Philly’s name was mud on the banks of the Tennessee in Chattanooga last May Day as the locals dedicated their dazzling new fresh-water aquarium. Well, make that the Philadelphia Daily News’ name because of the allegations and plain inaccuracies of Kurt Heine’s piece about the “aquafever” boom and the as-yet-unopened Tennessee Aquarium he had never seen.
Mark Kennedy, the Chattanooga Times’ youthful version of Peter Dexter, kurtly chopped Heine on his heiny by pointing out that Choo Choo City has only 150,000 inhabitants, not the 450,000 ascribed to it. Then he wondered aloud to me if this Philly that was trashing Chattanooga’s urbane aspirations was the same Philly whose mayor pioneered police helicopter bombing as a form of urban renewal.
A bad day for Philly, but a great day to be alive in Tennessee. As an Aquarian by birth, a dedicated global aquarium watcher, I don’t hesitate to assert that Chattanooga’s newest attraction ($8.75 a pop, unless you’re a member, and it seemed that every second Chattanoogan I palavered with had joined up) is the best aquarium in the world—architecturally, pedagogically, even commercially: It sells Appalachian folk art of the highest quality at its store.
It wasn’t always thus in that run-down industrial and train town that Glenn Miller and Tex Beneke made famous in 1941. As I munched contentedly on a splendid dinner—grilled shrimp with a perky hot pepper garnish, lobster bisque soup, lamb chops in a crusty cover, plus a bottle of Choo Choo Zinfandel—in the refurbished box car that goes by the name “Dinner in the Diner,” at the Holiday Inn / Choo Choo, I realized that I’d been 14 when first I heard that tune as a pimply-faced teenager in Detroit.
I was 50 years old (1977) when first I got an ogle of that notorious train station that ended Tex’s tuneful trip. Pardon me, boy, but the town was a total mess. Yucko.
A few years later, I passed through a somewhat less tacky Chattanooga—the Tennessee Valley Authority had put up some interesting buildings. I was flogging TV poetry films from Britain, which put me in touch with Paul Ramsey, the poet in residence at UT / Chattanooga. And his quilt-making better half, Bets. What a couple. Still, their town seemed terminally blah-ridden to me.
My next visit was to see a two-woman show at the Hunter Museum of Art, featuring quilter Bets and her friend and sculptor, Jesse Tugwell. I popped for a Bets, getting in before she became internationally famous—she’s out of my financial league these days, although I can and do afford her marvelous books about Southern quilts form Clarkson Potter publishers.
And I bought Jesse Tugwell’s forged and hammered iron “Medusa,” whose tortured locks provide a place from which to hang the press credentials I save from my worldly travels in swift pursuit of the Good Life. I think of it as a kind of Hazzed-up Tugwell.
My girl and I were in a tip-top frame of mind that morning, which explains how a tightwad like me loosened up his purse strings. We had driven a rented red Pinto from Nashville Airport the day before, lazied our way down in a southeasterly direction through Sewanee, cutting across the northeastern corner of Alabama (our car was regassed by two halfbacks from the state high school football champions—which means a great deal more in Alabama than it does to me), settling for the night in a familiar sounding Trenton (Georgia).
Next, we went to the New Salem Fall Arts Festival, full of the quirky and crafty idiosyncrats that grace the hollers and villages of the mid-South. In a glow from schmoozing with these artists, we were underprepared for the greatest serendipity of all: As we approached Chattanooga, we ran into the First World Hang-Gliding Championship—crazies jumping fearlessly off Lookout Mountain.
I mention these bio-trivia because at least half the charm of Choo Choo City is what’s popping within a day’s easy driving range. For example, when I sweet-talked easygoing Sally Brooks to let me have a quick look inside her closed folk art store across from the Hunter, she told me her partner in American folk art flogging, Jim Hedges, was down for the day to the Howard Finster Festival in Summersville, Ga.
Sally’s only been at it for two and a half years. But folk art is getting so big she’s got customers galore in Minneapolis, Chicago and other non-Southerly parts. But if visiting the Hunter, save some time for her folk cache—and for a marvelously bizarre glass collection—across the street.
(Part one of a two-part article.)
From Welcomat: After Dark, Hazard-at-Large, no date listed
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