Fontana

JMB and GMA used to hike in Fontana every fall with a group of friends. Well, for years we haven't tried to hike for one reason or another...(hip, knee, pelvis, back)...We went this year and our old friends from Indiana and Kentucky were still there. They were glad to see us and we all enjoyed a nice hike up Twenty Mile Creek. We went as far as the "flat-landers" used to go and were proud of it. Tina Wesson (of Survivor fame) was our leader and she talked that night about her Survivor TV show. She lives in Fontana now.

The highway to Fontana from Maryville is called Dragon's Tail for good reason. It was loaded with motorcycles on Sunday afternoon. We just pulled over and let them go by . There were hundreds of motorcycles at Deal's Gap which is right before you get to the Fontana village.

We stayed in the lodge and went to meetings at the recreation hall.

We drove to Steocah Gap to have dinner at Toodies place. ... fried catfish, fried okra, fried squash, and hushpuppies.



A funny thing happened when we were getting ready to leave. A car with a young family drove up and the mother got out of the car and asked"Where is the closest interstate?" We told her it was a long way to I26, and she said "It doesn't matter." I think they would have done anything to miss that curvy road .

What Pappy memorized...

JMB's grandfather liked to entertain the family with this sentence. He had learned it when he walked from work every day. It was written on the side of a building in town. It was advertising something..................................................................................................................... .When promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your superficinal sentimentalities and amicable philosophical and psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your verbal evaporations have lucidity, intelligibility and veracious vivacity without rudomontade or thespian bombast.

Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous propensity and sophomoric vaculty.

After he ate he would say..."My suffiency has been quite saronsified, paragorically speaking. "