PROGRESS?

We felt as if we had just traveled 200 years backward in a time machine! But no, it was our own Ford F-350 pick-up truck in which we were slowly and carefully making our way along a narrow and deeply rutted gravel road.

Along that little by-way we visited log cabin homes of various sizes, a white clapboard church, a blacksmith shop, and a water-powered grist mill. There were also thick forests and open fields, all nestled in a valley between mountain ridges.

Life in this valley in the first half of the 19^th century was isolated and difficult. But for several hundred hardy souls, it was a good and satisfying existence. Only a few rugged trails over the Great Smoky Mountains connected them to the world beyond. But the fields were fertile, the wild game plentiful, the neighbors helpful and families were large.

Education was only available on the other side of the mountain, but they learned to make what they needed. They built their own log homes and barns, made farming tools they needed, raised gardens to supply their tables, spun the wool and flax they raised, sewed their clothing, and found the herbs they needed for medicines.

Then, around another sharp curve, we were quickly brought back to this present time! There was a large flat field beside the tiny road we were following through dense forest. A crew who had contracted with the National Park Service was making hay there, using 21^st century equipment. A tractor and automatic hay baler were making their careful and productive rounds. Following was a second tractor pulling a hay wagon on which the large, round bales were being loaded.

The field was quickly harvested and the crew moved on to another field. In the 1830s that work of hay-making would have required several days as farmers used hand scythes, horse-drawn wagons and manual haying forks.

We were touring Cade’s Cove in the northwest part of The Great Smoky Mountains National Park between Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and Cherokee, North Carolina. The sun was setting over the mountains so it was time for us to return to our campground in Pigeon Forge.

What a contrast! Driving down a main street there we felt as if we were running a gauntlet between tourist traps out to get our money! Flashing lights, huge billboards, and neon signs advertised souvenirs and gift shops, a water park, magic show, tattoo and body piercing, helicopter rides, a knife museum, country music with "Young Elvis," NASCAR Speed Park, Ripley’s Believe-it-or-Not, The Great China Circus, and on and on ad nauseam. Tucked in among all these "highway robbers" were restaurants from Arby’s to Z-Buda Outlet!

It was culture shock to go from Cade’s Cove and the tranquility of the 1830s to Pigeon Forge and its "materialism at its worst" in 2009. As I looked and listened to the glitter and din of the city’s night life, I couldn’t help but wonder: Is this really progress? Are we truly better off now than our ancestors were 200 years ago? Is loud noise, bright lights and every possible gimmick designed to part a visitor from his money an accurate description of a better life? I doubt it!

14 Sept 2009 - mshr

Note -- click on a photo to enlarge.   Click on BACK to return to this page.

Previous       Index of Stories       Next