Holy Crap It's Christmas Eve

The Honest Season

This time of year is revealing. When the leaves fall, you see things that the trees normally hide. Houses you only had inkling were there. Dilapidated barns and sheds held up by one or two posts, waiting for a good stiff wind to knock them down – they never seem to tear anything down around here, it just kind of eventually falls down. When these wonderful trees are naked you catch glimpses the rusted cars and old washing machines and other crap as you ride through the countryside..

Don't get me wrong. Tennessee is not rife with garbage. The landscape is quite pretty here.

What's different from Western Canada, and what has taken me some time to adjust to, are the number of people. They're everywhere. And maybe because the trees make such a convenient hiding place, people are not quite as conservation conscious as they should be.

I’m telling you, you couldn’t throw a dead possum around here without hitting some sign of man.

So when the leaves come crashing down, sins are revealed.

Huck Finn

We rented a cabin in the Smoky Mountains this last weekend. The mountains are a two-three hours away and the cabins make for fun and restful getaways. A couple of friends, Bruce and Alma Anderson, spent a night with us too. Enjoyed it heaps.

The day we arrived, we ate a tasty but surreal meal in Pigeon Forge at a place called Huck Finns. Huck’s is a vittle-eating baseball-cap-wearing baby-crying kind of joint with menu items like hush puppies, frog legs, gator bites, catfish and other Southern favorites. While I didn’t see any possum gravy, I think Granny Clampett would fall in love with Huck Finn’s. From the giant plastic catfish nailed to the walls to the signs with the misspellings and backward lettering, it screams “hillbilly and proud of it.”

We ate at another popular place called the Old Mill. One of those comfort food places with a lot of Southern fare and some real history behind it. In 1783 - 1854, it was part of a small industrial complex on the Pigeon River that included an iron forge for which Pigeon Forge was named. During the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865), the mill powered looms which produced cloth for the military. You see, you never know in a touristy-circus city like Pigeon Forge if what you are looking at is hoke or the genuine article.

You gotta love stereotypes. They sure draw in the tourists. Not that there aren’t rednecks, moonshiners and other heehaws roaming the hills and hollers of Tennessee. They have their fair share of them. Just like Western Canada has its fair share of genuine cowboys but really lays it on thick when everyone dons boots and stetsons and becomes a rootin’ tootin’ callaballootin’ cowpoke for the ten days of the Calgary Stampede. Yeehaw.

Yessir pard, behind almost every stereotype, there is a grain of truth. Which leads me to this thought - it isn’t the size of the stereotype that matters but what you do with it that counts.

Opening A Store

Christmas has inspired me. I’m going to open a store. Call it “Useless Crap.” There are plenty of stores that sell items that belong in such a store but I think that my customers will appreciate the honesty of actually calling it like it is. If the crowds I see lining up and buying all of that crap are any indication, I feel my store should be very popular indeed.

New School

Elisabeth is teaching at a new school after Christmas. It is a ten-minute drive from the house instead of the half hour she drives now. Small classes of 8-10 instead of 30. She has worked with the new principle before and thoroughly likes him. She is the envy of many of her colleagues – they would teach there if they could.

What's interesting is it is an alternative school and the last chance for students with behavior problems before they are sent to reform school. Strict rules and security. No homework – in many cases, it would not make it back to the school. They can’t even be trusted with notebooks that have wire bindings – they might cut themselves.

E says that when she heard about the job opening, there was a little voice that pushed her to apply. She says she wants to help the students, to give them the tools they need to function normally in society. She wants to make them think, to help them realize there is more to life than the limited existence they lead. If anyone can do that, it is Elisabeth. She has a way with hard cases. I’m proud of her.

National Educational Telecommunications Association Award

The magazine I put together for the TV station is receiving a national award. I’ll be trundling on in to Nashville to accept it in January. I’m hoping to use that award as a springboard and inspire other PBS stations into creating something similar. Who knows what will happen from here? It's been a heck of a ride these last few years and I have the feeling, more than ever, that anything is possible.

Christmas Plans

Hanging out with Elisabeth’s family and our friends. There is a nor’wester blowin’ in and I’ll reckon we’ll have snow for Christmas Day. Yay! That’s rare around here. Time for some serious snow angels.

I can see your smiling faces in my mind, bathed in the warm glow of the holidays. I wish I could give you all a big Christmas hug –you’re in my thoughts and in my heart. Merry Christmas.

Love & Light.