On a recent trip home to Nashville, we got up-and-out before dawn to cruise Nashville’s Lower Broad. I wanted to see the neon and what had become of my favorite old buildings along this four-block stretch that is the nation’s newest hotspot.
Hub of Nashville
This stretch of Broadway, down by the Cumberland River docks, used to be all about the business of living. Throughout the 1800s, grand bank buildings, hardware stores, grocers, clothing shops, and warehouses went up on Broadway to serve the boomtown. Ornate churches, Union Station, and Hume-Fogg High School came up too. And in the Great Depression, Federal assistance programs built the Post Office. For many years, Broadway was a hub of Nashville.
Then came music
The Grand Ole Opry moved into the Ryman Auditorium in 1943. The country music radio shows still broadcast nationwide every Friday and Saturday on WSM 650. Lower Broadway filled with honky tonks. Tootsies Orchid Lounge harbored country music legends who’d just finished performing at the Ryman and slipped through the alley into the bar’s backdoor for a night cap. Record stores, boot companies, sequined clothing shops, poster printers, restaurants, and tourist trinket shops popped up in Lower Broad’s empty warehouses and shuttered bank buildings. Music-star wannabes wandered over from the Greyhound station with their guitars to busk and be discovered along the busy Lower Broad sidewalks.
Demise: Abandoned to “Urban Renewal”
In 1974, the Grand Ole Opry moved out of the Ryman and Lower Broad began her descent. A fight raged over whether to demolish the Ryman Auditorium. Adult bookstores, smoke shops, and liquor stores filled the growing number of abandoned buildings. Lower Broad became a dirty, dangerous place to be. I remember riding with my grandfather to pick up my aunt from work at the South Central Bell building around the corner on Second Avenue. The area was creepy, dark and cave-like between the big buildings. We’d wait with the doors locked and the windows barely cracked. I wish now that I’d asked him about his memories of the area and made some photographs. It’s just vague memories now.
In the 1990s, Lower Broad began to turn around. People began to recognize the value of the area’s history. Some buildings were saved. Many were not…destroyed in fires or “urban renewal” projects. Here’s hoping their pre-country-music neon histories are remembered.
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Carol Fletcher is a traveling, dog-loving, coffee-addicted, Nashville born-and-raised photographer living in Chicago. To see more photo essays and projects, please visit www.carolfletcher.com.
December 6: Santa Fe, NM to Shawnee, OK. Starting mileage: 40,219.
After seven weeks on the road, today we started two long days of driving East. We were heading home. First, we’d go from Santa Fe southeast to meet I-40, and then turn left on the road home to Nashville, some 1,200 miles away.
Leaving New Mexico
The wind was screaming–ushering in a change, a more biting cold, the turning of the seasons, and for us, the ending of the trip. Tumbleweeds blew across the road, reminding us of the day more than a month ago when we’d zoomed across Kansas and Colorado–dodging tumbleweeds–-to get an oil change before the Chevy dealer’s closing time.
At the junction of I-40, we tumbled into Clines Corners for a fill-up. In the 1930s, this pit-stop “town” was moved and moved, and moved again, by its tenacious owner, Roy Cline, to keep up with the rerouting of main travel roads and Route 66. Lucky for him, when the interstate system assumed a portion of Route 66, Clines Corners was finally in the perfect place.
Divination
It was still early, and I was already tired for the coming long days of driving. Our epic road trip was nearly over. I smiled in the Clines Corner bathroom mirror. What an odyssey life is. I wondered about my wandering, about the restlessness, about the future, the aging, the what’s-next worries so very close to the surface these days. And then, I put it all away–like Scarlett, with a “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”
I walked out of the bathroom, dodging a cowboy headed for the ladies bathroom, and came face-to-face with Zoltar and the Medicine Man. If I put a coin in these fortune-telling machines what would they tell me? Would I want to know? Or dear God, would I grow up (or grow old!) in a blink like Tom Hanks in Big? I photographed them both, tapped each with two fingers for peace, for luck, and for a show of respect, and walked back to the car. Time to go.
Progress
The Interstates may be great for moving quickly around the USA, but they are not ideal for scenery. “Progress” litters the view with houses, strip malls, industry, and warehouses. On this stretch, billboards were planted one after another, after another, for miles and miles and miles. We saw a tiny house with one giant cottonwood tree in the backyard and no other trees in sight, a reminder that nature once reigned. Massive flocks of birds flew over, melding and dividing, like moving designs of black clouds. Herds of birds!
Herds
We crossed into the Texas panhandle, land of Annie Proulx’s “That old Ace in the Hole”. I told Mama the story of the character researching locations for pig farms and instead finding happiness in the panhandle community. As is Annie’s specialty, the landscape and the old ways come alive in her writing, and I imagined Ace climbing high to fix one of these rickety windmills. We saw a few cows grouped around the base of one. They drank from the trough of water brought to the surface by the windmill. Maybe they were talking about the last night’s pretty moon at their water cooler.
Later, near Wildorado, we passed the biggest modern wind turbine farm we’d ever seen. These were for electricity, not pulling water from the earth. There were acres of cotton fields, and another cloud of black birds. Then, we saw cows–hundreds, maybe thousands of cows crammed into muddy pens close to the road. They were crowded, standing knee-deep in the mud, without enough room to even turn around. Sadder still, vast empty fields were visible for miles behind the pens. Fields that those cows must have stared at with longing when they were rounded up and herded onto cattle cars.
Cadillac Ranch
Near Amarillo, I saw cars parked and people walking into a field. “What’s that?” I pointed and asked Mama. But only a second later, I knew. “OMG! It’s CADILLAC RANCH!” I had not anticipated seeing this famous art installation–ten classic Cadillacs buried up to their steering wheels. We took the next exit and drove back on the frontage road and parked. It was a short walk out to the “sculptures” amid the smell of cow manure and fresh spray paint. The Cadillacs are graffiti covered and spray paint cans litter the bare ground all around.
Oklahoma!
The landscape didn’t change at the border. More windmills. More cows, with the occasional long-horned steer. And more billboard farms, with one sign cautioning: “hitchhikers may be escaping prisoners”.
We passed through the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation, then Oklahoma City, and arrived into Shawnee around 7:30 p.m. We were dead tired. It still felt like we were rolling, even when we fell into our beds that night.
December 7: Shawnee, OK to Nashville, TN. Starting mileage: 40,799.
It seemed as if we’d just laid down. And then I was awake in the almost quiet. I laid there listening to Mama Lucy breathing in her bed, to the constant sound of cars on a highway not too far away. One more load up. One more day of driving. And one more load out. And our amazing trip would be over. The trip would situate itself in our memories. I laid there for a few minutes–thanking the universe for my mother, for the time to do this together, for the trip itself.
It was a cold morning. Condensation covered the window at sunrise. We showered, packed up, and after a free breakfast at the hotel, we started the car, scraped a light frost from the window, and loaded up.
Another day on I-40
We drove past exits with names like Big Skin Bayou, followed by Little Skin Bayou. Mid-morning, we crossed into Arkansas. Around lunchtime, we stopped in Conway for gas and a big Cracker Barrel lunch. Mama told me that Conway Twitty got his name from this town. And hey, hadn’t we passed a Twitty in Texas yesterday? Yep, turns out country-music legend, Harold Lloyd Jenkins chose his stage name after studying a road map: Conway, AR and Twitty, TX.
We passed Toad Suck Park, AR. and saw more large flocks of birds. And naturally, there was more road. We listened to our favorite XM-Sirius stations and stopped for gas, coffee, stretches, and bathroom breaks.
Sometime in the mid-to-late afternoon, we passed over the Mississippi River into Memphis, Tennessee. We celebrated our home state with a DQ ice cream dinner and got back on the road. This was the same rough-road stretch of I-40 we’d traveled going to Memphis six weeks ago. Now, we drove this stretch heading home, through the sunset, twilight, and dark.
HOME! Ending mileage: 41,461.
At long last, we pulled into my mom’s driveway at 7:22 p.m. Tired, relieved, and happy. We unloaded the car...like for bears…EVERYTHING OUT. We were home!
Some stats:
Total miles driven: 11,511.
49 Days + 12 hours.
27 States + D.C.
30 different hotels.
2 Oil changes.
8 National Parks
16 pressed pennies each.
And a million memories!
Lessons learned:
The Road is the trip too.
Look for luggage carts and give thanks for wheels.
Sit for a spell. Observe.
Life is short. Cram it in. Go!
Trust Siri.
Eat at local diners.
Always stop at the penny press.
Take care of your ride.
Changes happen. Don’t stress. Adjust and go.
Get a good playlist.
Pack snacks and water.
Cranky happens. Be nice to each other and pull over for good stretches.
THE day was here. Breakfast dishes were done and the house was locked up. The car packed and the rearview mirror arranged. Seat belts on. It was time. We snapped a selfie, posted it to Instagram, and backed out of the driveway. It was 7:20 a.m. on Thursday, October 19, and my mother and I were on our way. It was Day One of our seven-week USA road trip.
October 19. Starting mileage: 29,950.
The plan was to go South on backroads down to Estill Springs and then cut East on more backroads, turning North into North Carolina for the Smoky Mountains and Cherokee where we had a reservation for the night.
It was a perfect day for a drive with a Tennessee October-crisp temperature and brilliant sunshine. And it was the perfect time to take a trip. For the last few months, we’d debated, dreamed, deliberated, and finally decided to do it.My last day at work had been an auspicious Friday, October 13 and just a few days after, I’d flown to Tennessee to make final preparations with my mom, Lucy. And now, here we were, on the route. High hopes, nervous energy, a few nagging worries about costs and routes and places to stay, and an awakening feeling of release and relief. We were on our way!
First, Estill Springs
Estill Springs was our first stop. It had to be. It was the place the two of us used to go on annual vacations when money was tight. Years ago, friends of my mom lived there in a nice house surrounded by woods. I have no idea where in Estill Springs their house was. But it felt remote, exotic. Mama and I would always sleep in their attic guest bedroom, eat delicious home-cooked meals in the screened-in porch, and walk among those tall pines. They had a dog, and a boy a little younger than me. We’d play in the woods, ride bikes, and set up little towns to drive Matchbox cars around. I’m not sure how long we stayed on these trips–could have been a long weekend, or a week. Time seemed to relax and spread out a little. Estill Springs is not that far from Nashville. But just like those old vacations, it took a while to get there. We arrived to nothing that looked familiar, and snapped a few shots in front of the only thing we could find that said Estill Springs, the City Hall. And unlike those old vacations, today we kept going.
Onward
I’d gone old school for this trip. The very day Lucy said, “Ok, I’ll go,” I walked to the local travel garb store and bought an oversized Road Atlas, complete with special entries for all the National Parks. In the six weeks from “Ok, I’ll go” to “GO!”, I’d been plotting our course, studying the map, and jotting notes for backroads to other backroads to landmarks and destinations. I intended to bypass the bland major highways as much as possible–though I realized that the interstates were necessary time savers. So, after a few hours of driving old Tennessee roads past fields and cows, and getting twisted up from my written directions, we got on I-24 going southeast. By then, it was time for lunch. And we weren’t even one-third of the way to Cherokee.
As moms will do, Lucy had packed lunch. We stopped at the Nickajack Reservoir – Ladds Rest Area for a picnic. I’ve never seen a prettier rest stop. It was a little island, peaceful. We took our time, letting it all soak in–the warm October sunshine, the reservoir view, the homemade pimento cheese, and the fact that we were on the trip of a lifetime. Even now, that hour at the rest stop is one of my most vivid memories of the trip.
Cherokee, NC
We drove on, and on, and on. Stopping here and there for photos…like at the Ocoee River. Mama knew how to say it–“o-CO-ee”. And when it rolled off her tongue, I remembered that I used to know that. I repeated it out loud and a hundred more times in my head. Just like the time she told me the Obey River near Celina is said “O-bee”–but that’s another story for another day.
Eventually we drove into North Carolina, and found our hotel in Cherokee just before dark.
This first night tested us. There was the checking in and getting a key that didn’t work. And then there was the unloading–lots of suitcases, a bag of food, and a cooler. We discovered we wanted to do different things. We both worried about the money. And we’d lost an hour of daylight moving from Central to Eastern time zone. Lucy wanted to see the casino. I wanted to go into the Smokies. But it was silly money to park at the casino and then there were no spaces. And it was too dark to drive up into the mountains. We were hungry and didn’t know where to go to eat–couldn’t even decide what we wanted. We settled on a cheap fast food dinner and early turn-in. Of all the nights for rambunctious kids to be anywhere near me, they were in the room above ours–jumping on their beds and screaming until we–at last–heard water running and their mom call “Bath time!” If playtime continued after bath time, I didn’t hear it.
October 20. Starting mileage 30,238.
The next morning after loading up, we stopped for a buffet breakfast with pancakes. Buoyed by the comfort food and a fresh day starting far from our routines, we idled around Cherokee. We wandered around an old stone church, noted that the street signs were in Cherokee and English, and poked around a few souvenir shops. Years and years ago, I remember coming to the Smoky Mountains with both Mama and Daddy. I don’t think the souvenir options have changed much in all that time–play tomahawks, tiny doll papooses, suede moccasins, and little hand-carved trinkets, alongside boiled peanuts, birdhouses, and mesmerizing spinning yard ornaments and wind chimes.
After a couple of hours dallying around Cherokee, we headed north for Washington D.C. Yes, we’d like more time in Cherokee–to see the old settlements in Cherokee Nation, play at the casino, and use the National Park pass to see the Smoky Mountains. But the sun was out, our worries lifted, and today’s long road stretched out before us.
We lost one today. A 90-year-old link to the past. My Uncle Willie. He remembered the stories, the old stories…of his grandparents moving across Tennessee when TVA flooded their valley, of the hungry Indians coming to their door asking for food when no one had any. He was married twice, seven kids. And alone at the end.
His house sits on brick-o-blocks. On a back road, off a back road, in a forgotten part of Tennessee. Not even a house number. It’s the same house he’s lived in for 60 years or more.
Every winter morning, he went to his front porch and got wood for the cast iron stove that heated the house. Everyday he wore overalls, sipped his coffee, scraped his plate and looked out the window into the back field, the field where his cows used to graze. His voice grew quiet, raspy, from lack of talking.
Every Saturday he drove 40 miles to go dancing. He had several pairs of cowboy boots for “the dancing”, each pair still kept in the original plastic wrap and box.
Uncle Willie was a dreamer, sentimental. He kept the family photos, the old Bible. He talked about the photos, the old times. His blue eyes twinkled and he grinned, a mischievous smile. Maybe in his mind he was still 21.
He wanted a woman’s touch, her attention. Someone at the dances. He kept her photo on a shelf by the door. No one had met her. He built an addition on his house. Something to do, maybe. It was for her, maybe. It was nicer, lighter, with white carpet and a fancy bathroom. She never came. He cried when he spoke of her.
I hadn’t seen Uncle Willie for maybe 20 years. Then in the fall of 2013, I visited with my father. We laughed, we talked. I found something familiar in him. I photographed him. I went again on Easter 2015. I filmed him, his voice a bare whisper. His attention seemed parsed, distracted by the thought of the woman. I asked him about the past, about his mother, his father, his childhood. My dad sat beside him and inserted little details along the way. Uncle Willie’s cloudy blue eyes watered as he told the tales.
I last saw him at the end of September 2015, when we celebrated with an early birthday party. In December he would turn 90, my Dad would turn 80. He was in good form. Laughing. Joking. Enjoying the attention. His blue eyes glimmered with that old light. He had new boots. He had a gadget for helping him to take off his boots without touching them, and he demonstrated it for me.
We made plans to get together in the spring. For another party, for dancing. He told me that it would keep him alive, to think of that.
Uncle Willie passed away at 3:30 a.m. today, February 27, 2016.
You know the saying, “she can’t see the forest for the trees”? It is a derogatory phrase…like when someone is said to “miss the big picture” or “bogs down in details”.
I’ve had forests and trees on my mind a lot in the past few months…feeling something like guilt or shame or frustration for the hours wasted on doing the “little” things. I wonder some times if I’ve lost the trail.
But on this cool, rainy, September early morning, I woke up with some satisfying clarity on the positive side of that saying.
Life is a whole forest. It is also just one tree. Each tree. Each day. I don’t know how big the forest is, or when I will walk out of it. So, I’m going to enjoy my walk through the trees, appreciating the sun and the shade, the rain and the wind, the sounds and the silence, and give my attention to one tree at a time.
A funny thing seems to happen when I consider that one tree long enough…I perceive the pattern around it. And I find comfort in that.
It’s been a hard year. We’ve lost a number of family members and dear friends. Had job changes. Experienced new aches and pains. Dealt with little annoyances like losing an iPad and a coat (how does that happen?? Are our minds slipping?!) And we’ve suffered through continuing bouts of ennui and this great restlessness. A combination of things that leaves our hearts hurting, our thoughts scattered and worried, our confidence tested, and our energy exhausted.
We wonder, how many more Christmases will we have? How many more summers? How many more times will I get to hug this person–or hear that story again–or ask those questions? How many more times can I say “next time, we’ll do that” –before there is no “next time”? So, this Christmas, when I went home to Nashville to see my Mom and Dad, I also made plans to see some extended family–people I love, and used to spend more time with, but who I don’t have a lot of chances to see on quick visits home from Chicago. It was good. We shared laughter, stories, meals. I need more of this. And I have made a promise to myself to do more of it in 2015, and make it count.
I also spent a little time driving around Nashville…visiting some places I love…places that are scratched into my memory. Former homes, old neighborhoods, favorite streets and parks. Maybe I only spent a little time there–or maybe a lot. But these places remain in my heart. And while I can see them –any day– when I close my eyes, I wanted to touch them again. It was good. This too, I need more of.
Things change. Buildings get knocked down. Trees get cut down. We change. People move in and out of our lives. It hurts sometimes. And while we can’t always see them anymore, they live on in our memories. And there is this magical kind of peace and grace in remembering those memories, and visiting those old places.
So, here’s to peace, and to a new year spent making good memories. Happy New Year!
Early one morning, two days after Thanksgiving, my best friend and I met to go on a photo jaunt. When I’m home, it’s a tradition for us to meet early in the morning when the sun is coming and the mist is still fogging over the roads, and head off into the wilds of Tennessee. We are Nashville-raised girls–so these old roads, falling down barns, abandoned buildings, lonely graveyards and remote train tracks draw us to them like birds to a nest. We drive for a while, jabbering about our lives, and stopping every few miles for some shots of something that speaks to us. Later, we stop in some little diner for a late breakfast before hightailing it back to town. These scenes, these drives, these little traditions remind me of what matters in life….family and friends, and roads to be traveled.