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Issue Number Fifteen Spring/Summer 2012 In Case of Rapture Lefty Frizzell Fiction by William Dockery A story of a one-of-a-kindness The Way ’Twas A memory captured by a snapshot A Flying Elizabeth Family Reunion and Hazel Families that fly together... The women behind the picture Brush With the Law Northbound Non-ignorance of the law is an excuse Single - Lane A collection of Southern poetry Daddy’s in the Closet ...and that’s where he’s going to stay Lisa Love’s Life Where humor and reality hang out Kids and Politics Why Daddy drinks California Itch Go west, young man with apologies to Norman Rockwell E-Publisher’s Corner CaliforniaCalifornia ItchItch found the above picture tucked inside an old college “Because you can’t go any further west,” someone else said. yearbook. It featured the original members of Contents “Can’t go no further—this here’s Under Pressure, a band that we hastily assembled in injun territory.” Copas said, quoting September of 1970 for a freshman talent show at the the California stream-of-conscious- ness comedy troupe, Firesign Theater. East Tennessee Baptist college we attended. All of us were fed up with our par- IIThe only member of Contents not was before holes in jeans were cool). ticular circumstances. Kling and Copas pictured was (Dancin’) Dan (the Man) BoatRamp, the farmdog, was trying were bored with Nashville, and those Schlafer; he had joined us in early 1971, to imitate my stance and smile for the of us finishing up our college careers and by the time this was snapped—in camera. He was a very talented dog. were anxious to trade all the hassles of the autumn of 1974—he was well on I can’t remember what all we did collegiate life for a big adventure. his way to being a responsible citizen, that weekend, but I do know that it I was finishing up my tenure as unlike the three of us pictured here. involved at least two things—playing editor of the college newspaper and The backdrop for this picture was music late into the night (early into had managed to get myself in hot the 40-acre farm in Wear’s Valley that the morning) and talking about the water with the administration through I shared with Mike Copas and Stephen California Trip. a series of activities and articles. Some Kling, two Opryland caricature artists The California Trip had its genesis people just have no sense of humor. that I had worked with the previous a few months earlier as a group of us A week or so after the initial summer. The truck actually belonged sat around an off-campus apartment California Trip discussion, I received to Copas, but I loved it and the way it trying to figure out what we were going a note from Bill Dockery, a former staff made me feel when I rode in it. to do with our lives once our impend- member of the college’s newspaper The picture was taken by my sis- ing graduation had come and gone. who had graduated a few years earlier ter, Jann; she had ridden down from Copas and Kling had driven down and had gone on to have a real job at Nashville with Paul Dunlap—that’s from Nashville. “Let’s go to California, a real newspaper in the Gatlinburg him with the leather jacket and red or maybe even Gatlinburg,” they said. area. He said that he liked what I had mod cap. Filmore (actually, Millard We could be in Gatlinburg in an hour done with the college paper, and if I Filmore Strunk, Jr.) is the one with the or so, we decided, but California— was interested, he would introduce flannel shirt and Tom Mix 10-gallon now that was a genuine state of mind. me to his publisher. It’s not close to hat. I’m also wearing a flannel shirt, “Yeah, but we could draw caricatures California, I thought, but it is close to along with a pair of bell bottom jeans in Gatlinburg,” Copas said. Gatlinburg. that my grandmother patched (this “Why California?” someone asked. Graduation came and went, and we SouthernReader | Spring/Summer 2012 2 E-Publisher’s Corner paper was a young upstart, we she said, “go easy on the starch.” Anita all scattered back to our hometowns, could be more daring with our and her teenaged sidekick, Rod, trav- taking our individual pieces of the stories and eled through time in The HelenMobile, Big Adventure dream with us. But, a craft that eerily resembled a modern- we promised each other that, at some day PT Cruiser, only without tires. point, we would meet back up and That winter was extremely cold. bring our respective pieces to assem- The farmhouse didn’t have running ble the big puzzle that would be the water or electric heat; it only had the California Trip. living room fireplace and a wood- In the meantime, Copas and I stove in the kitchen. At first, we cut decided to try our luck in Gatlinburg, firewood on the weekends, then and we found an old farmhouse to we resorted to burning the unsold rent in nearby Wear’s Valley. By day, papers that we had picked up over we drew caricatures in Gatlinburg, the past months. Eventually, we and at night, we played bluegrass in would just drive around until it the town’s bars, along with Michael was late enough to go home and Thornburgh, a fiddle player we had jump into bed. It kept me dreaming met on the porch of his family’s hill- about California. The dream of the side cabin. Because we didn’t California Trip however, began have a name, a table of intel- to flicker. It was much too ligent and articulate drunks at comfortable to have a weekly The Shed (a paycheck. main street S p r i n g w a t e r i n g came and hole at the went, and time) named the warm us PigFish t e m p e r a - BoatRamp. tures turned We liked the the winter name, so we h a r d s h i p s kept it and into a distant even used a m e m o r y . piece of it to When sum- tag the stray mer rolled we brought out to the valley to be our coverage than Dockery’s more estab- around, the dream started gnawing at farmdog. lished paper. Dockery usually beat me me again, and I started thinking about In the meantime, Kling had not to every scoop, anyway, including the leaving the Times and heading west. forgotten the dream. He had packed scene of the county’s first ax murder. During the Fourth of July weekend, up his car and was on his way to Working at the Times gave me the I met up with some of my college California. He stopped off at the farm chance to write sports copy, handle friends at a Middle Tennessee blue- on his way to say goodbye, and got local stories, and offer editorials; it grass festival and tried to resurrect the sucked into the East Tennessee beauty. also allowed me to contribute illustra- old passion for the great adventure. However, before the interview with tions and editorial cartoons. Kling and I “It was a nice dream,” someone said Dockery’s publisher could be arranged, would also deliver the stacks of papers after one banjo breakdown. Kling and I got job offers from his to some of the various convenience “I’ve got commitments and respon- newspaper’s rival, the weekly Sevier stores in outlying areas of the county, sibilities,” one of my friends said. County Times (in addition to being and pick up the papers that hadn’t sold “My wife says ‘no’,” said another. a crackerjack caricature artist, Kling from the previous week’s issue. “Do you even know anyone in was an incredible photographer). At some point, Kling and I (along California?” another one demanded. We’re not giving up the dream, we with production guru Kerry Brown) “I’ve got relatives in Iowa,” I said. rationalized, we’re just going to be came up with the idea of featuring regu- “Yeah, well, I’ve got relatives in able to save up some money to fuel lar original comic strips. My comic was New Jersey, but that doesn’t mean I’m it. Besides, one by one, everyone else Tales of Space Helen, a strip about a headed to Canada,” my friend said. from that initial dream planning ses- time-traveling superhero whose secret “It’s just a crazy itch,” I said. sion had found some sort of distrac- identity was Anita Ficks, a salesgirl in “Don’t they make medicine for tion—graduate school, fulltime jobs a local Chinese bakery/laundromat. that?” he asked. and even marriage. The first episode featured a customer As I drove back to East Tennessee, I The Sevier County Times turned out coming into the shop and ordering a felt defeated. Is this how life is going to be an interesting job. Because the birthday cake—“...and, Anita, dear,” to play out, I wondered, dreaming up SouthernReader | Spring/Summer 2012 3 E-Publisher’s Corner “Doodle Owens wrote that!” I told One day I went over to Berkeley big adventures and making plans and him. Doodle was my friend, Lee’s dad. to see if I could find the apartment then abandoning them? When I was at their house a few months complex where Patty Hearst had That Sunday afternoon as I drove earlier, Doodle had played the song for been kidnapped.

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