Hey Min! Tenn & Kentucky News!!

[robivi3]

Hello everyone,

Just got back from Tennessee. Minnymouth I got as close as 6 miles to the Kentucky border. I was in Forbus City on highway 127. We realized after we started going over the mountain road to Wolf River that this was the road shown on "Dateline NBC". The State, County and Federal Gov't's refuse to do major repairs because the area is to remote. We got over the worst but turned back after Forbus City (pop. 8) because of weather. The local residents have to pay to have the road fixed because it slides down the moutain frequently. There are no Grocery stores, only old fashioned general stores. Tide, Comet, etc... and other normal items are not readily available. We saw no TV's, no one accepts CC's, no working gas pumps.

What we did see was a beautiful valley, somewhat poor but the homes were large and immaculate. Horses and cattle were plentiful. We saw cars going back to the thirties sitting in fields. we stopped everywhere we could and encountered only one telephone in a store, not a novelty one, an old seventies style pushbutton with a coin box, local calls only.

We found and video'd a junkyard that had several hundred cars going back to the 1920's, most absolutely restorable. The people were the friendliest i could imagine and allowed us to film in stores and residences. It is a remote area, very hard to truck in and out supplies, somewhat poor and a wonderful step back in time. Some people could not be understood though I am a Tennessee boy. The dialect is strictly backwoods, while eating in the "restaurant" (back of the General Store, a wooden bench, tile table, beans 'n weanies with kraut and "taters") I could only understand two words from the farmers "taters" and "rain" pronounced "rine". Lye soap and goatmilk soap were sold as regular soap, not as souveniers.

Tennesseans are by nature a patriotic group and the entire reason for serving in the military is not always economic. My dad joined on Monday, December 8, 1941. We found the valley and on down to Jamestown bereft of young men TOTALLY and COMPLETELY. We never saw one young man in Three Forks Valley, The Stone Quarry or Jamestown. We saw signs wishing them a safe return. As it turns out the area is home to two NG Infantry Units so as in all our wars Tennesseans are on the front line.

There were no Police Departments or State Highway Patrol Offices north of Jamestown to Kentucky (50 miles?). They are not necessary, things are handled locally and capital crimes are nearly unheard of. The residents seemed content.

What a lovely place!

If you are in TN and a white farmer has a local dialect he is considered an ignorant hayseed and can freely be made a figure of fun by some fat pig faced stooge on Comedy Central. However, if you are here in Miami and a Hatian or Jamaican speaks in such an indistinguishable language (which is fine) it is called a "patios' and is considered avant guarde and fashionable. What a lying double standard we labor under in these armpits we call "modern cities". I love the old hayseeds, they're working and obeying the law and none of them ever cost me $$$$ because they drove without insurance and none of them ever broke into my mother-in-laws home three times and if you want those stories I'll share them by email.
oh well, just a comment


PS Min, as I was just at the border we did day a word about you and remembered that you were there.

[Minnymouth]

Hey Robivi3 -- Good to hear from you!! Glad you enjoyed your trip to Tnn. You were about 36 miles from me! You should have come on up the road a bit, sit on the porch, had a glass of tea (or whatever), listen to a summer breeze blow across the meadow, watched a cloud drift behind the mountain, and pet my lazy dogs laying at your feet.

Being a girl raised in the "big city", Life in the country is good. I get to see stars every nite, I hear coyotes in the fields at dusk and during the nite. My dogs will bark and I will look and see deer heading for the pond to quinch their thrust. Rabbits are abundant, frogs and crickets can be heard for miles. Occassionally I get to watch a cow drop a calf in the field and watch nature at its best.

The country is still peacefull, calming and relaxing at the end of a long day.

As like Tenn, Kentucky people have a language all their own. A combination of "hill talk" and "city talk" mixed together. They are "laid back", hard working folks, trying to raise their families. Many here grew up poor, working in the coal mines struggling just to get by. But they are happy folks even though times are tough for some of them.

Gradually the "old farms" are being sold off by the younger generation. Factories moving in, cities expanding, and the country life is disappearing every day.

But there are still places here in Ky, just like you described in Tenn. Places where there's no phones, old cars everywhere, antiques every place you look. People still use well water, gravel and dirt roads are still only one lane.

My folks grew up in a holler where they "piped the sunshine in" so to speak. It was dark there most of the day light time. Far back in the hills "where the sun don't shine"! When they went to town - it took all day.......

I still travel those backroads occassionally where my grandparents used to live, I go back and look around where I would visit in the summer time and play as a kid on the farm. Places like that don't exist much anymore and they are hard to find too. Little 2-room shacks housing a family of 7-9. No electricy, plumbing, running water for many years. I remember my trips to the "outhouse" when nature called. I was fascinated by it all. We lived like royality in the city. My cousins wore "homemade clothes" - mine were store bought! Relatives thought we were "rich"..... Times have really changed.

But right now I get to enjoy the best of "both worlds". Close enough to the city (5 miles) to get what I need, and out in the country enough to really enjoy its aspects too.
Couldn't ask for more out of life......

Glad you enjoyed your trip to Tenn, I'm sure it was very relaxing after living in Fl all this time in the hustle and bustle of the life there. Don't get me wrong, I love the beach also. Lived in So. Georgia for 10 years and enjoyed many an evening down on the beach.

I don't want to ever live in the "big city" again. Give me the "country life" from now on.

Good to hear from ya,

Minny

P.S. Check out the "Gotta Pet" thread and check out the pic of "my girls".......

[robivi3]

It's amazingly hot and cool at the same time also. I forgot what summer was like without the humidity!. Well, I secured my little plot of Tennessee for the coming years. I got me a small piece of buildable hillside with water and sewer service so i'll be back up next year.

I love the smell of summer and the sound of junebugs in the country and I love the people. Funny how nothing in nature is mismatched.

I found Nashville much the same as I left it. The museums were still great and free and well updated. Large compaired to Ft. Lauderdale, though I would say Ft. Lauderdale is cleaner, downtown here is well maintained. I saw my old home in Forest Hills and the Belle Meade Theatre where i saw Rex Harrison in Swiss Family Robinson in 1965 or 66'. The Parthenon was as majestic as ever and you could still fish in Centennial Park. The Green Hills Area was still recognizeable but now the "Concrete Hills" more or less. My neighborhood was unchanged and my old neighbors still live there (on the left), no new area had been built in but as I discovered some of the homes on Hillsboro Pike are going upwards of 2-6 million dollars.

[Minnymouth]

Country Boy, come home next year and get out of the "rat race". Sit in your "spot" of Tenn sunshine and call it home!

You were talking about lye soap. Kids nowdays don't even know what that is. The prettiest complexions, and prettiest hair I ever saw was on kids whose hair and body had been scrubbed with lye soap. Takes all the impurities off your hair. Then rinse with rain water and WOW.....

Your lucky if your hometown hasn't changed much! I was in Ohio a couple years ago and its entirely different. Dayton was a ghost town in many ways, factories closed town, schools closed, etc. Our old house had been basically re-done so nothing looked the same except some of the old houses down the street. Neighbors long ago had moved out, retired, or died. New breed of people now. Young military families waiting on their man/woman to come home again from war, just like in the 60's.
Still heard "taps" at nite and the roar of the planes overhead.......

No desire to go back there and live - I'll stay here in the country.

Later guys

Minny

[robivi3]

Min, I wish they were opening factories, unfortunately it is clearence centers and Wal Mart (aka Megalomart, King of the Hill) 24 Super Centers. Assembly plants are also opening in afew southern states so the news isn't all bad. Three Forks Valley is a step back in time, but please don't anyone get an idea that the people there are hayseed or dumb. They live by and large in far more comfortable surroundings than us down here. Horses were aplenty as was indoor plumbing. I found some of the interiors of the homes a bit old style but no one was living in anything that could resemble squalor and I saw NO cars or trucks that appeared to be pre 90's on the road or in the driveways ready to roll. A good car is essential in the area. That plus the fact that I remember getting certain social services offered by the State. Now you all know me, I am not a Socialist. But when the people of a State vote a higher tax by popular vote in order to provide benefit to the local population (do not confuse this with "largess from the treasury") I have no problem with that. In other words vaccinating children at public expense as Tennessee does is a good thing. I don't mind paying the high tax rates in Tennessee because the roads are well kept (except that one I mentioned, but i run over CHUNKS of debris everyday down here on 75 and 95 and have to deal with third world driving mentalities) and certain essential services are provided for public good and public health. I just don't think people in Oregon should have to finance it.

That all being said Cumberland County Tennessee has a poorer population than Broward County Florida but Tennesseans enjoy better schools, higher literacy (FLORIDA IS AT THE BOTTOM! IN BOTH CATEGORIES!) and better fiscal responsibilty and more essential Social Services. Behavior standards are another issue, I have three teenage boys, all I have to do is talk to their cousins back home to know that. The quality of life is far better in Tennessee, but right now I have just a little ways to go 'til I gets that 'titlement so I'm kinda stuck in the mud! I want to open a Bakery when i retire, I never want to look at another Train!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had two major train accidents while i was away. Some locals juveniles moved some equipment into the path of a train and fortunately skinned only the side of it, but it's wrecked stainless steel, thank you taxpayers, you are again footing the bill that someone else should be responsible for. They have not been caught, the thing has been forgotten and NO truly active investigation by the cops from what i see and hear.

[Minnymouth]

YEP, one of these days I want to try that "retirement" thing too! Just a little bit away from it. Hopefully will live to enjoy a little of it, we hope.

Want to be able to have the opportunity to travel a little, see what the rest of this nation looks like, maybe even visit a foreign country. Hard to do that when your a working stiff like most of us. Weekend getaways is about all we see and can afford till we retire.

We were talking about people in Tenn and Ky, a lot of them are very intelligent folks, highly college educated. Surprising enough a lot of those are women. They go get that college education, then have a house full of kids? Education is seldom used in the end. Figure that out, huh! Didn't know it took a college degree to raise 5-6 kids!

P.S. My BK is still open - now in its 14th month....still in process of redeeming house/property. Will keep you posted, hope to know something shortly. Been one Hell of a Ride on this one!!!

Minny