Week #20

This weekend I went to Clarksville Tennessee, to visit my mothers’ sisters’ son. If you were to be within ear shoot of me standing next to a six foot five black man and calling him "cuz" most people would think that I was just using a euphemism but no, he is my cousin. My mother has four sisters, all of them younger, one of them Donna married a black man in the sixties and they had two sons. My cousin Justin is a two tour Iraqi veteran.
Clarksville Tennessee is home to Fort Campbell and one of the largest army bases in the Midwest. Most people would say that Fort Campbell is in Kentucky, which it is, it is just that the right side of US 41 alternate is Kentucky and the left side is Tennessee. With that said, I do not see why any one would shop on the left side of the road, considering that Tennessee has a flat tax across the board of ten percent. That is ten percent on milk, bread, beer, schoolbooks, and new and used cars. I have this idea that Tennessee does not have Powerball so that is why their tax is funny, if they had Powerball then they would have enough money to help school and their communities but they like overtaxing people.
From my mothers’ house, it is ninety miles south on Penneyrile to Fort Campbell. Along the way, if you have ever been, Kentucky opens up from a flat lands in the north to rolling hills as you go further south. It is a really good drive this time of year, with all the forsythias in bloom and the sterile white Bradford pears, daffodils and/or Narcissus. Every once and a while the tree give way to exposed rock cliffs and little creeks that criscross central Kentucky. The only wild life that was present was hawks and buzzards; they are a sure sing of the survival of the fittest rule playing out in the woods and along the parkway. I could not think of a better way to spend my weekend, on the road with my mother, windows down, Sirius satellite radio off, and just the highway ahead.
With much indecision and debate, we decided on the Ruby Tuesdays. That is where we had an early diner. With not a second glance at the menu, I came to the conclusion that I had never eaten at the Ruby Tuesday, even if the decor seemed to spark a wicked case of dayjavue. Even before my backside hit the seat I had been duked, on the way in past the host podium, and around this little corner, sat the salad bar, this is were I was deceived. The salad bar looked so good that not only my mother but my cousin as well, committed on how big it looked and how well stocked it seemed, well this was a farce. The salad bar had a mirror behind it that gave the impression that it was, if any thing, twice as big. So without knowing any better we all accepted the waitress invitation "salad bar anyone".After our meal Justin asked if we would like a tour of the base. This was an opportunity that I could not pass up. I worked at a Naval Air Station in Brunswick Maine and built an aircraft hanger so I knew the gist of getting on and off of a secure military installation. The first question my cousin asked me was if I had gotten my concealed weapons permit yet and if I had a weapon on me. The second question was "got your I.D." and next thing were we on base.
We must have driven around the base for two hours while he showed us the lay out. He lives off base ever since he got back from the war but he showed us two barracks he had lived in. He said that fort Campbell was home to some thirty thousand soldiers. While driving around we saw the jump towers where they train for their airborne status. It was amazing how big the base was there was four different motor pools that were the size of a mall parking lot filled with Humvee and tanks, medical trucks with their distinctive red cross, some Vietnam era tracked vehicles, and a few tank. He pointed out that any building that had a orange triangle with the number four painted on it housed all their toys i.e. guns, rocket launchers, grenade throwers, c4, ammo and body armor all the good stuff.