Wednesday, June 13, 2001
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Wednesday, June 13, 2001 |
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A wistful town on a blue highway By SALLIE
SATTERTHWAITE Last week I told you about the basic amenities that river cruisers crave along their watery blue highways: a public dock with cleats, access to a viable downtown, newspapers, perhaps city water within reach. In the small-town category, give high marks to Harriman and Kingston, Tenn., on the Harriman and Clinch rivers, respectively. Harriman had all of the above except a water pipe within reach, but we made a few bucket runs from one we found in their obviously new city river-park. A large band shell and shelter suggested summer afternoons in the park, and indeed, balloons and hand-lettered signs told of a family reunion scheduled for the next day. Harriman also has a delightful historic district. After a week of walking only the length of a 25-foot boat, we were happy to have a few miles of hilly streets to stride, with pleasant architecture to admire. When the day turned rainy, we passed an hour or so in one of those little antique/used-book/flea markets that every small town seems to have. I actually bought a lemon squeezer and a glass jar with a tight lid for the boat, of course. Kingston's elegant green river-front park stretches for miles, but we did most of our walking in the downtown area. There's a great mid-sized grocery close by, and I found a mailbox store where they let me plug in to get e-mail. Next day we decided to have Sunday dinner "out" at a local restaurant we had visited on an earlier trip. A mile or two past the center of town, it was worth the walk. Lesson learned. In any small Southern town where the largest building in town is the Baptist church, you won't find a locally owned restaurant open on Sunday. Nor the pizza place or a Chinese restaurant we passed on the way. Taco Bell was less constrained, so that's where we had our Sunday dinner. Time and again, however, as we approached a small town around the next bend of the river, hoping for a hint of welcome, there was none as when we neared the first town above our put-in spot on the Cumberland, a sinuously beautiful river in northern Tennessee. The charts show two bridges crossing there, and a launch ramp coming down to the water. Maybe they'd have a city dock. And maybe they wouldn't. Our blue highway took a wistful turn at Carthage. Nearby communities named Difficult, Defeated and Poorhouse should have given us a clue. We beached Alice III near the boat ramp, tied her fast to a tree, and scrambled up a rocky embankment to the street. It was nearly a mile into town. We passed a pair of groundhogs taking a stroll in what could be the capital of The Land of What-if-and-might-have-been. Nondescript is a flattering term. Downtown has a hotel boarded and closed "for renovation," a souvenir shop still pushing Gore/Lieberman campaign memorabilia, and one promising gas station closed for overhaul. The only food source is a convenience store at the foot of the iron-girdered Cordell Hull Bridge. The proprietor of a dwindling antique shop was willing to talk when I paused beside an old desk stacked with Gore-2000 signs and poster invitations to the grand opening of Gore-for-President campaign headquarters at the Smith County Courthouse across the street. "We don't have to apologize to anybody," the antique dealer said. "We made mistakes, but it was a good honest campaign. You've got to remember, Vice President Gore won the popular vote." He said he believed the candidate's strong opposition to tobacco interests defeated him, at least in Tennessee, the cruelest loss of all. At least Vice President Gore that's what he always called him won Smith County. "The Gores are nice people, good people," our friend asserted. "I've done a little business with them, and they're good decent hard-working people." I asked where they lived, the general direction, and he said you go out the highway about three and a half miles, and the Gore family home was the place behind the white fence with the security gate. Vice President Gore owns 88 acres across the road. We talked about the town, and what a difference it would have made if what happened to Plains, Ga. and Hope, Ark. had happened here. Instead, downtown is failing. A few law offices there is not only the county courthouse but also a federal building a TV repair shop, three churches, two large video stores, a health clinic, an auto parts place and a florist. But no food market. The old story: Wal-Mart opened out on the highway and sucked the commercial life out of downtown Carthage. Our informant said when he came here in the 1960s to open his two-story furniture store, you had to turn sideways to walk through the Saturday crowds chatting on the sidewalks. Everybody came to town for their week's provisions and socializing. He resolved to stay on even after his furniture store became an antique store just to open, "but our main antiquer died last year and the others who were in here didn't want to stay, so I said I'd stay on until everything was gone." Looked to us as though he didn't have long.
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