After I was busted for speeding in Tennessee Ridge and opted to head towards Dickson, rather than Waverly, TN my chances of getting to Tupelo, Mississippi were pretty much reduced to zero. I didn’t know it at the time. I couldn’t see that far ahead. On a map of America, it’s easy to imagine a line of travel from Illinois to Florida which passes through Tupelo, but when really get out there, and discover the choices and the turns required, looking up from your map and seeing the actual road in front of you, everything changes. The journey you plan is nearly always different from the trip you take.
Why I wanted to get to Tupelo in the first place is a good question. Tupelo is of course the birthplace of Elvis Presley. Outside of that, it’s likely just another mid-size Southern town, although the sound of it is intriguing isn’t it? There’s that Van Morrison song “Tupelo Honey” that plays in the background of my brain every time I see the word.
Most probably Elvis’ boyhood home in Tupelo is preserved. I can imagine in the kitchen a stove, cupboards, and a refrigerator (maybe an icebox) in the bedrooms beds, and in the living room a couch and chairs. We don’t live much differently, one from another, in our American houses than we think. What’s to see really? No doubt the Tupelo house would be much different than Graceland, his mansion in Memphis, but what do we get by standing inside either place? It’s not clear. We are inexplicably drawn to these things. So something drew me to Tupelo.
I was drawn to Tupelo right up to the moment I realized that to get there I would have to go 120 miles out of my way. I went to Dickson, TN rather than Waverly. Waverly would have led me to Sugar Tree, Parsons, and Jack’s Creek angling the Buick and I west towards Tupelo. Instead I went to Dickson, Santa Fe, Columbia, Riddley, Mount Pleasant, and Campbellsville on a line west toward Montgomery, Alabama. My trip simply set me down a different road. I missed Mississippi altogether.
I also missed the David Crockett Cabin and Museum in Lawrenceburg Tennessee which I was drawn to probably because I used to wear a coonskin hat as a kid and pretend I was him. Missed it because I kept thinking I would see a sign telling me to turn to the right and while I was still looking for it I found myself in Leoma and didn't want to go back. From Leoma, I continued on to Loretto where I angled off on Route 227 towards the Alabama border. Unsure of myself and the map, I stopped in a ramshackle automotive establishment that was either garage or junkyard or both. Standing in the doorway was a striking figure. Striking because he could have been my double, a doppelganger. I looked at him through the open driver’s side window of the Buick.
He was leaning on the door jamb working his smartphone with his thumb when he heard my car on his gravel driveway and looked up at me.
His eyes were blue and he had a white beard. He was about 6’1”, only a little heavy, and wore bib overalls that were much greasier than mine have ever been. He seemed surprised to see me. I didn’t get out of the car.
“I don’t provide curb service,” he yelled.
I opened the door and walked over to where he was standing.
“You texting?” I asked.
“Checking my FaceBook,” he replied.
I think that makes it official. If smartphones have penetrated society to such an extent that the proprietor of a junkyard in Loretto Tennessee, a city of not very many at all located in an area very close to nowhere, is peering at the small screen then digital addiction is now rampant everywhere in America.
“You have a FaceBook page?”
“For the store here yeah. I got my own too but not too many friends.”
“How’s business?” That’s my standard conversation starter.
“Good. Brisk trade in transmissions this week.” He looked over my car, as if he coveted its potential for spare parts
.
“You come all the way from Illinois in this?”
“Yeah.”
“How many miles you got on this LeSabre?”
“Close to 159,000. It’ll have 160,000 by the time I get home.”
“It’s a 2000 ain’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Got the 3800 engine?”
“Yeah.”
“Ought to get 200,000 easy, maybe 225, I’d say.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for.”
“So what can I do for you?”
“Tell me this. If I turn left at Route 227 back there will it take me into Lexington Alabama?”
“It sure will. The question is, why do you want to go to Lexington Alabama? And for that matter, what are you doing in Loretto Tennessee?”
“I’m on my way to Florida.”
He looked at me and pulled on his beard.
“You have a FaceBook page?”
“For the store here yeah. I got my own too but not too many friends.”
“How’s business?” That’s my standard conversation starter.
“Good. Brisk trade in transmissions this week.” He looked over my car, as if he coveted its potential for spare parts
.
“You come all the way from Illinois in this?”
“Yeah.”
“How many miles you got on this LeSabre?”
“Close to 159,000. It’ll have 160,000 by the time I get home.”
“It’s a 2000 ain’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Got the 3800 engine?”
“Yeah.”
“Ought to get 200,000 easy, maybe 225, I’d say.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for.”
“So what can I do for you?”
“Tell me this. If I turn left at Route 227 back there will it take me into Lexington Alabama?”
“It sure will. The question is, why do you want to go to Lexington Alabama? And for that matter, what are you doing in Loretto Tennessee?”
“I’m on my way to Florida.”
He looked at me and pulled on his beard.
“Well that’s a curious proposition, going to Florida by way of Lexington Alabama.”
“I’m traveling two-lane roads. Sort of finding my way as I go.”
I’m not sure he believed me.
“Well have a good trip. Check your oil.”
“I’m traveling two-lane roads. Sort of finding my way as I go.”
I’m not sure he believed me.
“Well have a good trip. Check your oil.”
With that he stuck out his hand. It was black with grime. I shook it. He had as firm a grip as me. We got into a bit of a handshake squeezing contest there on the gravel. I’ll never see that man again. But something about him makes me think I’ll remember him a long time.
No sooner had I crossed the Alabama state line than I encountered my first cotton field. Near a ditch by a lane cotton was still standing. I promptly pulled off and picked some. It came out of the boll easier than I imagined. On closer inspection, there was cotton everywhere. In the red dirt between the rows, stuck to the grass, mashed down into the gravel. I was to see cotton like that throughout Alabama and into Florida.
As I headed south on Route 101, passing through Town Creek, Elgin, Moulton, and Wren I noticed a change. The farther I went the poorer it got. There were a lot of things that ought to be torn down in Alabama; caved-in trailers, falling-down barns, collapsed houses. I’m afraid there’s not the money, or the potential value of a sale, to warrant demolition. I could be wrong, but rural Alabama almost looks as if it is being walked away from by people with money. I saw more and more people walking along the road. Moms with kids. Young people by themselves.
Sadness filled the air inside the Buick and I got worried about America. It wasn’t the best part of the trip.
Somewhere out there, I was on a two-lane road that got close to the interstate. Flea markets began to spring up. And not even flea markets, just people with tables by the side of the road, sometimes not even tables, just heaps of clothing or the most mundane stuff sitting on the ground.
No sooner had I crossed the Alabama state line than I encountered my first cotton field. Near a ditch by a lane cotton was still standing. I promptly pulled off and picked some. It came out of the boll easier than I imagined. On closer inspection, there was cotton everywhere. In the red dirt between the rows, stuck to the grass, mashed down into the gravel. I was to see cotton like that throughout Alabama and into Florida.
As I headed south on Route 101, passing through Town Creek, Elgin, Moulton, and Wren I noticed a change. The farther I went the poorer it got. There were a lot of things that ought to be torn down in Alabama; caved-in trailers, falling-down barns, collapsed houses. I’m afraid there’s not the money, or the potential value of a sale, to warrant demolition. I could be wrong, but rural Alabama almost looks as if it is being walked away from by people with money. I saw more and more people walking along the road. Moms with kids. Young people by themselves.
Sadness filled the air inside the Buick and I got worried about America. It wasn’t the best part of the trip.
Somewhere out there, I was on a two-lane road that got close to the interstate. Flea markets began to spring up. And not even flea markets, just people with tables by the side of the road, sometimes not even tables, just heaps of clothing or the most mundane stuff sitting on the ground.
It was a cold afternoon. The vendors were hunched beside their things in hooded sweatshirts, sometimes a blanket, desperate for customers They would set up at the site of closed gas stations or failed restaurants. If I had bought everything one vendor displayed it couldn’t have put more than $100 in her pocket. I thought of the money clip in my jeans, the bills folded in it, and what that might mean to the woman standing by the pile of cheap throw rugs. I’m sure they were doing what they had to do to survive, but what does their future hold? What’s ahead for the poor people of Alabama?
I kept the wheels turning. I was beginning to realize that if I didn’t keep the wheels turning I didn’t go anywhere. I had wanted to stop almost everywhere. There I didn’t.
Alabama has biker bars and barbeque stands, and sometimes they are the same. Late in the afternoon, I stopped at a modest stand near the interstate highway I shunned. It reminded me of the shack without the cedar siding and was supplemented by an attached trailer of some sort and heavy extension cords powering the place. Could have been a generator running in the back.
When I walked up to the counter the young woman behind it was having a conversation with an older one on my side.
“Since we got the award things have really picked up and we think pretty soon, maybe by February if it goes well, we’ll be able to rent that storefront in Lincoln. It’s got an apartment above it. We hope to have enough money to improve the kitchen so’s we can have a proper restaurant, maybe four tables.”
“You still living with Carl’s folks?”
“Yeah, and that works good cause Gramma can watch the baby and I don’t know who I’ll get in Lincoln.”
“They’ll hate to see you and Carl go.”
“Yeah, well I’ll hate to leave in a way but a couple oughta be on their own, you know? It’s hard living so close together.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Sir, can I help you?”
In the South, people are loath to end one conversation before starting another. Northerners would do well to practice such patience waiting their turn. I am as guilty as the next Yankee, but that afternoon I did not mind. It gave me time to study the menu.
I settled on the $3 Barbeque sandwich with Carl’s potato salad.
“What you want to drink with that?”
“I’d really like a beer but I don’t see it on your menu.”
“We don’t sell but lemonade, sweet tea, and bottled water but I can charge you five dollars for the sandwich land give you a can of Bud Light.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
I kept the wheels turning. I was beginning to realize that if I didn’t keep the wheels turning I didn’t go anywhere. I had wanted to stop almost everywhere. There I didn’t.
Alabama has biker bars and barbeque stands, and sometimes they are the same. Late in the afternoon, I stopped at a modest stand near the interstate highway I shunned. It reminded me of the shack without the cedar siding and was supplemented by an attached trailer of some sort and heavy extension cords powering the place. Could have been a generator running in the back.
When I walked up to the counter the young woman behind it was having a conversation with an older one on my side.
“Since we got the award things have really picked up and we think pretty soon, maybe by February if it goes well, we’ll be able to rent that storefront in Lincoln. It’s got an apartment above it. We hope to have enough money to improve the kitchen so’s we can have a proper restaurant, maybe four tables.”
“You still living with Carl’s folks?”
“Yeah, and that works good cause Gramma can watch the baby and I don’t know who I’ll get in Lincoln.”
“They’ll hate to see you and Carl go.”
“Yeah, well I’ll hate to leave in a way but a couple oughta be on their own, you know? It’s hard living so close together.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Sir, can I help you?”
In the South, people are loath to end one conversation before starting another. Northerners would do well to practice such patience waiting their turn. I am as guilty as the next Yankee, but that afternoon I did not mind. It gave me time to study the menu.
I settled on the $3 Barbeque sandwich with Carl’s potato salad.
“What you want to drink with that?”
“I’d really like a beer but I don’t see it on your menu.”
“We don’t sell but lemonade, sweet tea, and bottled water but I can charge you five dollars for the sandwich land give you a can of Bud Light.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
Bud Light is the rural local craft beer of Alabama.
“Who you rootin’ for in the game tonight?”
“What game?”
She looked at me and her eyes grew wide.
“Carl,” she yelled over her shoulder, “I asked this man who he's rootin’ for in the game and he said ‘What game!’"
“Who you rootin’ for in the game tonight?”
“What game?”
She looked at me and her eyes grew wide.
“Carl,” she yelled over her shoulder, “I asked this man who he's rootin’ for in the game and he said ‘What game!’"
She looked back at me and laughed. Carl emerged from the trailer and loomed behind her, sweating. He might have played football himself. I’d take him for an offensive lineman or a tight end.
“What game?”
“What game?”
Carl looked at me in amazement and spoke in a high voice, despite his size. “What game you say? Alabama Auburn. University of Alabama Crimson Tide against the Auburn University Tigers. It’s the Alabama bowl. Where you been man?”
“I’m from Illinois.”
“Yeah, well tonight you better watch the game. Everybody in Alabama and everybody that’s ever lived in Alabama gonna be watching that game. It’s going to be a barn burner now, always is.”
“Who’s going to win?”
“Bama probably but Auburn will give them a fight. It’s always a fight. You don’t want to miss this game.”
I took Carl’s word for it and then took his barbeque and potato salad to a nearby picnic table. The pork was tangy and tender. It was the good stuff, pork not smothered in sauce but instead cooked slowly and saturated with smoke. Carl would do better with more salt in his potato salad but I didn’t have the nerve to tell him.
I was washing it all down with my bootleg Bud Light when a man appeared on the porch of the ramshackle building next to me. On a clothesline strung between porch poles were thin camo coveralls that looked to be new, along with used clothes, a table filled with miscellaneous kitchen stuff, mostly old coffee cups, and other assorted geegaws and knick-knacks. He walked to the edge of the porch and spit a long string of tobacco juice back toward the building. Noticing me in the area he looked at me and smiled. His teeth were brown and rotted.
“How you doing?” he said.
“Fine.”
“That Carl makes some mean barbeque don’t he?”
“That he does.”
“I’m from Illinois.”
“Yeah, well tonight you better watch the game. Everybody in Alabama and everybody that’s ever lived in Alabama gonna be watching that game. It’s going to be a barn burner now, always is.”
“Who’s going to win?”
“Bama probably but Auburn will give them a fight. It’s always a fight. You don’t want to miss this game.”
I took Carl’s word for it and then took his barbeque and potato salad to a nearby picnic table. The pork was tangy and tender. It was the good stuff, pork not smothered in sauce but instead cooked slowly and saturated with smoke. Carl would do better with more salt in his potato salad but I didn’t have the nerve to tell him.
I was washing it all down with my bootleg Bud Light when a man appeared on the porch of the ramshackle building next to me. On a clothesline strung between porch poles were thin camo coveralls that looked to be new, along with used clothes, a table filled with miscellaneous kitchen stuff, mostly old coffee cups, and other assorted geegaws and knick-knacks. He walked to the edge of the porch and spit a long string of tobacco juice back toward the building. Noticing me in the area he looked at me and smiled. His teeth were brown and rotted.
“How you doing?” he said.
“Fine.”
“That Carl makes some mean barbeque don’t he?”
“That he does.”
I thought the conversation might end there. He continued to look at me. I heard the whirring of a sewing machine coming from inside the building.
“How’s business?”
“How’s business?”
Sometimes it’s wrong to ask.
“Business is terrible. My wife spent all week sewing these camo cover-ups for the deer hunters and we ain’t sold shit. Got money invested in the material and thread and all not counting her time. We been working this corner for most of the year and it’s drying up. We’re going to have to find some other place to go or I don’t know what.”
“Do you live here as well?”
“No, we got my Mom’s old trailer bout six mile from here. I should be putting wood together for winter or shooting us a deer this weekend but here I am trying to sell this shit and going broke.”
Kids, a boy and his younger sister, came from inside the shed and walked to either side of their Dad. They were I’d say eight and six. They looked at me curiously while holding on to their Dad’s legs. They were skinnier than they should have been. Had that sort of hollow look to their faces. I wadded up my paper plate and styrofoam container, stood up and looked for a garbage can.
“Is there a bathroom here?”
“No sir there surely is not. We go out the back.”
With that the little girl smiled, displaying the same discolored and decaying teeth as her Dad. I used to see teeth like that from time to time when I was a kid on the farm in the fifties, but that kind of advanced decay is more or less gone where I live. Not here. Tooth decay is alive and well, along with poverty, hunger, and despair, in the South and across America if you look for it. Among the five states I would travel through on this road trip Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida have refused to accept federal dollars to expand their Medicaid programs to families like the one by the barbeque stand despite the obvious need. On what are those decisions based? Certainly not the well-being of the people living there.
By declining to expand Medicaid government leaders in those states have denied health care to an estimated 1.3 million people. Poor people have lots of needs and can be helped in many ways. But no help is more basic, and does more for an individual’s dignity, than access to health care. It’s a lot easier to debate problems like poverty and lack of health care in the abstract when they are framed as policy. It’s more difficult when it’s standing right in front of you like the family smiling on that porch on an Alabama Saturday afternoon.
I didn’t go behind the building to relieve myself. Suddenly I wanted out of there. I got in my car and drove to the nearest gas station. In the restroom, I realized what I really wanted was to clear out, get the tires rolling, and put some distance between me and the pain of other people. With a full tank of gas, I could drive steady till dark, get a room, and put this day behind me.
I filled the Buick's tank and put the hose back in the pump. When I got behind the wheel and started the car, this was the Bob Dylan lyric that greeted me from one of his best albums, Love and Theft:
Well, today has been a sad and a lonesome day,
Well, today has been a sad and a lonesome day,
I’m just sitting here thinking with my mind a million miles away.
It seemed apropos. I drove till dark and found myself in Talledega. If not for its famous speedway, Talledega would be like any other poor Alabama town. I checked into a Holiday Inn Express at the far edge of town. Just My Location, my handy app, told me exactly where I was.
33.44 degrees latitude
86.08 degrees longitude
616 feet elevation
I watched the first half of the Alabama/Auburn game before falling asleep. It was a good game, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. With any luck, my next day on the road would see the solo road trip end and me safely with family in Florida.
“Business is terrible. My wife spent all week sewing these camo cover-ups for the deer hunters and we ain’t sold shit. Got money invested in the material and thread and all not counting her time. We been working this corner for most of the year and it’s drying up. We’re going to have to find some other place to go or I don’t know what.”
“Do you live here as well?”
“No, we got my Mom’s old trailer bout six mile from here. I should be putting wood together for winter or shooting us a deer this weekend but here I am trying to sell this shit and going broke.”
Kids, a boy and his younger sister, came from inside the shed and walked to either side of their Dad. They were I’d say eight and six. They looked at me curiously while holding on to their Dad’s legs. They were skinnier than they should have been. Had that sort of hollow look to their faces. I wadded up my paper plate and styrofoam container, stood up and looked for a garbage can.
“Is there a bathroom here?”
“No sir there surely is not. We go out the back.”
With that the little girl smiled, displaying the same discolored and decaying teeth as her Dad. I used to see teeth like that from time to time when I was a kid on the farm in the fifties, but that kind of advanced decay is more or less gone where I live. Not here. Tooth decay is alive and well, along with poverty, hunger, and despair, in the South and across America if you look for it. Among the five states I would travel through on this road trip Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida have refused to accept federal dollars to expand their Medicaid programs to families like the one by the barbeque stand despite the obvious need. On what are those decisions based? Certainly not the well-being of the people living there.
By declining to expand Medicaid government leaders in those states have denied health care to an estimated 1.3 million people. Poor people have lots of needs and can be helped in many ways. But no help is more basic, and does more for an individual’s dignity, than access to health care. It’s a lot easier to debate problems like poverty and lack of health care in the abstract when they are framed as policy. It’s more difficult when it’s standing right in front of you like the family smiling on that porch on an Alabama Saturday afternoon.
I didn’t go behind the building to relieve myself. Suddenly I wanted out of there. I got in my car and drove to the nearest gas station. In the restroom, I realized what I really wanted was to clear out, get the tires rolling, and put some distance between me and the pain of other people. With a full tank of gas, I could drive steady till dark, get a room, and put this day behind me.
I filled the Buick's tank and put the hose back in the pump. When I got behind the wheel and started the car, this was the Bob Dylan lyric that greeted me from one of his best albums, Love and Theft:
Well, today has been a sad and a lonesome day,
Well, today has been a sad and a lonesome day,
I’m just sitting here thinking with my mind a million miles away.
It seemed apropos. I drove till dark and found myself in Talledega. If not for its famous speedway, Talledega would be like any other poor Alabama town. I checked into a Holiday Inn Express at the far edge of town. Just My Location, my handy app, told me exactly where I was.
33.44 degrees latitude
86.08 degrees longitude
616 feet elevation
I watched the first half of the Alabama/Auburn game before falling asleep. It was a good game, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. With any luck, my next day on the road would see the solo road trip end and me safely with family in Florida.
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