RETURN TRIP - LOUISVILLE CUISINE

Louisville, Kentucky

4/11/2012

We couldn’t resist. On our way home we had to pass through Louisville and somehow the car drove itself to the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen. Two chess pies to go! One for him and one for her. The perfect anniversary! (And a little something for the boys and girl back home, of course.)

104. NASHVILLE FOOD

Nashville, Tennessee

4/11/2012

Patricia gave us some options here, so we chose Monell’s for our last meal before the great trek home. Monell’s operates under a southern tradition called “family-style” dining. All guests sit around large dinner tables, while waitresses bring out endless plates of food. Everyone sits together and passes the dishes around. This was a lot of fun. We thought it would be a little awkward, but it wasn’t at all. Conversation was inevitable with the people we sat with (a pair of colleagues in town from Alabama for a board meeting) as we passed the plates around. The food was incredible, by the way, and there were about a dozen dishes to choose from. Whenever we thought we had tried everything, the waitress would bring out a new plate with something new. Everything was comfort food – fried chicken, pork chops, corn pudding, etc. – but made with such care and with such quality ingredients it felt gourmet. At most buffets you leave with that special “quantity rather than quality” feeling – that empty fullness. This is a buffet where you’ll eat too much, but it will be worth it. Before we left I looked over at one of the other tables. Two strangers – a young African-American man and an elderly white woman – were sharing a plate between them. That’s got to be worth more than the food.

103. BELLE MEADE

Nashville, Tennessee

4/11/2012

Belle Meade is Tennessee’s best preserved antebellum plantation – mostly because it never fell victim to Union occupation or attack. That being said, the farm’s “crops” were most atypical. While other Tennessee plantations were growing cotton and tobacco, Belle Meade raised thoroughbred racehorses. The human occupants weren’t famous, but one horse was the progenitor of most of the famous thoroughbreds in racing history, like Seabiscuit and Secretariat. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, horse racing was America’s most popular spectator sport until a new sport called baseball turned audiences away. The outlawing of horserace gambling in Tennessee around that same time was the final nail in the horseshoe. The horses are all gone now, which we thought was not made totally clear. In fact, I had to ask about that to make absolutely sure. No horses. There is so much emphasis on horses here you’d expect to see a horse somewhere, wouldn’t you? When we went to Hershey’s Chocolate World they had chocolate.

102. THE HERMITAGE

Nashville, Tennessee

4/11/2012

The next morning began bright and early at the Hermitage – the home of Andrew Jackson, one of America’s most colorful presidents. Admission is fairly pricey ($16 a head) but even Laura couldn’t scoff – the caretakers pride themselves on how everything in the house (barring a few chairs) is Jackson’s original furniture. No reproductions here, which is always a pet peeve of hers. The tour guides were very knowledgeable and one of them looked just like Andrew Jackson. Someone else who was on the tour told him so. The tour guide was clearly upset by the comment. “No. I do not look like him,” he said through gritted teeth. I expected him to challenge the man to a duel, but that didn’t happen. (Over the course of this trip we noticed that all men “of a certain age” in Tennessee have that Andrew Jackson hair going on. Can someone explain this to me?)

We were told that Andrew Jackson was America’s third wealthiest president (after Washington and Kennedy), and arguably the only one of the three to have earned that wealth entirely through his own efforts. (The issue of Jackson’s use of slave labor is tastefully addressed.) That being said, the original Hermitage – a rickety log cabin built in Old Hickory’s poorer days – still stands in the shadow of his opulent mansion.

Sadly, after Jackson’s death his adopted son squandered the fortune his father spent a lifetime building – in less than 11 years – and everything fell into the hands of the state. These are the kinds of family stories emphasized here (stories of Jackson’s devotion to his dead wife are front and center) rather than making much of an attempt to tackle his contentious political career. This was a good choice.

101. THE GRAND OLE OPRY

Nashville, Tennessee

4/10/2012

The grown-up portion of our trip involved a concert at the Grand Ole Opry – country music’s home theater and the world’s oldest radio show. I’d been to the Grand Ole Opry years before on a road trip with my dad and brother, but Laura had never been. Neither of us are country fans, but we can appreciate good musicianship no matter the genre. We were looking forward to a night out.

We booked a package at the Hyatt Place that came with two tickets to the show and a shuttle service. (I was especially excited about the shuttle since Opry parking is the outrageous price of $18!) Two guys in the shuttle asked us where we were from, where we were going and if we were country fans. “No,” we said. “People don’t like country in Ohio,” the one guy said. “Only NASCAR,” said the other.

Seating at the Opry is a little unique. Everyone has a specific seat number, but the rows don’t have individual seats – they’re more like long pews. This led to a little bit of an embarrassing moment. A group of men who may have had a few extra pieces of sweet potato pie shared our row. By shared, I mean took it up completely. They seemed ok with this. A kind usher took pity on us and upgraded our seats in the process, so all’s well that ends well.

The concert was very enjoyable. There were about 8 or 9 acts, each one performing in different styles. The opening act was a quartet of goofy old men who sang cowboy songs and made corny comments like, “May the horse be with you.” A couple of middle-aged country crooners sang their hits from the 70s and 80s, while newish pop acts like an American Idol runner-up impressed the younger crowd. Our favorite group was a bluegrass band. The lead guy was an old man who looked like Andrew Jackson (more on that phenomenon later), but the rest of the guys were thirty-somethings in business suits who looked like they stepped out of a Dilbert cartoon. They didn’t look it, but they could play!

As I’ve already said, country music is not our thing, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It’s hard not to be caught up in the patriotic fervor that this music seems to do to people. There was definitely a reverence for the past and a particular American musical tradition. One of the performers was 91-year old “Little” Jimmie Dickens, who gave the best performance of the night. (Laura’s favorite.) He was followed by a group of young people who seemed a little nervous to be playing on that famous stage. I think we’d be hard pressed to find that much diversity and mutual respect in one place. You don’t have to be a country fan to see that.

100. FRANKLIN

Franklin, Tennessee

4/10/2012

Since 2008 we’ve gone through five cars, two GPSs (the original is sleeping with the fishes), and three kids have joined us on our travels. Hard to believe but we are now ready to celebrate our Schultzian centennial. Almost 10% of our way to being allowed to die, Laura and I decided to celebrate our “100^th anniversary” in a special way. Thinking of this trip as an anniversary, we did the unthinkable. For the first time ever we left the kids at home – overnight! Before you call Macaulay Culkin on us, we left them with my mom – aka Nana.

We tried to sneak out early in the morning, but Daniel and Philip caught us. They knew something was up. There was no turning back, so we hopped in the car and started down I-71 – it’s now familiar billboards declaring “Hell is Real” beside “Lion’s Den Adult Stores” all the way into Kentucky to Tennessee. As we entered the central time zone I wanted Laura to accelerate to 88 miles per hour, but she wouldn’t. We called home on the way to check on the kids. Philip had renamed Nana – she is now “Nana Momma.” We are easily replaced.

After a six hour drive we reached Franklin, a swanky town about 20 minutes from Nashville. The center of town is marked by a roundabout with the statue of a Civil War soldier standing guard in the middle. He’s no one in particular, which after seeing statue after statue of Stonewall Jackson it’s nice to see the regular soldier given his due.

As I said, the town is pretty fancy, but just before we got to the nice part we hit Dotson’s – Patricia’s recommended eating spot. We were a little apprehensive. From the outside it looked a little worse for wear. In fact, for a moment we thought maybe it had shut down. A “Help Wanted” sign hung in the window. All this turned out to be a good thing. You can’t be a hole in the wall without looking a little bit like a hole in the wall.

We went inside and were seated by that waitress that’s in every movie about roadside southern diners. Eat your food or get punched in the face. And the food really was good. We both went with the “one meat – three vegetables” arrangement, which we read was a traditional southern thing. Laura had barbecue chicken and I had pulled pork – both amazing. Turnip greens and sweet potatoes were the best of the veggies. No credit cards allowed, but they had an ATM machine. Laura thought this was weird.

After dinner we walked through town, spending most of it in the antique shop district – to Laura’s glee they had an entire district. Historic buildings abound. There’s an old Masonic Temple now completely surrounded by a Catholic Church. There’s got to be a story there. Before we left we stopped into the local art gallery where some artist had painted huge, close-up portraits of people’s cows. There’s something for everyone in Franklin, apparently.