On the Porch

A kerfuffle of crows is meeting in the distance, squawks of indignation, squabble, a chase…murder?

A dove flutters for cover in the trees.

The hummingbirds are undeterred. Here is one, her wings a blur against the morning light, dipping that long beak over and over in the ruby red syrup of the hanging feeder outside. It’s soft morning here on the farm in Sautee, Nacoochee, Northern Georgia.

I’m sitting in the screened porch. It’s an enclosed deck, an outside room screened against the fecundity of insect life in this moist and lush corner of the Appalachians.

This is one of my favourite places in the world.

The cidadas sing on and on and on backed by the percussive beat of the crickets. Their beautiful background noise comes from each and every tree, a density of thriving insect life, omnipresent, a joyful tinnitus.

Another hummingbird darts down making tiny chirruping calls. She drinks, drops a miniscule white poop, drinks some more and returns to the safety of the trees. Her delicate green back could be just another leaf.

I cannot tire of watching the hummingbirds. Soon, one learns to tell them apart from their mannerisms at the feeder. One, my favourite, is a tiny girl who tucks herself close in to the flower-shaped vents in the feeder like a needy baby and chirps for every suck of sugar. She hangs around when all the others have gone. I wonder if they will leave her behind when they all fly off on their great migration to South America. The boys dart in boldly but often reverse to hang in the air doing a security check around the feeder before dipping those needle beaks in again. One of the girls is the ballet hummer. She does twirl flights away from the feeder, hovering in the garden, darting and dipping around the flowers, rising and making a circle then swooping back into the green camouflage of the trees. Sometimes there is a squabble and a fierce athletic chase suddenly erupts with two little birds dashing and zipping to and fro in zigszags and arcs across the garden and through the trees. Thrrripp, thrrrip is the sound they make at frantic high speed.

Usually the sound I hear from those tiny-fast beating wings is a deep thrum.

Watching these birds gives me profound joy.

A shimmering skink runs across the porch railing outside. It waves its sleek tail in extremely graceful gestures.

Black bumble bees almost as big as the humming birds forage in the flowers. They are so hefty that the petals fold beneath their weight.

Hover flies whip around the plants, golden against the morning sun.

A cat bird calls. A blue jay. Oh, and a cardinal.

A katydid chimes in.

As if all this drenching glory of lyrical beauty is not enough, there are the butterflies. Yellow ones twirl in late summer mating dances. Huge black ones clumsily amble through the air, fearlessly pausing to bat their grand wings and display their vivid blue markings. There are little blues out there, too. Skippers. All sorts. The great tree-enclosed garden is alive, alive-o.

And the cicadas sing on and on...

These days the garden’s fecundity is beginning to obscure the true view of the great Lynch mountain outside. There is only one part of the porch left where one can see it. Libby loves the encroaching tree growth and says that able-bodied people may go outside if they wish to look at the mountain. She also says that blocking the view as has happened would break her mother’s heart, but she just loves the shade of the trees.

I am able-bodied so I stand outside to observe the day’s progressions over the saddle of the mountain. Morning mists, soft and rising in wispy tendrils. Clouds, light and free, heralding another bright, warm day.

The weather has been hot and clear almost every day.

But, one day the clouds arrived dense with the promise of rain. And then the world greened out on a glory of needed water.

And humidity descended. A small price to pay.

Sorties from Sautee - from slaves to graves

Sautee-Nacoochee, Georgia.

If it sounds like another language, it is. It’s Cherokee. Appallingly, the poor Indians were driven from these beautiful Appalachian mountains in the 1830s. The Trail of Tears, forced removal, death march.

They are remembered here through their ancient burial mound which a rich white settler topped with a fine little ornamental pavilion. It is the Cherokee landmark which recalls their loss of land.

Bruce’s ancestors were already well and truly settled in the area with farms and churches - and slaves when the Cherokees had to leave. The Williams clan had been among the first white settlers in the 1820s. And here they are still, albeit not farming for survival but mainly returning from city careers to over-summer in the mountain cool in the old family homes. Some work at local enterprises, some have art ventures. They are all kin one way or another and the term cousin is loosely used.

Bruce’s aunt Libby, an emeritus professor of history, is the softly-spoken doyenne of this generation, custodian of the family stories and watchful steward of the her beautiful land. This farm was left to Libby together with her late sister, Marian, Bruce’s mother. Another family farm was left to the eldest child, Aunt Deda, an extraordinary pioneer

woman scientist, now deceased. But it is Aunt Libby who is the family elder and the anchor who brings the descendants together.

These many years, Libby alone has cared for this acreage with its iconic barn and pastures, stream and brambles, trees and vistas. Every spring she plants fresh flowers and vegetables and makes the most of each and every crop, just as her parents, grandparents and great

grandparents did. She is 88 and reminds us often that she is one of the few who still remembers the great Depression and lives by its rules of prudence.

Everyone adores Aunt Libby and looks forward to coming to join her on this lush place beside the grand, forested slopes of Lynch Mountain. Bruce spent parts of his childhood here and has loved it dearly. Coming here seems to nourish his

soul. Mine, too, in the 20 years we have been married and I have been coming with him to this place. It is a very special place indeed.

We are here for the grand punctuation mark of our road trip. Three whole weeks in one place; unpacking, reorganising, sending parcels home, catching up with email and books and the relatives.

We go on familiar walks with Aunt Libby along the dirt roads which wind around the mountain or through the neighbouring farmlands. Libby tells us stories of childhood swimming in the ice cold mountain waters of Sautee Creek, gossip about those relatives on the hill and the distinguished Shakespearean scholar the family produced.

She tells of Bruce's grandfather’s labours and achievements and hardships as a Methodist preacher. She tells of the family produce stand her grandmother once kept down near the highway and of the fierce bulls which caused such injury and even death to farming forebears. She tells the family stories so that they may be imprinted and carried forth.

I have my own room on the farm in

which I get to sleep in the ancestral marital bed which, by today’s standards, is absurdly small for two people. It is high and short, just right for me. I sleep here with the windows open to the cool night air of the mountains and the strident lullaby of the crickets, cicadas, and katydids. The ancestors look sternly down upon me from sepia photographs on the wall.

Bruce is close by in the next room.

Aunt Libby sleeps upstairs with her cat who will not come down and loathes any other human being other than her beloved Libby.

Soon after we arrive here, the relatives descend for a get-together. Bruce’s sister, Ginger, flies up from Florida. Cousin Nancy comes in from Colorado. Cousin Tim comes from Atlanta and Cousin Elaine from North Carolina. Bruce and I shop and cook and we all gather around

the table for family feasts and later sit around the big, cool living room by the breeze of the fan, chewing the fat as relatives have done here for aeons.

Cousin Elaine has decided she will throw a birthday party for herself while she is here. However, she has commitments in Carolina so she leaves arrangements to the cousins. Much debate and confusion. When the time comes, her new partner

leaves us with boxes of party decorations and whisks her away so we can create a spectacle of birthday surprise. Discovering the contents of the boxes and working out what to do with them provides an hilarious afternoon’s amusement which results in a house bedecked inside and outside with wild overkill of birthday kitsch. Bottles are opened. People arrive. Gifts are unwrapped. Bruce is a force of

power in the kitchen. Food is devoured. Laughter and noise. Then a quick clean-up and quiet conversations into a tired night.

Aunt Libby organises an outing for the family.

She's heard tell of the appearance of a fairyland village with amazing tree-houses in the area.

It turns out to be the extraordinary creation of a retired couple, she an artist and art teacher and he a former banker. It was his dream to build a village. In 2011 he began and now there are the most astounding towering tree-houses connected by overpasses. One even has a little bathroom and a screened porched looking out into the mountain forest. Bears out there, says cousin Tim. Turns out he’s right. Bears have quite liked this little village.

There is a little chapel and a decent sized meeting and dining house.

And, mysteriously, there is a pavilion with a bizarre art installation: pierced skulls aloft and beams covered with door knockers and keys.

The owner and builder says he buys keys by the pound weight from eBay and hammers them into wood as a stress relief. Don't we all.

In dramatic contrast, there’s also a shelter containing two extremely vivid art cows. They were painted all over by artist friends during an arts bee. They feature local views. It is altogether a massive, complex and extravagant project. Profoundly idiosyncratic. Entirely surprising.

All this, tucked on a wooded hillside in Georgia.

You never know what people are doing, do you.

When the rellies have gone in their various directions, we resume a quiet life with Aunt Libby. Well, not too quiet. We go on expeditions.

Anna Ruby Falls is great attraction in this neck of the woods. It’s a beautiful double waterfall; crystal pure waters from the heights of the Appalachians coursing down two

adjacent rock faces and rushing off down the slopes in a sweet, rocky river. The trail up to the falls is beautifully kept and, while it is a long and winding incline, it is not the hardest climb in the world and one is constantly distracted by the sheer, ferny and mossy beauty of it all.

There are great daddy-longlegs spiders (Opiliones), vivid fungi, rock formations, fallen trees, pools and rapids, wildflowers, and information points explaining the history and ecology of the falls. At the summit of the trail, we stand on the observation deck in reverie. There is something infinitely interesting about waterfalls. One can gaze at them for ages endlessly discovering different rivulets and plateaux.

The added joy for the three of us is that we are retired people and not watching the clock. We can enjoy at leisure. And thus we amble back down the trail looking at the minutiae of nature.

In and around the pond at the bottom, we see young trout and a glory of vivid blue butterflies. More pleasurable wonderment.

There’s an excellent gift shop, too. Guess who loves gift shops and avails herself.

Brasstown Bald is the highest point in Georgia.

The family tradition in visiting Brasstown Bald is to pack a picnic.

I pack a spread of grainy bread, heritage tomatoes, kosher pickles, chili cheese, plain cheddar, buffalo mozzarella, bologna, and mayonnaise.

It’s a fair drive to the mountain and a vertiginous windy road up to the carpark. Picnic tables are set at a far-distant end where a break in the

tall vegetation gives way to a spectacular vista of mountain ranges rolling back and back into the infinite blue yonder. With this sublime view, we place cloths on the table, share out our goodies, and proceed to devour every skerrick. It is a simple little feast of exquisite, nay, perfect deliciousness. There must be something about the uber al fresco nature of the picnic that enhances the pleasure of eating. Never mind the odd yellow-jacket wasp swatted away.

Now the summit of Brasstown Bald is a serious climb from the carpark. It is 6/10 mile of steep, winding path. Most people pay $2 and take a shuttle bus to the summit. Not us. Oh no. We like our exercise. After about 100 yards of heavy climbing, I drop gratefully onto a well-placed

bench and wonder what on earth I am doing. My heart is pounding. I’m puffing hard in the thin mountain air. And we have barely begun the climb.

But there goes Aunt Libby, slowly and steadily up and up. She’s eighty-bloody-eight and she’s ahead of me. Libby sees Brasstown Bald as a challenge. She has been climbing it on and off all her life. She is an active, healthy, fit woman and she is not averse to proving it. I drag myself after her. The undergrowth is dense and tangled. Rhododendrons are dominant but there are slim pines and a diversity of interesting

trees which, thanks to the harsh conditions on the mountain, have trunks which are gnarled and contorted - giving an eerie exoticism to the eye-level tree-scape. There are some grand, sleek rocks, too. Those on the edge of the path are much-needed seats for the weary climber. Me. Even Aunt Libby is in need of rest spots now. Bruce waits patiently for us. He would really like to give the mountain a strenuous go.

There is no one climbing behind us and we are nearly at the top when we first encounter anyone - and they are coming down. Not far to go, says one woman encouragingly. She lies. Eventually, however, we are at the top. It is cool and clear. We are puffed and proud. We have climbed Brasstown Bald.

It is the most beautiful clear and sunny day and the view from the summit is breathtaking. There’s a huge lookout area so one can survey the 360 degrees of Appalachians and see into Tennessee and both Carolinas. Oh, and

Atlanta is way over there. Most interestingly for us is that we can see the familiar mountains around the farm: Yonah, Lynch, Sal and Grime’s Nose.

We sit and watch the little video documentary on the seasons on Brasstown Bald, a sweet effort with a commentary of almost lurid purple prose and we explore the competent little museum of mountain ecology and Cherokee tradition. I sit in one of

the white rocking chairs the US Park Service kindly provides for the awe-smitten mountain gazer, and I gaze, smitten with awe. Lakes and rivers and little settlements. A plume of smoke. A vivid green valley. And layers of mountains, some pointy, most rounded. These are not young mountains like the Rockies. These are ancient.

The descent is quite hairy. It is steep. One must watch one’s step and be glad of good knees. But it is dark and cool in the tunnel of mountain undergrowth. Brasstown Bald has its own microclimate. It is not like the rest of Georgia. It is similar to that of Massachusetts. There’s a gift shop at the base of the climb. Guess again who goes shopping.

Another little outing is to the Methodist cemetery where the family ancestors, including Bruce’s mother and father, are buried. It is a fiercely hot day. Aunt Libby is wearing her raffia hat. She leads us to the pleasant corner of the hillside cemetery where the dynasties lie side by side. First it is the immediate clan - the Williams. There are lots of them, neatly set around a large communal Williams headstone. Oh, there’re Bruce’s grandfather, great grandfather, great-great grandfather, and great-great-great grandfather. But there are others who married out and linked up with different names in the Nacoochee Valley. There are all the names I hear from Aunt Libby as she tells the family stories. Sosebee, Lumsden, Bristol, and Stovall.

Aunt Libby has stories here, too. Sad tales of children dying from a typhoid epidemic in 1893 and the aunt who came to nurse them also dying. She is buried amid them and her child, born in the year the others died, grew up and married but chose, when the time came, to be buried right there beside her mother. It is a large graveyard. The graves go back to the 1830s. At the far end where the forest begins, there is another communal stone, huge and imposing. It recognises the demarkation in death between the white settlers and their black slaves. In the shadow of the towering oak trees lie the slave graves. Looking through the trees, one sees almost a lattice work of iron crosses stretching away amid the bracken.

Pause for thought.

The history here is indeed full of tears.

The slave history now is studied and recognised. It is commemorated by the presence of a slave house in the grounds of the Community Arts Centre. We go for a ceremony at the slave house, as it happens. New signs of cultural explanation have been erected and are being unveiled. Speeches are given and we are all asked to step up to the slave house and place our hands on its walls and to pray. These are a very religious people. I rather like the

spirit of this gesture. There is love and sorrow. The slave house was moved from the land of one of the Williams farms. Cousin, of course. Aunt Libby points to an old photo in the slave house of her great grandfather standing in the pasture beside the farmhouse. On this wall he stood and told the slaves they had been freed, she says.

There is a family scandal about slaves. One ancestor was provided with 40 slaves by the his wealthy brother who wanted to get them out of Charleston before the Civil War finished. The Charleston brother charged his Sautee brother for the slaves although this brother was not wealthy. Then the war freed the slaves and currency was devalued but the Charleston brother would not forgive the debt. A deal’s a deal, he said. It nigh destroyed the brother and put the family in penury. To the family's credit, the years rolled by and hard feelings were forgotten. They laugh about it now. Blood is thicker than water in these parts.

Georgia ho!

I’ve seen some souvenir ticky-tack in my day but nothing beats the road out of Pigeon Forge for overkill. Oh, Dolly Parton, what has your sweet success done to the old Smoky Mountains home town. We’re heading for them thar mountains and on

our way to Georgia but first we must drive past what is probably the world’s only giant catfish which looms absurdly outside a souvenir shop, past pancake houses, waffle houses, cafes, cheap tobacco stores, buffet all-you-can-eat joints, burger joints, pizza joints, icecream parlors, more donut places, every chain restaurant in the country, more donut places, motels, did I mention pancakes?

And then, suddenly, all the rampant, frantic, rapacious commerce runs slap into the face of a giant mountain - and stops. It can go no further.

We can, and do. The road delves into a

tunnel of mighty trees and winds into the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The dappled morning light is beautiful upon the rich greens of the trees and it sparks brightly on the little rocky streams which appear beside the road. Barely a mile and we are a world away from the crass commercial clamour of Pigeon Forge. We recall Dolly talking of her father in her Dollywood show. Dirt

poor and with no job, he went to Chicago for work but only three weeks in, he could stay no longer. Poverty was preferable to being parted from his beloved Smoky Mountains. We get it now.

Around a bend, a scenic overlook presents itself to drive home the point. A glorious expanse of mountain ranges one behind the other goes on and on into a smoky blue infinity beyond the horizon. A bride in a romance of flowing white veils stands in front of this stunning vista as a professional photographer sets up light reflectors. Now there’s a classy wedding photo. We slow but don’t stop.

We open the windows to let in the fresh mountain air. It is moist and fragrant.

The road winds, often precariously, through the mountains. I shy away from the window when it is too vertiginous. Bruce drives gently round the bends. He knows I’m nervous with such heights. But in the valleys where rushing streams twist and shimmer along their courses, I am rhapsodic. It is intensely lovely.

Eventually we emerge into a broad valley. The road straightens and widens. A whole new genre of

American culture materialises. We are in a Cherokee Indian village. Houses are a bit run down. Dominating all are huge billboards touting the services of criminal defence lawyers who specialise in tribal issues or tribal criminal family law.

Now farm stands dot the road. They advertise boiled peanuts, local mountain apples, sourwood honey. Yum. I’d love some boiled peanuts. Not here, says Bruce. Wait for Georgia. We are crossing the border into North Carolina, the state of his birth.

The stream beside the road broadens into a river. Kudzu, that notorious invasive creeper, hugs the roadside vegetation creating towering green sculptural forms. It is suffocating life beneath it but it has a certain aesthetic grandeur.

The road is now a handsome highway. We pass Uncle Bill’s Flea Market which seems to go on for miles stretched out under a long, thin shed.

Oh, heavens, a Christmas theme park way out here. What is with this American obsession with Christmas? There are Christmas stores absolutely everywhere right across the land. It is as if the country can’t bear to leave Christmas as a season but must have its kitschy contraptions all year long. We ponder this as we pass river rafters and mini storage, humming down this curving valley road.

We turn off at Dillsboro and over the rushing Tuckasegee River, past Grandma and Grandpa’s Motel and Baptist and Seventh Day Adventist churches to behold a violent outbreak of mini storage. These parks for excess possessions are a national cultural phenomenon. No wonder there are TV shows about their contents. They are the true reflection of the great consumer culture. I’ve even seen mini storage units built right behind the great shopping malls, as if people can’t resist buying stuff but, having nowhere to put it, take it straight from the store to the storage. Well, this is a theory. It has amused us on the road from time to time. I add mini storage to my list of massive unheralded industries in which one should invest in the USA. Already on the list are US flags, paint, and lawn mowers.

By the Franklin turnoff we figure we must now be in Georgia. Carolina never posted a goodbye sign and Georgia not a hello. We are driving past fields of old corn, very old corn. From baby fields in the west to these dried out crops in the east. And we never saw a single tobacco crop through all the famous tobacco-growing states. There’s a sign of the times. But, hey, here’s another crop of mini storage.

The countryside is lush and mountainous. A sign advertises Dillard’s Southern Cuisine - cornpone, collard greens. Another promotes deer apples. Never heard of them. Dr Google says they are damaged apples used to bait deer. Hmm.

Signs for sunflowers, fresh peaches.

Turnoffs indicate the routes to Cornelia, Tallulah - wonderful musical names.

And there’s the sign for which we’ve been waiting. Welcome to North Georgia.

As I see it - a Deep South high on Trump

They say it’s easier to come out as cross-dresser than to admit to being a Democrat in America these days. That’s a joke by a trans-gender comic.

But it is a scary truth.

Dems have been driven into the ground by the bellowing toxic fumes of the Trump steamroller. These blowhards are the new definition of bigotry, intolerance and stubborn ignorance. They are a seething hate fest directed against Hillary and all who would defend her. They also hate Obama with conspiracy-theory vigour and, of late, hate the entire Bush family who have fallen out of favour.

They are God-fearing church-going, gun-owning Christians. They are feeling empowered.

Wherever I go here in the American South, there are the Trump/Pence signs. On cars and in yards.

Trump is on media 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Hillary is nowhere to be seen.

Media discusses how “presidential” Trump has become.

Indeed, one can see the coaching as he delivers carefully prepared speeches in his new sanctimonious style - stentorian and smug.

He has been a good student. Now that Roger Ailes, he of the Fox News sexual harassment scandal fame, has come in to be the expert advisor, Trump’s style is newly tailored. Ailes is the man behind Fox News’ rabid rightism, which long has been revving this country into the state we now see.

Trump is a winner. He gets what he wants by any means available. He is prepared for work for it, since he really wants it.

I recently finished reading Trump Revealed by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher, a pretty definitive and deeply-researched bio by Washington Post political journos, and it describes a lifetime of this pattern of winning at all costs. It tells of people and businesses lain waste, so to speak, by Trump’s business ambitions. It is a chilling read. Never has there been a phenomenon quite like this man. He is the ultimate ruthless narcissist and he is unfazed by details such as truth. Good liars, of course, not only create untruth, they believe it.

Trump is out on the hustings every day. He is saving America from everything. He is getting jobs back from Asia. He told Pittsburgh that he would revive steel industry employment. He perhaps had not noticed that post the steel industry, Pittsburgh has clean air and is now a city driven by education, technology, and the arts. I am not sure they want steel factories back. But it sounded good.

If he softens one attack on Hillary, he lashes forth with a new one.

Today she is somehow behind police brutality.

Of course, Hillary has done herself and the Dems no favours.

She has been in barricade mentality throughout and this alienates her from both media and the public.

She does not defend herself and her attacks on Trump are feeble.

They say her invisibility is all about preparing for the debate - but she is the professional politician and debate is second nature. She knows her stuff. It makes her sound afraid of Trump, that she needs to hole up and prepare to debate him. Another wrong stance.

Perchance she is resting to ward off the evil cough from the pneumonia. Many say she is really sick. I don’t believe that. We all get sick when exhausted and under stress. I’ve had that shocking cough, We all have. It is just bloody bad timing for Hillary.

She is beset by two scandals - the email server and the Clinton Foundation. The are attacked repeatedly by the Trump camp.

Hillary stays silent. Ostrich, head in the ground.

It is the old tough-it-out technique.

But I think she is ill advised. . She needs to be open and emphatic with the American people. Just as she should have admitted to catching a seasonal bug like the rest of the world instead of trying to cover up and ending up collapsing.

The Clinton camp paranoia is legend - and it is doing her such a disservice. I want to scream.

I really admire Hillary Clinton and I would like to see her doing better.

I am afraid.

I am staying with Bruce’s aunt Libby, a wise emeritus professor of history.

She, too, is shuddering.

“This country has been through some terrible times. It has survived an awful four-year civil war. It has survived the Depression. Many things. But, I am not so sure about this. It has never encountered anybody like Donald Trump running for president let alone with a chance of getting in.”

The Democrats I’ve met have been slack-jawed, aghast at the status quo.

They thought Trump was a joke. It could never happen that he could win. What the…?

But in these parts, there are not many Dems to meet.

Just this evening in this little valley of the Appalachians, the sound of shotguns rang out.

“Target practice. They don’t shoot that many times when they’re hunting,” said aunt Libby.

A bloke in a huge ute stopped on a backroad to say hello while we were out walking during a recent twilight. They are right friendly here in the South.

He was in full camouflage gear and a great big shotgun, also camouflage pattern, lay on the passenger seat beside him.

“Out to shoot the wild boar which are getting in to my fields,” he said.

A couple of nights later, while sitting on the porch of a neighour’s house, a fellow appeared from the mountainside carrying a massive bow contraption. He, too, was out hunting something or other. It was unclear. The weapon made me nervous. But he, too was right friendly.

These are the people afraid that Hillary wants to take away their guns. Of course, their fear is driven by a calculated propaganda push. Hillary has said she would like some gun control but she is too savvy to try to push the gun lobby too hard. The gun lobby just wants everyone to think she will de-power them because Trump has said he loves them.

Media runs Trump's every snipe and every fatuous claim. All day long.

The talk radio is exclusively right wing and so no question as to their endless anti-Dem vehemence.

I heard the Laura Ingraham show saying that they expected Obama to bring out the National Guard to impede the election. Huh? They make up this madness as they go along. They still think he is a Muslim. Their hated is inflamed.

The proprietor of a local bookshop asked me what Australians think about Trump and this election.

I said we were incredulous that such a megalomaniac could ever be taken seriously.

I asked what she thought. She said she was a Trump supporter.

Why, I asked.

“Because we want to have a businessman running our country,” she declared.

I suggested that she read the Trump Revealed bio. She won’t. She pooh-poohed the book immediately. Journalists lie, she said.

There is no comeback to this view.

Trump’s voters are not readers. All those wonderful articles in serious print media go unread by those who really need to know. They don’t watch political satire, either.

They are not interested in hearing anything negative about Trump. These people believe in him. He is their great white hope, their orange saviour.

Note: Trump images taken from the cover of the book.

Dollywood - at last

Pigeon Forge. What a wonderful name for a town. We’re here to visit Dollywood. I am utterly unashamed of the fact that I have long wanted to visit Dollywood and that I think Dolly Parton is just a, well, a Dolly. I’ve loved the very idea of Dollywood albeit I was never quite sure how it manifested itself. So, we have traversed the glorious Blue Ridge Mountains into sweet Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains to find out. It has been a fascinating drive.

Until the traffic jams. It takes a tedious forever to get a mile through the town to our hotel. Jam, gridlock, backup, impasse, whatever. It is all of them. In this little Tennessee town. It is the Labor Day long weekend. It is one of the biggest family holiday weekends on the US calendar. And we have come to one of the most popular US family holiday locations on this weekend. It was not quite in our plans.

We are crawling past a mile of crass commercial kitsch: theme hotels, family entertainment enterprises and donut joints when my Google Maps speaks up. Out of the blue, in a sweet Aussie voice, she tells us that there is a way to beat the traffic. If we just turn off here and follow these winding back roads… We do as she suggests. It is a wonderful backstreet drive. And suddenly we are at our hotel. We love you Google Siri.

The Clarion Inn is just full of families. Oh, my. All of Pigeon Forge is packed. We load our mountainous luggage onto a hotel trolly. Bruce just loves these things. He now has his own litany of hotel likes and dislikes. Dislikes: valets, porters, offsite parking, paid WiFi. Likes: Being in control, easy parking, free breakfasts, fast internet.

The Clarion Inn is set in the middle of a great big carpark. Pretty it ain’t.

But fun it is. The view from our little balcony is of the madness of Pigeon Forge. For instance, there is a huge ferris wheel which, by night is a delight of ever-changing coloured lights and foreground to a nightly fireworks display. There are the illuminated carriages which live in our carpark and great grey horses, Sir Charles and Lady Diana, who come out at dusk to pull them through the streets giving people a romantic heritage carriage ride though the, um, traffic. We get to know a bit about this carriage business, chatting to the boss lady, Peggy. She’s from Georgia with one of those full Southern drawls. Don’t I remind you of Paula Deane, she laughs. Oh, the TV chef with all the butter. Yes.

Peggy has all the gossip. Yes, Dolly comes to town regularly. She has all these wonderful accommodations for tourists but she has never slept in any of them. She’s got a mansion in Brentwood. You always know when she is at Dollywood because her big, black SUV has a special park out the front. She doesn’t own it now, you know. She has only 10 per cent. But that brings in a million a week. Not bad, eh. She does own the water park.

We decide that, traffic being what it is, we will walk wherever we can. Firstly, it is to the supermarket to get drink supplies and pain killers. I have acquired a wicked neck ache. We’ve been scoping out restaurants in the area and I am not thrilled by the chains around us, so to speak. But there, just one street behind the hotel and tucked in a particularly nondescript row of offices, is Fusion Cafe Asian Grill. Bless. What’s more, this quaint little family business in its long room, darkened by wooden venetians to disguise the glorious carpark view outside, offers Malaysian fare as well as Chinese and Japanese. It has been so long. This becomes “our” restaurant in Pigeon Forge.

No one could say that Pigeon Forge is beautiful. It is set amid the spectacular Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, some of the most sumptuously glorious mountains in the world, but it is really just one big, dusty, garish family playground which has built up rapaciously around the enterprises of Dolly Parton. She has a hand in a few of the attractions, according to the billboards. There is a Dolly waterpark as well as Dollywood. And there are lots of wild-west and country-music dinner shows. There's even a Biblical Times dinner show.

We skipped it.

Dolly’s love of funfairs has spawned mini copy cats which enable families go on fun-park crawls up and down the main drag. They can ride zip-lines and mini rollercoasters, dodgems and mini drag cars. The can be lifted aloft on tethered hot air balloons. They can play mini golf and arcade games. And they can eat waffles, donuts, fried chicken, and ice-cream from a thousand outlets. Our fellow hotel guests with a squillion excited kids in tow, are here to do it all, especially the eating. There are some prodigious people here.

Our hotel receptionist tips Bruce off about the locals’ way to get to Dollywood so, when we whisk off it is with absolute ease right to the gate. We booked our tickets for Dollywood online, selecting Preferred Parking as an add-on. Anyone who ever intends to go there should follow suit. It makes a significant difference in the amount of hoofing and waiting. Instead of depending on shuttles from distant and massive carparks, one gets to park right by the main gate and stroll on in. The day is hot, hot, hot, so we are deliriously glad of our good choice of the parking option.

There’s a thorough security check at the gate. Bags scrupulously examined by good-natured guards. The first thing one notices in Dollywood

is how nice everyone is. They are all downright Tennessee friendly. A lot of the staff seems to have come from central casting - handsome, silver-haired gentlemen and weathered mountain grannies. The second thing you notice in Dollywood is all the images of Dolly Parton. She beams from all over the place. Music is piped. The atmosphere is set. Bright, warm, convivial, cheery - Dolly.

We’ve been told that if there is only one thing one does in Dollywood, it must be to eat a the cinnamon bread. One can smell the cinnamon in the air as soon as one enters the park.

But straight ahead of us is a music museum so we make it first port of call. It is a shrine to

country and western and gospel stars of the region. There is an animatronic quartet singing a capella; so unnervingly lifelike that one is stopped in one’s tracks on a double-take.

Outside there are merchandise shops and ice-cream shops and people swarming around. It is very colourful and cheerful. There are fewer children than one anticipated but lots of ample olds instead. Some of them are so ample that they move their mighty girths around on gophers, much like the ones

Walmart supplies for its obese clientele. They all seem to clutch large drinks containers. The Dolly souvenir special.

Here’s our first theatre. Come on in, says the granny at the door. The show has just started. It is a concert performance by the Kingdom Heirs. Great name. The auditorium is vast and almost full. We find aisle seats towards the back. People seem in quite a reverie. They are in some ways a tough looking, older crowd, mountain folk maybe, and many of the couples seem very openly and sweetly affectionate towards each other.

Caressing of shoulders, twirling of hair. I’m not used to seeing that as part of audience behaviour - and I’ve seen a lot of audiences. But these are religious people and this is a gospel group. They are country and western gospel rock, I think. They are very good. The vocal harmonies are exquisitely arranged and balanced and the bass singer has the most remarkable deep profundo bass we have ever heard. We sit in pleasure in the cool theatre for quite a long time - until, suddenly, the baritone MC breaks out into a Bible-quoting sermon which shows no sign of stopping. We tiptoe out, back into the hot Dolly day.

It’s time to hunt out the famous cinnamon buns. We follow our noses to an airy cafe where

several of Dolly’s central-casting helpers are serving a queue of people cakes and cookies and, yes, the famous cinnamon buns. Bruce orders us cups of tea and a bun each. Naughty Bruce. They are big buns. They are oven-fresh, their generous layers of icing still soft and delicate. With their deep swirls of cinnamon and light yeastiness, they are out of this world. We are both swooning, gazing at each other in guilty rapture. Looking at the fat

people outside and suddenly understanding how this could happen to them in the land of such sweet indulgences. It’s OK, says Bruce. We never do this. And we haven’t had lunch. This is lunch. It is not too bad. No, it is a definition of bliss. We eschew the six-pack cinnamon bun takeaway specials and the you-can’t-eat-just-one sign and waddle out on a sugar high.

Dollywood is immense. There are signposts and diverging paths. We check out the big display maps but still wander with more laid-back curiosity than purpose. Just letting it happen. There is a stream and a little bridge. There is as much prettiness as there is show and commerce. We come upon the Dolly dress shop where they brag that one can have Dolly clothes but in real

sizes. Dolly, of course, is petite. I cruise around and see if I want to be Dolly. No. Those ruffles and cinch skirts are not for me.

There’s a Dolly Life Story Museum and a 1950s theme cafe complete with period cars and petrol pumps. And there is another theatre. The big show is about to start. Perfect. We’re among the very last in and the smiling usher directs us to the front row - which has been kept for the disabled. What luck.

This is a stage show telling the story of Dolly’s life in music. It has a band on stage and six or so performers who, we’re told, are not blood to Dolly but they are considered family nonetheless. We are all family here in Dollywood

says the compere. So the performers are introduced as cousins and siblings. Dolly appears on a big screen at the back of the stage. This, it turns out, is a multimedia production and the live performers switch, swap and interact with big Dolly on the screen. It is a sophisticated and snappy production. Several of the male performers are in the

Kenny Rogers mould. Handsome. Long plaits, beards. Country-western long coats. Central casting again. The women are mixed. One looks like a gnarled elderly Dolly with a mass of long, blonde hair. Another is immensely ample. They are a terrific crew and they turn on some Dolly classics both in chorus with onscreen Dolly and as individual numbers. It’s a long, slick, thoroughly entertaining, warm-hearted show.

Out into the hot day again, we explore more of the avenues of Dollywood - past the most immense wooden roller coaster, past water flumes and crazy pseudo-rapids boat rides. There’s an old country store, more stages which are setting up for shows, more food areas selling hot dogs and pulled pork, donuts, and shakes. There are dress-up photo spots and zip-lines and more rides and more stages. Young performers are doing a

tribute show. We pause and listen for a while. There’s a craftsman in period gear making cowboy belts. Something new is around every bend.

We are now hot, tired, and thoroughly happy with the Dollywood experience. We have found it charming, innocent, good-natured - very Dolly. We are ready to call it a day. But, oh, where are we? This network of meandering paths and

diverse distractions has us quite lost. We’ve walked for miles. We go in the direction we think is towards the exit but it is not. We hover around the big mill and waterwheel. We are totally bamboozled. Finally I ask the man who looks like he's been here longest. It turns out we have gone in exactly the wrong direction. Go back and under the rail bridge and then fork right after Grandma’s store, he says.

We follow instructions and walk, and walk. There’s the rail bridge. Oh, no, it’s another sort of overpass. Which rail bridge? Keep going. Why didn’t we get a map? My, it’s hot. Aha! That must be a rail bridge. Of course. There’s Grandma.

Now, if we take this branch to the right. Eventually, eventually, back past the giddy perfumes of cinnamon and sugar, we find the exit gate.

It was a lovely day.