Day 20: Put your music player on shuffle & write the first three songs that play & what your initial thought is

First one was “Kiss” by Prince, which I love. Reminds me of Pretty Woman, just like it does everybody else. She’s in the bathtub, with bubbles up to her ears, which are covered by headphones. She resembles a mermaid with all that wild red hair, & is singing her off-key heart out.

#2 was “Me & God” by Josh Turner. I listened a moment, but it’s not my favorite, so I went on & got “Some Sweet Day” by Ray Ball, so I suppose I cheated, but hey, this is my story, amiright?

#3 was “Loved By You” by Jewel, whom I consider a genius. I love just about everything she’s ever sung or written. She published a book of poetry several years ago & I have it. She recently came out with another one, which I have not yet acquired. She’s great. If y’all have never really listened to anything by her, give her a try.

It’s been a fine music morning so far. I had it on 94.9’s Throwback on my way in & heard several good ones (Push It, Jessie’s Girl, Moulan Rouge, & When I Come Around).

Yesterday is a different story. Perhaps y’all were wondering what the picture of the goat trail had to do with music. Well, I didn’t listen to much music yesterday. I listened to Barbara Hayes give me a tour of her corner of Grainger County.

Barb is a friend of mine from when she worked at Co-op in the small engine shop. We’ve been meaning to get together for lunch since she retired a couple of years ago, but Barb stays on the move! A week ago, we managed to pin each other down for yesterday. After a tour of her home, we decided to head to Wasabi’s on Bearden Hill for lunch. We got caught up on mutual friends over sushi & hibatchi, & then Barb asked me what I wanted to do next. I told her I didn’t care; anything was better than going home & cleaning house.

“Well, you wanna go shopping, or ride around, or what?”

“Whatever you wanna do, I’m with you.”

“Do you need to be back at any certain time?”

“Nope. But by dark would be best.”

“I know! I’m gonna take you to Grainger County! You ever been to Grainger County?”

“It’s been a looooong time.”

“I might take you by where I grew up. We’ll go out by momma & daddy’s, see if we can slip by there without getting caught.”

So off we went. We headed down 11W a ways, & shortly after entering Grainger County & identifying House Mountain & seeing where Clinch Mountain came out of the ground, we turned off the four lane divided highway onto a winding two lane road. Immediately, Barb started telling me who lives where in a stream of commentary, interrupting herself with, “Oh! I forgot to show you where the log cabin where the last remaining widow of the Civil War lived.”

“What? Cool!”

“Yeah, she just died six or seven years ago. She used to walk down our road & she scared me to death. I don’t know why. But she always had her little boy with her”—here she said their names, I don’t remember— “And she’d always stop at our house & ask for a cup of water.”

“Did you give it to her?”

“Why sure! She married when she was 14 to a man that was 65, that’s how come her to just die not long ago.”

“That’s kinda disgusting.”

We continued on as I pondered being a little girl back in these hills, the only entertainment being what your siblings provided. She showed me how far she used to walk to catch the bus, but by the time she was in high school, her sister had graduated & she was scared to walk alone, because she was afraid this cow at the corner would get her.

“Was there not a fence?”

“Yeah, but I was afraid she’d come through it!”

In addition to Barb’s many uncles & aunts scattered across the hills & valleys, we encountered a multitude of horses and sheep. I was expecting cattle & waaay more tomatoes. The only tomatoes I seen were a few beds along a hillside. And that was AFTER we passed the winery. That’s right, a winery. We journeyed over a ridge overlooking the whole valley beneath, you could see clear to the Smokies. Barb took me “around the loop” past her old homeplace & where her parents live now. We started hearing this grating noise whenever she turned the wheel so the next little turnoff we took I hopped out to see what I could see. And lo & behold, came up with a stick as big around as my thumb that we’d acquired at some point, jammed in the wheel well. We continued on, passing some fish hatchery that used to be a bird farm, a makeshift hair salon that had an old style lettered sign that spelled out “Watch me snip. Now watch me spray spray”. It was so ludicrous I snorted. We rode out to her sister’s place, a gorgeous farm situated among green fields. “You know, back there where the waterfall was,” Barb was saying to me.

I’d seen no waterfall. “What waterfall?”

“Oh, I didn’t drive you out to it. You’ve seen it, though, I’m sure.” She said the name, of course I don’t remember out of the barrage of locations & people I learned about yesterday. “Everybody goes on & on about it, come from all over to see it. Oh well, we’ve passed it now,” she says as I was getting excited about seeing it. She looks over at me. “It’s not really all that spectacular. It’s not very high or anything. It’s not natural, either, even though everybody thinks it is.”

I snorted. She went on to inform me that the CCC’s had built it before the war.

We came to what looked to be a main road. It was the biggest one I’d seen lately, anyway. It had lines & everything. Barb was peering around me to check for traffic. 

“It’s clear,” I told her.

“I figured it was.” She points out the church, how her daddy had helped build it. Seemed that between her Daddy & her brother, they’d built half the county. We went on by another house that she pointed out used to belong to her aunt & uncle & when her parents would go over to visit she would sit on the rock wall out front & marvel at all the cars going by.

“And I bet you waved at ever’ one of ‘em!”

“I do remember waving,” she admitted.

We eventually came out in downtown Dandridge, & wound our way around the lake. I’d known where I was since we’d come out at the Formal Approach on the backside of Jefferson City, but I didn’t know all the people like she did & what was built when by who & for who. It was a fun trip touring the countryside with Barb. And we never turned the radio on. But I didn’t miss it.