“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere — on water and land.” - Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
The first real sense, or maybe it was just a taste, a small sliver of the freedom pie, seemed to be somehow generated on and with a bicycle. A first bike too big for you was all you needed. Parental logic dictated a large bike, a big boys bike, so you wouldn’t age out of the two wheeler as rapidly as you were outpacing your shoes. (a bicycle cost the Old Man a paycheck back in the day). Master the power of the pedal and you were suddenly able to be cut loose for world exploration.
These were the era of days when we were implored emphatically to leave the house. Just get out and be gone for days. Just come home before dark. Don’t make me come look for you for hours. Safety lectures really hadn’t yet been established.
They, meaning the well meaning parents, didn’t much seem to care, or worry, where we were, or when we went, just as long as we were gone at seemingly optimal times shortly after the sun rose in the eastern sky. I guess this was before times got weird with respect to children. It, the upcoming of wierdness, or the concept of the need for safety of children didn’t really seem to matter at that particular time in small town America.
Just get out of the house and be gone from rummaging and complaining underfoot. “Go! I said…Shoo!” We were swept away like chickens pecking on a clean kitchen floor. It never even really made us wonder why we were needed to be out from under foot. We just took to the streets. We were free to explore, badly unsupervised, the world, expanded almost exponentially by bicycles. That was just about good enough.
Looking back on it, through the periscope of early and young parental experience, maybe it was cabin fever. Maybe it was unvarnished lust in the morning. A desire to be relieved of kids and by doing so, kid absence provided quick, private minutes, ultimately leading to more kids under foot.
Irrespective of the reason, we became adrift. We freely prowled the streets of rural America. Powered by two wheels, where a quarter could legally get you into a movie and leave enough left over to buy a small but satisfying box of popcorn. We were ballon like and completely untethered. Finally, out of the old barn stall and the wide, green pasture was unfenced. Freedom was an exceptional thing on the seat above two wheels.
My buddies and I prowled a nearby college campus, and the attending baseball team. We circled practice daily like blow flies on a rotten piece of smashed road kill. We shagged foul balls like duck dogs retrieving dead fowl. We begged coaches for cracked and broken Louisville Sluggers. Small nails and a quarter roll of electrical tape made dreams come out of the dust. Mantle, Maris and Berra were idols admired on grainy black and white televisions that focused with a contraption dubbed rabbit ears. Any cracked and taped bat was good enough to jump start the dream of life in the big leagues.
Then, there was the dead man we found. Freedom that the bicycle generated included back alleys and much exploratory and dark mystery. The deceased body was not too terribly far from the field of dreams and the cracked bats. Down a dark tunnel of an alley, lots of thick brush, quiet and still.
The body that fell face first in the tangled brush had no shoes on the feet. There were shoes in the bushes, but the dead body wasn’t wearing the worn and tattered loafers. We wondered why the murderer hadn’t taken the almost serviceable footwear. Why would a man, face down, in the last throes of life, abandon his shoes?
We raced each other to the nearby police station. Imagine the Andy Griffith Show with badly overweight people. Imagine a couple of seven year olds breathlessly blurting out how we had stumbled on the cold body of a dead man. Imagine the look on the Deputy’s face as he surveyed our frantic dancing, up and down from one foot to the other. We must have looked a little overly excited, flailing our arms like trembling young roosters about to meet our first encounter with the lord of the barnyard.
We tried most valiantly to explain to the suspicious Deputy where the body laid. The Deputy waited patiently until we finished babbling. The fat officer seemed to be badly confused. When we told him we’d gladly lead him to the scene of the crime; the old peace officer slowly splattered a new waterfall of Beechnut near his half full and rusty Maxwell House can.
A good bit of the vile brown fluid was swallowed by the can. A good bit of it missed the can.
The big man with the gun seemed to think better of being led to the scene of the crime by two murder suspects on bicycles. So, he ordered us stuffed into the back seat of the two toned, gum-ball festooned squad car.
Neither my sidekick nor I, in our seven long years, had ever ridden in any kind of crime fighting vehicle. From the looks of the folks in town, as we waved from our back seat it for all the world looked like we had just been apprehended for some treacherous and hideous crime. It may have been our best ever Dragnet moment.
We sprang from the car in the dark alley and pointed the doubting Deputy to the body and the strange case of the abandoned loafers. Apparently, in our haste to involve local law enforcement in this particular murder, the Deputy pointed out one very important piece of evidence that we had seemingly left overlooked. The old man launched a large and well aimed stream of brown mule spit onto the dead man’s right hand. The hand which still clutched a half full mason jar of clear liquid.
The Deputy looked at us and slowly snorted, “@#$% boys, this ain’t no dead body! This here’s Jim Billy and he ain’t really all that dead, he’s just plain dead drunk. Dead men don’t normally take their shoes off boys.”
We considered changing careers from baseball to crime fighting right up to the point that we realized we would have to ride back to the jail in the same car with a dead man that was now slowly returning back to life. The return trip to headquarters found us both terribly anxious and nervous in the front seat. Jim Billy pressed his nasty face to the wire cage that separated us and breathed his deadly breath down our pencil thick necks. We were too terrified to look old Jim Bill in his bloodshot eye. When we finally returned to the jail and our bicycles, Jim Billy had sobered to the point that he most mightily swore revenge. He whispered his brand of retribution through the wire; “You boys is in for a fate worse than death”. We believed. The spit stained Deputy told us to stay out of town and; “Don’t you little @#$’s ever go down that alley again.”
We apparently weren’t going to receive any reward. No Freedom Medal was to be offered. No picture in the local paper as up and coming young crime fighters. We went back to wanting to be ball players. A budding career in forensics, dashed in a series of mean warnings and horrifying threats.
The next era of two wheeled range extension were motorized by Suzuki, Yamaha and Honda, at the 55-90cc levels. Road rash, numerous and quickly forgotten broken appendages and helmets came with that era, as further and more lengthly exploration advanced. Ropes were tied to shotguns and a beagle rode side-saddle, long ears flapping in the breeze. Rabbit hunts on cold days on a motorcycle never seemed to bother the old beagle much, even if we never could find a helmet that fit the dog.
About age 16, my hunting partner inherited a classic 56 Chevy, complete with a 411 rear-end, and a synchromesh second gear. Painted British racing green, with a little metal flake thrown in, the new old car had white rolled and pleated seats, or as they say in the movie American Graffiti, ‘roll and tuck’. This beautiful rendering from Detroit was hand built by a cousin who hailed from a long and extended family of Golden Gloves champions who had graduated to steady work and easy monthly payments to the newer, sleeker and faster models of muscle cars offered by the likes of Mopar, Ford and other builders of fine rides that could do 125 on Mile Straight. Imagine young Richard Petty with a little golden gloves amulet around his neck.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher, is famously attributed with the quote; “Life is a journey, not a destination.” Maybe somehow that quote over the years has possibly morphed into: “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” Who would challenge old Waldo if he were still around us spewing his unique brand of philosophy.
The old Chevy became the hunting and fishing vehicle of freedom’s journey over the destination. Range expansion exploded. Once again parents seemed glad. Glad we had money in our pickets from minimum wage employment when we managed to not get fired. Glad we could finally feed ourselves. Glad to have us out of the house for extended periods of time.
Weekends were dedicated to cruising. Mr. Fifteen, Shoney’s, The Rebel, Krystal and numerous ‘Shake Shacks’ with young girls who provided curb service and acted bored for tips. Friday and Saturday nights spent with perfumed and heavily hair sprayed girls who might sit up tight on your side and occasionally put her hand on your thigh if you had filled her full of cherry vodka.
One drive-inn stood out as an arena of testosterone filled masculinity. If you had come to the conclusion that you needed to test your ability as a warrior, or you wanted to just say you had witnessed a good old fashion ‘@#$ whoopin,’ you’d find your way on late nights to The Cotton Patch. The Cotton Patch was unique for its curb-side delivery of a cheap, cold beer. Curb side delivery of cold beer and a good display of combatants grinding one another in the dirt was high drama. This was best accomplished after the three to eleven shifts let out in the nearby mills and factories that Chattanooga was once known famously for as the ‘Dynamo of Dixie’.
One buddy told the story of the best beating he ever received compliments of Frank Zappa and too much cherry vodka. He had driven all the way to Suck Creek and the Marion County line bootleggers for a pint of cherry vodka. He had grandiose plans for the evening and his new main squeeze. He was topping off the date with a curbside beer at The Cotton Patch, when a ‘Good Ole Boy’ with duck tails and a Camel behind his left ear pulled up close by in a loud pickup. The good old boy had customized his old beater with a pretty strong sound system installed in his brown (primer colored) truck. Country music blared from the old rusty, loud heap. My buddy took offense to the Slim Whitman themed playlist and decided to shut it down. He leaned over his newest girlfriend and shouted to the good old boy to shut that hillbilly crap up.
A lengthy discussion ensued. As my buddy turned up the latest from Frank Zappa on his customized sound system to maximum volume. This battle of the volumes turned very quickly into a vain attempt to drown out Whispering Bill Anderson. Freshly washed cars and trucks emptied and scuffling in the gravel commenced. When the dust settled, it was essentially a two punch affair, the scoreboard showed traditional hillbilly music one and Frank Zappa zero.
Due to having both eyes seriously closed for the next few days, my buddy had to turn over his keys to his frisky girlfriend who had not yet earned her learners permit. Manhood was routinely tested at The Cotton Patch in such a manner, especially after the evening shift got off.
Paul was the stereotypical incarnation the Southern example of ‘a big ole boy’. He pushed most scales at 285 and he loved to trout fish. This was before he was drafted by Memphis State to play tackle and he wanted one last trip to Tellico before moving west to the part of the state where nothing as exotic as trout had ever been experienced. The green 56 Chevy carried us up the mountain on what was considered a farewell destination. Trout fishing excellence was to be the journey.
Somewhere past the Tellico Beach Bar and Grill, about midnight, the old Chevy lights dimmed badly. The winding river road became a serious challenge. The vehicle owner triaged the problem as electrical, possibly the generator. We were close to our designated camp site. We pulled the car over on a small patch of shoulder around one thirty and worked on generator brushes by flashlight. Emergency medicine didn’t work. Paul took the left front fender and I mounted the right. D cell flash lights scanned the edge of the road to little effect. It dawned on me, that if I was lucky, I would enter the river first, hopefully escaping the rolling 56 chevy and impending flattening. After about a mile, the D cells died at a narrow pull off. Due to Paul’s prodigious size he claimed the back seat. The owner of the 56 claimed the roll and tucked front seat. I claimed what was left of the gravel, chiggers, mosquitos and snake strewn precipice. The soothing sounds of the Tellico River kept me alert all night.
At first light we disengaged the useless generator and started thumbs out, for the forced march back to civilization known as Tellico. The town was well known for a rather exemplary collection of junk yards and shade tree mechanics who worked miracles on semi-derelict vehicles. Everybody in Tellico seemed to be proud owners of more than one or two proudly displayed as yard ornaments in those days.
We finally trudged into this one rusty old garage surrounded by fifty or so vehicles in various states of decay and mayhem. A greasy guy named Snake crawled out from under an old, loud, mud splattered logging truck and asked what he could do to help. The boy was about our age and he had one eye that tracked independently from his other eye. Somehow I thought this roving eye might just come in handy in his line of work.
Snake just happened to do a quick inventory of wrecks and in no time flat he pulled out just the replacement part we needed. The new used generator was slowly priced at $35.00 according to Snake’s parts list. His toothless smile was evident underneath one of the greasiest Mack hats I had ever seen worn on any human. His overalls matched.
We had a problem. It amounted to $14.00 between the three of us. Snake, being the good Samaritan that he was, carefully enquired if we had anything else he could hold until we could come back at a later date and settle up. Three case knives, one 22 caliber starter pistol, bored out for shooting number 8 bird shot at rattlesnakes, one sheath knife and two expensive Timex watches later, we turned upriver with our thumbs out again.
We harvested buckets full of trout that hot August stretch. So many that we wound up trading many smaller fish for six packs of PBR. Our neighbors couldn’t figure out how to fish behind the stocking trucks, but they sure figured out how to collect a freshly fried fish or two.
Two or so weeks later we had managed to scrounge enough gas money, minus Paul, to get back to metro Tellico and to relieve our starter pistol, case knives and watches. When we enquired about the whereabouts of the mechanic named Snake, the tired garage owner just shook his head and told us that Snake had recently tried to pull an ill-advised hold-up in the parking lot of the Tellico Beach Bar with a @#$% blank pistol. He shared the opinion that; “Young Snake weren’t known as the smartest tool in the shed, but he was a pretty fair grease monkey when he could focus that one eye of his.”
This unfortunate botched felony was after an outsider from the North Carolina side of the mountains had ridden his horse over the mountain to tell everyone in the Tellico Beach Bar and Grill that night that the football coach at UT in Knoxville was known to be a little light in his loafers. He supposedly stated out loud that the UT football coach was prone to like to date boy cheerleaders before every Alabama game because it made him feel lucky.
When the poor old boy from North Carolina was shoveled out in the parking lot, Snake took advantage of the debilitated condition of the old boy from the other side of the mountain and attempted armed robbery with a gun full of blanks.
The garage owner said he was pretty sure that he knew where Snake was holed up hiding somewhere over on Coker Creek and the old man offered to hold the money we owed Snake until things quieted down a little bit.
We never did get the two Timex watches or the Case knives back. Paul quit the team over in Memphis after about the tenth practice. He said he missed the cool of the mountains.
Sometimes I guess freedom may really be the fact that it’s mostly all about the journey and not really about the destination.
“The universe consists of 5% protons, 5% neutrons, 5% electrons and 85% morons.” - Frank Zappa
WOMR Notes: There were a multitude of Physics Majors that recently sent additional comments. Apparently they are a rather tender bunch. Interestingly, not one politician voiced any disagreement with where their head has been most of their life.
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