So we ended up in the cultural epicenter of middle Tennessee this past weekend--Bell Buckle, Tennessee. I know the name ranks alongside Bucksnort, Finger, and Sweet Lips, Tennessee (all real towns, I assure you), but it really is a pretty sweet place--real sweet. It's the home of the infamous Webb School, a private school that has cranked out all sorts of important people in history ("one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong," he sings). It's also the home of the Bell Buckle Cafe, a sweet little dive that's just a hair better than Miller's Grocery in Christiana, another whistle-stop town on the same rail-line. The most prestigious event that calls Bell Buckle home is the annual RC & Moon Pie Festival. 10,000 people descend on this small town raising the population to 10,053 if only for a day.
I heard about the festival when I moved here a few months ago. Few people know about my obsession with Moon Pies, so I'm sure my eagerness to go surprised the folks who were sarcastically informing me. Of course I'll go! I wouldn't miss that for the world. After all, I missed the cornbread festival down in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, near Chattanooga. I thought I was going to cry when I found that out. I wasn't about to let this cultural event go by. So, like an old man on his second marriage, I cherished what was in front of me because I can't change what I'd missed out on in the past.
To make up for cornbread, I embraced Moon Pies.
Here's the sign:
While the festival is for both RC and Moon Pie, I think RC gets the shaft. Most of the advertising and gimmicks had to do with the MP. There were a few RC deals, but not many.
Here's a pic' of some good ole boys under the gazebo:
They had me at the Braves cap, but then they threw a Hound Dog and a Kentucky Mandolin in the mix. It was nice. All they lacked was a good, well-timed bassist. I was leery when I first heard them, but then I saw that they were playing in B. The mandy-man didn't even need a cheap banjo capo to make up for the painful pinky stretches that come along with the dreaded B key. Good livin'. Good stuff.
Yep. It is what it is. She's about to baptize the Twinkie in a full-immersion, baptizo, Holy Ghost, funnel cake batter vat. It's a part of a Hostess Mission effort. They've converted I don't know how many Twinkies. Praise God for the second birth!
This is a lost art, isn't it.
Droves, y'all. They came out in droves with sweat, fanny packs, and an extreme penchant for the chocolate, banana, vanilla, or strawberry sandwich of the gods. They danced for her, sang for her, and bought wares in her honor.
See what I told ya? All the attention for the the Moon Pie, but no RC to be found. I guess they should realize that they're in Sun Drop country. That's my poison.
Okay, I gave in on a couple things. I don't why it's this way, but the two most unlikely places for something hot to eat are a hot, nasty amusement park and a summer festival. Why, oh why, Lord, do I continually drift toward a hot corndog at these places? This one was a footlong. A crunchy, brown, buttery cornbread placenta with a long, hot, swollen peice of meat resting inside. It was good, but let me tell you something: it was nothing compared to what I have next for you. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
There it is, just below the paragraph below the paragraph below the paragraph below this paragraph.
The holy grail. King Tut's tomb. The nasty scraps from the Nag Hammadi. What do they all have in common. They pale in comparison to what I found. For some people it's a detestable pile of cholesterol, fat, grease, and carbs. Edible death. But for me, it's a heavenly mixture of everything that's good about our country. In the South, we will fry a turd if we had the leg strength to squat over the fry daddy. In fact, if it wouldn't burn so badly, we'd sit there reading the local Swap Shop paper until we got an unsightly fry-daddy ring on our butts and our legs go numb. If we'll do that, you know we'll fry a Moon Pie.
Of course, the South is the home of Ted Turner, the undisputed King of overdoing it, so we can't stop at frying the blasted thing. We have to sprinkle it with powdered sugar and drizzle a warm stream of thick chocolate syrup over the top.
All that for mere sock change: $3.00. You can't beat it with a stick. Besides, if you did, you'd get bark in the marshmallow, and there's no need in adding fiber to this mix.
The boy in the hat participated in the Moon Pie Toss (which is what I was about to do at home from all the grease in the fried one I had). He was standing by his pie when his brother came up and tried to eat his. As would naturally occur, a fight ensued. I would have scuffled, too. No way would I give mine up. I would have hit that little boy, too! Right in the mouth.
So much attention for the Moon Pie. I tried to make the RC feel better about himself. All those 'roids will make one feel a little inadequate already. He didn't need the pressure of having to live up to the attention bar raised by his festival-mate. Although, I need to come to the Moon Pie's aid on this one. You really can't fry an RC. That would just be unhealthy. All that sugar!
These lonely steel bars forever separated by thickheaded slabs of wood are heading toward Christiana and on up to Murfreesboro.
We'll be in Murfreesboro next. Yes, I know I live there, but there's another festival coming--Uncle Dave Macon Days. It's a banjo player's paradise in the old Cannonsburgh Village held in honor of the great Uncle Dave Macon (surely that was obvious).
This Friday night, Karen and I are headed to the Oaklands Mansion down on North Maney for a WSM premiere of the new documentary about the festival. I'll try to update you on that one.
My church is hosting a table at the ministry fair on the Sunday of the event. And you better believe I'll be in the audience when they honor John Rice Irwin, founder of the Museum of Appalachia (pronounced by those in the know "ap-puh-latch'-ya," and by ignorant yanks "ap-puh-lay'-shya"), and Bobby Osbourne, a sweet tater-bug picker from Kentucky.
See ya soon!
