"Not sure I've ever seen or heard any kind of spirit around here abouts, 'cept Jack Daniels up at Lynchburg, and that arrives in bottles." She laughed and started to return to her station. She stopped after two steps, turned and came back to my-our-table. "You sure you ain't sweetin' that ice coffee with some liquid spirit you've found?" Her full laugh at that caused the regulars on their stools, their backs to us, to perk up. A few turned, stone-faced, to see what had disturbed the routine. They didn't appear to approve of the commotion.
***
In my visits to the pool room, three or four times a year over a couple decades, I have been spoken to-greeted first-by maybe three or four men of the dozens that come and go. One was a cousin! Most seem shocked at my offer of a soft, "Hey" and nod. The cook and waitress fit the stereotype of Southern hospitality, warm and amiable, but the locals who frequent this landmark establishment don't seemed to have heard about the great amount of money tourism brings into Tennessee. Well, maybe they have, and the idea that they and theirs are objects of observation and curiosity doesn't set with them all that well.
Come to think of it, those who promote Southern tourism seem to be for the most part outsiders who see the possible financial gain, or else locals who've been exposed too much of the outside world. "Quaint" sells. With culture in turmoil, all that is old is new again and can be marketed. The notion of there being 'good old days' sometime in the past is a farce. Yet it is widely held on to and believed for comfort's sake.
There are also those like me, who ache with an existential yearning for a sense of place that the present doesn't provide. They are pilgrims seeking shrines of blessing over a lifetime, yet finding their homes to be but frozen places of memory. The sod that holds their ancestors' bones seems but another place that holds blessing, familiar but not as full of grace as the pilgrim seeks. Trying to recreate the past meets some of their-our-needs. Imagination is a passport.
There is a clash of values between those who cherish the old, like idealists who need to see the connections, the why of things, and those who function only in the new. Those who covet the "new and improved" must claim their place, improve it, and personalize it. Those who hearken to the old are trying to find the place where they fit. Those who celebrate the new know their place yet seem to see it separate from all that is past or future. They are disconnected and have no need to consider the relatedness of existence.