“Athens of the South”: Motoring Through and Around.
The Athens of the south is obviously not in Greece! If motoring is not an option in Athens, Greece, it is the only way to visit Nashville the capital of the southern state of Tennessee, USA. Nashville is primarily known as the “Music Capital of the World”; however, “Athens of the south” is another of the many sobriquets that have been given to the city.
It is not broadly known that Nashville is endowed with a full-scale reproduction of the Parthenon. The replica was built in 1897 as the centerpiece of the hundred year anniversary celebrations of the city. Contrary to the Greek original, the monument is still in mint condition. Nashville’s Parthenon can pride itself for not having lost its Marbles: Luckily, it has not been vandalized by some visiting British ambassador. It stands self-importantly, if not a bit incongruously in the middle of the meadow of Centennial Park.
Nashville’s urban center is very small but its metropolitan area is so vast that GPS aided motoring is what people have to do all day. This car-dependant society lives in isolated houses on plots so large that owners have to hop into their cars to get to their mailboxes! This is an obvious bonanza for the local car manufacturer Franco-Japanese Nissan. Although Nashville’s claim to fame is its music industry, it has a vibrant healthcare industry which is the region’s largest employer. A recent census indicates that some 1.5 million people are living in Nashville. My friend lives alone in a lovely home surrounded by woods. Actually she shares the premises with an extended deer family. I suspect that there are more deer than people in Nashville.
Country music luminaries and jazz legends all gravitate to Nashville. For a small southern state, Tennessee had and has an unusually high share of “celebs”. Elvis Presley’s Graceland is next door in Memphis. Singers are legion; just to name a few big tickets, deceased or alive: Dolly Parton, B.B. King, Bessie Smith, Johnny Cash, Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Jimmy Hendrix and opera soprano Dawn Upshaw. In the more eclectic category one can list: sun-tan lotion poster-boy George Hamilton, starlets’ sweet heart Justin Timberlake, millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, talk show diva Oprah Winfrey, king of pulp Quentin Tarantino, painter Red Grooms, environment guru and cheated Democrat presidential candidate Al Gore, failed GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson, and many more. These people are small fry compared to Tennessee’s illustrious two sons, both born to Scottish emigrants: Andrew Jackson and Jack Daniel.
Jack Daniel was a precocious lad who became a licensed distiller at the ripe age of 16. He created the world renowned Jack Daniel’s whiskey. Connoisseurs reckon that this special brand of Tennessee whiskey should not be confused with Bourbon. Jack was an early bird; he was always the first one to open both the distillery gate and his safe. In fact as a Scot he had love-hate relationship with his safe combination it was his demise. One early morning, out of frustration he kicked the safe so hard that he broke his toe. Jack’s foot got infected and he subsequently died of blood poisoning. Since this fatal date, the de-facto motto of Jack Daniel’s whiskey has been “never go too early to work”.
Andrew Jackson, the 7th president of the USA, was also an early bloomer. The two-term president was a true frontier man, not a Hollywood ersatz like number 40. He is regarded as a very modern politician by recent American presidential standards Jackson displayed several of the required attributes: a poorly educated self-made man; a self-confident bumpkin; a lawyer with a degree of uncertain origin which didn’t protect him from bankruptcies and marital scandals. A swashbuckling war hero against the former colonial power, Jackson had no misgivings about conducting mass deportations of Native Americans (who were not yet known as such), and indulging in slave ownership. Hot blooded he even eliminated a rival in a duel.
Jackson was the first people’s president; he was a self-acknowledged populist who relentlessly battled the political establishment in general and its banking institutions in particular. He believed that the banks only benefited the elite and fleeced the working class. Jackson was the first Democrat president. History repeats itself; in 2008 the bank’s incorrigibly bad behavior, fat cats and toxic investments have propelled another Democrat to the White House.
Jackson’s modest but elegant cotton plantation “The Hermitage” is an historic landmark located on the outskirts of Nashville. The Hermitage is a far cry from the grand Tara of “Gone with the Wind”. It is nonetheless worth visiting as it perfectly illustrates the contradictions of its controversial owner. Jackson didn’t attempt to hide from view his modest origins. His neo-classical mansion stands on the same ground as the small log cabin of his early life. A practical man, Jackson converted the log cabin into slave quarters. Jackson and his wife are buried on the Hermitage’s ground near some of their slaves and children.
The state of Tennessee may have been the home state of the first Democrat president of the United States, but on November 4th, Barack Obama took a 15 points beating in the hands of senator McCain. The call for a-change-you-can-believe-in didn’t sway over the locals. Anticipating this outcome, the Obama’s campaign had all but ignored a state which in 2000 had even rejected the local boy Al Gore.
November 5 was abnormally subdued in Nashville. The elections were over, but the candidates’ paraphernalia had not yet been removed from laws and street corners. Nashville itself went Democrat, but with the Republican state apparatus remaining firmly in control, it was business as usual.
Tired of Obamania? Nashville is obviously the place to go to get away from it. The music is good and you can choose to stay at the oversized, over-the-top green-house Gaylord Grand Ole Opry Hotel! It is an exotic world in itself, but this is another story!
Beatrice Labonne, Rio de Janeiro, December 3, 2008.
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