It’s amazing how a web site can bring back childhood memories long thought buried. (Or long hoped buried.) When I was growing up, we took a grand total of four vacations. We went to the Alabama coast once. We went to Washington, D.C., once. And twice we went to see the many splendors of the tourist traps of Tennessee.

Said tourist traps are mainly clustered in two places: Gatlinburg/Pigeon Falls, in the Smoky Mountains, and greater Chattanooga. In Pigeon Falls, they had, among other things:

- the Dolly Parton statue (not far from Dollywood, which we never could afford)

- the Elvis Presley Museum, featuring the King’s nasal spray applicator (and don’t forget Lou Vuto’s famed Elvis impersonation at the Memories Theatre)

- the Police Museum, featuring the life story of McNairy County Sheriff Buford Pusser, who was shot eight times and knifed seven more (I have a very strong childhood memory of the sign at the entrance: “We Have Buford Pusser’s Death Car”)

- a Ripley’s museum (which had a very freaky photo of the guy with the two irises in each eye — come on, you know the guy I’m talking about)

The Chattanooga metroplex offers less kitschy variety, perhaps, but plenty of weirdness. There’s Lookout Mountain (“See Seven States!” I’ve always dreamed of seeing Alabama and Mississippi at the same time), Ruby Falls, and the super-bizarre Rock City, which had enough freaky LSD-influenced gnome-like figurines to haunt a kid’s dreams for a year.

Actually, I think I’ll go rebury those childhood memories right now.

17 October 2001

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