Overton County sits high upon the Cumberland Plateau. This massive shelf of Tennessee limestone is a step ladder rung from the Middle Tennessee basin up to the Appalachian Mountains two hours east of Overton County. The county itself lies in North Central Tennessee up closer to Kentucky than anything but insulated enough from the Bluegrass State that we barely hear the word “’Tuckassee” and rarely have to deal with those faux-Southerners. My county looks like a lopsided snow cone, a pointy southern end with a land mass scooped on top.

No one ever goes to Overton County on purpose. That is unless your rich uncle wants you to run his Dairy Queen or you’re a competitive marble player. I suppose a lot of Yankees do bring their boats down to the lake, though. Nobody likes them, really. Their boats are fast and big and you might think they’re fine folks until their license sticker says “IN” or “OH.” Then they’re no good. Besides that folks don’t really come here. You just end up here. I mean your folks are here and then here you are, too. It’s in your genes.

I don’t mind it, really. Our little square is beautiful and the slow rolling hills make some people feel like they’re in a resort or something. Then there’s big, ole Dale Hollow Lake. It’s pretty if you don’t mind a bunch of damn, Yankee assholes.

I have great folks. Grew up in church and had plenty of things to do and plenty of time to think. When I was a kid I played Little League and stomped around the streams down below my grandpa’s pig barn. I graduated high school in Livingston, the county seat.

A lot of people in Overton County had it a lot worse than me growing up. A lot of poor kids didn’t get to play baseball and wore old, dirty clothes. We have one family of blacks in the whole county but I don’t remember seeing them out in town much. I just always thought we went to different video stores or something but now I bet they felt pretty intimidated being alone.

We also have a bunch of damn drunks and druggies here. I used to think that if only those people would come to church with me that they would get straight. Now I know different. God absolves sins quicker than He does chemical dependence.

We have two newspapers in town. They’re the same, basically. One may have a car wreck the other didn’t one week but they’re good papers. I’m partial to the Overton County News, though. It always carries a column by “Bob.” He doesn’t give a last name because he went through AA. He’s always talking about the universe, or Buddha, or Woodstock, or the South. The papers always carry birth announcements, wedding pictures and obituaries – the full arc of human life and about the only times any of us ever make the news.

Overton County has a lot of farmers but they’re all out in the county – not in Livingston proper. There in town most folks work at factories. These places make a lot of parts for car air conditioners and industrial tubing. My momma works in Cookeville now. She used to work at the shirt factory there in Livingston before it closed. My dad is a dairy farmer. My brother digs ponds and pulls up stumps with his track hoe. My sister’s a beautician. I always heard there wasn’t much work in Overton County but it seems to me like most people here keep pretty busy. Oh yeah, we have a lot of preachers, too.

The social event of the year is the county fair. Our fairgrounds sit on a flat fifteen acres off the highway toward Monterey. It sits empty most of the year but they always keep it mowed. During the fair, though, you’ll sit in line for 30 minutes trying to get in.

The older folks like all the arts and crafts and lawnmower displays but all the kids want to walk around the rides. They’re all on summer break at the time and the fair is one of the only times you get to see people outside of school. A lot of couples get together at the fair. My parents met at the fair. They’re divorced now and have been for many years. One year this kid peed on the power line for the Tilt-A-Whirl and he died. People enjoy the horse show, too.

My county is funny with its politics, too. The Solid South dissolved some time ago but not in Overton County. My grandpa, the leader of the Republican Party here, claims that the Democratic Party has a stranglehold on us rooted back when the Dixiecrats ruled Southern political thought. Really though most of the farmers still get great subsidies to keep their family farms going and they thank the Democrats in Washington. Well, grandpa says that could change if the city fathers (all Democrats) won’t allow the Wal-Mart to come to town. We just elected the first black mayor in Livingston’s history. (He’s a Democrat, too.)

If you’re driving out in Overton County now you’ll find that the county boys have tarred and chipped most of the dirt roads. Me and my brother used to fish-tail my grandpa’s old Ford pickup around dusty country curves and pretend we were Bo and Luke Duke. Well, those days are over, I guess. Everything off the tarred road, though, is pretty much like I have always remembered it – green or rocky and unsettled only by some farmer’s plow. The roads roll gently up and down just like the hills until you start driving to the lake. Those damn lake roads are narrow and steep with hair pin turns that the government figures we don’t need guardrails for. If you keep a sharp eye you can spot a red headed woodpecker or a wildcat. Some people claim a Bigfoot lives around here but I don’t believe that, neither does my stepdad.

The folks around here are good. You’ve got a bunch of good-ole-boy types that drive around in their pickups in different stages of disrepair. They either just got it and are going to fix it up, or they’re nearly done except for the body work and so on. The women here are beautiful and ugly, too. Either pretty on the outside and ugly in or the other way around. Some of them are pretty on all sides or ugly on both, too. They all like kids and want to have some of their own.

Most of the folks are Christians, I guess. Bob’s not, I don’t believe but he’s a hippie kind of guy and we have some of them around here, too. They all like the county’s seclusion. They don’t like cops. They just want to live the simple life and play music. They like Overton County because they can find parts of it that are stopped in time. That’s what they say, anyhow. Their weed is real good.
Drugs have become a real problem around here. I mentioned all the druggies before and there are a lot of them. Well, weed is one thing but I guess about five years ago people started getting into the real hard stuff. Now crystal meth is the big thing. I don’t know how you do it – smoke it or eat it or whatever – but I guess people love it. I’ve always claimed that kids don’t have anything to do here so they get into drugs. That seclusion that the hippies like around here is good for druggies, too. The governor has a task force set up to get rid of that hard stuff but it’s been a slow go. I have never seen anyone on meth before. I hope I don’t either.

Seriously, though, when I was a kid we used to ride the strip and kids could get out and see each other and we had a purpose with our time. Kids started making a fuss and a mess all over so the downtown merchants pushed the cops to get rid of ‘em at night. Well, they did. They’re all are gone now but no one knows where they go. I’m sure most of them go to Cookeville to their Wal-Mart or restaurants or whatever but some kids just disappear on the back roads and get into things they might not have if they could just be with friends on the strip. I don’t know. Two of my friends died riding the strip when we were in high school.

The thing about it, though, is that here in Overton County people have stories and they love to tell them. They’re born into to it, I guess as much as anybody. Life gives anyone living one a natural story line from birth to death and all that stuff in between. Overton County storytellers are born listening to the older folks at the Thanksgiving table. But they’re made talking with their friends at the lake or, the beauty shop or drinking in the tool shed over a few beers or some moonshine. (Moonshine storytellers are usually liars.)

These beautiful, broken stories are what make life worth living. They’re the oil that make the parts move and the salve that eases a sensitive spot. The Southern drawls of my people’s stories give them a flavor, an optimistic melody. Those slow Southern reflections and recollections sings of a particular place in time. That’s what changes the stories from the gorgeous people of my home into songs about Tennessee.