Knoxville520.com

I love going there just to hang, but this day was different. I was there to help me solve a complex problem I had been contemplating: I was wondering why every morning the 100,000 or so people of Knoxville get up and trade places; then, in the evening, they trade back. In other words, why are the roads full every morning with the same people? I had no answer for this, but it led to a bigger question, one that might possibly involve mathematics or even physics.

How much energy does it take to awaken a community? Think about it. Every morning, every person in each household awakens to an alarm from their clock; they proceed to turn on every light in the house or at least all those on their path to the commode. Then there's the television, and the refrigerator, and the microwave, and of course the coffee maker. Every one then takes a hot shower. Then every one starts their motor cars, at least two to a house. They trade places with someone on the other side of the city: Wests go East, Easts go West; Souths go North, and Norths go South. Everybody trades.

It was this thought that brought me to the Sunsphere that day. For World's Fair Park is the Delphi of energy, and the Sunsphere her oracle. I came to ask an answer for my question.

When I arrived, I met three men who seemd to be working on their own problems. One man had glasses; another was younger and wore sunglasses; the third had red, white, and blue glasses. They were staring up at the Sunsphere now because the man with sunglasses had gotten his frisbee stuck on the top. We spoke little because it was obvious that our solutions would not come until the frisbee dropped. There would be a wait. It was decided that each should tell his story, and after each, we'd move to the where the Sunsphere's shadow had gone.

I told mine first. Then we moved east about twenty feet.

The guy with the glasses spoke.

"So I'm drivin' the other day, and I'm on my way to see some mountains. (It's hard to see them from town, here, because of the smog, I mean, the Smoky.) Well, anyway, on all sides of me, I'm surrounded - there are wires goin' ever which a way, and I can't even think to where any a one of 'em might be going or to what it might be supplyin' electricity or, perhaps, phone service, which reminds me of why I was goin' up to the mountains in the first place, because I wanted to take a good picture from up there so as I could have something beautiful to look at whenever I'm a sittin' at my computer in my office doin' work. (Hardly workin', that's a good one too, and I suppose I'll try to remember to use that one tomorrow when I get to work. I get Elaine with that one ever day. Man, she don't know what hit her when I come up with those good ones!)

So, I'm drivin', and I'm surrounded by the wires and whatnot a strung from ever thing that ain't movin', especially those billboards. Do I need some jewelry? I s'pose I might if I keep up that flirtin' with Elaine at work. How about should I go to school or not? Those ladies all seem to be successful and real pretty and such. Good Lord, that's a big drink! I sure could use a beer that size! Oh, dangit! Wouldntcha know it? It's one of them temprance adds. How about that! There's some mountains if I ever seen some! She's just as big as can be, sittin' up 'er in them orange shorts and that tiny little t-shirt. Maybe I should ask Elaine to go there with me sometime after work, 'cept Elaine don't look exactly like that there . . .

So, I'm drivin' on up to the mountains and I keep on gettin' distracted by the wires and signs on poles, and the ones hangin' from the sides of buildings, and perhaps I wouldn't even have to go up there to get pictures if maybe my office had windows I could open, and if maybe all these signs weren't just in my face all of the time. And then I see one of them God's talkin' billboards. (How anybody knows just what God would write on a billboard, anyway, I don't really know, but I guess they figure they must know because they sure don't mind just settin' 'em out there.)

So, I'm drivin' on up to the mountains, and there's this big ol' sign, obviously meant for us to read, and it says, 'Quit blocking my view!' and I was so flabbergasted I didn't look to see Who it was that signed it."

(Part 2 continues here)