Also hot in Fairfield Glade, Tennessee

by Pat Laster

          Hello and cool breezes to you who have to work outside in the stifling heat. Sitting in the cool of a condo situated in a resort town beyond Nashville but before Knoxville, I finish typing this during our annual sisters’ week.
          It is Sunday afternoon, July 1. We four have been out today since mid-morning, and it is now 4:30. All antique stores, flea markets and thrift stores were closed until noon.  We drove to Crossville and ate a Shoney’s breakfast buffet, which we all remembered with fondness until the chain closed all its stores in central Arkansas
         The Couch sisters, from youngest to oldest, are Beverly, Barbara, Carolyn and me. Fifteen years separate us. I remember, because when I was 15 and typically teenager-ish, I was embarrassed that Mom was . . . was.  . . expecting (ahem) again. Beverly lives in Little Rock and has worked at Blue Cross Blue Shield since she graduated from Hendrix College (the fifth Couch child to do so). She is still gaga over her one-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter, Hazel Rose, who, with her mother, was visiting even as she left.
           Barbara, still a church musician, has both a new home in Herndon Virginia, and a new job at a nearby Presbyterian church. She loves both. And as usual, the church loves her.
         Carolyn is a retired teacher, a volunteer, church choir alto, wife, mother of two grown sons, and “Gram” to Marlee. In late October, Carolyn will –for the second time— walk down a church aisle as the mother of the groom. Her younger son is marrying in Fayetteville.
            And you know about me.
           We three Arkansans loaded a Honda Civic with clothes, food, coolers, purses and laptops. We pulled away from Couchwood at 2:30 p.m. and headed east.
              Driving I-40 toward Memphis was a pain with all the road work, so we cut down to Highway 70, as did many others, mostly truckers. By the time it took to actually get to 70, and then drive to Biscoe, we might just as well have stayed on the freeway.
              We were at Dickson, Tennessee by 10 o’clock. We stopped for the night, and then drove on Saturday morning. During that leg of the trip, our Virginia sister called. Her Honda hybrid had developed brake trouble.  What did we ever do without cell phones?
            Bev had an iPhone, so she pulled into a church parking lot in the shade, Googled brake repair businesses in the area. She found, and then called a Hondo dealership in Knoxville. Barb followed her directions, got new brake pads and both vehicles eventually met at the condo, phones still up to the two sisters’ ears.
          Again, I ask, how did we ever get to our destinations without the technology to guide us to the exact addresses?
         Tired after two days of driving, the Hoochie Mamas were finally together again!

c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press