Fall Creek Falls State Park, Tennessee, postcard

Not so many years ago we went to Fall Creek Falls State Park, in Tennessee, southeast of Nashville and north of Chattanooga. We came down State Highway 111 alongside a river at the bottom farm lands of a long valley. The scenery was beautiful, but I don’t think there were any zoning laws, around every corner was a new surprise.

We had to drive up in a mountainous area to get to Fall Creek Falls State Park. One thing I remember up on that lonely road was the large amount of dogs on the roadside. I think probably previous owners took them to this sparse area and threw them out. The dogs looked disillusioned and hungry. Never trust a human.

The park claims to have a bunch of water falls, I forgot how many. At one place there are twin falls… two creeks almost meet, just before each tumble off a cliff. Then, I think there is the big water fall, which is pictured here, and more smaller ones.

The state park has a motel-like lodge on the edge of a good size lake. We signed up for a room. While the clerk was signing us up, she glanced at the blanks we were filling out and said something like “Marietta! I am from Smyrna! We just moved up here last year – I had to move away from there.”

To her Smyrna no longer had the southern charm that she grew up knowing. We dropped to each other names and places and knew a lot of common Cobb County Marietta/Smyrna stuff.

It is a small world. No matter where we roam, it seems we always run into someone from Cobb County.

On the back of the card:
“Fall Creek Falls State Park. Beautiful Fall Creek Falls in one of the most photographed natural wonders in the United States. It tumbles over cliffs and falls 256 feet into a shaded pool at the base of the gorge.”

Fall Creek Falls tumbles over cliffs and falls 256 feet. That is a lot of falls for one sentence.

256 feet? And, then I say, “And that is just at high tide!” and slap you hard on the back to help you get the most of my fascinating wit.

"The Dakwa" Tn Aquarium postcard

On the back of the card it says: " "The Dakwa" is one of 53 medallions of the Aquarium depicting the history of the Tennessee River from Cherokee myth to 1992. According to the Cherokee, a large fish called Dawka dwells in the Tennessee where it joins Toco Creek."

Speaking of the Tennessee River and Indians, my g-g-g-grandmother Polly Hogshed Trammell, an Indian, drowned in the Little Tennessee River while tending her fish baskets, so the story goes... or is it another myth?

This post card we bought when the Tennessee Aquarium was opened less than a year in Chattanooga. It is the first transmission from the scanner's new position on Anna's computer, then I emailed it to myself.

Clever, No? I say as I get right in your face and tap my finger on my temple.

Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson (1767-1845) postcard

This is the last life portrait of Andrew Jackson, 1845, by George Peter Alexander Healy. Old Hickory was the 7th U.S. President.

He looks like a hateful old fart doesn’t he?

He loved to race horses for high stakes and his opponents often became his enemies. If you said something about his wife being married to someone else he would probably challenge you to a duel… and for other reasons he might challenge you to a duel.

He was also instrumental in having the Cherokee and Creek Indians removed from their homelands in the east and march on “The Trail of Tears” to Oklahoma – which defied the Supreme Court’s ruling.

I’m sure he had some good qualities as well.

The Hermitage postcard

The Hermitage, just outside Nashville, Tennessee, was the home of President Andrew Jackson, a.k.a. “Old Hickory”. We visited the Hermitage when the boys were young.

Andrew Jackson served two terms as president. Sometimes he settled his differences by dueling. He must have been pretty good at that. I don’t think I would have wanted to run against him and have to debate him. It wouldn’t be much of a debate, I would agree with everything he said.

He married a married (technically) woman. Somebody, I forgot who, made a comment about he and his wife living in sin. That was the wrong crack to make about a good marksman who enjoys a good duel.

Andrew Jackson was also a good race horse owner. He had his horses on one-on-one racing all over Tennessee and North Carolina.

He also was responsible for “The Trail of Tears” – the Indian Removal from the Southern States to Oklahoma. The Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional and Old Hickory said something like, “If John Marshall (Chief Justice) ruled it unconstitutional, let John Marshall enforce it.” And then he probably gave the evil villain laugh “Ha ha ha hah ha ha!”

Here are some of of my claims to fame: Chief Justice John Marshall’s sister, Hannah Elizabeth Marshall married my 1st cousin, 6 times removed, Zachariah Petty. Another Petty relative, Timothy Dodson, my 1st cousin 4 times removed, lived next to the Hermitage and was a pallbearer at Old Hickory’s funeral.

Wow! That means I am somebody!

Rock City Birdhouse

Back last fall on a stormy windy day the side of my “See Rock City” birdhouse was blown off, exposing a great little six-apartment dwelling, each with its own perch.

I missed my “See Rock City” birdhouse. It reminds me of days gone by when gallivanting through out north Georgia we have came across many old barns with the “See Rock City” logo painted across the roof.

Sometimes a sign would read “See Seven States From Rock City”.

It is true… or I think it was. Rock City is a amusing place to visit when you are passing near Chattanooga. Rock City is on top of Lookout Mountain. At one place in the park is a kind of plaque on a base with arrows… pointing to the horizon. The arrows show which state are bracketed within the lines… like Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, maybe Alabama and Virginia, Kentucky, and lets see, we need one more…. Hmmmm… I know! Tennessee!!

Actually, I think Rock City is in Georgia. The Georgia Tennessee state line bisects Lookout Mountain. It was owned by the Carter family (not the Carters of Plains, Ga.) for generations – I would think, like everything else, by now, the corporate world now owns it.

At Rock City they also have a narrow trail between two giant rocks… they cleverly named it “Fat Man Squeeze”. They also have a swinging bridge and a Lovers’ Leap – of course it is traditional Indian story of a Indian maiden and her Indian brave lover…. The parents would not allow their romance – so, the rest is a great view.

There is also a cave of some kind at Rock City with fairy tales stages with animated dolls singing or whatever.

But back to my damaged “See Rock City” birdhouse:

We decided to replace the damaged one. Anna said the only place she knew of that sold them retail, besides the gift shop in Rock City, is the Crackle Barrel Restaurant. We went there. They had one left, on display. I picked it up and paid for it and the top thing that holds the two roofs together slid off and I saw no way of getting it back on. I found two ladies working on the retail displays and asked them how to get it back on. They couldn’t do it either. One of them said, “Don’t worry, we are not going to let you leave here with a birdhouse that is not right.”

She went back in the back and came back with a box with an unassembled “See Rocky City” birdhouse houses neatly packed. We took it.

Sunday I assembled it. As I was working on it I was thinking of what the retail sales lady said, not once, but a couple of times, ““Don’t worry, we are not going to let you leave here with a birdhouse that is not right.”… I could see me grabbing it from her and holding it like a football running across the Crackle Barrel lobby with the two women trying to tackle me or grab the birdhouse from me… and each time, I would kick them off or push there foreheads away with the my hand and keep running, but the other one would be waiting with a baseball bat for sale to knock me out before I reached the door.

They wouldn’t let me leave with a bad assembled birdhouse – so, I guess it is ok that I assembled it badly at home.

Below, Rock City Barn Advertising, Lovers' Leap at Rock City, and Fat Man's squeeze.

Toot Toot!!

The above picture is just a few miles before you get to Blue Ridge facing the highway. It is a junk person’s paradise. From the highway it looks like just a pile of junk in no kind of order. Then, I got a glimpsed of the mannequin in the bathtub. Now, that is order – or maybe just a system to the junkman’s madness.

Two weeks ago we called and got reservations for that upcoming Friday to ride the Blue Ridge Scenic Railroad. We requested opened to the air cars, to get the most out of the scenery. Then it rained and then it rained some more. On Wednesday before our reservation Friday the weather prediction was that it was 70% chance of rain in Blue Ridge. We could cancel and trip in 48 hours and get full credit. Then the chances fell to 10% for Friday.

I don’t want to know if it really rained or not.

The next Wednesday we checked the weather forecast and it said there was just about no chance it would rain the upcoming Friday (which was last Friday). We called and got our reservations. By this time we were getting to know the ladies in the ticket office.

Friday morning we got up early and headed north to Blue Ridge. We parked at the Depot. There was only parking place left. Anna called her mother just to make sure everything was ok before we went to the ticket office to get our tickets. Anna’s mother did not answer the phone. Marie very rarely leaves her house before 10:30 or 11:00. It was 9:39 and she wasn’t answering her phone.

We decided to hurry up and drive back to Kennesaw (near Marietta) and check on her mother. Before we made the trip back Anna went to the ticket office and got a voucher for our rides – so late in the game they don’t issue credit, they give vouchers which must be used within a year.

When we got to Anna’s mother’s house her car was not there. That was good new. If she was able to drive she probably was okay. Later we found out she went and had her hair done, which she usually does on Saturdays. She has a cell phone but has never gotten the hang of turning it on when she leaves her house. Well, I haven’t either, so I understand. But I think there is something to learn from that.

Which reminds me, later that same day Anna and I were shopping and I felt something vibrate and it startled me… something like a joy buzzer was vibrating against my stomach from something in my jacket pocket… then it chimed. It was my first unexpected cell call. It was Rocky asking were we on the train ride.

We gave it another try the next day, Saturday morning.

On the drive up I noticed a couple of storage companies in or near the little towns we drove through. I remember years ago when you see an old home in the mountains chances are the yard is full of junk, old appliances, old rusting trucks, maybe a school bus with vines growing all over it… but not so much now. The whole country side has that neat yuppie look! I bet those storage companies are partly to blame for giving it that new boring yuppie look.

The day before the train left the depot at 11:00am. We had no reason to believe the departing time would be any different. On the way up when we got in the town of Blue Ridge area it was very foggy and we went by a couple of wrecks of people that were not lucky in the fog. We were in the area at about 9:30 and thought we had about an hour and a half to kill, so we just about decided to ride by and see my old high school friend’s house that he bought and moved in after he retired. But I decided no, with the fog I couldn’t take any good pictures of his house anyway – only about 20 feet visibility. So, we went to historical downtown Blue Ridge and had to park a few blocks from the depot, there were no spaces available closer.

When we went into the ticket office to swap our voucher for tickets for an opened-air car. I almost expected them to ask how Anna’s mother doing and we call them by their first names… I think we may have been a topic of conversation there after we left the day before.

We went to the train and the lines of people were in front of each car. I asked somebody what time did the train leave on Saturday. At 10:00 was the answer. We would have missed it again if I tried to look up my old school chum’s home.




As we pulled out of the station in the opened air car I was amazed at how junky the back of some of the small old houses were. One house had a commode on the back porch. I tried to take a picture of it, but wasn’t quick enough.






Outside of town the scenery is beautiful. For a while it is rolling hills.

And then the tracks come up parallel with the Toccoa River and runs along beside it all the way into McCaysville, Georgia.


See the V in the river in the above picture? (center) That was an Indian Trout Trap… that would be hard to say quickly – Trout Trap! The trout swims in and when the try to leave the Cherokee Indians would be at the mouth of the trap and the trout would crowd at the point, and they would just have to wait to be picked.

Here are a few more river pictures.






It was very cold. Most people wisely wore heavy clothing. Not us! I am cold natured, but I was so turned on to the scenery I didn’t pay much attention to the coldness like other people I seen all wrapped up and shivering.

McCaysville is 13 miles from Blue Ridge. It took the train an hour to make the journey. So, according to my series of math formulas the train averaged 13 miles per hour.



McCaysville, Georgia, and Copper Hill, Tennessee, are one town. The state line splits a building, which must be complicated on property tax.

Back when I was a teenager I remember people talking of Copper Hill as a very mean and dangerous town. It was a mining town, which I suppose it was populated by mostly men. And the surrounding rolling hills of the surrounding area were stripped of any kind of growth and topsoil… which must have been an ugly site. But now, everything seemed laid back and nice and the river flowing through the community made it even better.

We ate on the Georgia side, about 150 feet from the Tennessee side at Georgia Boy’s BBQ. It is one of the best barbecue I had in a while. They do it right in Georgia.

We went back the same way. Actually there was an engine on each end of the train, they didn’t have to turn around or anything.

In our car their were two women, both with very pronounced north Georgia accents were sort of our guides or whatever. They were non-paid volunteers. I think their job was sort of being a hostesses and keep their eyes on guard for safety, in case somebody leaned too far out to take a picture or something. Both were very chatty one on one. They were not docents but just nice down to earth people who like to share what they know of the train ride and what you see.

One of the women, at the beginning of the trip made an announcement they we “have to wave” at people out walking or waiting at a RR crossing, on sitting on their back porches, and so on. I said, “We have to?” Anna and I joked about that off and on. As we passed a RR crossing and the couple in their car were waving I said in front of them is a sign on the black and white cross bar that read, “Wave at the Train! It’s the Law!”

Back in Blue Ridge we walked around with hoards of people going into antique, gift, boutiques, ice cream, and pet shops. Anna bought a silver chain in a jewelry store in Copper Hill and I bought an opened air bird feeder with rubber stoppers – the 2nd one of that kind for the den.



Oh yes! I almost forgot it was much warmer on the train ride back. Next time we go, if there is a next time, we agreed to get tickets for a climate controlled car – which I forgot to mention, there were only three opened air cars and maybe 7 to 9 climate controlled cars.

A nice outing day to break the routine of a daily grind.

Nashville

An ex-coworker, now retired, the same as I went to Nashville last weekend. He and his wife are country music fans. I heard on the news that last weekend Nashville had a big snow, so, today I called to see if the weather had ruined their trip.

It didn’t. They had a good time. They went to the Grand Ole’ Opry at Ryman’s Auditorium. He said that night was the last night until, I think he said, Fall, that they would be having the Grand Old Opry in the Ryman Auditorium – I think for the next several months the performances will be held at the concert hall at Opryland or wherever.

Their visit to the Ryman reminded me of my visit to the Ryman back 1963. By coincidence, my retired co-worker friend’s wife’s uncle was a friend of mine. Small world. He, I, and a couple of other boys went to Nashville, in my used PV544 Volvo.

I have an earlier post about that purchasing that used Volvo. It may have possibly played a part in the U.S. history.

When I bought the Volvo it had bad brakes. My friends and I thought we could replace the brakes with no problem and little cost. Which we did for little cost and no problem that we knew of.

On the way to Nashville going down a very long hill my brake petal went to the floor board. We sailed down with some of us screaming. Luckily, they had a truck runaway ramp which accommodated us to a coasting up a hill stop.

Somehow my friends made some adjustments and the brakes were fixed for a while, so onward to Nashville we went.

We got a room in a tall hotel next door to the Ryman Auditorium, I think the name of it was the Andrew Jackson Hotel.

We went on a walking tour of downtown Nashville, before the Grand Ole’ Opry. This wasn’t what you would think a walking tour is. At that time in our lives we could care less about the local history. We wanted to scout out some bars and a cheap place to eat.

So, we decided to eat at Woolworth’s. They had a sign of some kind of special dinner in the window. We went in, got a table by the window, and ordered. We got our food and were eating when I looked up and a tall man in dirty clothes and carrying a guitar was watching us eat – like he was appreciating every bite. After covering our mouths, we discussed what should we do – it appears he was homeless and hungry. So, we motioned for him to come in, which he did, and joined us. We bought him a meal.

He really appreciated it. He gobbled it down. We thought he was drunk. He told us that he grew up with Cowboy Copus and Cowboy told him if he was ever in town, come on down to the Opry and he would line it up so he could play to the audience and maybe become famous. He said he taught Cowboy how to play and he really was appreciative. Before I typed this I ran a search on Cowboy Copus and see that he is from Adams County, Ohio, so I assumed his the man who claimed to his friend would claim to be from Adams County also.

We went on the Ryman. We got our seats, which were very high up, what now days is called the “nose-bleed section”. The seating looked like rows of church pews.

The Opry was really enjoyable it was interesting how they change the setup from one performance to the next. There were so many house-hold name stars singing, after a while they are seem to blend in. Cowboy Copus was more or less the M.C., doing about the same thing Ed Sullivan did, introduce acts. The only performer that stood out was Patsy Cline that I remember.

Between one of the acts Cowboy played a song. While he was singing, and on the lowest level aisle I saw movement. Somebody was walking up towards the stage. He had a guitar. I recognized his old brown coat. It was Cowboy Copus’s friend! I punch my friends and directed with my finger the man marching up. We were all laughing, not believing it.

The man got to the stage and put his guitar on it and started to climb up. Suddenly, ushers appeared from nowhere and jerked him away from the stage. He hollowed at Cowboy to tell them who he was.

Cowboy kept on singing, not missing a beat.

After the show, we went to Ernie’s Record Mark, and a few bars where amateurs who wanted to be discovered sung, probably for free.

We finally settled in a bar called “The Jungle”. A waitress there was named Bonnie. A big tall gal that tried to talk us into taking her back to Marietta with us. She had a cruel lazy husband and nine children. She wanted a change of scenery. She gave us her home number.

The next morning we called her and explained we were in a little Volvo with 4 passengers already. She said that was OK, she changed her mind anyway.

Which is just as well, because at that time each of us still lived with our parents. But we didn’t tell her that.

Cowboy copus and Patsey Cline were killed in an airplane accident the next week.