The stars were aligned this weekend as a gaggle of Laws, Dad, Roy and myself road tripped our way to Elizabethton. I couldn’t be more excited! Roy and I left Franklin around 7am and headed to the Farm where we reconvened. After a brief howdy and hello to Janice, we transferred our luggage to Dad’s SUV and we were East Tennessee bound.
We had a beautiful drive with little traffic and we were thrilled to finally pull into the driveway and relax and visit on the screened-in porch.
Tonight was homecoming for the Elizabethton High School and Dad wanted to catch the Cyclones in action. To make the 7:30pm kick-off time, we decided to grab an early dinner at Shirley’s Home Cooking in Hampton. Dad and Janice had watched an episode of Tennessee Crossroads which featured the family style restaurant in Hampton and he was eager to give it a try so we piled into the car and made our way to Shirley’s.
On the way to Hampton, you have to have the requisite retelling of the story about the bear that used to drink gasoline from Coca-Cola bottles. What happened to the bear you may ask? He ran out of gas. Ba-da-ching. Phyllis also told us about a couple that got divorced but couldn’t afford to be separated so they literally divided their house in half. An urban myth? You be the judge.
The famous Shirley’s and the chalkboard menu.
Shirley’s serves family style so we had to decide on a cornucopia of items but the winners were fried chicken, roast beef, apples, corn, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, cole slaw, macaroni and cheese and flaky biscuits.
While Dad, Phyllis and Roy went to the homecoming game, Grandmother and I stretched out in her room and watched “The Seventh Victim” on Turner Classic Movies. Apparently, this 1943 film noir movie is considered to be somewhat of a cult classic but I found it slow, meandering and just plain weird. That didn’t stop us from sharing a big bowl of popcorn and an icy cold Coca-Colas.
Dad, Phyllis and Roy returned around 9:30pm touting the Cyclones 20-13 victory against Daniel Boone High School. Woohoo!
Saturday, September 11
It’s football time in Tennessee! Our ankles were taped and we were ready to watch the University of Tennessee Vols take on the Pittsburgh Panthers at Neyland Stadium. It was just the craziest game to watch. The first few minutes were magnificent and then it just all fell apart at the seams. The number of flags against the Vols were staggering while quarterback Joe Milton threw the ball with incredible strength yet without accuracy. Even with us rooting for victory, in the end with so many unforced errors, UT fell to Pittsburgh 41-34.
As the afternoon waned, a decision was made to keep the football action going so instead of going out for dinner, we ordered a couple of pizzas from The Black Olive.
Like a couple of teenagers, Roy and I grabbed Dad’s car keys and I headed out to pick up dinner. We cruised our way to Hudson Drive with unrolled windows and classic tunes playing on the radio. For me, it was a rare, indelible moment of us sharing a perfect, late summer evening together in Elizabethton.
While sitting around the kitchen table, eagerly consuming a large supreme and a small cheesy pizza, we started talking about music and movies as is our wont. Dad asked if we had heard the Willie Nelson song “Come on Back Jesus” with the hilarious refrain, “and pick up John Wayne on the way”. Roy, Grandmother and I had not so of course we had to give this a listen. This led us down the rabbit hole to listening to Willie Nelson and Ray Charles singing the duet, “Seven Spanish Angels” which somehow led us to talking about Bob Seeger’s “Old Time Rock n’ Roll” which segue wayed into the mix tape Phyllis made for us in the 1980’s. Eventually, this circuitous path led us to the wonderfully quirky and enigmatic actor, Christopher Walken. Phyllis and I agreed our top two favorite movies that he starred in were Stephen King’s, “The Dead Zone” and Neil Simon’s, “Biloxi Blues”.
Did you know Christopher Walken was trained in musical theatre? Well, to our immense viewing pleasure, Roy cued up a video of him hoofing it in an empty hotel lobby to the song, “Weapon of Choice” by Fatboy Slim. It is a scream!!
After dinner, Phyllis surprised Dad and Roy with birthday presents. I mean, come on, who doesn’t love presents?
Since we were loving on all things Christopher Walken this weekend, before we headed out, Phyllis gave Roy an early Christmas gift, a “Dear Santa Bring More Cow Bell” cow bell. This was a hilarious gift paying homage to one of Roy’s infamous Halloween costumes, Gene Frenkle. Frenkle was an imagined character immortalized by actor Will Ferrell in Saturday Night Live’s sketch, “More Cowbell”. The sketch fictionalized the studio recording of Blue Öyster Cult’s, “The Reaper” in which guest host Christopher Walken portrayed a music producer that constantly demanded “more cowbell” from the band. Hilarous!
Grandmother’s English inspired garden was so beautiful, I just couldn’t resist snapping a few photos.
On the road again…
