A week ago my wife and I took a vacation to Eastern Tennessee. We did make a stop in Cincinnati, OH and took in a Reds game at the Great American Ballpark. One of the things I like to do on a vacation is observe the culture and behaviors of the people in the area I am traveling to.

The game in Cincinnati was a lot of fun. This was our seventh stadium as a married couple. I have been to two other ballparks by myself (Wrigley in Chicago, Tropicana Field in Tampa, FL.) I have also been to three ballparks that don’t exist anymore (County Stadium in Milwaukee, WI, Comiskey Park in Chicago, and Busch (II) Stadium in St, Louis, MO) We caught the Yankees in Cincinnati and there were many Yankees fans there. I had some nice conversations with a few of them. Discovered mid game that a colleague of mine was there via facebook. The world is a small place. The Yankees fans are very passionate about their team, and many were quite knowledgeable. The Reds fans are also passionate. They sure love their shortstop Elly De La Cruz. He is a magnificent ball player. As is Aaron Judge of the Yankees. Both players hit home runs during the game.

The Great American Ballpark is a nice place to take in a game, but the logistics of parking and moving a large group of people around are unpleasant. In many ways the riverfront stadium is a curse when it comes to logistics. Traffic was awful, and it took us 20 minutes to travel the 2.5 miles to our hotel in Kentucky. The true colors of the fans came out when the game was over. Many fans couldn’t wait to light a cigarette once they were a foot outside the park. It made breathing unpleasant going to the parking garage. As we walked through the stadium people were anything but orderly. They were cutting people off, walking one of two speeds (really fast, or wanderingly slow looking at a phone.) Zipper merging was not practiced in the parking garage. I had to pull a Chicago push move to get in an exit line out of the garage. My wife and I don’t rate the Cincinnati total ball experience very high on the list. It’s a tie for 6th with Coors Field. The best part of this trip was the actual game. Everything else was unpleasant thanks to the selfishness of others and poor design for logistics. We’ve been to Nationals Park in DC and the traffic in DC is atrocious, but our experience with parking and leaving Nationals Park was infinitely better than Cincinnati. Sorry guys… true story… The park with the best parking logistics we’ve been to so far is Milwaukee.

The rest of trip was in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We visited the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cherokee, North Carolina, Dollywood, Parrot Mountain, and several other touristy things in and around the area. Our favorite part of the trip was visiting the various locations within the National Park. Dollywood is a nice theme park for family time. Our experience at Dollywood was positive. It was incredibly humid and hot the day we went. We saw lots of nice attractions. The museums of Dolly were fun to peruse. She is an amazing woman!! Be sure to ride the train! The narrow gauge railway is 2.5 miles of coal fired steam awesomeness. Both locomotives in use were formerly part of a scenic railway in Alaska. If you like rides or water experiences for the kids then Dollywood and her Splash Mountain are definitely for you. As older adults we don’t do the rides, but we enjoyed seeing others enjoying the rides. It is expensive, as are all theme parks.

Now for the negatives of the area. Eastern Tennessee is incredibly conservative and enormously religious. This was reflected everywhere with MAGA hats, crosses, and Baptist churches on every corner. It also made interactions with the public in the town proper and even Dollywood unpleasant. There is privileged selfishness with the folks who visit here (from the South) or live here. They are also incredibly rude drivers who think they are the only ones that matter on the road.

The mastery of the English language here was disappointing. I enjoy a Southern accent. My mother’s family came from the Cumberland Gap region Western Virginia. Family reunions on that side of the family were thickly Southern. What was awful were the grammatical errors I heard in speaking. I despise me being used first in a sentence. The use of the word “can” when “may” or “would” is the correct word. R’s being inserted into words without an r. Then there are the clipped syllables, added vowels that don’t belong, or excessive pauses in sentences… Far different experience here than Western Virginia in the 1970’s.

The food on our trip was disappointing. We try to visit the small business restaurants. We were met with bland, overcooked, highly salted food. I asked for a rare steak one night knowing I would get a medium cooked steak. My wife asked medium rare and she got shoe leather. It must be a southern thing to ruin meat, vegetables, etc…. We finally ended up going to chain restaurants, because we could predict the slightly better than mediocre quality.

The biggest irritation for me personally was the selfish behavior. As a teacher of 35 years I have seen polite and respectful public consideration all but disappear in touristy areas. The number of people who stopped in front of us to take a photo or to look at their phones regarding something in conversation was head scratching. Are we really that unaware of our surroundings? Or is it an arrogance that they are the only ones here? Both explain the driving and the rudeness in public places. Before the madness of standardized tests and budget cuts in the arts during the late 1980’s and 1990’s people were much more human to each other. The humanities taught people to be better humans. Once the Reagan defunding and insulting remarks to public education began the humanities have been a target for elimination, because they can’t be measured in a test. This is reflected by the extremes of parenting styles from the generation of parents raised as children in the 90’s and 00’s. They are helicopter over-indulgent secretaries for their kids or they are extremely neglectful by allowing their children to be raised by technology as they were by Nintendo. There isn’t any humanity when everything is privileged and selfishly driven. It’s no wonder MAGA has arisen in the South. It’s a great way to avoid accountability for shitty selfish and arrogant behavior while using “god” to justify it.

Back to the positives. The MAGA selfishness did not ruin the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The mountains welcome everyone and discriminate against no one. The views were beautiful, the tree canopy was a lush green, and the mountain roads were anything but straight. The mountain streams were cool, glorious, and their sound as the water tumbled down the rocky channel was glorious. The hike to the summit of Mt. Kuwohi from the nearby parking area is a 300 foot ascent that reminded me of my age and lack of athleticism (I persisted.) It was awe inspiring as the low cloud cover kept bringing surrounding peaks in and out of focus. We saw the Appalachian trail signs, but did not hike it as we did not have appropriate footwear. We also saw wildlife. The Elk that have been reintroduced to the park were majestic. We saw some other native wildlife (turkeys, birds, squirrels, etc.) but zero black bears.

The many folks we met on the mountain were very friendly. There were conversations between complete strangers. Appalachian trail through hikers talking with the tourists (one hiker was from Iowa.) Men and women from all parts of the globe making encouraging comments to those making the ascent from the parking lot. For every tenth of a mile from the parking lot you ascend about 100 ft. The summit is at 6,600 ft. The air is a little thinner. Only the locals bringing out of town family/friends were rude. Tourism makes their town, but they sure hate us. Selfish entitlement…. The core roots of MAGA… Mine… not yours… or ours…

Maybe my wife and I are too Iowa nice… nah… I think we have a crisis of conscious in this country. The MAGA’s don’t have a conscious. They just have entitlement. Like our president… If you go to Pigeon Forge or Great Smoky Mountain National Park please enjoy yourself. There are many things to do. Just remember there are a whole lot of people that don’t like free thinkers like us… Intelligence is threatening to them… Don’t let it bother you, cause the scenery makes up for it. …so it goes.