I enjoyed Chattanooga as a kid.. My Step Dad was from there and is buried in the National Cemetery... he lived just up the street, on Bailey Ave... use to play baseball in the Cemetery when he was a kid during WW2.
Grandparents home was up on Signal Mountain when they passed...
Grandpa use to work for Old Man Pound, who lived up on Look Out Mountain...Mr Pound was the Hilton of the Southeast and South way back in the early part of the 1900s up thru the 1950s.. he had the primo property on Look Out Mountain.. across the Street was the home of the Guy who invented Coke Cola...
Seen "Rock City" a zillion times... and Ruby Falls, plus a host of other places ( tourist Traps) that were up there back in the 50s...
When I went thru there last year, to pay my respects to family's resting places, I sadly thought a lot of the areas there around Signal Mountain, East Ridge, and East Brainerd were kinda run down compared to the way I remember them 40 and 50 years ago...
Bailey Ave near the National Cemetery was really run down.. the house my step dad and his brothers grew up in, after Homer sold the farm up at Livingston.... now had a bunch of Guatemalans living in it.. sadly it looked pretty trashed..
Leaving I headed up old US 27 north bound. Sure was a lot of nice places up that way.
Enjoyed visiting Dayton for the first time in years... but was really bothered when I stopped at the Walmart in Town..
Bunch of buses in the parking lot with Fla plates and full of Guatemalan farm workers/laborers....the were flooding the store while others worked on those old school buses..
watched them swiping all sorts of stuff, and they were being pretty lewed and crude to most of the women in the store, especially high school and college aged...I was imagining how that would have flown back there during the 60s and 70s..
Spent some time traveling up old US 70 west also.. love of pretty back in time 2 lane road there...Old Tennessee there.. really enjoyed that a LOT...
Tennessee use to really be a great place.. but like everywhere else nice in this country.. its sorta been ruined by Liberals and Immigration policies...
Where ever you end up Blake.. hope your family enjoys it immensely. Sad the Pacific NW has to lose your type of person.... would rather have 10,000 illegals sent out of here instead....and 10,000 liberals and hippies 'abducted by aliens'....
and the time I got to meet you up in Tacoma there... thanks for your hospitality and for lunch...
anyone who has never met Blake, believe me, he's one of the campfire's finest...If you ever get the chance, don't miss the opportunity!
Thanks John!
I'll be back west before long. We're still working out a plan.
I figure I can make opportunities anywhere, but can't make anymore time with my pop. I want my boys around him as much as possible. Ain't many still around that've seen the world he has.
Besides, this weather has turned me the color and consistency of an unbaked biscuit! I need some sun and red dirt!
