Can't Get There From Here

I drove two hours to Paris, TN today to take a photo of a billboard I wrote for a client. The billboard company already sent photos but it’s still exciting to see work I’ve done out in the real world as proof it exists.

I snapped a few photos while the art director who designed it (and who is in L.A.) made comments via text on where to stand for the best angle. My art director wife did the same thing from Sweden but I only managed to capture a few before the the 500th torrential downpour of Spring unleashed its liquid fury.

This is just the first bit of a much larger campaign we did for Nature is Nonpartisan in our takeover of Middle America. In our anthem spot which hasn’t come out yet, I made an assertion that the Middle of America isn’t found in a flyover state or indeed any physical space. It’s a mindset where regular folks set aside their differences to work for the same shared goal. In this case, conservation and environmental stewardship.

Judging by the comments on Nature is Nonpartisan’s social media feeds as well as some of the initial coverage since launching last month, it remains to be seen whether this was too optimistic a sentiment. According to online opinion, Nature is Nonpartisan (which is made up of Conservatives and Liberals and everyone in between) is either a right wing Trojan horse, or too left wing for its own good. Pretty hilarious when one considers its sole stated mission is to get people to put aside their politics.

That’s just one of the reasons I nicked an R.E.M. song title for this post. The other reason that song resonated with me is that it is a Southern colloquialism, conveying the feeling of trying to give directions to a place you don’t know how to get to. I felt that way driving through this section of Tennessee.

I’d never been to this part before which is easy to see why as Tennessee is a deceptively large state. Drive it North to South or vice versa and it’s nothing at all, but head East and West and you traverse time zones.

I was going to say there was no time traveling today but actually, that’s not true. There was time travel in a sense of moving through the vestiges of small towns that were once thriving. Driving through the past, imagining the abandoned buildings in their once well-kept glory. Wondering what the towns were like years ago, before manufacturing left and meth and fentanyl destroyed their soul. Wondering what small points of pride differentiated one town from the next before Family General became the de facto grocery store and drug store.

Some areas were so depressing it was hard not to find the desperation palpable. Not many homes but trailers, many of them abandoned. The dilapidated houses with dogs running loose. And occasionally a homeowner making a valiant effort with well-tended flower beds which somehow made it that much sadder.

I’d see people sitting out on their porches, waiting for something or someone. Or waiting for nothing at all, having long since given up hope the way that grinding poverty slowly erodes your psyche until there’s nothing left.

While those towns served as cautionary tales, the one where I stopped for lunch was full of promise. It was a small railroad town, the kind typical of Tennessee. Narrow streets. Free parking. Confined in a good way. Architecturally, this one was preserved in amber. At the same time it was also thriving with t people shopping, going about their business, doing business and enjoying lunch that would have cost double in Nashville.

No buildings were over four stories tall. Main Street’s shops, bars and venues were utilitarian in stark contrast to some of Nashville’s more bougie neighborhoods where stores are anything but. How many times are you going to frequent a bespoke clothing store selling jeans for $200? Or the e-bike store? Or shared workspace? Those neighborhoods are for the bougie remote workers whose only interaction with “the community” is when they have to greet the DoorDash delivery person.

At lunch today I got a historical recap from a server who told me that a decade ago the town was just like the other small towns neighboring it. All but completely forgotten and neglected. Somehow they restored it without tearing everything down. It was possible to imagine the town in its heyday because it looked the same as it always had. Even if they all can’t get there from here, one town can did it. So there’s always a chance others can, too.