As a middle-aged man, I still harbor hopes and dreams with the firm belief that we are never too old to pursue our dreams. As age progresses, many tend to write off dreams as “silly” or “inconsequential” because the odds are stacked against us. However, if dreams had favorable odds, they would probably be called “likelihood’s” or “favorable chances”. I, for one, don’t think that I have ever felt a magical surge of hope and anticipation over a “likelihood” or a “favorable chance” that compares to the thrill of reaching for the stars. I believe that life’s richest moments are attained by reaching for an unlikely goal. The journey, in fact, may prove just as enlightening as the reward of reaching the destination. In taking this journey, we might even be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Plato’s perfect “form” world. While it is true that we cannot make a crater every time we shoot for the moon, that doesn’t mean that we should stop trying… perhaps it’s just a sign to adjust our aim a little. With that, I’ll close the chapter on my “road-apple” philosophy for today.
Leo, the forklift driver in Huntsville, had a terrible cold today. He said that it was probably from working in the cold rain from when I’d been there two weeks prior. I can still feel my soaked gloves and socks from that day—Yuck!
After Huntsville, we were off to deliver to Stallings, North Carolina and then, we went to pick up in Prosperity, South Carolina.
Prosperity originally went under the name, Frog Level. The most popular legend of how the name originated states that there was a pond infested with innumerable frogs. A local man is said to have became intoxicated and fell asleep while lying at the end of the pond. When he awoke, the frogs were croaking and he, still being in a drunken stupor, imagined that they were crying “frog level”. The old name must still hold a bit of influence, because Prosperity now holds an annual “Hoppin’ Festival” in which a Hoppin’ Pageant Queen is elected.
Regardless of the distinct honor that it would have been to meet the reigning Hoppin’ Queen, I had to pick up my load to deliver to Vonore, Tennessee. This is where things got interesting.
On the way to Vonore, I missed the road that I had intended to take and, from looking at my map on the fly, I devised a brilliant plan to follow US431 through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg and then, cut across on Highway 73 to get back to my road. If I had taken the time to study my map closely, I would have seen the folly of this decision. What I did not know, at the time, was that the path I had chosen would be taking me directly toward Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in Tennessee!
Suffice it to say that the Smokey Mountain trail I had chosen was not designed with 18-wheelers in mind. The truck was pulling its way up the mountain in second gear, and the hairpin curves were making my stomach churn. It was obvious that this had been a huge mistake, but there was absolutely nowhere to turn around; the only thing that I could do was to keep crawling skyward. Kitty also sensed the tension of our predicament because she had hidden beneath the seat. Like the protagonist in Cormac McCarthy’s novel, “Sutree”, who took a bus to Gatlinburg to ring in a new disillusionment with nature, I had taken an 18-wheeler to Gatlinburg and I was beyond disillusionment—I was downright scared shitless! I would have liked nothing better than to crawl beneath the seat with Kitty, but I knew that I had to get us out of this mess somehow.
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