Tuesday 19th January 2010 - First Sightings and Clues

          I consumed an entirely liquid breakfast (and that doesn't mean what it might usually mean) just to be on the safe side.  Then Silver whisked me over to the alleged site of this former Glasgow.  The US Geological Survey provided GPS co-ordinates, and Dulcie is prepared to indulge my scientific whims.

 

          There is a little cluster of houses at what turns out to be the junction of Jewel Store Road and Lebanon Church Road

[n0756]

(Note the little bit of creativity in the signwriter's art)

It is a cluster in the rural American sense: there is quite a lot of space between them.  I drive on a bit to Lebanon Church, and, as I pass it, some instinct has me pull over.  Should I look in the churchyard?  Actually, it seems quite small.  And, as I contemplate it,

[n0751]

leaps to my eye.  There turns out to be another, equally large.

          I track back to the junction, looking out for inbred banjo players:

[n0755]

          At the house right on the junction, an older woman comes out to get in her car.  I engage her in conversation.  No, she's lived here seven years, and never heard of it being called Glasgow.  BUT, she's from Connecticut,  AND SHE WENT TO SCHOOL IN GLASGO CONNECTICUT!  What?  There's no such place.  But (look at the spelling) I'm afraid there is, I've looked it up.

          At the next house along, the lady has lived here for fifty years.  No, that's not the Glasgow place, it's about half a mile away along this road.  But it's not there anymore, it got burned down.  Yes, there used to be a store, right on the junction.  She and her husband used to own and run it.  But it was too much for her, working all day, and having people come in all night: she could never get anything done.  They sold it, and it changed hands a lot till it closed about twenty-five years ago.

          So  it's off down the road to find the old Glasgow place (have the Geological Survey got it wrong again?).  I find the present owner, a gentleman about my age, happily cutting firewood, and playing with his dog.  He is self-sufficient in firewood, having enough acreage for renewal.  He shows me a sassafras tree he has just chopped (the amount of wood he has chopped, he probably doesn't need any heating at all).  Sassafras leaves are the main ingredient of the filé, as in filé gumbo.  And the roots can be boiled to make some kind of tea.  He points to the fields opposite: they're not used, they're in 'soil bank', people buy them and get $50/acre for not using them.  He doesn't think this is right.

          But, yes, this is the old Glasgow place: nothing left of it now (he has a new, prefabricated, house).  There used to be a school room down by the road, Glasgow daughter taught school there.  Only bit left is the shed:

 

[n0757]

(you can see behind it how much wood he's been chopping)

 

          Later that night, it's TV and chicken broth by the fireside.  Turner Classic Movies (the channel with no adverts) is showing "Inherit the Wind", the film about the famous "monkey trial" about teaching evolution in schools, with Spencer Tracy and Frederick March.  I had forgotten (or never knew) that it took place here in Tennessee in 1925.