Black Bears, Dead Industries, and Pancake Houses (HOL 88)

House of Laughter 88

I’ve had my fill of Christmas for the year already. Last weekend we went to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (Motto: Myrtle Beach with Ski Lifts and no beach.), to cash in the free tickets to Dollywood I won earlier this fall. Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, and Dollywood were already completely decked out for Christmas in direct violation of Baumann’s law, (No Christmas music shall be played nor decoration put on display prior to the day after Thanksgiving.)

We arrived Friday evening and decided to ride the Christmas trolley to view the light displays around town. The only trolley ride available was 9:00 p.m., so we had plenty of time for a leisurely dinner and wandering through souvenir stores selling hundreds of “Hillbilly” and “Black Bear” shaped bric-a-brac.

We dined at a restaurant which was evidently very popular with the octogenarian and hyper obesity tour groups. Isaac is a connoisseur of Grilled Cheese sammichs, and gave the restaurant high marks for it’s playful blending of American Cheese and White Bread.

We also shared an appetizer of fried chicken strips, fried dill pickles, fried green tomatoes, and a surprisingly not fried orange.

Isaac was starting to get tired and cranky, but the promise of riding a trolley and the box of Christmas Peeps we picked up at the candy store kept him in a presentable state. The trolley turned out to be a tour bus, and most of the Christmas lights were in the median strip of the six lane highway that runs through town. It was hard to tell where the blinking lights from the Arby’s sign ended and the giant eight maids a milking began because the bus’s windows kept fogging up. The tour guide also kept us entertained with fascinating facts about Pigeon Forge like (I’m not making this up.)” There are four Cracker Barrel restaurants within a 15 mile radius, and they are almost always busy”.

Isaac fell asleep about 20 minutes into the bus ride leaving Nancy and I to exchange sarcastic remarks and count pancake houses for the remaining forty minutes of our dark foggy bus ride in heavy traffic.

We arrived at Dollywood the next morning bundled up in thermal underwear, pajamas, jeans, jackets, hats and mittens. We went and made reservations for the shows we wanted to see (Part of the package I won was a free rental of a Q-bot….sort of like an electronic beeper/ fast pass gizmo.) Our first scheduled show was called “Christmas in the Smokies.” (actually most of the shows were variations on the theme of Christmas/ Holiday/ Hanukkah in the Smokies/ Mountains/ Appalachians.)

The show was about 45 minutes, and it had all the subtlety of a lampshade in a Chinese whorehouse. They had a mountain cabin that unfolded like a greeting card, two guys in a horse costume, smoke machines, Frosty the Snowman, Mary, Joseph, an Angel, a church choir, and at one point, it snowed in the theater. It was so over the top, that after fifteen minutes, I just shut down the cynical side of my brain and enjoyed both the “Hey Gang Let’s Put on a Show” aesthetic, and Isaac’s complete and total captivation with the whole spectacle.

After the show, we rode the Carousel, the Train (featuring plastic penguins scattered around broken down moonshine stills), and Isaac’s favorite, the “Race Cars”. My little beeper buzzed to let us know it was time for the second show, “Babes in Toyland”.

“Babes” features all of the left over Christmas show ideas that were deemed to weird or over the top for the “Smokey Mountain Christmas”. It featured bears, pirates, Chinese Acrobats, a zepplin that flew over the audience raining confetti, and a giant mechanical spider. Isaac really liked the giant spider.

We were hungry after the show and had a late lunch at “Aunt Granny’s” (Don’t think about the restaurant’s name to much, or you will go down a rabbit hole of stereotypes about mountain inbreeding.) We ate in “Dolly’s room”, a small room off the main dining room plastered with some of Parton’s lesser known accolades like the key to the city of Burbank, California and a certificate thanking her for her participation in the 1973 Cooterscratch, Arkansas Apple Festival. One corner of the room featured a stuffed leather chair surrounded by toys. This is where Santa greeted the children earlier in the day.

Some children sitting at an adjacent table became bored and started playing with the Mr. Potato Head by the chair until an older waitress came in and snapped at the children and their parents (How could the children possibly have gotten the idea that it was okay to play with toys that Santa had left behind earlier that morning?) The family sheepishly finished their meal when a second waitress came to them and apologized in hushed tones. I realized that with the outbursts, awkward moments, and sullen dessert course, Dollywood truly captured the essence of a holiday meal with the extended family.

After stuffing ourselves with turkey, mashed potatoes, pot roast, catfish, green beans, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie, and (for some reason) churros, Nancy, Isaac, and I headed toward the big roller coasters in the back of the park.

The big coasters were themed to the big industries in the area, logging and mining. Unfortunately, the newest coaster wasn’t open due to the fact that the hydraulic fluid in the brakes doesn’t work properly unless it is over forty degrees outside. (It never got over forty degrees). We finished our day with a visit to Santa, and a trip to the gift shop where after over three years of holding steady, Nancy finally relented and let Isaac buy a toy gun.

Isaac fell asleep on the way back to the hotel with the navy blue gun, clutched in his hands, on the lookout for bears.

Sunday morning we got up early and went to a scary interactive attraction themed to a zombie invasion, called Tanger Outlet Mall. Nancy was brave, but I was terrified and had to leave after 20 minutes. On the ride home we decided to take the scenic route through the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. As we drove up the mountain, the 50 degree sunny day made me scoff at the “Watch for Ice” warning signs. Twenty minutes and 15 degrees later, I realized those signs weren’t just for show. It was an incredible drive home through snow and frozen waterfalls.

On the far side of the mountain, we drove through the Cherokee reservation. Poverty surrounded the enormous Harrah’s casino in the middle of town. Billboards showed a Cherokee family with the ominous slogan “Domestic Violence is not part of our Heritage”. Our family has problems too, but thankfully they aren’t on billboards for every visitor to town to see.

We arrived home exhausted Sunday night, grateful that we have a short week ahead, and are now sufficiently armed in case of bear a attack at our house.

Strength and Honor

Big Matt

The Good, The Bad, and the Flightless (HOL 87)

House of Laughter 87

As I was getting ready for work this morning, Isaac came into my room to inform me that he was taking his “Batman” action figure with him to school today. I told him that would be fine.

Isaac explained, “Batman hits the Joker. The Joker says, ‘Why so serious?’” (For those of you concerned, no he has not seen “The Dark Knight”, but he and I visited plenty of Halloween costume stores during October, and “The Joker” costumes and cardboard cutouts were every where.)

Isaac continued, “Batman is a good guy, Joker is the bad guy.”

I told Isaac that Batman fought with other bad guys as well, like The Riddler, Catwoman, and The Penguin.

Isaac was skeptical, “Penguin is a badguy?” He seemed genuinely puzzled that the cute small flightless birds that we read and watch movies about could ever be “Bad guys.”

“Most Penguins are good guys, but there is at least one bad penguin.”

“Are there good Jokers?”

“I’m sure there are some good jokers too, but Batman only catches the bad one.”

Isaac then made a list of good guys and bad guys.

The good guys included : Batman, Pee Wee, Superman, Gandalf, Spiderman, Chewbacca, Samwise, Hulk, Mr. Incredible, Iron Man and most Penguins.

The bad guys were: Golem, Frances, Venom, Abomination, Sandman, Joker, Doc Ock, Darth Vader, and Bears. (He really has a love/ hate relationship with bears lately. His favorite toy is “Blackie Bear”, his favorite books are about bears, but bears also wake him up at night walking through his room…..it’s complicated.)

The whole exchange this morning reminded me of a story my pastor told about setting up his nativity set with his sons. In the Usey nativity set that year, Luke Skywalker, Batman, and several other action figures joined the more traditional Shepherds and Wise men. Eventually the Dracula figure killed everyone else that holy night in Bethlehem. There is a reason I go to my church.

On the way out, the door, Isaac and I found a dead mouse that one of our cats had left for us. I told him that the mouse was trying to get into our house, and that the cats killed him before he could. Isaac looked at it and said, “That’s probably a bad mouse. He would have eaten my toys if he had gotten in.”

Gammy and G.Daddy visited this weekend. It’s fun to have company, but Isaac was a little over stimulated. We stayed up late and went to the airport to pick them up, and then went to the Farmer’s Market, Transportation Museum, Natural Science Center, and a church picnic. G-daddy, Isaac and I celebrated our Scottish heritage by playing golf together. I’m pretty sure Isaac’s favorite thing all weekend though was getting chicken nuggets at Chik Fil A.

Strength and Honor

Matt

Brother bought a Cocoa Bean (HOL 86(

House of Laughter 86

Friday morning, my beautiful wife Nancy, sat on the edge of our bed and shook me gently to wake me up.

“Matt, Isaac has a fever of 100 and they won’t let him go to school, and I have the librarian conference today, and I may be able to leave early, but you could check his temperature again in about thirty minutes, and take a half day, but I have to leave right now since I am meeting my car pool……So what are you going to do?”

“Well honey, seeing as I’ve only been aware of a the situation now for ten seconds, I will defer to your judgment.” Nancy left for her conference, and I went up stairs to check on the boy.

His forehead was warm to touch. I placed the electronic thermometer thing in his ear and pressed the button. The display flashed 95.1. I’m no doctor, but I assumed this was incorrect. For the next ten minutes I debated the merits of getting an accurate temperature vs. waking up a potentially ill and therefore cranky three year old by shoving something deeply into his ear. I finally managed to get a second 100.0 reading and concluded that it was accurate. I also managed to wake up a cranky sick boy who wanted to go to school.

Eventually he fell back asleep until almost 11:00 that morning. I heard the toilet lid slam shut, and Isaac be-bopped down the stairs happy as a clam. We watched “Nightmare Before Christmas”, and played “Wii”.

After Nancy came home, he had a tantrum and said he didn’t want to go trick or treating. I made him come downstairs and sat him behind a half of a grilled cheese sandwich. Nancy and I definitely swap off being the disciplinarian. That night I told him if he didn’t eat his sandwich he wouldn’t have any treats that night. He refused to eat, so he did not get a treat the whole night. (On the way home from visiting friends, I finally let him have one Tootsie Pop since he had been perfectly behaved at two different friends’ houses.)

The next morning, it was Nancy’s turn to be the heavy. By the time I crawled out of bed at 9:00, Isaac and Nancy had already had breakfast. I asked if he had any treats. Nancy said, “No it’s still morning”. To which I asked, “Weren’t you ever a child?”

Isaac if you are reading this, I went to bat for you, and you got treats the morning after Halloween..

Saturday night we were watching the Florida/ Georgia game at a restaurant, when a campaign commercial came on one of the muted TVs. Isaac jumped up, pointed and yelled, “There’s Obama!” in the same excited voice he uses when he sees Mickey Mouse on TV.

Sunday morning, Isaac came down to make sure we were up on time despite the clocks moving back. He came to our room, and noticing, Nancy’s sexy pink flannel pajamas with sock monkeys said, “I’ll be right back” and ran up stairs. He returned with a stuffed Curious George, handed it to Nancy and said, “You need this since you have monkeys on your pajamas.”

This morning on the way to Daycare, Isaac and I were listening to Southern Culture on the Skid’s song “Banana Pudding”. He and I sang the chorus out loud together”

“Banana Pudding! Banana Pudding!”

When I went to get him out of the truck at daycare, his song had morphed to

“Banana in Cocoa bean! Banana in Cocoa bean!”

At first I thought this was something from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (Cocoa beans are mentioned several times in the movie), but then he sang,

“Banana in Cocoa bean Banana in Cocoa bean…Call the doctor woke him up”

And I realized he was singing the newly created second verse to “Coconut” (Put the lime in the coconut, drink the bowl up.)

When I got home tonight, I told Nancy about a phone call to my sister. My nephew had been bit by another little boy at his school. Isaac overheard our conversation and about halfway through dinner he started asking questions:

“Did Eli get bit?”

“Was the other little boy bad?”

“Which arm did he get bit on?”

“Did he get bit on the cheek?”

“Did the skin come off?”

The questions kept coming until Isaac talked to Eli on the phone. As best I can tell the conversation consisted of Eli telling Isaac to talk louder, and Isaac telling a story about falling on his stroller yesterday and bloodying up his own knee.

Strength and Honor

Big Matt