No matter where I went, here I was
All roads lead to — and from — Crossville.
Where you’re from. It matters.
There’s a turn of phrase that I’ve always liked: No matter where you go, there you are.
I like it because it plays with the language while teasing you on several levels. It’s fun to think about and come to the obvious conclusion — of course you are where you are at any given moment. How can you be anywhere else?
Place — where you’re from — matters. Andy Rooney said in “My War” that his Stars and Stripes editors in World War II required the hometown of any soldier mentioned in a story. It was a source of pride for the soldiers and gave a sense to readers that our soldiers came from all parts of the country. Individual place gave way to a broader sense of place. Men were fighting for America and their hometown. Both mattered.
I think a lot about place too, about how where you’re from inevitably and indelibly shapes who you are. It’s one of the first things we learn when meeting someone new — where you’re from. It tells us a lot about who you are, or who we think you are, based on what we may or may not already know.
Being from the Cumberland Plateau — part of the American South — I’m stereotyped the instant I speak. People I’ve known for years will sometimes mock my accent, which I don’t try to hide so much as situationally modify. I’m always conscious of how I sound and how strong or how soft I should play my Southern accent.
When I was younger I thought I could run away from the South; just put it my rearview mirror and overcome the great affliction. I quickly learned that being white and Southern meant I was assumed to hold certain beliefs, beliefs I wasn’t sure I held. But that’s the power of place — its reputation usually precedes you.
Crossville was a different kind of place in the 1960s and 1970s, when I grew up here. I kind of joke now that I watched the 60s on television, but it’s not far from the truth. Vietnam was certainly real — we had plenty of people involved — but a lot of the social change was happening elsewhere.
That’s a product of place, the relative isolation atop the Cumberland Plateau. We were a homogenous bunch up here on the mountain — racially, spiritually, ethnically, culturally. Geographically, it wasn’t easy to get here. That’s just the way it was.
I was still a kid so I’m sure there were bigger issues, but I remember it was the late 60s and a big deal when girls were finally allowed to wear pants at CCHS. Boys’ hair was a pretty big deal too. But a referendum to allow liquor sales was defeated in 1971. Change was slow to come to the Plateau.
By the time I graduated from CCHS in 1978 I was ready for something different. I’d had enough of Crossville and Cumberland County and I wanted out. Y’all could have it.
So here I went. I left the mountain, the Cumberland Plateau, but it never left me. I ran and I ran and I ran; to Knoxville to Wisconsin to England to California to Texas, I ran. Yet no matter where I ran, the mountain ran with me. I couldn’t outrun where I’m from. I can’t outrun who I am.
Now I’m back on the Cumberland Plateau. I didn’t plan to be here but I never ruled it out. I couldn’t. In spite of it all it’s who I am. No matter where I went, there I was and there it was — the mountain, and all that implies.
rpdgraham@gmail.com