
I’m at my self-imposed 6-page limit now. Next newsletter will conclude this year’s trip with my experiences in Alabama and Texas, new territory in New Mexico and Arizona, and Tucson again.
posted by Joan McCarthy at 1:17 PM
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