Excitement in a Sleepy Town

I didn’t live in a house with a driver until my late teens -- neither my mom nor my grandparents drove -- so if I went someplace, it was by foot. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot to do or see, it was all just a little closer to home.

For several years, I think around the 4th of July, there was a festival of some kind on the courthouse lawn. I don’t recall the name, but I can remember it going on several years. There was a lot to do, but the highlight, at least for the boys, was the greasy pole. It seemed incredibly tall to me at the time, but I’m sure it wasn’t much more than 20 ft. They slathered it with axle grease or something similar and nailed something like $50 to the top. To a kid my age, that was a fortune, but all I ever accomplished was cleaning some of the grease off the bottom of the pole.

I also remember one year some kid had a Shetland pony with a fancy saddle. I asked him if I could ride it and he said okay, so I jumped on. Something was twisted somewhere, or the pony just had a bad temper, but he started bucking and I held until they got him calmed down. I might not have been a real cowboy, but I got my eight seconds – and then some.

Speaking of cowboys and horses, there was also a small rodeo that stopped in at the baseball field for a week or so. I only remember this happening a couple of times, but it was still exciting. I’m not sure how they set up, probably so they could use the stands and the backstop behind home plate, since I was too busy running around to really see pay attention.

I can also remember a circus there once. It wasn’t much of one that I recall, not like the Barnum and Bailey Circus, but it was in Loudon.

Also at the baseball field were ballgames between adult teams. They weren’t minor league teams, more like business sponsored leagues, but it was still fun to watch.  And right outside the ballpark was the skating rink where you could get a small bottle of coke and listen to some 50s rock and roll.

In the west end of town there was a small carnival that sat up behind the VFW a few years. Again, it was small but it was there, and you didn’t have to find a way to get to Knoxville or Chattanooga, or even Lenoir City. There were no dramatic rides, but there wasn’t all that many back then anyway. I do remember the chairs on a chain that would swing around so fast that you were almost horizontal, and the platform you stood on and it turned so fast that the centrifugal force held you against the wall as the ride turned on its edge. Like I said, nothing major, but still fun and exciting for a sleepy little town in the Tennessee hills.