In Gatlinburg, Tennessee's Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum,The Girlfriend and I stared at the two-headed cow as it stoodtaxidermy-ed into immortality on its rotating pedestal.
"It's so sad," she said.
"Why?" I asked. "It's beautiful." In retrospect I think Isounded like the guy in "American Beauty." (Which is fine since I'mkind of like that character, minus the drug dealing and obsessivevideotaping.)
"No," she said, "That it's there on display for everyone to lookat."
The next day we did more tourist-trappy activities, first being$20, 120-foot drop, bungee jumping done by The Girlfriend's BestFriend and myself. Those kinds of natural vacation highs tend tothrow my already unusual perception of the world into an even morebizarre angle. (Parasailing at Put-In-Bay a few years ago had asimilar effect.)
As we perused through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg there seemedto be two-headed cows everywhere -- things just seemed weird.Everyone else did not seem to notice the bizarre parallels thatleapt out at me.
Foremost of all was the fact that we were in the middle of someof the most beautiful natural landscape in the country and most ofthe action and excitement seemed centered in this unnatural,plastic pleasure place of arcades, go-karts, mini-golf, fudge, andsouvenir shops.
Knives and weapons seemed to be sold all over the place, notjust in specialty stores but regular ones too. In one large,general souvenir shop they sold switchblades and pocket knives inbaskets where one might expect to find toys. "Couldn't some littlekid just pick one of these up and start stabbing people?" I said toThe Boyfriend of The Girlfriend's Best Friend. The Girls wanted tostop in a store that mainly sold purses, jewelry and dresses. Yetout of nowhere there was a corner with long knives andbroadswords.
Many stores sold a variety of "tobacco" pipes and bongsalongside marijuana T-shirts. However, they had handwritten signsposted saying that if one made reference to "any illegalsubstances" then they'd be asked to leave. Of course, liquor storeswere in great abundance.
And in the midst of all this uber-Americana, who ran so many ofthe businesses? The kind of immigrants our government and media iscurrently indoctrinating us to fear.
Souvenir shops proliferated everywhere selling all manner ofvacation tee shirts. In my two-headed mindset I couldn't help butbe amused: violent Christian tee shirts featuring bloody nails or ascourged Jesus sold on the same wall as "Big Johnson" shirtsdepicting big breasted women.
Hordes of red, white and blue, "united we stand," patrioticshirts competed with the "rebel forever," confederate flagshirts.
I urged The Girlfriend to buy a confederate flag bikini -- toldher she'd look sexy in it. She vetoed the idea.
(Please note: I am not an idiot. I understand why all theseconflicting items sell: there's a market for them. So shut up.)
After enduring/enjoying Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge we ascendedinto the purity of Smoky Mountain National Park and stood at thesummit.
It was then that the beauty of this country came into focus, asit so often does for me on these trips.
America, you two-headed cow, I stare into your eyes infascination, horror, devotion, frustration, awe, and love.
E-mail: swimminginbrokenglass@yahoo.com
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