You can:
- Hold a door for a Lady and get a smile and a ‘Thank you, sir’.
- Light your brushpile afire anytime you want.
- Wear your overalls to town and not get a second glance.
- Buy beer and tobacco at a drive up window.
- Listen to the hounds treein’ coons at night.
- Drive the speed limit without somebody riding your ass.
- Toss a loaded AR in the backseat of your truck and not worry about the law.
- Go to the corner market and buy canning supplies and live bait.
- Call any woman Darlin’ and not get a lecture.
- Order your meal and everything comes fried without specifying it.
The last one on the list: Around here they’ve got what they call a ‘meat and three’ – meat and your choice of 3 vegetables, usually for under 7 bucks and it’s a hearty meal. My favorite is catfish, fried okra, fried squash and fried green tomatoes. If that ain’t a culinary delight I’ll kiss your ass.
Anytime I feel my arteries start to soften up and my blood pressure dropping, it’s time to head to town. There’s one place down the road that has a buffet and everything in it is fried. I’m not shitting you. The first time I went there I had to look at the little tags on the sneeze guard to see just exactly what was under all that cornmeal.
Dang……That is all true. You can’t beat a good meat and three and his choices were outstanding.
I typically see teens whiz by on four wheeler with firearms in tow, off for the hunt. A sight that would have Yankees lighting up 911 like a Christmas tree in absolute fear. Wingnut city dwellers would demand their parents be put in prison. Yup, there is still some sanity in TN.
Aside from the fried food it sounds like a little slice of heaven to me.
When I was 16 I had an old 69 GM pick up that I was constantly working on. I’d drive it back and forth to my girlfriend’s farm about 15 mile south of town at least once or twice a week. In the fall when I went out I’d take along my deer rifle and my chicken gun. They sat on the passenger side of the bench seat next to me with the actions open and their butts on the floor.
One evening I was coming home from the farm and as I turned off the side road onto the highway I punched it. We’d just finished popping a small block 350 into it and the tires rotated, left a strip and I took off like a bat out of hell. Never saw the county mounty sitting in an old, abandoned farm yard across the road, it was just getting too dark. The cherries came on behind me and I knew I was busted so I pulled over. He shined the light into the pick up and saw the two rifles sitting next to me. He calmly asked if they were loaded – I replied no sir it’s against the law to drive around with them loaded. He could plainly see the actions were open. He said “Ok good. You need to get a little lighter on your gas pedal son. You left a strip on the highway back there.” I simply replied “Understood.” He said: “Have a good evening.” and away we both went.
That was the late 80’s in rural Canada. Nowadays they’d called in the ERT guys, my parents would have been charged with negligence of some kind and the entire episode would have been splashed across the pages and screens of every major media outfit in the country. What a pathetic society we have become. Makes me sick and sad when I think about it too much.
When I was a young lass in southeastern Missouri, we would travel to Tennessee to buy beer on occasion. (The drinking age was 18 there.)
Is all true… also the comment about inbreeding.
http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/tennessee/black-population-percentage#map
I have read to many horror stories about the cop’s in TN. So i don’t think it is all that. Sure is bad for folks with out of state plates anyhow.
Why you think everyone driving the speed limit
There was a used book store on Elliston Place in Nashville. I was in there one day and found a book published by the University of Texas called “What if I Wanted to Drill an Oil Well all by Myself”. I was still seventeen and just had just graduated from high school. I read that book and re read that book and re read it again and again. Find oil and make a fortune…… that’s what I wanted to do and that’s exactly what I did…………….. in Texas. Tennessee was a fine place but when I left I never looked back. Texas is my home and the best place I’ve ever been. Just today we had a smoked brisket with fired okra, fried green tomatoes and roasted corn on the cob. You can get the good stuff here too.
Bruce that is so cool that you followed that dream, life is good if you are dedicated.
I have lived in Tennessee.
The article fails to mention the inbred hillbilly hicks who hate outsiders.
Fails to mention the social caste system, too. The “well bred” sure are assholes to everyone else.
The food sure was good, though, and the music fine.
But all in all, liked TN.
Lived in Texas, too. Outsiders were treated much as in TN. But liked TX.
I really like NM, especially the high desert, and the Carolinas. AZ is nice, too. Eastern OR is fine.
Real shitholes are pretty much anywhere in the North East, and anywhere along the northern border headed west. Not sure about Maine. Too cold in any event.
Llpoh- You say “Real shitholes are pretty much anywhere in the North East”. True, and that is the seat of power in this country, the people who dictate our every waking moment. As you pointed out other parts of the country are very nice and the standard of living is still most desirable.
So I guess my point is, why are THEY running the show? They in they North East push this liberal crap on the legislators and THEY can’t keep their own shit together. The south would be better off by itself without the burden of paying for the Yankee malinvestment. Do you agree?
The south would be better of by themselves, where some semblance of the Constitution still exists.
My father worked for Railway Express Agency. Most are too young to remember REA. They were the precursor to UPS. Freight shipped by rail to small towns east of the Mississippi where it was then transferred to an REA warehouse to be loaded on their Kelly Green panel vans for delivery. In 66 he was transferred from New Orleans to Clarksville Tennessee and we spent six years there before he was transferred again.
I can honestly say those years were some of the best of my life. Clarksville neighbors Fort Campbell, home to the 101st Airborne and most of the father’s of my friends were serving in Vietnam. We spent our summers hiking, fishing, camping and playing ball. We would hitchhike everywhere we couldn’t walk or reach in an hour on our spider bikes. I learned about girls, got my first motorcycle (Honda 70), my first job (dishwashing for a dollar an hour at the Piggy House restaurant) and death as several friends lost fathers in Nam. So many memories stirred by one small column.
But as Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again. But maybe James Taylor explained it best in Copperline. “Tried to go back as if I could. All spec houses and plywood. Tore up, Tore up good…”
But thanks for reminding me of how Tennessee treated a boy coming of age.
My family has all been living in Tn for years. Soon I will also be moving there, as soon as the great depression kicks in. Completely debt free now and have sold off most of my business. Spent seven years in western North Carolina in the 90′ and liked it a lot.
Going to buy some land, run a few head of cattle and set me up a real nice shooting range. A modest house will do just fine and a building to park some farm equipment in is all I really need.