When little was resolved, Larry sent us down to Roy Dan’s and up to Charles Smith’s with a truck-load of five-gallon containers to bum water for the weekend. We took a giant air compressor up to the spring and worked feverishly for a spell. Resident Wayne Jones, who’d managed to get in plenty of mowing Friday before the storms, spent most of Saturday working on the water problem. We’re talking a good half-mile of buried PVC piping. Sediment was evidently blocking things somewhere between the spring ‘way up at Chestnut Ridge and down to the house. What a time for Larry’s water system to fail. I presume that’s why I live to tell this tale, and why they’d just smiled and waved as I did a NASCAR winner’s donut and exited. “That’s a young preacher and his wife,” Larry later explained. I rolled down the window and hollered, “Sorry! Took a wrong turn off Rocky Top!” Signage increased: “Keep Out,” “Violators Prosecuted!” The road took me to an open cattle gate, sporting a sign with a drawing of a magnum pointed at the viewer, and the words, “WE DON’T DIAL 9-1-1!” Well, there was the owner and his woman in the drive of their mountain home. It was a muddy gauntlet flanked by barbwire fence. I took a fork I’d never before noticed, hoping to find space to turn around. After enjoying the view atop Rocky Top, I planned continuing on down to Bridgeport.
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