tennessee

I'll start with the leaving part. My favorite breakfast place in Tennessee is called Aretha Frankensteins and until recently was located only in Chattanooga, about an hour and a half away from Knoxville. So getting there usually requires a short road trip and an overnight stay in Chattanooga which is always fun but not always possible. So, I was thrilled that a new one has also opened in Knoxville since my last visit to the hometown. I got all packed up for the airport on my final day and Michele and I met my mom there for breakfast.

Fantastic grits, I think they put a little green tabasco in them maybe? Just incredible, a perfect flavor. After breakfast we tried to go to the new Trans woman owned cafe called South Press but found it to be closed. The owner was there stocking things though, she works so hard and looks fab while doing it! I had been there earlier in the week and wanted Michele to see it, its such a lively community hub and a cozy space with great tea and such welcoming comfy nooks to hang out in that I think Shell and her daughter Stell could have fun playing in there. With it being closed though, there wasnt much else to do but head to the airport. The good part of that is that I was not in a hurry and could drive the winding little still-country road Martin Mill Pike to cut over to Alcoa - the airport highway. It was an easy slow green drive. I passed a little dive bar on one side and a giant pile of tires place on the other. The giant pile of tires places were such a common sight when I was growing up in Tennessee but they are not places I see much anymore on my hometown trips. So it was a great nostalgia boost to see the gangly cigarette in-the-mouth-corner guy waving his arms in front of the oily pile of tires that towered over him. After two more bends in the road I reached a small one lane overpass with a horseshoe curved single lane entry and nicely lettered painted words reading Knoxvilles Best Kept Secret, which I assume refers to Vestal. And to me, that area is kind of a still secret spot. I only went over there a few times from where I lived in North Knox and Ft Sanders in my childhood and youth growing up in Knoxville. My uncle Richard lives out that way and I'll need to visit him on my/our next trip in.

It seems that the secret of Tennessee, if not Vestal has long escaped wherever its hiding place has been. Despite, (or in some cases because of) the horribly regressive politics and good old stuffed shirt boy network that underpins the white dice roll determining who succeeds and who experiences more limitations in these Tn towns, the population and popularity seem to be blowing up at a steady pace. This brings all sorts of changes, some for the better others not. Mostly not. But alas, the only constant is change. Heard it all my life and long ago accepted this as truth.

This short trip to my hometown was to attend the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame party because my mom was being inducted into it. This probably should have happened long ago, since she has been at her journalism work since the early 80s and has kept it very Knoxville centric when she likely could have gone to bigger publications in more far flung metro areas. But no, she has instead opted to stay in this town where she was raised, if not born. My mom was born in Puerto Rico after her parents, my grandparents met there on that island while my grandfather, a native east tennessean who goes back many generations in Knoxville was working on installing communication lines in Puerto Rico during his army service.

The family that Albert and Mercedes Osorios created, the Bean family was a little different than the typical East Tn family of the time. Also a for better and worse situation - which seems to be another defining experience of life along with the change is the one constant truth. You get the better sometimes but it always comes with the worse times trailing shortly behind and jump scaring you when you least expect it. A lot has changed in Tennessee since I moved away, a lot has changed since my last visit even. But no matter where I am in the world, I bring this place with me and for better and worse, through all the changes time brings it remains deeply home right up there with the home I make with my own family, the one constant amidst all the other constant changes.