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Joan Didion wrote something once that hit home with me (and I use that cliche on purpose).

A place belongs forever
to whoever claims it hardest, remembers
it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, 
shapes it, renders it,
loves it so radically that he 
remakes it in his own image. 

People ask me from time to time why I've stayed with the newspaper, why I still live in the community in which I was born -- in essence, why I've stayed here in Halls.

Fair enough question.

Part of the answer is that, by and large, I'm happy here. Halls Crossroads, TN (unincorporated) is my home. People here have been good to me. They've put up with my rants. They've helped me grow. They've taught me valuable lessons, either about what to do or what not to do. They've come to hear me sing, been kind enough to laugh at my jokes. Some of them have even commissioned me to write the community's history, which will be completed later this year.

I always wanted to write and found out a way to get paid doing it in my own backyard. Not bad, huh?

Don't get me wrong. I get the itch now and again.

I've told you before about that Garrison Keillor novel "Love Me." The main character hits the big time with a best-seller, goes to New York, works for Mr. Shawn at The New Yorker. That's my dream!

Just the other day, I was feeling stifled, sick, tired, beautifully, simply longing to move to Bay St. Louis,  wondering if it was worth killing all these trees and working all these hours, all this stress, all this newsprint. And then I read this article by Keillor in National Geographic. Go ahead and read it. I'll wait.

Great, huh?

What I finally discovered is you don't have to go away somewhere to be successful. Success is subjective.

Sure, I get tired of the rednecks, a term I use carefully, in its most blunt, direct, definition. But that's everywhere. There's a difference, a big one, between being Southern, certainly being country, and being a redneck. Rednecks live in all 50 states, can be found in any economic bracket, any country in the world, and are among the most disgusting vermin to ever go slouching across the soil.

I'm happy here. I'm happy at the paper. Some days I miss my old Charles Kuralt-esque beat, but it's cool.

Plus, as you can imagine, covering county government is the best job in town. Who needs so-called "reality TV" when you have that kind of entertainment?

I could make more money elsewhere, but, as I said, I'm happy. Don't guess I'll leave unless the Detroit Tigers or The New Yorker calls.

And, at the end of the day, I love this area, not only Halls, but Knox County, its people, its beauty. It's just big enough to have access to parks and cinema and hyperlocal radio and the fine arts and still be small enough to feel familiar.

Plus, I figure why not subvert from within? My politics are more moderate, a little to the left, a little to the right. People will put up with you, and sometimes listen, if you're purposeful and pleasant. I try to be both. I often fail, but I try.

There's an old, old saying in this business of herding words:

"Write what you know."

Most importantly of all, my loved ones are here.

Compelling reasons to stay, eh?

Welcome to Philco Radio Time!

Filling in for Bing Crosby, I'm Jake Mabe!

Bought this beaut today from a nice fella named Eric, who lives up in Dandridge. Found it on eBay and he agreed to meet me rather than risk damage during shipping.

Eric restores radios, says there's just something about the sound from a tube set. I concur.

Just picked up WYSH/WGAP and have heard Keith Whitley, Merle Haggard, Eddy Arnold and The Statler Brothers in the past 30 minutes.

Classic country, indeed!

Happy Saturday, y'all.

Hearts and minds

Last night's 8-1 vote by the Knox County school board to extend Superintendent Dr. Jim McIntyre's contract may prove to be a pyrrhic victory.

It also may be the best argument for a return to an elected superintendent, a move -- to be blunt with you -- I have long feared.

McIntyre is good-hearted, deeply intelligent, tremendously talented. He's nowhere near being Adolf Hitler, contrary to a widely-held perception.

But he has lost the hearts and minds of the rank and file, to coin a phrase. And we all know where that left President Lyndon Baines Johnson during the Vietnam War.

I don't see how McIntyre wins them back.

Calling in the beautiful people, establishment types, sycophantic administrators and tone-deaf butt kissers to sing the good doctor's praises last night -- all of whom have been noticeably absent up 'til now -- is obvious, telling, cynical, pathetic.

The Shopper-News asked anyone and everyone to call us beginning way back in September about the good, the bad and the ugly in Knox County Schools. Please make special note of the word "good."

Do you know how many "good" calls we received? Exactly two, neither of which came from an educator. The "bad" and "ugly" responses reached three digits.

If you missed the resulting columns, send me a note and I'll send them to you. The teachers clearly articulated their arguments. As Carolyn Greenwood said at the meeting, those who said McIntyre deserved an extended contract did not. Most never even attempted anything other than banal cliches.

Board chair Lynne Fugate said, "When a coach asks for a contract extension and if you don't (grant it), that speaks volumes."

It also speaks volumes when you do. (Paging Phil Fulmer and Mike Hamilton.)

At least one school board member came close to scolding the teachers as rabble-rousing complainers. That's tin-eared at best and insulting at worst. The vast majority of the teachers with whom Sandra Clark, Betty Bean and I corresponded are top-notch educators, recent teachers of the year, young and old(er), TEAM 4s and 5s.

My jaw literally dropped when Rebekah Carson, a recent high school grad and daughter of school board member Karen Carson, actually said, "Teachers need to be focusing on students instead of griping."

Focusing on students is the reason most of those red-shirted educators have left school in tears day after day and decided to pack recent school board meetings to stand athwart history, yelling "stop!"

Board member Pam Trainor bizarrely said the discussion "is not about Jim McIntyre, it's about the school system." Then she said McIntyre "is the right man for the job."

McIntyre has succeeded on a host of things -- opening the STEM Academy, focusing laser-like on academics and rigor, creating Community Schools, planning to open a Career and Technical Education high school. At least one of his failures -- delaying high school start time -- was an excellent idea. I supported his advocacy for more money for needed school technology last year so much that I broke several rules of journalistic ethics by voicing my opinion at County Commission and singing a John Denver song. (Don't ask.)

But he has failed at a leader's most important and precious responsibility: taking care of the troops in the trenches.

Several principals were reassigned for reasons that remain murky. I have no idea, for example, how former Central High and Powell High principal Ken Dunlap strengthens his leadership skills under a principal with one year under her belt.

Deciding to blow up Vine Middle before holding a just-for-show public meeting was inexcusable. Learning your principal has been reassigned via a robocall, or a week before school begins, or at the supermarket, is super awful, potentially crushing to youngsters who form deep, important, life-altering bonds with them. My elementary school principal is like a second father.

Some of this is perception. A sliver of it is ax grinding. Some of it is happening because McIntyre isn't being well served by some of his high-ranking subordinates. The majority of it is happening because of teachers who love their jobs and their kids and reached a breaking point, refusing to stay silent, consequences be damned.

But some of it is the cold, plain fact that McIntyre isn't a back-slapping hail-fellow-well-met. With Shakespearean irony, that's his greatest strength and biggest weakness.

McIntyre is far and away the most purely intelligent superintendent to ever lead the county school system. He can summarize and regurgitate an argument quicker and better than anyone I have ever known. He has shown an enthusiastic willingness to step out of the proverbial box. He has brought ideas to Knox County that a home-grown product might not have.

But we are a culture used to and comfortable with a glad-handing superintendent in the best sense of the phrase. The most successful ones -- Mildred Doyle, Earl Hoffmeister and Allen Morgan -- were the very definition of it.

Wait, wait, you say. Politics has no business in education. Anyone who thinks politics disappeared with elected superintendents is either delusional or on dope.

Elected superintendents also at least have a constituency and can claim mandates driven by more than five people.

But times have changed since the good ol' days, you say. They have indeed.

Effective leadership traits haven't. Common sense, communication skills, street smarts, and letting a teacher teach and giving principals true autonomy (when deserved) can take a person far and wide. Go ask Hoff and Morgan.

McIntyre says that his hands are tied by state and federal reform mandates. That won't wash. He was front and center advocating for them, both in Nashville and before Congress.

I don't want Jim McIntyre to fail. If he does, we all do. Giving him time to do his best with what remains on his current contract would have been responsible, equitable, sensible, fair.

Extending his contract now is curious, questionable and could be calamitous for any of the "aye" votes should they run for re-election. I'll also be interested to see how many people retire from or leave the school system in December and May.

Good luck, Jim. I'm sincere as I have ever been when I say that I'm rooting for you.

If you win back hearts and minds, I'll be the first in line to shake your hand, declare you a genius and invite you over to watch the Red Sox.

Winfield Dunn on "Hee Haw"

Here's a blast from the past:

Outgoing Tennessee Gov. Winfield Dunn made an appearance on "Hee Haw" in December 1974.

Minnie Pearl, Gov. Dunn and Roy Clark sang a cover of Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues."

'Lolly-Madonna' director dies

Richard Sarafian, who among other things directed "Lolly-Madonna XXX" (not an adult movie), filmed in Union County (Tenn.) in the summer of 1972, has died.

Sarafian is perhaps best known for the cult classic "Vanishing Point." His fans included Warren Beatty and Quentin Tarantino, according to the Associated Press.

Here is the AP story.

P.S. If you are Kathy Watts (Knoxville Central High School Class of 1971, who appeared in that film), please call me at 865-922-4136. I would love to interview you for the Shopper-News or even talk informally.

Kicking off Elvis Week

Hi gang.

Sorry it's been awhile since I've pulled up a chair. Had some fun with sciatica (insert your old man joke here) and a killer migraine that didn't want to quit.

Tomorrow kicks off Elvis Week. Nope, I won't be walking in Memphis, but I am going to commit to blogging something about The King for seven straight days, culminating with the special show that Brad Reeves and I will be doing on WDVX-FM at 10 p.m. (Eastern) Thursday, Aug. 15, that will include a tribute to Elvis. Don't miss it -- 89.9 FM or 102.9 FM in Knoxville, TN or online at www.wdvx.com.

This photo is from Elvis' March 15, 1974, concert at Stokely Athletics Center in Knoxville. Somebody had given him an orange and white "guitar." Go Vols!

Happy Elvis Week. And hail, hail rock and roll!

'Once Upon a Summertime'

There we were, together again, me and Mike Finn, The Square Room, downtown, Robinella, Jazz Lunch.

Mike and I spent most Sunday nights together for several years, listening to Robin sing, back in the good ol' days. Mike is celebrating his 70th birthday and invited some friends and coworkers out for lunch. It felt good.

Robin performed a tribute to Blossom Dearie, the dearly departed jazz singer and pianist, one of the last of the great New York supper club singers. She opened with "Once Upon a Summertime," and weaved her magic web around everything from Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" to Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Surrey with the Fringe on Top."

I floated away, to that place I go whenever my buddy Robin makes her music, a destination I like to call "stop-time." Because time stops. And for an hour or so the whole darn world makes perfect sense. The colors faded to glorious monochrome and all we needed was a slow-moving ceiling fan and a wisp of cigarette smoke.

Her band today included the fantastic Justin Haynes on piano, trumpeter Vance Thompson, bassist Clint Mullican, percussionist Nolan Nevels and a great guitarist whose name I didn't catch. She closed with "Moonlight Saving Time" and I floated out the door.

Robin has a new CD coming out this month, one she recorded with jazz guitarist Frank Vignola in New York. Stay tuned.

One thing I noticed as I walked back to the car was the hustling, bustling scene on Market Square. Vendors were selling their wares. Kids were playing in a splash pad. If you haven't heard the news, y'all, downtown Knox Vegas is filled with life.

And so was I this afternoon, my belly full of food and my mind mad with music, sweet and simple and sad, once upon a summertime.

Blogging as I read

Belle Blackburn is one sweet soul. She is also a swell scribe.

I wrote about Belle and her book "The Doctor's Daughter: Journey to Justice" in my newspaper column two weeks ago. It can be found here by scrolling to page A-3.

And, as you will read, I had intended to post my full review of her book on this blog one week ago. I am recovering from surgery more slowly than expected. Temporary fallout: I can only read for short stretches.

So, I thought I'd try something. As my way of making it up to Belle for missing a deadline, I am going to blog as I read, updates, here and there, as I can. I owe it to her. It's worth it. It will be fun.

As I said in the column, Belle grabs you from the beginning with a perfect prologue: a (fictionalized) snippet of a newspaper story from what was then called The Nashville Republican Banner. "Suicide on Summer Street" is the headline. May 16, 1860.

Seems the main character's father commits suicide in front of two witnesses, a business partner and his wife, before dying in his daughter's arms. Or did he?

Kate Seaver thinks otherwise. She's seeking the truth.

And I have been thinking this through, eager to learn more. Move it, migraine, so I can get to it! Did Brian Seaver commit suicide? Was he murdered? Is he even dead?

Kate's mother is a doctor of a sort, practitioner of the old ways, mountain medicine, you might say. An early chapter features a hilarious scene at a quilting bee in which the women get the men to tell the "true" way to be rid of a wart. You will see more of this -- medicine of the period (a central topic/theme) and humor -- later.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention here: one character wakes up at, yes, his own wake.

Another scene involves a character who could be found in "real life" today. Goad is her name, holier-than-thou, certain she's sitting at the left hand of the Lord. Perfect name, too, 'cause people like to goad her.

Kate's mother suggests a colic cure. Follow your own beliefs, she says, but try a toddy.

Goad growls:

"You'll burn in hell for that."

Discussion follows. God gave us the ingredients. Nowhere in The Bible does it say "Thou shalt not drink alcohol."

"Jesus drank wine. The Bible says so."

Goad: "That was just grape juice..."

"All I am doing is telling you what it says in the scriptures. You better quit using God in all your arguments or you will ruin His reputation."

Funny. Food for thought.

The review will continue...

"The Doctor's Daughter: Journey to Justice" by Belle Blackburn is available for download ($2.99) or paperback ($19.99) at Amazon.com. As of today, it has a five-star average review. 

Just in time for the 30th anniversary...

...I bought a complete set of the infamous 1982 World's Fair Beer.

Well, why not? You only live once, right?

The beer isn't exactly considered a classic -- that is being kind -- and you can't drink them now.

But, it is a little slice of Knoxville history and memorabilia from our city's magic moment. In a way, it still seems like a fairy tale, or a chapter from someone else's life.

Tangible trinkets prove otherwise. My World's Fair drinking glasses from Wendy's, for instance. Or my "I Was There On Closing Day!" campaign-sized button. And, now, the beer.

Think also of how the Knoxville skyline would be different without the Butcher brothers and the fair. No Sunsphere. No Holiday Inn. No amphitheater. No glass-paneled bank building. Or that other skyscraper beside it, the former Southern Industrial building. Dare I say it: we might still be a scruffy little river city....

Has it really been 30 years?

Central Avenue, Rainy Day

Sick gift from my wonderful wife.

Yep, it's a Jim Gray print of a section of what is now called The Old City in Knoxville, looking toward the old Patrick Sullivan's saloon.

"Central Avenue, Rainy Day."

I am a lucky feller or what?

Coming attractions...

Coming soon to Pull Up A Chair...

A piece of gonzo-inspired journalism, entitled...

"Fear and Loathing: In Knox Vegas"

A smile would have sufficed...

I fear I am becoming Andy Rooney in my old age (minus the talent, of course), but here's a little rant for today.

What the heck ever happened to manners? Especially by someone in a service-oriented business.

Take the post office for example.

One can't make generalizations. The gentleman that used to deliver the mail to my house is a fantastic, conscientious guy. He once even delivered Christmas presents I had shipped to my house to my office because, he said, "Thieves are stealing packages delivered to doorsteps left and right."

The same can not be said for the guy that delivered the mail today.

I went hobbling out to the mailbox (sprained knee) trying to get an important piece of mail in the post today.

"Just my luck," I thought. "The mail carrier is still here."

He was parked beside our centrally-located mailboxes, feet up, reading a magazine. I guess he was taking either a lunch break or a break.

"Hello, sir," I said. "I have an outgoing package for you."

The postman looked pissed that I had interrupted his lunchtime pause. (But he wasn't eating.) Without smiling and without acknowledging my greeting, he took my package, said a weak, whispering, "thank you," scowling the entire time, and went back to his periodical.

The post office is in trouble. Jobs are up in the air. The guy was on break. I get all that.

But his lack of simple, everyday manners, ones you would give to servers, attendants, or a stranger while holding open a door, made me hope this guy is the first person the post office sends packing.

When it's fourth down and 15, and your job is literally on the line, sometimes you don't punt the ball. Sometimes you go for it. Sometimes you even throw a Hail Mary.

Didn't need all of that. But a simple smile would have sufficed.

Addendum: Since this post went up, two friends made great comments. One said -- and this thought did go through my mind -- the guy might've been having a bad day. "If he does it again, kill him with kindness." Good advice. I did do that today, in fact. Smiled broadly and thanked him. Still wish he hadn't taken out his bad day -- if that's what it was -- on a customer.

Another said, "How could anybody (working for the post office) smile today?" Good point, too. Guy might be scared to death he's going to get canned. Still, I think I'd be bending over backward to do my job to the best of my ability if this were the case. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

I am happy to report this guy is the exception to the rule -- in my experience. The postal workers at the Halls and Fountain City branches have gone out of their way to help me, each and every time, as has every other delivery driver with which I have dealt.

Does anybody know someone named "Kristi Isbel"?

OK, I'm finally going public with this because I'm getting tired of it:

Starting a few years ago, I've been getting emails addressed to a "Kristi Isbel." It went so far as to also list in some of them what turned out to be a bogus snail mail address on Beeler Road in North Knox County.

Does anybody know whether there is a real Kristi Isbel? If so, she and I might be victims of identity theft.

Please know that I am doing whatever I can to determine who has done this and will fund an identity theft investigation if necessary.

I used to be a Republican...

...until my party was hijacked by neo-fascists, many of whom are continuing to embarrass our great state on a daily basis in Music City.

I still like Ike. He couldn't get nominated today.

I also think, in many ways, Nixon's the One. He couldn't get nominated, either.

TR? Lincoln? Forget it.

Jack Kennedy couldn't get the Democratic nomination today. He cut taxes and was a Cold Warrior.

U.S. Rep. John Duncan? He's got guts. Made the right decision against the wars and the Patriot Act. I like him. A lot.

Many of these new folks bow to the feet of Ronald Reagan, yet must have never studied what the Gipper actually believed. It was a nice mix of idealism and pragmatism. Do any of them even know the source of Reagan's phrase "rendezvous with destiny"? I doubt it.

The days of Everett Dirksen and Mike Mansfield arguing in the Senate and then going out for a drink after 5 are long gone. We're a worse nation for it.

I became a Republican because I thought they believed in getting government out of our lives, not intruding into them.

These days, I am a painter passing through, a wayfaring pilgrim, a person without a party.

You can have what my friend Dean Harned calls this "curious mix of fundamentalist Cromwellian orthodoxy and Christianized Shariah Law," if you want it. I think it's by and large a disgrace.

Where were you in '82?

World's Fair. Knoxville, Tenn. My hometown. Thirty years ago.

Going to the 1982 World's Fair isn't my first memory. But it's one of the highlights of childhood. My dad to this day says all I talked about that year was wanting to go to the "1982 World's Fair."

Remember the TV commercials? "You've GOT to be there!"

What I remember is walking past a gate, Dad holding me while we went into the Sunsphere (which I thought was HUGE at the time), eating Chinese food for the first time, and seeing my cousin, Sheila, who worked at the fair.

The large Rubik's Cube (the popular toy was introduced at the fair) now resides in the lobby of the Holiday Inn next to the Sunsphere. I saw it by happenstance last Saturday. My friend Dean Harned tells me the Ferris wheel that was here is now in New York.

The fair was former Knoxville banker Jake Butcher's triumph. And, with Shakespearean irony, his family's banking empire began to collapse the day after the fair closed that October. The reason? Bank examiners couldn't book hotel rooms.

The "scruffy little river city" showed it could do it and, yep, that fair actually made a profit. The USA has only hosted one other World's Fair since '82 (New Orleans in '84.)

Sadly, the city of Knoxville neglected the World's Fair site for many years. The U.S. Pavilion was imploded in 1991. The Sunsphere itself was closed to visitors until then Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam reopened the observation deck to the public in 2007. (Oh, I forgot to tell you: I did eat in the revolving restaurant up there in 1983-84.) For years and years, the fair site's amphitheater was used as a storage area.

The 1996 episode of "The Simpsons" that spoofed the site was dead-on in some ways, even though the Sunsphere never did house wigs. Heh, heh.

The good news is all that has changed. The Sunsphere, as I mentioned, is open. The amphitheater is no longer storing boxes. The World's Fair Park has a splash pad and is usually filled with folks on sunny, warm days.

Ahh, what memories, 30 years ago. Can't believe it and part of me still can't believe Knoxville did it.

But did it Knoxville did!

Southern Gothic, Union County, Summer of '72

Don't know if you know it or not, but the movies came to Maynardville in the summer of '72.

Yes, MGM shot a motion picture in Union County, bringing along such heavyweights as Rod Steiger and Robert Ryan and up-and-comers Jeff Bridges, Randy Quaid and Gary Busey.

The film was called "Lolly-Madonna XXX" (aka "The Lolly-Madonna War") and if you've never heard of it, you're not alone. It died a quick death at the box office in 1973. Some theaters even refused to show it, confused that the XXX (the symbol for kisses on a letter or postcard, i.e. Xs and Os) meant it was an adult film.

My buddy Bradley Reeves showed a restored 16mm print of the film tonight at the East Tennessee History Center. The print had faded a bit, but it was so good to see it on FILM, rather than some digital device. Yep, I still like to hear that whirl of a projector in a darkened theater. Call me crazy.

Based on an early and out-of-print novel by Sue Grafton (copies go for as high as $1,500 online), the story is basically a family feud gone horribly awry, a cross between "Deliverance" and the Hatfields and McCoys.

I first saw a television copy several years ago. It has never been officially released on home video or DVD. Don't know why, but I found myself enjoying it more this time around.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't "Gone with the Wind." It isn't even "Gidget."

But, it's a dark, Southern Gothic saga, vaguely Faulknerian in theme, something that could have been quite good given a better script and more competent direction.

I did a series of stories on the film for the Shopper-News in 2007. One mystery we've yet to solve is the whereabouts of Cathy Watts, an unbilled actress in the film who appears in flashback as Jeff Bridges' wife. Best I can tell, she graduated from Knoxville Central High School in the early 1970s and may or may not have been a cheerleader at the University of Tennessee.

Cathy, if you're out there, or if you know her whereabouts, drop me a note at JakeMabe1@aol.com.

We had a great time in spite of a thunderstorm, Brad did a great job as always, and it was good to see a forgotten slice of East Tennessee cinema where it belongs: back on the big screen.

For a future list of upcoming movies in the "From the Vaults" First Friday film series, visit www.knoxlib.org.

'A Walk in the Spring Rain'

Tonight I am watching a movie that was partially filmed in my hometown.

The picture is "A Walk in the Spring Rain." It was shot in Knoxville, Cades Cove and Gatlinburg, Tenn., in 1969 and stars Fritz Weaver, Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Quinn. Aside from getting to see a beautiful Bergman in the twilight of her career, and glimpses of what several familiar locations looked like 40 years ago, there's not much to say.

This movie could have been something of a classic. According to the Turner Classic Movies website, Bergman was intrigued by the film because she liked the story, wanted to work with Quinn again (they'd starred together in "The Visit" five years earlier) and had complained that few film roles were then being written for women of her age (she was 54 at the time).

The film focuses on a professor (Weaver) and his wife (Bergman) who travel to the Great Smoky Mountains so the professor can write a book during a year-long sabbatical. Quinn plays the man who rents the couple a home. He also falls in love with Bergman.

"A Walk in the Spring Rain" is an old-fashioned film even for 1970. In an era of raging sexual revolution ("The Graduate," for example, looks like soft porn compared to this), the film treats the extra-marital affair rather conservatively. Bergman was radiant even in middle age and Weaver and Quinn do the best they can. But the movie suffers from a weak script and careless direction by Guy Green, best known as being the cameraman for David Lean on "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist." One neat cultural note is that actor and martial arts legend Bruce Lee choreographed the fight scene between Quinn and his "son" (Tom Fielding, aka Tom Holland).

Gatlinburg was already beginning to become cluttered with the touristy clap-trap for which it's famous (yes, the Old Smoky Candy Kitchen is still there) and Ayres Hall on the UT campus looks exactly the same! (I wonder if the heat and air actually worked back then.) The Smokies are beautiful in any decade.

"A Walk in the Spring Rain" premiered in Knoxville at the Tennessee Theatre on April 9, 1970. Bergman sat next to Rachel Maddux, the author of the novel on which the film is based. Bergman later remembered that Maddux kept saying things like "What is this?" during the screening and at one point went to the restroom and cried.

Bergman wrote in her memoirs: "I went after her and tried to comfort her...The film had been a good try. We'd started off with such high hopes. I thought maybe we could do a film with that elusive feeling which 'Brief Encounter' [1945] had. We'd worked hard. We'd done our best and at the end of it we'd made Rachel Maddux cry."

I have had a crush on Ingrid Bergman since I first saw "Casablanca" as a kid. This film could have been so much more, a touching tale of broken dreams and middle-age regret. But as it is, it's a wasted opportunity, a classic example of a director biting off less than he could chew.

With this cast, he should have had a goldmine. Instead, he fell down the shaft.

No place like home

Pulled out of the driveway in a bad mood.

It was 9,000 degrees outside, my stomach hurt, and if I had my way I'd probably have curled up on the couch with the mystery I'd checked out of the Halls Branch Library earlier today.

But, I had work to do. National Night Out at Stewart Ridge subdivision. It's a livin'.

I was still grumbling, mostly wishing I was sitting in the sand somewhere on Maui, when I got out of the car and broke out into a big grin. There sat Faye Heydasch, one of my second grade teachers.

Here came Maggie Meyers, who went to school with me, her young son in tow. I smiled and marveled for the millionth time that my contemporaries are old enough to have kids.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Jim McManus sitting in the shade, making a Popsicle disappear.

"You're getting married?" he exclaimed. "Congratulations! It will make a better man out of ya."

Jim said he really appreciated the fact that the Shopper came out to Stewart Ridge to cover the event.

"This is what I like reading about," he said. "My friends and neighbors and what's going on in the community."

We talked awhile, about the lack of mass transit in the county, about the fact that his grandfather worked on the so-called Dummy Line, the electric trolley that used to ferry folks from Fountain City to downtown. We talked about the weather and the World's Fair and the way the stores have left the 'burbs.

"But regardless of everything, this is still the best place in the county to live and raise a family," Jim said.

I blabbed for a few more minutes and finally made my way to dinner. Coming back up Cunningham Road, seeing the sun slip toward its slumber, I realized Jim was right. I guess the famous line from that corny film is true after all.

Wherever ye may roam, there's no place like home.