We went to Pigeon Forge last weekend and I went to the car to just set and look. I remember when the road was a two lane highway going through Sevierville and to Pigeon Forge all the way to Gatlinburg. There were motels along side the road owned by local people and shops along side the road that were also owned by locals. Each shop was different, each motel was different with the most elaborate ones being two stories high. There may have even been one with three stories high. Soon the highway was widened to a four lane, but nobody knew why.
The road between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg had places alongside the road with concrete picnic tables beside the creek, and a few beside the woods. Back then it wasn't unusual to see Cherokee people in the shops, sometimes drumming up business and sometimes working there. The shop owners usually worked at the shops and had chiseled out features from doing other hard work. Some were heated in the winter with Pot Bellied Stoves. I remember fans in the bigger shops, but air conditioning either wasn't made yet or couldn't be afforded. Eventually some closed in shops placed one in the wall, but just the bigger ones. We would fuss over who got to stand in front of them when we entered.
Seahorn Enterprises made a lot of things and eventually they were advertised as made by real Indians. That wasn't a true claim in some ways yet in some ways it was. Most of us have some Cherokee heritage. Most of the products were quality made things and many were made by hand. The products were good enough that people local bought them from local stores, just not in the Tourist shops as they were marked much higher. I bought a paper towel holder that mounts to the wall in the late seventies, maybe be the early eighties, I don't remember which. It was made good enough that to this day we still use it. Made from real wood from here in Tennessee by real Tennesseans by hand. I'm not sure that anything there is made even in the USA anymore and if it is, not here in East Tennessee.
We'd stay at a motel that had a swimming pool, not all of them had one. It was too cool. We normally swam in lakes and ponds where the water was too dirty to open your eyes and though the chlorine hurt out eyes, we could see underwater. Gold Rush Junction was the theme park where Dollywood is today. It was too cool with fake gun fights and a real steam train to ride. You'd pick where you would eat and almost all were native to that area, no cloned diners. Everything was unique to the area. The food. The people. Everything.
Gatlinburg was even more unique with shops that could only be found there. I high lift to the top of one of the mountains, looking down at the trees and up at the trees and ridges, looking for bears. I think the high lift is still there and now you look down at other man made sights, but now you don't look at the trees and ridges for wildlife but rather at cheap cabin get-a-ways that are stacked and packed, hanging from the sides of the mountains. The only wildlife is the parties taking place. Most of the shops are clones of shops around the country, restaurants too. I can't help but wonder how one gets excited at going across country to see the same thing they have at home. Kind of defeats the purpose of a vacation in a strange land to be explored.
There traffic is atrocious with cars that seemed to be going to a fire. East Tennessee is suppose to be laid back. High rise building litter both towns and billboards that shatter the darkness, some even have what looks like TVs on them. There are attractions that have nothing to do with this area and can be found in most Tourist Traps. Ones like the Wild West Show (shhhh...this is the southeast), the Lumber Jack Log Rolls, sometimes I never heard of when I was a kid. Elvis is there, except he is from West Tn and preformed a lot in Vegas. Dolly is shown, except she preformed in Nashville, but at least she was from here. Key word being from. And the list is endless, mindless too.
There is some good things here that were added like the Aquarium and some that remain like Christus Gardens. Lodge Cast Iron though is a welcome site since they are made in Tennessee, only ones left making Cast Iron Cookware in the whole USA now. The Titanic display is a bit out of place but it seems no more odd than ninety percent of everything else. The one thing though I miss is the old man who was a bear hunter and had a live Black Bear there as a pet. We would stop there in the sixties at his store. He had all kids of neat souvenirs there, cheap too. For a dime you could buy the bear a Coke. Walk to to a fence about a foot tall and he would reach and take it, sit up, and with both paws drink it like a person. Then he would hand the bottle back. I got to pet him on a few occasions. Eventually the whoever in the government decided that it was not good for Old Smokey, so they changed it to a chocolate flavored drink. They also added a cage and it was too long after that they quit letting people hand the bear the drink. The bear was second generation and never harmed or even offered to harm anybody.
We would still stop and see the bear, even showed Old Smokey to at least my oldest a few times. One day coming through, for whatever reason, the bear was gone. Something about it just wasn't safe of fair to the bear. Eventually the old man either died or sold out and now it bears little resemblance to those fond memories, just as the rest of the area does now. Today those shops would be referred to as "mom & pop businesses". It's usually cast with a derogatory sound. Be that as it may, those mom and pop businesses made this country and made it great. I fail to see the fun in going to a place that looks like a place I can go anywhere in the USA, probably the world. Where is the adventure in that? We're all not suppose to look alike, talk alike, and shop alike.... man that is so lame and boring.
At 51 going on 52 now, I am out of place. I feel out of place. I see and read signs saying a place is the heart of the Smokie Mountains and I say yea right, bet they say that at the beach and everywhere their corporation enters. I don't understand a would where people would rather text than speak. Where people inflict pain by piercing places that you would normally go to the doctor if something stuck in you there. Wear skulls in their clothing, tattoos all over their bodies ( great way to be identified), and fish symbols on their cars while driving like they are the only ones that count. A place where people get excited because XYZ store is there too, just like at home and every other place they go to. Where grown people tie a piece of underwear elastic from them and jump off a perfectly good platform. I'm not sure if I am living the movie Escape from NY or George Orwell's 1984 flick. Yep, this one will piss some off, but maybe it will wake some up. It was once said that the USA was the new Roman Empire and I now believe that was truth. (John Lennon). We see how Rome turned out. So how did that work for them?
The road between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg had places alongside the road with concrete picnic tables beside the creek, and a few beside the woods. Back then it wasn't unusual to see Cherokee people in the shops, sometimes drumming up business and sometimes working there. The shop owners usually worked at the shops and had chiseled out features from doing other hard work. Some were heated in the winter with Pot Bellied Stoves. I remember fans in the bigger shops, but air conditioning either wasn't made yet or couldn't be afforded. Eventually some closed in shops placed one in the wall, but just the bigger ones. We would fuss over who got to stand in front of them when we entered.
Seahorn Enterprises made a lot of things and eventually they were advertised as made by real Indians. That wasn't a true claim in some ways yet in some ways it was. Most of us have some Cherokee heritage. Most of the products were quality made things and many were made by hand. The products were good enough that people local bought them from local stores, just not in the Tourist shops as they were marked much higher. I bought a paper towel holder that mounts to the wall in the late seventies, maybe be the early eighties, I don't remember which. It was made good enough that to this day we still use it. Made from real wood from here in Tennessee by real Tennesseans by hand. I'm not sure that anything there is made even in the USA anymore and if it is, not here in East Tennessee.
We'd stay at a motel that had a swimming pool, not all of them had one. It was too cool. We normally swam in lakes and ponds where the water was too dirty to open your eyes and though the chlorine hurt out eyes, we could see underwater. Gold Rush Junction was the theme park where Dollywood is today. It was too cool with fake gun fights and a real steam train to ride. You'd pick where you would eat and almost all were native to that area, no cloned diners. Everything was unique to the area. The food. The people. Everything.
Gatlinburg was even more unique with shops that could only be found there. I high lift to the top of one of the mountains, looking down at the trees and up at the trees and ridges, looking for bears. I think the high lift is still there and now you look down at other man made sights, but now you don't look at the trees and ridges for wildlife but rather at cheap cabin get-a-ways that are stacked and packed, hanging from the sides of the mountains. The only wildlife is the parties taking place. Most of the shops are clones of shops around the country, restaurants too. I can't help but wonder how one gets excited at going across country to see the same thing they have at home. Kind of defeats the purpose of a vacation in a strange land to be explored.
There traffic is atrocious with cars that seemed to be going to a fire. East Tennessee is suppose to be laid back. High rise building litter both towns and billboards that shatter the darkness, some even have what looks like TVs on them. There are attractions that have nothing to do with this area and can be found in most Tourist Traps. Ones like the Wild West Show (shhhh...this is the southeast), the Lumber Jack Log Rolls, sometimes I never heard of when I was a kid. Elvis is there, except he is from West Tn and preformed a lot in Vegas. Dolly is shown, except she preformed in Nashville, but at least she was from here. Key word being from. And the list is endless, mindless too.
There is some good things here that were added like the Aquarium and some that remain like Christus Gardens. Lodge Cast Iron though is a welcome site since they are made in Tennessee, only ones left making Cast Iron Cookware in the whole USA now. The Titanic display is a bit out of place but it seems no more odd than ninety percent of everything else. The one thing though I miss is the old man who was a bear hunter and had a live Black Bear there as a pet. We would stop there in the sixties at his store. He had all kids of neat souvenirs there, cheap too. For a dime you could buy the bear a Coke. Walk to to a fence about a foot tall and he would reach and take it, sit up, and with both paws drink it like a person. Then he would hand the bottle back. I got to pet him on a few occasions. Eventually the whoever in the government decided that it was not good for Old Smokey, so they changed it to a chocolate flavored drink. They also added a cage and it was too long after that they quit letting people hand the bear the drink. The bear was second generation and never harmed or even offered to harm anybody.
We would still stop and see the bear, even showed Old Smokey to at least my oldest a few times. One day coming through, for whatever reason, the bear was gone. Something about it just wasn't safe of fair to the bear. Eventually the old man either died or sold out and now it bears little resemblance to those fond memories, just as the rest of the area does now. Today those shops would be referred to as "mom & pop businesses". It's usually cast with a derogatory sound. Be that as it may, those mom and pop businesses made this country and made it great. I fail to see the fun in going to a place that looks like a place I can go anywhere in the USA, probably the world. Where is the adventure in that? We're all not suppose to look alike, talk alike, and shop alike.... man that is so lame and boring.
At 51 going on 52 now, I am out of place. I feel out of place. I see and read signs saying a place is the heart of the Smokie Mountains and I say yea right, bet they say that at the beach and everywhere their corporation enters. I don't understand a would where people would rather text than speak. Where people inflict pain by piercing places that you would normally go to the doctor if something stuck in you there. Wear skulls in their clothing, tattoos all over their bodies ( great way to be identified), and fish symbols on their cars while driving like they are the only ones that count. A place where people get excited because XYZ store is there too, just like at home and every other place they go to. Where grown people tie a piece of underwear elastic from them and jump off a perfectly good platform. I'm not sure if I am living the movie Escape from NY or George Orwell's 1984 flick. Yep, this one will piss some off, but maybe it will wake some up. It was once said that the USA was the new Roman Empire and I now believe that was truth. (John Lennon). We see how Rome turned out. So how did that work for them?
I think most guys as we get older turn into Mr. Wilson from Dennis the menace.
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