Home Cooking

Of the things I missed most after leaving Loudon, right behind my family and friends, I probably missed home cooking more than anything else. I always thought my Mom and Grandma were the best cooks in the world, but everybody thinks that, so most likely they were just the best at cooking what I liked the way I liked it.

What didn’t help was going from Tennessee to California and one way of life to another. Plus, the time period would have to be considered since things have changed greatly since then. But almost everything I liked was unavailable --- or at least they were not available in the cafes and restaurants where I went to eat.

Cornbread was almost non-existent, and so were pinto beans. Fried chicken was seldom found, and biscuits and gravy was nowhere to be seen. There were substitutes for some of it. I found Mexican food had refried beans, which was not exactly the way I preferred beans, but they were very good just the same. The chow hall on base also occasionally served corn muffins and every morning they had creamed chipped beef --- good ol’ SOS --- which is known affectionately to some as Same old Stuff and to others as Sh*t on a Shingle. It wasn’t sausage gravy, but it was military staple and was hot and fresh every morning, and I love it just as much today as I did back then.

Bulk sausage was not always available either, instead links were the most common. They were okay, but nothing like the crisp, thick patties I was used to, and when you ordered orange juice you got this frustratingly small glass that held little more than a good swallow. Finally, there was no sweet iced tea. In fact unsweetened iced tea wasn’t all that common either.

If you could see me now it's plain I was able to adjust, but back then it was almost as much a part of the homesickness I felt as the people and place I had left behind.

Richesin's Drug Store

This was one of my favorite hang outs when I was a kid. Ice cream, sundaes, floats, Ernie served them all up quick and with a smile. If you wanted an extra squirt of cherry syrup in your Coke, no problem. If you wanted nuts on the ice cream, he had that too. Chocolate sauce or a cherry? That wasn't a problem either. And sometimes if you ran an errand for him he would pay you with a single scoop cone. That was better than money.

You could get what you wanted to go or sit in one of the booths that lined the outside wall. It was a wecomed cool spot in the summer. And in the back, just inside the back door and right next to the battery tester, was the jukebox. Three songs for a quarter, I think it was, and for some reason my all time favorite song on that jukebox was "When a Man Loves a Woman" by Percy Sledge.

I have no idea why I liked that song, I just did, and I wasn't even a teenager yet. When I hear it now on an oldies station, I am right back there in one of those worn wooden booths, eating a chocolate cone or, if I had extra money, sipping on a Coke float.

It's this week's oldie clip. Sing it Percy!

What's In A Name?

While surfing the web the other night I found a site with a lot of Tennessee high school football helmets:

http://www.mghelmets.com/Tennessee.html

Which includes this nifty little number here:



That got me to thinking about the hoopla over team names that are seen as offensive to Native Americans. Well, you can't get much more offensive than calling a Native American a redskin. I know, I've heard all the arguments about how it's not meant to demean anyone, in fact, a lot of people say it's meant to "honor" them. Well, I'm not here to start an debate, but that's almost like saying you're trying to honor me by calling me fat and ugly.

So I did some more searching on the internet and guess what? I can not find Loudon's name on any list that is considered "offensive". I saw a lot of other schools listed, included a bunch from Tennessee --- but no Loudon. How did we make it under the radar?

One of you folks who've lived there all this time answer a question for me. Has there been any attempts or recommendations to change the name?

All that aside, I am proud of my high school and it's history, and that includes the name, which is the most visible symbol of my high school, whether it's good or bad.

And I think the helmet is very sharp.

Random Thoughts

I liked the school a lot the first year. It was a very nice building and I was actually a little proud to go there. Obviously it was new, but it was more than that. For one thing we all had equal footing that first day whether we were freshmen or seniors, we were all entering a strange new world. I think our whole class at one time or another felt a little special because we were the first class to go all four years there, and I think we left it in pretty good shape when we left.

At one time or another when we left school at the end of the day, one of the male teachers was always outside yelling at us if we cut across the grass. There was no walking on the grass, which was a little odd since you couldn’t walk all the way around the building without walking on the grass at the northeast corner. But they weren’t outside at lunch to keep us off the grass.

I probably smoked as much as anyone else while I was there, but in all that time, no matter what the function was I don’t ever remember a teacher smoking. Maybe they didn’t even smoke, or if they did they were told to restrict it to the teacher’s lounge, but whether it was during the day or at a game at night, I don’t recall any of them lighting up.

On the outside of the building, why was there a space between the auditorium and the band room? Looked to me like a mistake, but then again I’m not an architect.

What about that garden spot between home economics and typing? I know I’ve mentioned it before, but it looked like they ran out of money and decided to scrap one room. Okay, so I know it was designed that way, most likely some trend in the mid 60s, but it was too small to really do anything with. Are they doing anything with it now?

What would you guess, maybe 30% of the kids drove? Maybe it was more like 25%, but as I recall the parking lot was fairly small. You would think they would have at least consider ball games and made the parking lots bigger.

You didn’t need a calendar to know it was Chieftain day. The upper hall by the office smelled like the mimeograph machine. How the world has changed. Remember the hand written tests that were sometimes hard to read, either because of the mimeograph copy or the teacher was in too big of a hurry to get it ready for class, and the letters were sometimes faded in the middle because the copier only picked up the edges.

One of my most enduring memories of the first and second grade was the early morning smell of peanut butter cookies being baked because at Loudon Elementary, those two grades were directly over the cafeteria. At the high school the only smell I remember is when they made barbeque, and I don’t remember any smells from home economics. Did they cook or bake in there?

The rear of the auditorium was always cool. Late summer when it was hot outside, you could always go sit there and cool off. Plus it was usually empty.

As often as they yelled about walking on the grass, they yelled about street shoes on the gym floor. Coach Ratledge would get so mad sometimes he would chase you. I also can’t think of the gym without seeing Dickie walking the length of it on his hands. That was so cool and he was the only one I know of who could do it.