From the Bench

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

The Sequatchee River begins its journey in an area called Grassy Cove in Cumberland County, Tennessee. From there, it finds its way through the mountains to the head of the valley which shares its name. It then flows southward through Pikeville, Dunlap, Whitwell, and Jasper, finally exhausting peacefully into the Tennessee, which dominates the mountains and valleys in this region.

For many years this was coal country, until the mighty Tennessee was harnessed to light up all the valleys hereabouts. Then came the end of World War II, and the intrusion of gas pipelines, and mechanization in the coal industry, that put an end to most of the coal mining in the valley.

But the Sequatchee Valley didn’t die, not by any stretch. Evidence of that was all about us as we crawled along in bumper to bumper traffic for nineteen miles, from Dunlap to Pikeville.

They had come here for what locals advertise as "the world’s longest yard sale. It was probably this way for four hundred and fifty miles, from North Alabama to Covington, Kentucky.

Clusters of vendors dotted the roadside, encircled by campers, motor homes, converted school buses, trailers, and whatever else the mind could devise to haul human cargo and merchandise. Without walking more than forty feet, shoppers were exposed to a variety of valuables, from a slightly-used, but clean, "Relax" bedpan; to rusted, undefined implements of a bygone day…..even a wooden statue of General McArthur, complete with gold-braided hat.

Mountain folks are shrewd and enterprising when it comes to separating Snuffy Smith’s "flatland touristers" from their wealth.

The miles of peaceful open space between the clusters provide a clue as to why so many people are moving back to the valley. We met two of them, Mrs. Otero and Mrs Lewis, sitting on the front porch of a tall, columned house in downtown Pikeville.

They are sisters, both now widowed, who were away from the valley for twenty-three years. When Mrs. Otero returned, in 1968 from D. C., she introduced the old house to children for the first time….eight of them. The original owners, the Popes, were childless.

Just looking at Mrs. Otero you would never imagine the mountains of sadness and distress she has had to climb to come to this place. In a soft, even, voice she told about the son who died in Viet Nam, the teenage son accidentally shot and killed. Loss of a husband.

And, just a year ago, an operation for brain tumor, which re-emerged in February in her lung. We shared the experience of the ravages of chemotherapy. She will not, by choice, go through it again. Yet she looks well, says she is feeling fine, expressed no regrets, and showed no signs of self-pity.

We sat and talked while a mass of humanity milled around and through the vendors’ tents which covered Mrs. Otero’s front and side yards. A Home and Garden TV crew scurried about with cameras, microphone booms, clip boards….rearranging porch furniture and setting up shots. On September 23, they assured us, we will see it all via cable or satellite.

Well, not quite ALL of it, we thought. Not even the best part. For after the vendors, the tourists, and the TV crews are gone, the valley will recover and move back a little closer to what God intended. The Cumberland Plateau will still guard the western horizon. Signal Mountain, Walden’s Ridge, Mowbray Mountain, and a long string of ridges to the east will keep the sun out til midmorning. The river will continue to snake its way from Grassy Plain through the mountain, and head down the valley to the Tennessee.

In the fall, the mountains will bring back weekend visitors to taste the October glow that the locals savor every day.

And Mrs. Otero will be thinking ahead to December, when the house with the high columns in downtown Pikeville will ring with the sounds of love and family that only Christmas can bring.

When we left, Mrs. Otero and Mrs. Lewis were still sitting in the porch swings, watching the masses of humanity and the TV crew. We felt a little bit of sympathy for all those people scurrying about. They may find trinkets, or conversation pieces, or unique artifacts. The TV people will probably get the story they came for.

But among all the merchandise, they will not find what the elderly ladies sitting in the porch swings have found. They are home, and home is not merely in the valley of their childhood, although that helps.

Home is that peace which hides in the deep recesses where the crowds and the prying cameras of life cannot go. Home is in the heart.