Thread: Tennessee info

Originally Posted by urleebird

Gary...

And if you like it, let me know. I want to get out of this communist state that I live in. Soon as Cher retires, I'm outta here.

Bill,
I'd have thought that you would be sick of moving right about now?
Ed

Originally Posted by wvbias

Cher ain't gonna retire Bill, not now, not ever.
So you just as well load up the truck and head
east young man. West Virginia has lots of room,


Terry

That must be the most hilarious misunderstanding possible.

Originally Posted by Redwoood

That must be the most hilarious misunderstanding possible.

You may be right. If Bill would come to this damn place
he would probably be hunting me down to kick my
ass within a week.....

Perhaps he had better stop and settle in Tennessee.


Terry

Originally Posted by wvbias

You may be right. If Bill would come to this damn place
he would probably be hunting me down to kick my
ass within a week.....

Perhaps he had better stop and settle in Tennessee.


Terry

Or stop through new mexico on the way. I personally like idaho quite a bit, but the wife would never let me move that far west.

I headed down to Tennessee a couple of summers ago with a buddy for a music festival. It was more his scene than it was mine, but I ended up having a good time. I discovered Doc Watson while I was there, and saw him perform under a tent during an evening rain storm. That was cool.

We toured around Nashville, too. That was fun. The main strip was nothing but music. Country bands in every window.

We almost got arrested on the way back, after crossing into Kentucky.

Here's the story. Quite long, so skip it if you're not interested! (By the way, my friend was the only guy who indulged in drugs that weekend. I stuck to the beer, but embelished the story a little )


I awoke to the sound of gravel crunching underneath the wheels of the Tercel. We had stopped on the shoulder of the road. "Oh fuck," said Jesse, stuffing his rolling papers underneath the seat, and out of sight. "What's goin' on?" I asked him, rubbing my eyes. He was squirming behind the wheel and didn't answer - but I managed to figure things out on my own, when I noticed the pulsing red and blue lights in my side-view mirror. "Oh fuck," I said.

* * *

It was summer, and we had just spent the past four days camping out on a large patch of Tennessee farmland with about two-hundred thousand twenty-first century "hippies."
Jesse's Toyota didn't exactly blend in with the old, rusted Volkswagen vans everyone else seemed to be driving, but we didn't care.
We didn't travel to Bonnaroo all the way from Canada to make friends with a bunch of stereotypes - we were there for the music, which included the likes of Bob Dylan, The Dead, The Dave Matthews band, and any number of lesser-known blues, country, and folk artists. That's why we were there.

And then of course there were the drugs.

The campground at Bonnaroo was absolutely teeming with chemicals. It reminded me of a hive, and the drones were steadily swarming in from the nearby freeway, each carrying his or her own personal nectar.
Jesse and I had stocked the coolers in the back seat with a good quanity of beer, but it quickly became apparent that if we wanted anything else -- anything at all -- we could get it. Within literally five minutes of parking the car in the not-yet-flattened grass, I was offered pot, mushrooms, acid, cocaine, ecstasy, morphine pills, heroin, and peyote.
My friend and I were young, and nearly a world away from home -- we felt as though we were on the first page of one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.

* * *

"Just stay calm," I told Jesse between deep breaths, looking at the highway patrol officer in his cruiser behind us. "If we stay calm, we'll be fine."

It was a little after one in the morning and we had just crossed into the state of Kentucky. The festival was about an hour and a half behind us and we were on our way home. We were unshaven, dirty, smelly, and absolutely exhausted after having spent the past few days indulging in numerous substances, while wandering about listening to loud music under the sun's intense rays. Had we been stopped on the way down, we likely wouldn't have been as worried as we were at that moment. But because our brains were pretty fried, and we weren't entirely sure if we had anything illegal in the vehicle or not, our hearts were pounding hard.

Jesse rolled the driver's side window down as the trooper approached the vehicle, his boots clicking on the asphalt. We each tried to catch a glimpse of him in the side-view mirror as he came closer, but we were forced squint because the trooper shone the beam of his flashlight into our eyes using the reflection.

"How y'all doin' tonight?" the the officer asked, not expecting an answer. "Lah-cence and registration please," he continued, still shining his light in Jesse's face. After checking out his identification, he handed it back to him and politely asked Jesse if he would follow him to the back of the v-hickle.
"I just thought I'd show you why I pulled y'all over," the trooper said as he led him back. I rolled my window down an inch so I could listen in.

The cop then proceeded to explain that in all his years of law-enforcement he had never seen a licence plate that looked quite like the Tercel's, which had been almost entirely eaten away by rust.
"I mean, I couldn't even tell where y'all were from!" I heard the officer laugh.

Jesse forced a chuckle and nervously explained that during the winters in Ontario there was often a lot of salt on the roads, which accounted for the erosion. "I've been meaning to get it replaced, though," he added, undoubtedly hoping that this would be the final word of the evening.

But the trooper obviously didn't have to show Jesse his own licence plate; I understood immediately that he had separated the two of us in the hopes we would contradict one another's stories. This was the old divide and question technique. And, just as I predicted, the trooper then immediately got down to the serious business.

"Now, where are y'all comin' from?" he asked.
"We were just at the Bonnaroo festival," I heard Jesse say. "On our way home to Canada, now."
"That's a mighty long drive," the trooper said. "Did y'all enjoy yourselves down here?"
"Yeah--yeah, we had a good time."

Quit beating around the bush, I thought, tapping my foot impatiently.

"Now, I've got to ask you this," the officer said sternly. "Do you have any illegal substances in the v-hickle this evening?" I held my breath as Jesse paused a moment.
"No, we don't," he eventually stated. "Well, I can't say for certain whether or not James up there has anything on him, but I know that I don't have anything."
"You're sure, now?" rejoined the officer. "'Cause I've got a drug dog in the cruiser back there, and he can sniff out narcotics a heckuvalot better than I can -- even the tiniest ammount. So if you've got anything to tell me, now's the time."

Jesse paused again at this. "Well," he began, "there is a pair of manicure scissors in the glove compartment that we used to cut up some weed a few days ago. I guess those could have traces of marijuana on them."
The trooper said that he wasn't concerned with things like that. What he wanted to know is whether we had any substantial ammount of drugs.
"In that case, no," said my nervous friend.
"Okay, you wait here while I go talk to your buddy," the trooper said as he made his way to my passenger side window.

I then proceeded to repeat what I had heard Jesse say, word for word, about the scissors. I added that we did have a small bit of pot before we left the concert grounds, but we decided it was best not to drive on the roads with it, and gave it a couple of hippies -- much to their delight.

The trooper then gave me the same "now's the time to tell me" routine, which made me pause and think. I quickly realized, though, that any hesitation at this point would almost certainly look suspicious, and since I didn't want to risk having that drug dog poking around, like Jesse, I said that there were no drugs in the car.

The trooper, hunched over, stared hard into my eyes, attempting to read my thoughts. He then stood up straight, glanced back at Jesse and said, "Well, I believe you boys, and I'm gonna let you be on your way. You've got a long drive ahead of you, so you may want to get some coffee at the rest area around the corner."
We both muttered our thanks and told the officer we would take his advice as he walked back to his cruiser. "Y'all drive safe, " he said as he shut his door.

The two of us sat silently in the car until the trooper had driven off. "Holy shit, was I worried!" Jesse eventually said. "Oh, me too," I agreed. "Hey, let's head to that rest area he was talking about - I could go for a coffee."

Jesse then put the car into gear and accelerated down the road. A moment or two later he turned and looked at me, his mouth half open. "Holy shit," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"HOLY SHIT!"

"What! What is it?"

"Man, I totally forgot about that loaf of pot bread I bought!"
"Oh my god."

With our eyes widened, we both turned and looked in the back seat.

Sure enough, there it was, in plain view - the greasy, marijuana-packed loaf Jesse had shelled out a fair bit of cash for two days earlier. Its potency had been verified, since he had eaten a small piece of it on the day he bought it and been stoned for hours.

The amazing thing was, had we not genuinely forgot that there was a goddamn brick of drugs in the back seat, we wouldn't have known what to do! When asked the "are you sure?" question, we'd have likely stammered like an idiots, while sweating profusely. At that point the dog would have been summoned, half-crazed, the scent of drugs in its nose. He'd have located the bread instantly and Jesse and I would have been hauled off to a Kentucky prison, and given the opportunity to call our parents. "Hey, we were arrested in Kentucky - can you drive the 19 hours it takes to get down here and bail us out?"

As we pulled into the rest stop to get our coffee, we immediately tossed the pot bread into the garbage. We then sped off into the darkness, talking at length at how incredibly lucky we had been.

Wow, well-written! I actually had something similar happen to me a couple of years back. Went on a run to the local dealer's to supply a few people in the residence with some uhmmmmm "tea". Since we were all smalltimers, I had about 10-15 dime bags full of "tea" (mint tea for all of you Ontario law enforcemement and RCMP officers) in my glove compartment when I got pulled over for running a red.
Now, I wasn't inebriated and I didn't actually run the red. The light turned yellow as I was in the middle of the intersection but the good constable was in a bad mood and wanted to take it out on someone.
Without thinking I reached into the glove compartment for my license and registration. When I realized what I was doing, I kept praying that he wasn't going to take too close of a look and that I won't have any dime bags spilling out of the glove compartment. Cops don't like tea Fortunately nothing came out and all I got that night was a poorly written ticket for running a red that my paralegal got dismissed lol.

You are a heck of a story teller. Like a page out of a book.

That is one of the reasons I never messed around with drugs because I was always to afraid of being caught.

Well, just to put paid to this thread I backed out of the job after the initial interviews. The hiring manager didn't impress me at all with his level of professionalism, the way he structured his team, or the way he handled deadlines. I should've known it wouldn't work out when I moved everything off my schedule to call him in the evening at a time he designated, got blown off and forwarded to voicemail, and then he returned my phone call at 5:45 am the next day waking me out of a dead sleep.

In addition he's deliberately understaffing his teams and running the projects on scheduled "crunch time" (for anyone who's familiar with the programming industry). He also wasn't too keen on me taking time off for a honeymoon either. I'm 40 years old, I have 14 years of experience and multiple languages under my belt, two software patents and I don't have to do non stop 80 hour work weeks anymore. Looks like I won't be moving to Nashville just yet

And FWIW, all the entertaining drug-addled mispent youth stories notwithstanding, I don't have any sympathy at all for people who shoot up, smoke, or otherwise consume uncontrolled pharmaceuticals and then get busted by the po po. I've never done them, have no interest in them, and don't think being a druggie is something to be bandied about like a badge of honor. I'd beat the everliving crap out of my kids if I caught them doing dope (probably a good thing I don't have kids) just like my parents threatened to do to me if they caught *me* doing it... and I knew they weren't kidding either. They did a damned fine job of raising me, but I know if I would've got a dope habit they'd have taken me right out and made a new kid that looked just like me.

I do support *medicinal* marijuana usage, but that means for cancer, glaucoma, etc not "dude... I'm soooooo burnt, give me some more 'medicine' heh heh". I'm not claiming to be Mr. Straight Arrow, but I think dope is stupid, not glamorous. Yeah, I'm a judgmental opinionated old curmudgeon, not sorry about it either. Just like my adamant support of my 2nd amendment rights, this is an area I'm not likely to ever bend on.

-- Gary F.

And FWIW, all the entertaining drug-addled mispent youth stories notwithstanding, I don't have any sympathy at all for people who shoot up, smoke, or otherwise consume uncontrolled pharmaceuticals and then get busted by the po po.

I'm with you Gary... boy howdy, am I with you on this one. However, I think my opinion of those who use drugs are probably a little more harsh than yours.

I never messed around with drugs because I
thought that it was stupid - and still do.


Terry