Loco Mojos For Sale

In my last post, the picture of Umbrella Rock, which I thought was just a balanced rock – until Chris told me the name, reminded me of the other things on and round Lookout Mountain.

As a child and on my own we drove up to Lookout Mountain often. On it was Ruby Falls (a large cavern with a very high water fall), Rock City, and a lookout fort used in the Civil War.

Down on the base of the mountain were tourist-luring companies such as B.Lloyds and Stuckey’s. Each one had signs telling you that you were only blank miles to their stores. On the sign they were tell of their homemade hand scooped ice creams, pecans, praline candies, and souvenirs – and clean rest rooms.

I remember the Stuckey signs were orange and the B.Lloyd’s were white.

Also, right there at the base of the mountain, going around a bend on the federal highway was LOCO JOE’S. Loco Joe’s not only had pecans, praline, hand scooped homemade ice cream, and clean rest rooms. They also had fire works!

Loco Joes’s specialized in having stores on the state line. In this case they were near the state line of Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. I seen another Loco Joes on the South Carolina and Georgia State lines… also selling fireworks. Selling fireworks in Georgia was illegal…. Somehow, through the years I think they figured out a way to work around that…. Clever greedy money grubbing rascals!

Loco Joe’s had orange distant countdown signs too…… I think some of the Loco Joe signs showed a mountaineer sitting and leaning lazily against a tree, with a shotgun in one hand and a jug with xxx label in the other….. he was Loco alright – Loco all the way to the bank.