That Little One Horse Town I Call Home

When I was a kid, Loudon seemed so incredibly large. Walking was the most common form of travel and from the west end to downtown seemed to take forever. And if I was walking toward Hospital Hill, the curve on old 72 going around the base of the hill seemed like a cross country trek from the traffic light at 72 and 11. You could probably walk to one spot in town from any other spot in less than an hour, but to a kid that’s a long time. Even the walks to school seemed stretched, especially if it was raining or very cold or hot.

I’m not talking about just in town either. Going to Lenoir City, Philadelphia, or Greenback seemed to take hours on those narrow, two lane roads, and anyplace beyond the distance of Knoxville may as well be on another planet. Now you can zip back and forth to those places with interstates or wide multi-lane highways, but do you remember what it was like before all that, when the roads were so curvy my uncle used to joke that the guy who built the road was trying to run down a snake. As I got older places did seem to get closer – at least a little.

The people were different too. You could always expect to see the same people in the same place, no matter the day of the week; except for Sunday and Wednesday afternoon. People worked their stores, leaned against lamp posts, or sat whittling all the time. Same person, same place. There was a checkerboard outside the fire station that was almost always in use, and you could set your clock by where Mr. Johns or Tater Watts were on their mail route or where Boss Wallace was in the trash truck. Not garbage truck -- trash truck.

Some of the older guys would kid around with you when you were younger, trying to get you to believe some of the most outlandish things. One tried to convince me that potato chips were cooked in oil made from a lizard’s back. I was maybe six, but I still remember it. He said, “Look at your fingers and how slick and shiny they look. That’s the same way a lizard’s back look.” I believed him for awhile, until my older brother called me stupid for believing that kind of stuff. Older brothers had a way of saying things so succinctly.

Anyway, when I go back now I’m amazed at how small it is. I see the “revitalization” efforts downtown and I wonder why. What are they revitalizing? The farm families don’t come to town in droves on Saturday morning anymore. There are not enough of them left, and besides, it’s easier to go someplace bigger that has a better selection of stores. There are no more shops. There are several eating places, and I think one place to get a haircut, but no place to buy a shirt. More than that, there are no people. There are some walking here or there, or stopping at the bank during the day, but when the business day is over the only people you see are the ones traveling through town.

Sad.