It’s hard to get excited about follow-up for a trip that’s a month gone, particularly with nothing coming up on the horizon. I guess right now I’m more interested in trying to remember how to play an Am7b5 on the guitar, and why it’s likely as not to be followed by a D7b9 (which I also can’t remember how to play). The days are just too busy to be bothered much by writing. Or reading. Or much of anything.
What We Forgot, What We Lost
The big effort of the trip was was the night we camped in Mississippi, which required taking loads of stuff, but I’ve already written about that. What we forgot to pack though was important: we forgot trash bags. It’s hard to camp without trash bags.
We did remember face masks and hand sanitizer, but I guess that’s a given in 2020.
For the first time ever I don’t think we lost anything. After we got home I even found the missing sock. How many times do you actually find the missing sock?
Where We Didn’t Go — Tennessee
I’ve spent a lot of time in Tennessee, in Nashville and Memphis and even in Knoxville. I really wanted to go guitar shopping in Nashville, but we didn’t have the time, and it’s also not the time. The virus was spiking in Tennessee, and while I might take a risk for a guitar, it was unfair to share that risk with Kris. Anyway I’ve shopped for guitars in Nashville before.
I also wanted to visit the area around Sevierville and Pigeon Forge because some of my ancestors settled there, and because of Dollywood. We didn’t make it. Before we settled on the South Holston River Lodge we had tried to get a reservation at Blackberry Farm, which is the spiritual home of the Garden and Gun South. Apparently we would have had to make the reservation considerably earlier than the month before, but I suspect the fishing at the South Holston River Lodge was better..
We didn’t go to Dollywood, but last week we listened to the podcast, Dolly Parton’s America. It’s brilliant, and almost made up for missing Dollywood.
Where We Didn’t Go — North Carolina
We went to no restaurants in Asheville, which I suspect is a criminal offense in most jurisdictions, but there you are. It’s 2020.
Like Tennessee, I’ve spent some time in North Carolina before, but I’ve never made it to Eastern North Carolina. I’d like to have seen the Outer Banks.
Anecdote of the Jar, Wallace Stevens
I have worried about this poem since high school, and I kept thinking about it on our drive:
I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill.
I came back from the trip and started reading critical studies of the poem, about meaning (or lack thereof), and they didn’t know what it was about either. It’s one of Stevens’ most famous, and hence one of the best known 20th century poems, but it is about as much of an enigma as why I wake at three every morning. From time to time I decide I do know what it’s about, and if it weren’t for that “slovenly” I’d have a pretty good explanation, but whatever I decide I later decide that’s not quite the thing either.
I have a suspicion, just a suspicion, that Anecdote of the Jar and Dolly Parton’s My Tennessee Mountain Home are sort of about the same thing, but that Wallace Stevens wasn’t as sweet of a soul as Dollie Parton. I can’t really speak to their relative merits as poets, though Dolly is prettier, and has made more money, and she never got into a drunken brawl with Earnest Hemingway in a Key West bar. Not that I know of anyway.
Croquet
Croquet is a big deal in Western North Carolina, and our friends Brian and Jane took us to their club in Cashiers to play croquet. If I’d have played club croquet before I started fishing, I might not be fly fishing now. That is almost a perfect game. Kris and Brian beat Jane and me by one stroke, but Brian cheated by being good.
Tennessee Playlist
There is so much music in Tennessee. Country of course, but the blues, rock & roll, gospel, blue grass, Americana, soul . . . I had put together a playlist for Memphis a few years ago, so I added some country to that. Do you know how hard it is to add some country when you’re talking about Tennessee? You could never add enough Country.
On my phone I had 20 hours and 42 minutes of music, 395 songs. Here are some highlights.
- Marc Cohn, Walking in Memphis. This song gets a bad rap, but just try not to feel a little elated when he sings “man I am tonight.”
- Paul Simon, Graceland. There’s also a version by Willie Nelson.
- B.B. King. All of it. And Albert King. And Memphis Minnie. There’s a lot of blues that came through Memphis.
- Valerie June. I love Valerie June. I hope she’s still recording.
- Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Louis,, Roy Orbison. There’s a lot of rock and roll that came through Memphis.
- Bob Dylan, Stuck Inside of Mobile. Maybe the best Dylan song. Also Nashville Skyline.
- Little Feat, Dixie Chicken. One of the things Kris brought to our marriage was Little Feat records, and Dixie Chicken is one of the great story songs.
- W.C. Handy. Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy.
- Otis Redding, Sam Cook, Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, Isaac Hayes. Next to Motown, Memphis was the sound of 60s soul.
- This is cheating, but I downloaded the soundtrack of Ken Burns’ Country Music.
- Selections by Dolly Parton, Porter Wagner, Kitty Wells, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Loretta Lynne, Conway Twitty, Lefty Frizell, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, Chet Atkins, Jim Reeves, Roy Acuff, Ray Price, Roger Miller, Kris Kristofferson. This list could go on and on, but I think if music was ever tied to a place, country music is tied to Nashville. Maybe country music made Nashville.
- The Lovin’ Spoonful, Nashville Cats. When I was a kid, this was a song I’d feed a jukebox for. I sure am glad I got a chance to say a word about the music and the mothers from Nashville.
North Carolina Playlist
A North Carolina playlist isn’t as overwhelming as Tennessee, but it’s good, and maybe more eccentric.
- Doc Watson
- Sara Hickman
- Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs
- Bill Monroe
- James Taylor
- The Avett Brothers
- Charlie Daniels
- Elizabeth Cotton
- Carolina Chocolate Drops
- Thelonius Monk
- Roberta Flack
- Max Roach
- John Coltrane
That’s a pretty great list of singer songwriters, bluegrass musicians, and most surprising, jazz greats. With Tennessee, you can hear links between blues and country and rock and roll and gospel and “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.” It’s hard to hear much of a link between John Coltrane and Doc Watson. It is a fine list though.
