Been having a high ole time here in the Smokies. Here on business really: a three- day board meeting.
To break the tedium of the meetings we got into our cars and went to Bush’s Beans, home (home, factory, restaurant, museum and country store) of the famous Bush Beans and their dog Mike for lunch. Of course they had cute little doggie pillows and a bunch of hand crafted “pick’n” instruments make with “guitar strings” on a slat of hand-fashioned mountain wood screwed into a Bush’s bean can.
They also had the customary ole-timey items “for sale” and clerks dressed in their frontier 19the century calico dresses and head gear.
If this wasn’t exciting enough we topped it all off going to Clint’s home spun country and antique choked (over done, they must have made midnight raid on a Cracker Barrel) BBQ restaurant for dinner.
The restaurant was bedecked with a life sized picture of the patron saint of Gatlinburg and the Smokies, Ms. Dolly Parton with her piled high blond hair and famous tooters. Of course Clint a grinn’n ear to ear was in the picture with Dolly. Both with the look of kindred country spirits.
Side note on Clint. Clint was rotund and white bearded like a classic Santa Clause. Mr. C worn a droopy mountain hat and overalls in the evenings but not while operating his rug cleaning business during the day.
A man of many homespun talents he also had his own gospel singing band that performed nightly in his picnic- benched tourist-filled BBQ emporium. Well perhaps not nightly due to his faithfulness in attending services at his church in the valley.
On the way home after all the excitement I was happy not to encounter a stray deer intent on tangling with my windshield nor a black bear homesteading in the middle of my pitch-dark narrow switch-back mountain roadway.
I’m just grateful I’m snug in my room and will be returning to my home turf tomorrow filled up to my eyebrows in country-mountain culture and charm.
May God forgive me if you think I’m making fun or unintentionally hurting anyone’s feelings. My only point is that a Chicago area bred and raised guy like myself probable can’t appreciate good gospel music and deep fried or BBQ food.
God is so generous up here with His beauty.
Jim
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