Bakewell, TN
It is morning in Chattanooga, TN and I am planning my favorite Sunday morning passtime. A bike ride.
Cycling is not just a passtime, it is an addiction that once obtained is not easily or happily put aside. I probably spend the majority of my free time on pretty days in the saddle, pedaling happily with friends I either planned to ride with or found on the way, and I truly love either variety. The variety of personalities I've met on the road is only matched by the variety I've seen.
This blog is where I will talk about such adventures.
Yesterday was a good beginning. I met with three compatriots about a mile from my home in Red Bank, TN with a plan to put in about 60 miles total riding time heading into Bakewell. It was in Bakewell that I saw him.
Something about the foothills of the Tennessee Blue Ridge Mountains brings a certain character to its people. Individual, distrustful of strangers, small communities often seeming like pockets of civilization, or a veneer of civilization over a region whose culture is rich with proud if clannish families. One thing they don't cotton to is being told how to live, hence the distinct lack of zoning codes through many rural counties in East Tennessee. This leads to interesting dichotomies as I'll pass a trailer with the expected trash surrounding it directly across the street from a perfectly manicured country cottage garden.
The boy was not in one of those. He was walking around the front of a house on the fringe of Bakewell, a white clapboard house with full porch and a yard decorated equally with flowers and rotting equipment. His clothing was clean if worn, and his black hair stood out from his light cocoa face in wild accompaniment to the decor. What caught our eye was not all that though, it was the picture of the regions reputation that caught our eye as we brightly colored cyclists skimmed by on the road. It was the rifle in his 8yr old hands. We slowed to cross the railroad tracks that ran across the road and beside the boys house and as we glanced his way, he nodded sagely at us, acknowledging our right to pass by his home, so long as we did not tarry. I found myself grinning at the brief encounter even as my compatriots, lifetime residents of the area themselves, admitted to their discomfort. After all, we could not tell if the rifle was a bb gun or a "squirrel gun." To me it didn't matter. The boy was a picture of Tennessee rural life. I only wish I'd a camera to have captured him with.
Cycling is not just a passtime, it is an addiction that once obtained is not easily or happily put aside. I probably spend the majority of my free time on pretty days in the saddle, pedaling happily with friends I either planned to ride with or found on the way, and I truly love either variety. The variety of personalities I've met on the road is only matched by the variety I've seen.
This blog is where I will talk about such adventures.
Yesterday was a good beginning. I met with three compatriots about a mile from my home in Red Bank, TN with a plan to put in about 60 miles total riding time heading into Bakewell. It was in Bakewell that I saw him.
Something about the foothills of the Tennessee Blue Ridge Mountains brings a certain character to its people. Individual, distrustful of strangers, small communities often seeming like pockets of civilization, or a veneer of civilization over a region whose culture is rich with proud if clannish families. One thing they don't cotton to is being told how to live, hence the distinct lack of zoning codes through many rural counties in East Tennessee. This leads to interesting dichotomies as I'll pass a trailer with the expected trash surrounding it directly across the street from a perfectly manicured country cottage garden.
The boy was not in one of those. He was walking around the front of a house on the fringe of Bakewell, a white clapboard house with full porch and a yard decorated equally with flowers and rotting equipment. His clothing was clean if worn, and his black hair stood out from his light cocoa face in wild accompaniment to the decor. What caught our eye was not all that though, it was the picture of the regions reputation that caught our eye as we brightly colored cyclists skimmed by on the road. It was the rifle in his 8yr old hands. We slowed to cross the railroad tracks that ran across the road and beside the boys house and as we glanced his way, he nodded sagely at us, acknowledging our right to pass by his home, so long as we did not tarry. I found myself grinning at the brief encounter even as my compatriots, lifetime residents of the area themselves, admitted to their discomfort. After all, we could not tell if the rifle was a bb gun or a "squirrel gun." To me it didn't matter. The boy was a picture of Tennessee rural life. I only wish I'd a camera to have captured him with.
posted by WarKitty at
7:42 AM
