K-Town: Knoxville, Tennessee

          I keep seeing where Blabbin' Grammy is going over to Knoxville to do this or do that and I'm getting a bit jealous.  I'd like to go to Knoxville, but that's not so easy coming from L.A.  Grammy is only about an hour away from K-Town, as many of the locals call it, and she can hop right over.  Why do I want to go to Knoxville?  Well it's my old stomping grounds--it's close to my home of Maryville, Tennessee.

            A few days ago B. Miller was talking about her hometown of Greenville, South Carolina and it just got me thinking about home towns.  I wasn't the only one.  Roland D. Yeomans posted his eloquent reflections on his home town of Lake Charles, Louisiana.  Knoxville actually was the first K idea that I had come up with back when I made up my original calendar of ideas back before the challenge began. Knoxville just seemed like my logical choice for K.

          Knoxville is about fifteen miles from where my parents lived, which is where I continued to reside during my years at the University of Tennessee.  As the urban center of East Tennessee, Knoxville sits at the junction of the major interstate arteries of I-40 and I-75.  Only about 30 miles from the Great Smoky Mountains, Knoxville attracts tourists from all over the world.  In 1982, Knoxville hosted a World's Fair and parts of the fair park remain for recreational use and nightlife entertainment.

          Back in the early 70's when I attended the University, Knoxville was the go to place for liquor and wine.  Weekends invariably began with a run over to the Cumberland Avenue strip to one of the University area liquor stores or to the blue collar area of Vestal, depending on which side of Maryville we were coming from.  I would often attend concerts at the Civic Coliseum or at one of the University venues.  Knoxville was our destination for partying "supplies" or urban entertainment, but Blount county was our running around area.

         Of course, I spent much time in Knoxville attending classes at the University of Tennessee, but I also worked for a while at a business in Knoxville.  For a few years I worked at a carnival supply company called Acme Premium Supply.  People used to like to kid me that it was the place where Wiley Coyote got all of his gadgets to try to capture the Roadrunner.  Acme was on East Jackson Avenue, which at the time consisted of older warehouses, many abandoned and on the verge of collapse, and homeless men and winos who tended to congregate at the corner of Jackson and Central.  Now this area has been reclaimed by developers who have converted the old buildings into lofts, restaurants, and night clubs.  Old Town Knoxville is now a popular area of galleries and boutiques by day and dining and drinking at night.

       If you are visiting East Tennessee you are more than likely going to be spending most of your time around Gatlinburg and the Smokies.  However, you will find much to do in Knoxville and the surrounding area.  Knoxville is well worth a visit.  Any time of the year you can find something interesting going on.  I wish I could hop over to K-Town right now.  But I guarantee you if I could, I'd soon be over in Maryville visiting my family and friends and then maybe heading up to the mountains.  There's no place like home.

Speaking of home here's a few homestyle blogs for you to check out:

Kellys Home --The Hoosier family from North Carolina invites you to stop in for a visit. 

Families Are Forever -- and that's what it's all about on Kristen C's messages from home down Georgia way.

Everything Emerald -- Marjorie always takes an interesting approach in her posts.  Not sure where she is but my guess is somewhere in Arizona.

Becoming Three --  Family thinngs and other things, a bit of this and some of that.

Randomness with the Whitings --  Fun and frustration of family life.  Nifty ideas, crafty crafts, and musings about whatever randomly might come up.

Stop by these blogs and pop your head in the door and say howdy.   You may even want to come inside and sit a spell.