Vickie Collins, dabbling in culture and just being herself here at Multiply

In Tennessee, approximately half way between Nashville and Knoxville is the "large small" city of Cookeville. I say "large small" because one's opinion has to be formed based on the prospective that you have. Cookeville is small in comparison to Nashville; however, if you compare it to Livingston, Sparta, Baxter, or any of several other surrounding towns, it is large. This is the place to which I went this weekend for my 35th high school reunion.

Living in Nashville, I am at least half way convinced that Cookeville could be called a "sleepy little town" based on what it seems to do to ME...basically make me sleepy (or maybe it just gives me less excuse to ignore how sleepy I am). Cookeville is one of those towns that I am tempted to turn the old saw upside down and say "it might be great place to live, but I wouldnt want to visit". I find that my "town of origin" rolls up the sidewalk at about 900 for someone my age. Sure there are nightclubs, but they are, for most part, set aside for the college students. Yes, this is a college town, and the night is basically turned over to THEM. There are few nightclubs that i would feel safe in that are not catering to the kids. Altought Cookeville was once voted the most "affordable" city in some area or other, in order for me to live there, I suspect one or two of the following things would have to be true. 1. have a SO, and therefore no need to try and socialize, especially any looking for romance type socializing. 2. a very good cable or satellete system. In addition, I would have to get hooked up to a computer quickly..LOL

Cookeville, at least along the "interstate corridor" (an area about a mile or so each side of the interstate, has many chain and local restuarants. It has one movie theater, a 10-plex. Unfortunately that has been shut down for several months, and will probably continue to be so for several months, for remodeling, therefore no movie theater is currently available. One can eat, go to church and wait for the movie theater to open again, and that, my dear friends, is it unless you happen to have friends in the area.

The town being what it is, I grow to appreciate my high school class more with each reunion. It consists of some of the most loving, accepting people I know. For full disclosure let me say that the class was about 318 strong, and usually only about a third of those ever come to the reunions. However, the class itself ranges throught all segments of just about any "spectum" you can talk about. Politically, we range from "bleeding heart liberals", to those who are very very conservative. In the economic dimension I know that we range from a "horse rancher" on one end. The irony is that one has to go "downtown" to get to this ranch...bizarre. At the other extreme of the pole is the guy that lives at the city dump in a beat up trailer. There are people from all walks of live from the class...policemen, judges, public defenders...and drug addicts (the guy who lives at the dump is only one of these), who manage to have an ongoing relationship with law enforcement simply from the frequency with which they manage to end in jail. I think the guy at the dump has been arreated so many times, they just swing by and pick him up on their way in to the office. LOL Maybe partly as a result of these "fast buddies" from hight school who find themselves in such deverse situations today, there is a certain love and respect that seems to exist across all of the lines listed above.

The reunion consisted of a tail gate party at the Cookeville High School for just Cookeville, as opposed to the entire county (a 4 year school that nonetheless makes the COUNTY senior high I attended and graduated from look very very small) on friday night. Saturday we had a cookout at the "horse ranch". I enjoyed meeting some of the people that I knew in High School. We remininsed about some of the crazy things one or the other of us did; where so and so was; how much some of us had or had not changed etc. On Friday, I shared, without changing or glossing over pronouns mind you, the information about the death of my SO last november. I think sharing that made me feel more a part of the group, altought I did limit that information to one person. We also enjoyed food, and those that were able, enjoyed mucho vino...or more correctly "mucho beero"..and for all I know some of the more bold may have smoked a joint or two...LOL

When not at the reunion, I scoped out the oldest bar in Cookeville. John's Place manages that title through an "accident" of location just outside what used to be the city limit. They are now in the city limit, barely, but fortunately for them, the town is no longer dry. As has been true in the past, Friday night when I was there, I got an idea that the place might have possibilities for those of us from the GLBT community. I wouldnt necessarily feel safe assuming so, and perhaps it is just that it reminds me a bit of some of the GLBT bars of a slightly seedy variety that used to exist in Nashville. From this visit, I can only say that while the bar is, as it always has been, prodomiently Black (it's location was the black section of the town for many many years...called "Bush Town"), the one other non-Black in the bar was talking about being sent to Atlanta on business and eating out every night. My internal response was "yeah, and checking out every gay bar you could find probably". He left, and I decided that drinking sprite in the corner of a bar that had 3-5 people in it was something I had done enought of, so I went back to the hotel. LOL

During the day, before 500p and 400p respectively on the two days, I decided to try for a little local scenery and did quite a bit of driving around. I went to Livington on Saturday. This town is about 20 miles from Cookeville and reminds me of what Cookeville might have been if not for the College and the location almost directly on the route from Nashville to Knoxville. Those two things together allowed industry and a extra dose of commerce to develop and for a lot of development along the interstate route to serve the college students, and the travelers respectively. Livingston had what appeared to me as a tiny, altought very picturesque court house square. In addition, I saw a store called "Dollar General Market". The other thing I saw that was interesting was a place called "Dog House of Beauty". Both names made me want to speculate. Why was the first one Dollar General Market, was it a former Dollar General Store, or an attempt to capalize on a popular concept locally? Was the Dog House, a dog grooming place, or some sort of hint that if you wanted not to look like a dog,you best come there. These questions may never be answered....but hey, local color, remember. LOL

Here are two pictures taken from my "travels".

There were some more insights for me, however, I think this has become long enought for now. I will probably be blogging later next week about some other issues. Bottom line, it was a very interesting weekend....One might say "I laughted, I cried, I got bored etc"...LOL

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