On rare occasions, I leave the woods and venture out into the wide world. While my muse Hagar does not accompany me, I still learn a thing or two after all I have Hubs as a travel companion.
After a wildly successful book signing at Barnes and Noble in Charlottesville Who wasn’t there is the question? I left for Oak Ridge, Tennessee. My goal was to research my fourth book Shooting in the Dark at Scarce Birds. The title is a quote from A. Einstein. His response, when asked about the likelihood of taming the atom. I see this novel as secrets on top of secrets in a secret city.
Speaking of fourth books, C’villain, James (Jimbo) Bell’s fourth novel Crisis in the Congo is a compelling read. I started yesterday morning thinking I would read a chapter or two. Dinner was delayed by an hour when I turned the last page.
In Oak Ridge in the American Museum of Science and Energy, we saw a 3-D printed car! I can’t for the life of me figure out how that happens, but it is only one of an enormous amount of amazing things created in Oak Ridge. The museum teams with helpful folk, proud of their history. I had the good fortune to have a guided tour of the town offered up by a lifelong resident. Though a little young, for the era my novel is set in, 1943, he was a fount of information. In a real stroke of good luck, Oak Ridge historian D. Ray Smith volunteered to be my fact checker. It truly is the Volunteer state.
Oak Ridge has a fascinating history. The town was created in 1942 as part of the Manhattan Project on sixty thousand acres of sparsely populated farmland in East Tennessee just west of Knoxville. In the three years it took to build the atomic bomb, the city’s population swelled to seventy thousand people and was virtually unknown. As I toured the city, I heard more than once you couldn’t keep a secret like that today. I couldn’t help but think of our own Peter’s Mountain. If the government wants something to stay secret, it tends to, even today.
From Knoxville, Hubs and I took the road through Pigeon Forge and the Great Smokey Mountains on our way to Savannah, Georgia for another book signing at E. Shaver’s Booksellers. While the drive through the Smokies was magnificent, Pigeon Forge is a place you can’t un-see. What a blight, hillbillies meet Disney Yikes!
Savannah didn’t need the contrast, a more enchanting place; I can’t imagine, the town and the bookstore. Twenty-one squares with statues, fountains, live oaks, and Spanish moss adorn the historic district, each charming and distinct in its own right. On the way, we listened to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil a true story of some of Savannah’s more colorful residents. Charming as some of the character are, I have to say Savannah ain’t got nothin’ on Keswick. We can go toe-to-toe when comes to characters even if we don’t have fancy squares and live oaks resplendent with Spanish moss.
Hubs and I got a chance to see some sites, though I was given my money back and asked to leave a ghost tour. It seems there is only room for one character per ghost tour, and I wasn’t it. We stopped to pay our respects at Flannery O’Connor’s house. I sucked in the air hoping a little of her juju would rub off. At the Bonaventure Cemetery, Hubs and I found our selves lost. A helpful tour bus driver invited us onto his air-conditioned ride thus rescuing us from what was beginning to look like our last hurrah. That is one beautiful but big cemetery! Hubs coming down with a fever and a rash cut our trip to Savannah short. When we got home, the doctor to prove my diagnosis correct. As it turned out, he did have Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Moral of that story; listen to your wife.
With Hubs health restored, we set off for points north along with Woody and Jane Baker. Our destination: a former K’wickian’s wedding—and what an affair it was! New York was hotter than having Cool and the Gang on hand to Celebrate the nuptials. K’wickians, B & C’villians, and FU’ers (Fork Union) were just about everywhere. Smack in the middle of the New York Yacht Club, I ran into a lovely man, the Commodore. He said that his family was from near Charlottesville. “Had I ever heard of Castle Hill?” Just goes to prove you can’t swing a cat without hitting one of our own somewhere in a fancy place. Like his Virginia cousins, he is a passionate sportsman though sailing is his game.
Clearly, the point of going away is to come home with a fresh new perspective but none the less convinced that there is no place like home. That is particularly the case if you count home as anywhere in or around Keswick.