“Good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.”

Well, guess what?

It’s official. I have risked my life for books. I didn’t aim to, just for clarification. The news will scare you to death if you watch it. That’s why I don’t watch it. They’re always Chicken Little when it comes to weather. Every windy day is impending tornadoes, every snowflake is a blizzard, and every raindrop is a flood. And if the sun is shining, the pollen count is lethal and the UV rays are gamma lasers. Impending disasters at every turn. So I just do my own thing. I have a weather porch. It’s like a weather rock. Never heard of it, you say? Well, here’s how it works: if my porch is wet, it’s raining. If the chairs are blown over, it’s windy (if the chairs are out in the yard, it’s really extra windy). If the concrete is hot, it’s a hot day. If it’s slick, it’s icy. You get the idea. I have 100% accuracy, so you’re welcome to text for current weather. I’m more trustworthy than doppler, I’ll tell ya that. Here’s a link to a weather rope on Amazon. Same concept. https://amzn.to/2SDdZLw

So when I stepped outside and the porch was wet, I knew it was raining and I better take my raincoat. After consideration, I decided an umbrella wouldn’t be out of the realm of needed objects, either. I took the one that matches my raincoat. It has pink flowers. We needed some cheer after all this gloomy weather. I set out for my second annual Literary Festival.

Well, it was a deluge out there. Tennessee had become TennesSEA. Poor little Maggie just ain’t got what Patsy did (big, wide tires and 12″ clearance) so I had to be extra cautious. The creeks were most definitely up, and I decided my back road route would not be a wise decision, so I stuck with the highway to my turnoff. I noted that water was up to the road in several spots (higher than I ever remembered seeing it) and I had the vague thought that if it kept on doin’ what it was doin’, the road would flood. But surely it couldn’t rain this hard all day….so I promptly put the warning out of my head and happily continued on my journey. I came to a low spot in the road on the old highway and water a few inches deep was running across it. The car in front of me had no trouble…so monkey see, monkey do. And I thought again, I probably need to come back another way this afternoon. The golf course wasn’t lookin’ too good either….hmmmm. The last time it was this bad (2002), the Co-op’s back 40 flooded from the river and Gary rode out on the wrangler and got pictures of 2′ long catfish and carp swimming in the tile. The time before that was the epic “No Kite From McDonalds Excursion” (1984 or so).

Luckily, the event was housed in a convention center situated on a hill, so if nothing else, it was safe. I quit worrying about rain the moment I stepped inside and was swept away with the growing excitement. I spoke to a few “friends” (that’s punny because they’re OFFICIALLY Friends of the Library System, AND my friends) and went on in to secure my seat at the first seminar. It was a look back at the previous ten years’ festivals. I would have been better off in my second choice, building a platform audience, because everything about this chat made me anxious.

First of all, there’s something you should know about me. In addition to being a fairly anxious person in crowds (I mainly just try to avoid them altogether), I am also paranoid. I like to be on the aisle, near a door. I like to be in the back so I can survey the whole room. I like to get there early, and not be climbing over people to get to my seat–I much prefer to watch them trickle in. I pick a random stranger that looks trustworthy, and I also note those who do not. I have no military background, this is just how I’ve operated my entire adult life. I try to be semi-aware. Plus, I know a lot of people and like to grin and wave and generally act a fool.

Needless to say, when the room started filling up and these two ladies began moving chairs out of the hallway next to where I was seated and lining them up BEHIND me, I started getting a little frantic. People continued to file in. One old man on oxygen came in, poked around, was kinda gruff with the lady in charge, and left. Then he was back with whom I imagine was his son at his elbow. They sat behind me. He coughed. He spat. He hocked. And all in the meantime, his machine puffed away every two seconds. More people. More making room, adding chairs to an already cramped space. I started getting hot. One of my friends waited at the door. I adjusted my stuff from where I’d already moved to accommodate a stranger. Finally, they closed the door and admitted no more. I heaved a sigh of relief, and in doing so got a whiff of the excessively perfumed lady next to me. I felt like I was in an airplane. The chairs were really close, and if someone was just a tinge overweight, their excess spilled onto their neighbor. I was pretty miserable. It was the speaker’s birthday, and he was presented with a cake and song, and finally he got around to his presentation. It was obviously rushed and cut slightly short and I had a hard time concentrating. I was ready to get out of there.

The next seminar was MUCH more enjoyable. Back row again, no heavy breathers or aromatic ladies in my vicinity. I don’t mind perfume- it doesn’t typically bother me, I wear it myself- but when you’re squashed up against somebody it’s a little different. And the room was much larger, so my claustrophobia was put to rest. Anyway, this panel of authors were intriguing, and I bought one of the books they talked about. I can’t necessarily recommend it since I haven’t read it yet, but here’s your link to get an (unsigned) copy: https://amzn.to/2XwSxeR

Next speaker (Terry Roberts) was even better. I wanted to chat with him forever. I felt that he “got it” and was a true dyed-in-the-wool Southerner. Sometimes being born here doesn’t make you Southern. He also reinforced something I have long believed in: “Don’t let facts get in the way of a good story.”

Here’s the book I bought from him. https://amzn.to/2UebNvv I just finished another book on snake handling and religious zealots, so I might wait a minute to start this ‘un. But I AM looking forward to it.

Then it was time for lunch, and it just so happened I ran into one of my best good buddies as soon as I excited the auditorium. We couldn’t have timed it better, I’m telling you. So we staked out our claim at a table festooned with lunches and take home treasures. I took me a big ol’ slug of tea, and come a hair of spitting it out in a very unladylike fashion.

Why did they do that to me? To any of us??? I cussed and went to dumpin’ in three packs of straight sugar. Of course, no matter how much you stir it, it will not dissolve. 

Lunch wasn’t fancy, but it was fairly tasty. And I was super excited about the pasta salad, as I had just been craving it. So much so that I had dreamed about it the night previous. I dug in.

Photo credit: The Hiking Fish. I got in too big a hurry….but I did get one of dessert.

Once everyone was assembled they had a short prayer, which I was so thankful for. The more people try to take God out of public meetings, the more I notice when He’s included. And it makes my heart happy. So we endured a short play (I couldn’t hear it for the most part) and then the Keynote Speaker took the stage. Robert Beatty, author of the Seraphina series set at Biltmore (here https://amzn.to/2EF7yUy) told us all about how he came to be a best selling author. People call him an overnight success, which he finds more than a little amusing, considering he’s been writing since he was a child and had been rejected by several publishing houses in his adult life.

It was during his chat that I found myself really appreciating this festival. The first two guests to ask him questions were children. They were probably around ten years old, but who knows, I’m no good with guessing kids ages. But I thought, “Right there. That right there is why you read to your kids. That’s why the literary festival is important. It brought children to a book event. They were so in love with the books, as a matter of fact, they weren’t bashful about speaking into a microphone in front of 500 people in order to talk to their favorite author. It warmed my heart. Libraries are essential to children and adults alike.

I found Mr. Beatty interesting, but not my level of Southern, and just a wee bit enamored by his oldest daughter. I could only endure so much gushing about how wonderful she was and I had to pee like a rushin’ racehorse as it was, so I gathered my things and excused myself. I also wanted to browse the tables while I wasn’t being pushed on by a crowd from all sides. I burst through the door and ran smack directly into Terry Roberts, the author whom I most liked from all the ones I’d met all morning. He didn’t have anyone to part me from my plastic, but after I took care of my most pressing need, his table was staffed again and he wrote me the most endearing inscription.

He signed his entire signature on the next page

Morbidly fascinating.

While I waited for the Historical Society table to become manned again, I surfed Facebook. Turns out the county was practically underwater and a whole bunch of roads were closed. Knox County wasn’t faring any better. The drive home was not looking promising. As I began to really think about plans B, C, and D, I looked up into some familiar faces. I hugged Patty and Kent with force, and we caught up on events since the last time I’d seen them at Christmas. I expressed my worries about getting home, seeing as how my two main routes were flooded and the third had a rock slide. My hometown appeared to be an island. They graciously offered me their second residence to stay in if I found myself stranded in Sevierville. I can not tell you how thankful I was for that act of kindness. But another thought came to me. My sweet angel puppy dog, locked in the house. I had to get to him! He’s the only child I have. So I’d just have to get home, one way or another. Ah, I’ll think about that later. I moved on to the Historical Society table to buy a book I’ve been hunting for for the last twenty years or so.

I thought it was called Plantations of Sevier County, so I would have never found it. I was extremely thrilled to get it, less thrilled with the ancient lady selling it to me who was both profoundly and selectively deaf. I didn’t want to go back four generations on who my people were, I didn’t want to talk about who I married, and I didn’t want to join their society at this point in my life. I just wanted to buy the damn book. To get her off my case, I explained that I didn’t have a lot of spare time, between working, writing, and serving on the library board. THAT part she heard, and lit into me about needing space to store archived publications, and I was the one who could see to it that it was done. Sigh. I immediately regretted giving her a thread to pull. Once I finally extricated myself from THAT mess, I started making my way to Bill Landry’s conference room. I bumped into the person I needed to talk to about the library/ Historical Society archive storage, who gave me the backstory. Or, as Paul Harvey would say, “The rest of the story”.

It appeared my other friend had forsaken me, so I sat through Bill Landry’s presentation alone. His Indian heritage is showing heavily in his advanced years, but I’d know him anywhere. That voice is the background noise of my childhood. He brought back so many memories I had to close my eyes.

As he spoke, my phone vibrated incessantly with messages from my momma, absolutely freaking out about the flood. This is what she does. And forwards me two dozen links to read so I, too, can become a nutcase. I stopped opening them and just decided to do the best I could about getting home. That’s all anybody could do. I felt that I was making an informed decision. You don’t really think about being surrounded by water until you need a non-flooded route home and every road that comes to mind is some variation of the following: Middle Creek, Gist Creek, Boyds Creek, Dripping Springs, Rush Branch, Panther Creek, Lyon Springs….you get the idea.

Imagine my surprise to find out my commute home wasn’t even as perilous as my trip out this morning. I was super glad to arrive, regardless. I began to surf Facebook, looking at all the damage already documented within the county. I saw numerous sinkholes, massive flooding, and a guy riding a flamingo down Broadway.

The rain makes us all a little crazy.

Tell people they shouldn’t leave home, and that will ensure every redneck with a lifted 4 wheel drive will be out making pictures.
The Facebook posts had gone from these early in the week:

To a much more serious note:

One of many sinkholes

So, like any Bible thumping Southerner will tell you: don’t ever make plans without following it up with, “Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.” Cause one of these days it will again.