We met John’s cousin and wife Susan for lunch in Nashville. Freddy is an orthodontist whose main hours are in the afternoon, and Susan works from home. They are much more flexible than we were at their age.
Freddy can be serious, but we are more often treated to his lighter side. The subject of height came up, and Freddy asked if we knew what his nickname in school had been. Motioning toward his ankles, he said, “Highwater. My nickname was Highwater because I was always growing out of my slacks, looking like I was ready to wade in a flood.”
What I most enjoyed hearing Susan talk about was the neighbor who lives in the house behind them. His name is Igor, a Russian who is a portrait painter. I suspect many of us have seen his work at one time or another, because he has painted presidents and popes. The man’s studio faces their back yard. They’ve noticed he sometimes paints through the night, several nights in a row, judging by the light coming from the large windows.
Freddy, John, and Susan
All too soon it was time to go. It really felt odd to breeze through Memphis without stopping. When John began planning this trip, he put Uncle Howard’s name down for the evening. We would have had dinner with him and stayed the night if he hadn’t died. As it was, we opted not to go to the cemetery.
Arkansas was very flat and dusty. Tractors working in the fields stirred up clouds of dirt along I-40. We passed Little Rock before stopping for the night. A list of restaurants in the motel included a barbecue place, and we had a pulled pork sandwich. Of course, it wasn’t called pulled pork. I think that is a dandified name from someone who did not grow up in the South. We simply ordered a sandwich with slaw, a downhome delight!
Son $ saw a business card for clock repair at Haywood Smokehouse (where we love the BBQ). John called the number listed for Daryl Bridges, and the man came today. As he stepped through the door, John told him, “This wall clock was hanging in the dental office of Anne’s father and grandfather, so it’s an old one. We immobilized the pendulum, but it wouldn’t work after we moved.”
Daryl looked at it on the wall, gave the pendulum a slight nudge, and waited to see what would happen. He opened his small box that looked like a tackle box and picked out a round gizmo. Having given us permission to watch, I dared to ask, “Is that a stethoscope for a clock?”
“No,” he said. “It’s an amplifier.” He stuck the probe into the winding hole, tapped the pendulum, and listened. It would tick one way but not the other.
“Do you mind if I take it off the wall?” he asked.
Of course, we wanted him to fix it, so we said yes. He approached it reverently, lifted it off the wall, and laid it gently on the table. Inside he found the invoice with a list of the things that had been repaired in 1982. He could read the name Garstang, and I remembered that was the name of the clockmaker. He couldn’t reach the top of the pendulum through the door. We gave permission for him to remove the hands and clock face. Peering with a flashlight, he discovered the pendulum had slipped and was not hanging correctly.
Daryl said he liked knowing the stories about old clocks, and I supplied a brief history. My granddad had an 8th grade education and worked as a tinsmith. He went to Vanderbilt in Nashville and told the dean that he was there to become a dentist.
The dean said, “You can’t do that.”
Granddaddy said, “I have to. I’ve sold my part of the business.”
After much discussion, the dean finally said, “You can start classes, but one wrong step, and you’re out.”
This clock hung in the lab of Granddaddy’s office, covered in dust from the plaster of Paris dentists used back then. My dad had it cleaned and refinished when he moved his office to a ground floor storefront.
Daryl pointed to oil on some pieces of the works and recommended a good cleaning. It may take a month or two, because he has several jobs ahead of ours. The poor old clock has hung motionless on our wall for eleven months. One more month is nothing. It will be great to have it back. I wonder if it will still say “Tock Tick” instead of “Tick Tock” as my mother insisted it did. After Dad’s retirement, it hung on the wall of their bedroom. That’s where the clock had a new purpose, helping Dad set his hearing aids correctly before going out. It was still ticking steadily when we went there for his funeral.
The excursion on Kate’s last day here was a trip to Cherokee. We drove through the town full of motels, tourist shops, eateries, and the huge casino. Our destination was the Oconaluftee Indian Village, where we arrived just in time for the demonstration of Cherokee dance. They had dances for bears, corn gathering, bulls, and several others. A man outside the circle chanted and beat a drum or shook a gourd as the Indians circled about. At the end, the audience was invited to participate in a dance that snaked about the inner square and stands were we sat. Nate and $ represented us. A guide took us around the craft areas where we saw people making belts, pottery, baskets, blow guns, arrow heads, and a canoe. We were on our own to look into log/clay houses and the council house.
I never thought about what Cherokee Indians sound like, and I found out they sound like me! They have Southern accents. The reason behind it is sad, though. Until recently children were punished in public school if they spoke Cherokee. Now that the language is almost extinct, Americans are urging them to preserve it.
As we were leaving, we walked past where the dancing had been and heard an older man’s lecture. He was fantastic. I wish I could remember all he spoke about. I always associated feathers with Indians, and he said that eagle feathers were used in sacred dances. They trapped eagles, removed a few feathers, and set them free again. Elements of dance included thanking the creator of the birds and the birds themselves. I knew white settlers brought the common cold which killed many Indians, but he listed others such as smallpox and influenza. Medicine men had been able to cure diseases before, but they tried all kinds of things against the new illnesses without success. The man spoke of body painting, saying the amount of black paint indicated the degree of anger involved. I was surprised at the drum he showed. It was made of pottery with animal skins stretched over both ends. Gourds were filled with seeds to make the rattle. He spoke of burial customs and housing, explaining carefully that now they live like normal Americans and are buried like us.
On the way home Nate picked up my hat as he got in the car and clapped it on top of his. We stopped by Jonathan Creek so that Kate could see the destination of my morning walk. She has been fighting a cold or allergies all week and didn’t feel well enough to go out early in the morning. Next year she may come later in the season.
John’s sister Barbara and husband Thom arrived about six hours after we got back from the baptism of their grandson in Maryland. Our first meal together was breakfast, out on the screened porch, as usual. What was different was the temperature. It was so cool that I brought out sweaters and lap robes. Thunder rumbled; rain followed, and we sat there visiting.
When it cleared, we headed for Cataloochee, stopping at a great lookout on the way. One of my favorite things to do is to get out of the car to feel the breeze and smell the fresh mountain air. A couple from South Carolina joined us at the railing. Son $ engaged them in conversation, something he does brilliantly. The way he looks and talks puts people so much at ease
Thom John Nate Kate Barbara $
that they begin to tell him their life stories. I walked over to Barbara, a linguist, and suggested she might want to get closer to hear their speech. She did much more than that; she recorded them. I enjoyed picking out things that I wouldn’t say, even though I have a Southern accent. The woman talked about “goin’ up air” which translates to “going up there.” $ also corrected their information, that people in Maggie Valley where they are staying, said there were no bears around. There most certainly are, and they should be aware of their surroundings at all times in the woods. A few weeks ago a 16-year-old boy was dragged from his hammock as he slept, and his dad was finally able to get the bear off by punching him in the eye.
I had been watching for the rhododendrons to bloom at higher elevations, and I was rewarded. $ spotted a wild flower we didn’t know, bee balm or wild bergamot. We took pictures of the red flower and wanted to make tea with it. He said we’d need a lot of blooms, and we weren’t going to pick all of them in that one area.
The Caldwell house was built in 1903 and was open for people to wander through. Barbara headed for the stream, and Thom said, “Don’t encourage her.” She is an adventuresome person. A few minutes later I said to Thom, “She’s got one shoe off.” One of us dared her to wade across the stream rather than taking the wooden bridge, and she was off. Kate whipped out her phone and took a video, while I went to the other side to get a still shot.
Just across the road was an old barn which others explored. I stayed outside to get a picture of them. We hoped to see elk grazing in an open glade, but we spotted only one young one close enough to the road that others took a photo of it.
There was a two-room schoolhouse to walk through. My mother taught a year or so in a school that small in the late 30’s. We looked at patched holes where stoves had been and sat in the desks. My fifth grade desks looked just like that, only we had five rows. I sat in the back desk in the middle row, which was one desk shorter than the others. (For classmates, that was Mrs. Eidson’s room.) The old windows would have been propped open with wooden blocks attached to the side of the frames.
It was 2 p.m. by the time we drove out of Smoky Mountain National Park. We headed for a restaurant with the area’s signature food – barbeque. Pulled pork and brisket were our choices. The waitress was full of fun, teasing Nate. I don’t remember how it started, but she said he could wash dishes to pay for his meal. She seemed surprised when he pursued it, wanting to know how many hours he’d have to work. It was one thing after another as we laughed our way through the meal.
Barbara is always eager to walk, and I should be. I suggested we take a quick stroll beside the stream at the rec center. John opted out because he hand was tingling from angina, and $’s ankle was hurting. Thom stayed with them in the shade, while Nate and the women walked past the skateboard area, fenced dog park, and children’s playground. Just as we turned to go back, two women and two children lugged a two-person raft to the stream. We watched as they put in at a low place, and the boy and girl got in with their paddles. We were walking faster than they were floating. When they lost an oar, we watched to see if they were able to retrieve it. They caught up to it when it hung in a low branch. We would have been through with our walk much quicker if we hadn’t hung back to see what would happen when they came to a small waterfall. The whole time we were both pleased and apprehensive that the adults left the children to go it alone. We rejoined the others and came home, not knowing how much further the children would float.
Dennis came across the street to play backgammon with $ and Nate. Thom took $’s place, and they played long enough that Dennis’ folks called for him to come home. The Brownworths wanted to record John repeating some of the stories his dad told him, saying Dad didn’t share his war stories with Barbara and Chris. John said he spoke into the recorder for 45 minutes. We were sorry to see them go, but they had people to see, and we have a daughter and grandson to enjoy. Family times never seem to last long enough.
A blog about life challenges in mostly fictional writing based on some fact. I am trying this Blog thing out because I need a creative outlet and am amazed at everything my iPad can do to help me along the way. So why not, right ?
My name is Suki, my human is a writer, and this is about my world. The world according to Suki The Cat. My humans smell funny, look weird, and I can't understand a thing they say, but they feed me, so hey, what are you gonna do?
Mehrling Muse 