If my hometown and I were on the Face, and if we were dating, my relationship status would say “it’s complicated.” To be clear, I’m not talking about the Land of the Suwaree wherein my Sweet Lady and I currently domicile. Nor am I talking about Altamont, for which my love is much and largely uncomplicated. I refer to the Valley of the Cumberland, but even this is a bit misleading since most of my memories are born of a place 20 miles south, on the banks of the Harpeth and the Little Harpeth. See, it gets complicated.
Like for instance, Prince’s Hot Chicken. I’ve never been to Prince’s, but I know the people there. We would love one another just as sure as we would embarrass one another greatly. My patronizing affection would be returned by self-consciously large grins. I did not know that the hot chicken they serve is a thing, but I love that it is a thing as much as I love Vietti chili over their eponymous tamales and H.G. Hills’ spaghetti. Watching Wheel of Fortune with Mr. Ruben while eating chili or having hot chicken at the home place on Easter Sunday sounds nice.
On the other hand, I don’t want to eat the things those things are made of anymore. Mr. Ruben has been dead at least ten years. The home place was surrounded by cul-de-sacs and eventually sold. The people that used to gather there are now huddled in smaller pockets in Texas and Tennessee, in West Virginia and North Carolina or in the Summerlands. There’s a mall on top of the Little Harpeth. Yet there is no hot chicken in Altamont, and we don’t have plans for Easter Sunday. It’s complicated.