Crushes and Something New

I watched 'Sixteen Candles' again the other night. It's a nice movie and Molly Ringwald was a cutie back then. Anyway, it got me thinking about when I was a freshman and the crush I had on one or two junior/senior girls --- girls that would never give me the time of day. But I couldn't help it. They were so pretty and mature and ... well.... stacked. :) So that's what leads us to this week's question. I know I can't be the only one who daydreamed about certain juniors or seniors.

The 'something new' is something I wrote. I got an idea for a story several years ago but it took this blog and talking with you folks to really get it off the ground, so you could say it's been a work in progress off and on for a couple of years. It's in 3 parts and part 1 was supposed to have two more chapters in it for character development and to balance it with the other two parts, but I took them out so you could get into the 'meat' of the story quicker. I'm not a writer, but I had fun with it. I hope you guys enjoy it at least a little. I think you'll find some things you will recognize. To save the story to your computer, right click on the link to the story and choose "Save target as" or "Save link". Or heck, as far as that goes click here to do the same thing. That way you won't have to download it each time. Enjoy.

How I Made a Small Place Even Smaller

We get into these discussions sometimes about where this and that was, and I read your comments and it occurs to me that there are places I went fairly often that some of you didn't, and vice-versa. Whether it was because of family or friends or the location of our homes, it appears we all had our 'range'.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in Madisonville in my entire life, and I didn't go to Greenback or Vonore that much more often. My range, not counting ball games, was basically Sweetwater to Knoxville and near Midway to almost Jackson.

On the map at the top (you can click on it to make it bigger), the black line around Loudon was where I spent probably 75% of my time. The green line was were I was maybe 15% of the time and the blue line was where I was 10% or less of the time. No wonder it seemed so small.

How Are Jobs?

I live in a small town just north of Indianapolis called Noblesville , or as some of the locals say --- Nobletucky. The town comes by the nickname honestly --- there are a lot of people around here with southern roots.

As part of my job I am required to verify the identity of the people I do things for, and like so many other places, we have a bank of questions we can ask them and compare their answers to what they previously submitted. One of those questions is "Where were you born?" Obviously places in Indiana are the most common, but there are a boatload of people who were born in Knoxville or Johnson City or Nashville or Oak Ridge. I even ran into one from Sweetwater. They are all around our age and when I asked them how long they lived down there they all say the same thing... anywhere from a couple of months to a couple of years because their Dad moved up here to find work.

Is it still that bad? I know it was when we graduated. I can remember driving around Knoxville with Allen McNabb and stopping at lots of places to fill out applications. We didn't even get a callback for an interview. I was lucky enough to have a job at Maramount until I joined the USAF, but so much for trying to move up.

Oh, and it goes without saying that now that you know where I live, all of you are very welcome to stop by anytime you're close by)

Even More Questions From a Wondering Mind

What was the name of the store in Knoxville that was sort of like a Wall Mart? I seem to remember parking in back of it and I think the building was green, but I may be wrong (I was only there at night).

Going south out of town, what is the name of the big farm on the left between Loudon an Philadelphia?

How about the one on the right?

What was the name of the small, white, cinder block store in west end Loudon? It was on the right about a 50 yards short of the traffic light at Highland Avenue.

What are the team name and colors for Lenior City? Rockwood? Kingston? Alcoa?

How many people were in our graduating class? How many started out in our freshman class?

Did we have fire drills?

Where did we go on our senior trip?

What were the name of the little hamburgers sold in the concession stand?

If you didn’t want to go to Cole’s, where was the next closest Drive In?

Name the stores that were along the store front across old 72 from the courthouse? As I remember there were four.

Rain on a Hot Tin Roof

My mom in law is visiting so the AC is turned off since she gets cold at anything below 80, but then she’s almost 90 so she has earned a perk or two in her life. Anyway, it brings to mind when we were kids and had to put up with living without air conditioning, even though at the time we didn’t know it was all that bad. I still cannot believe that as a kid I would run all day then come home and try to fall asleep in a hot house, and sometimes that hot house had a tin roof with precious little – if any -- insulation. It was almost like trying to sleep in a toaster oven.

When I was real young I shared a bed with my brother and we always fought over the window. There were many nights we sat on the porch with all the windows and doors flung open to let the house “cool off” before we went to bed, and even then it was still pretty toasty inside, and you would lay there waiting for some breeze, no matter how slight, to come through the window.

Rain was better, even if a little of it blew in the window, but we did not want a thunderstorm, especially when we stayed with my grandmother. The world stopped at Grandma’s during a thunderstorm. The windows were closed and we were not allowed anywhere near them. No TV, no radio, no phone. We could not touch a thing, especially if it was electrical, and we had to be very, very quite. It was almost like noise was a lightening rod.

But even with all that there are times I miss it. I still love the sound of rain on a tin roof. Imagine, we had soothing sounds to lull us to sleep long before they started putting them in a radios. There was a new house built near Memphis just before we left there. It has a wrap around porch and a tin roof. I’m sure it also has about 2 feet of insulation, which probably muffles the sound a lot, but it is still a tin roof. What a lucky guy.

Anyone planning a reunion?

If there is, hopefully they’ve seen the response to some of the poll questions. I will be the first to admit that a sample size of 4 to 7 people is way yonder too small, but it does give a starting point.

When asked if they would attend a reunion that spanned 2 to 3 days, 75% said yes.

When asked what they would most like to do at the next reunion -- chat, dance, listen to music or have a few beers, 100% said sit and chat.

When given an option of where to have the reunion – at someone’s house, the school, clubhouse, restaurant/bar or a park, (people were allowed to vote for more than one venue) and the school and a clubhouse beat out the restaurant/bar and park, 75% to 50%

When asked how much they would be willing to spend per person, 75% went for the $50-$75 range while 25% went with the $25-$50 range. Since I was the 25%, it wouldn’t bother me at all to move up with the others to make it unanimous with $50-$75.

Again, hardly scientific polling, but should be interesting to someone planning a reunion. There is someone doing that….. isn’t there?