We're back from our day of errands, pleasantly tired and a little poorer. We took the Bristol Highway through Hiltons, past the Carter Fold, past many acres of beautiful, wild farmland, and finally into the noise and asphalt shock of Bristol. Why Bristol? Four words: Five percent sales tax.
We went to Lowe's first to pick up the paint MeeMaw selected for the family room and front hallway. We also picked up a bow saw (I'm going to start thinning some of the saplings and cutting up some of the felled wood in the woodlot) and a couple of odds and ends, then headed to Bed, Bath, & Beyond. There we bought a bed wedge for MeeMaw, which is precisely what it sounds like: a wedge that you sleep on. It gently elevates your head and shoulders as you lie on it. MeeMaw has difficulty resting sometimes due to (we think) a pinched nerve; her arms go numb, and it wakes her up and interferes with her ability to fully rest and recuperate. We're hoping that the wedge will help. And if it doesn't, it'll be fun to throw the thing at the cats when they get too complacent.
By the time we were done at BB&B, we were a bit hungry, so we decided to treat ourselves to a late dinner/early supper. We briefly debated going to this Japanese steakhouse that we saw on the main drag, but MeeMaw reminded me that "they throw food and stuff at you in those places, and you have to sit at a table with a bunch of strangers" so we nixed that idea and settled on Logan's Roadhouse.
Once we were settled in and our toxically chirpy waitress took our order, we took in the surroundings. More and more, we're struck with how frenetic and garish and gawdy public places are now. Loud, abrasive, jarring. A friend of mine made a similar comment about stores and shopping centers. He said that it depresses him to see how people are treated like mindless cattle in such places. The stores are designed intentionally to get you to covet and to obey: "Buy! You need this! You'll be an idiot if you're not following the latest trend or style! Buy! BUY!"
So while we watched the carnival around us, the waitress brought us a basket of fresh bread. I was reminded that this Logan's Roadhouse bread is the favorite food in the entire world for a young man I know. This particular young man made a pilgrimage to visit me two years ago when we were living in Kingsport. He had read some things I'd written and admired my ideology, and he and his mother came to see us. He was very nice, and intelligent beyond his years (in an academic sense), but was shockingly pale and unhealthy looking, with massive dark smudges under his eyes. In the fullness of time, we came to discover that not only is Logan's Roadhouse bread his favorite food in the world, but he eats literally nothing except that bread, white rice (with nothing on it), pinwheel pasta (with nothing on it), and Krispy Kreme donuts. I'm not exaggerating. This is all he eats. Someday, the insulin companies are going to feather their nests quite nicely from this young man.
And this puffy, insubstantial bread doesn't even approach the homemade bread MeeMaw served this morning. Did I mention we had toad-in-the-hole and sweet turkey sausage?
Near the end of our meal, we noticed something else of interest. There was a table of about eight eldelry people sitting across from us, all very nice and obviously having a fine time. Seated at the table next to them was a couple in their early twenties, very glum and flat in affect. Just off to the side, near the kitchen door area, someone dropped something heavy and breakable (a bowl, a platter, a big glass, something) and it shattered. Every single person at the elderly table jumped, as did MeeMaw (her back was to the place from where the noise came). But the two young folks never flinched, never looked, never reacted - even though they were closer to the site of the noise than the elderly diners were. Very odd. It's as though they are immune to anything that would affect a normal person.
One last thing about Logan's Roadhouse...as we were exiting the restaurant, we passed the benches where people sit and wait to be called for their table. Perched on one of the benches was a young woman. And the young woman was flossing her teeth.
Oh yes. That's what she was doing.
We made one last stop, at a health food store. I wanted to pick up some natural toothpaste, something without fluoride in it. I've been brushing my teeth with a homemade paste of baking soda, a little hydrogen peroxide, and water. It works very well and cleans my teeth like a sandblaster. But the excessively salty taste is revolting. I'm going to make my own as soon as I can find some spearmint essential oil and some glycerin. Anyway...I found some toothpaste that was acceptable, and MeeMaw picked up a couple of odds and ends. And when we checked out, the clerk struck us both as very typical of people we've seen working in such places. He was as pasty as a sheet of typing paper, with the Logan's Roadhouse bread eye smudges, and had a shaky voice and oily skin and a generally reptilian demeanor. He reminded me of a women I saw at Mac's Medicine Mart in Kingsport some time ago. She was so unhealthy and unclean-looking that she frightened me. Her hair looked like a macrame plant hanger. Her nails were yellow and dirty. And her breath smelled like a Pakistani foot. I believe she needs to brush with something heavily fluoridated. And she also needs to toss back a couple of Krispy Kremes while she's at it.
On the way home, we had to stop for gas, so we pulled in at a station near the Carter Fold. As we were gassing up, we noticed a little shed in the parking lot advertising local honey. When we finished fueling, we walked over and, sure enough, it was home-harvested honey from right there in Hiltons. And cheap! A generous jar was only five bucks, compared to the nine dollars and up most of the other places charge, and they're not even as close by as Hiltons. So we took the jar into the gas station to pay for it. The kind clerk informed us that we could leave our money in the box in the shed. So we went back, and sure enough, there it was: a tin box nailed to the wall, bearing the legend, "Honor system. Put money here. Thank you."
We liked that.
When we got back to Possum Cough, Mr. Davidson arrived at his usual time and began watering and tending to his cows. And it reminded me that I neglected to mention a couple of things in this morning's entry.
Mr. Davidson's deep voice has a richness, a timbre that I've only heard in a couple of men's voices. And the man of whom it reminded me most strongly is the veteran country singer Don Williams. If you're not familar with his work, here are three of my favorite songs by the low-voiced Tulsan:
The other thing I neglected to mention was Mr. D's pickup truck. While we talked yesterday, we leaned against his truck. My eyes were drawn again and again to the contents of the truck bed. In it were a well-used pickaxe, a sledge hammer, a spool of baling wire, some fencing wire, a fence post pounder, a post-hole digger, an ancient chainsaw (with a new chain on it), several gas and oil cans, and every sort of wrench, screwdriver, hammer, and pliers you could imagine. I kept thinking, This is a working truck. And I kept thinking of the spotless, gleaming pickup trucks I see in parking lots every day, trucks with immaculate beds, trucks whose owners would likely urinate on themselves if someone threw a bag of feed or a mud-crusted shovel into its bed.
We need more Mr. Davidsons in this world. But we're losing the ones we have. Old-timers like Mr. D have already forgotten more than men like me will ever learn in a lifetime. And younger men know more about the Starbucks menu than they do about setting a fence-post. It's a stomp-down shame.
We need more Mr. Davidsons in this world. But we're losing the ones we have. Old-timers like Mr. D have already forgotten more than men like me will ever learn in a lifetime. And younger men know more about the Starbucks menu than they do about setting a fence-post. It's a stomp-down shame.
I'll close with a link to something special I want all of y'all to read, as lovely and elegaic an essay as I've read in a long, long time, written by a master, Gene Logsdon. So here it is. Rest well, loved ones.
