Upon Ol' WindRock

The first time I was ever on Buffalo Mountain, or Windrock as locals call it, was back in the early 2000s.  I was with a Department of Energy (DOE) group that was inspecting the radio repeater site on the mountain.

As communications manager for the K-25 Plant, or Horizon Park as it's known today, I had the responsibility of buying, distributing, and managing the radio communications system for the security, fire protection, and maintenance departments at the site.  That responsibility put me in constant contact with the government group that engineered all the  communications for the sites in the Oak Ridge, TN area.  It was that working relationship that took me up through WindRock Park, to the radio tower, on a couple of occasions.

Today WindRock Park is very well known to off-road vehicle owners throughout the Southeast.  Slinging mud on the weekends, or any day of the week for that matter, is big business in the Oliver Springs, TN area.  Enthusiast come from hundreds of miles around the Roane, Morgan, and Anderson County area to explore 300+miles of mud and rock trails (some more difficult than others) and some of the best East Tennessee hiking scenery there is.

The "park" is built around 72,000 acres of privately-owned off-road fun! The trails accommodate all types of vehicles from ATVs, SxS (side by side), dirt bikes, mountain bikes, Jeeps/4x4s, buggies and trucks.  Don't have a vehicle of your own but want to ride? Windrock Park offers a fleet of SxSs for rent that even includes helmets!

All this fun can be had for just $18 a day, or an annual permit pass for $88.  Visit more than 5 times a year, and the year pass is a bargain!

Just Google Windrock Park, or Oliver Springs, TN, and you'll see all the places around to stay and other sights to see.

On this day, I took my wife, daughter, and granddaughter on a "day pass" up to see the windmills.  The gleaming white, whirling blades can be seen for miles along the top of Windrock/Buffalo Mountain, especially on a clear day coming west out of Oak Ridge toward Oliver Springs on Highway 62.

 

We stopped at the "General Store", and while they looked around the t-shirts and other souvenirs, I filled out the computer form.  Be warned, there is only a "Porta-Potty" at the store!

Soon we were on our way up and up, out of the valley, onto the mountain.  The road is part pavement and part gravel with occasional pot-holes, with no guardrails.  This doesn't bother you too much until you hit a stretch with no bushes or trees along the road!

 

You need to secure a map, especially if you intend to see more than the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Invenergy Wind LLC wind turbines on top.  There are numerous roads splitting off the "main" road.  Some are obviously 4-wheel only, so be careful when and where you venture off the direct route up to the windmills.

On top are approximately 18 wind turbines, some as tall as a 26-story building, that rise 262 feet in the air.  The white blades weigh seven tons, are 135-feet-long, and can be seen for miles as they slowly turn in a gentle sweep. 

 

To be honest, we never saw more than 5 windmills from the legal side of the "Do Not Enter" signs!  

This is the first wind farm in the Southeast.  TVA started it with just 3 turbines, but soon Invenergy Wind LLC, which is North America’s largest independent wind power generation company, built 15 more and they sell their energy to TVA.  Together, about 27 megawatts of power is generated from Buffalo Mountain.

The original three turbines constructed by TVA in late 2000 and early 2001, are much smaller than the other 15 turbines constructed later.  The original three had a 660 kilowatt or .6 megawatt capacity while the next 15 turbines have 1.8 megawatt capability.

The original three turbines are 65 meters to the hub with blades 47 meters in diameter, and were Vestas turbines.

The newest turbines are called V80s, with a wind turbine diameter of 80 meters.  So when the blades are at the top of the rotation for these wind turbines here you are looking at a total height of almost 390 feet.

 

Standing near the rotating blades you can hear the distinct "rushing wind" sound.  If you've ever been under a glider aircraft, you'll recognize the sound of air moving over the blades like that of glider wings.  Additionally, there is a slight noise made by the internal turbine gears where the electricity is generated.

They are quite a sight to behold in the distance on top of the mountain, but they are something grand up close!  Windmills have been around for centuries, but today's "green energy" monsters are a spectacle indeed; almost worth the price of admission themselves!

 

After my granddaughter and I shot frame after frame of the rotating blades, we ventured off on a couple of side roads.  One took us east of the windmills where there is a great overlook with a breath taking vista on both sides; one toward Oak Ridge and the other into the valley north of Buffalo Mountain.  

 

 

I will have to warn you, that there were a couple of "butt clinching" moments on some of the rocky dry rutted trails, so a 4-wheel pickup, at minimum, is recommended.  Clearance is minimal on some side roads, so be careful!  You don't want to knock a hole in your oil pan or transmission.  

But all this aside, do enjoy your day on Windrock Mountain!

IT WAS THE SUMMER OF ‘62

Just before my sophomore year at Coffee High ended in Florence, Alabama, dad gave us the news that we would be moving to Harriman, Tennessee as soon as school was out. He had gotten transferred by TVA to the Kingston Steam Plant on the Tennessee River near Kingston, Tennessee.

This was the only time I remember moving that I did not have a girlfriend. In a way that might seem sad, but at least it was not near as sad as spending the remaining days pining over each other and looking deeply into each other’s eyes while explaining that you had "...no control over things, and besides we will stay in contact and meet up again someday soon." I suppose our young and tender hearts actually believed that or we have just run away somewhere and starved to death on the fruits of love!

The real pain of such partings came while looking back through a rear car window and slowly waving goodbye while mouthing, “I love you – I’ll write you” to the fading image of a little heart broken girl. All the time, I was trying to keep my emotions in check and hidden from my parents in the front seat. Besides, I was not speaking to them for ruining my entire life – again!

We had lived in Harriman before from the second part of the first grade in 1953 until the middle of my fourth year in 1956. Therefore, I had high expectations of knowing at least a few people when school started in the fall. However, I had to spend the entire spring and summer of ’62 without friends or at least that is what I expected.

Turns out I met “Jaybee Whale,” or that is what the neighborhood kids called him. His real name was Bennie, but we rarely called him that. He was and has always been “Jaybee” to me, and if you ask anyone in these parts about ol’ Jaybee, they know about whom you speak, since they will probably not remember his first name either!

The “Whale” part was added by someone because of his size, which was befitting an Our Gang character and official “He-man Women-haters Club" member! Truth be told, “Jaybee” did not have a lot of friends and played by himself in his basement most days.

“Jaybee” had an exclusive club himself and that was my first introduction to his world. Having been invited to visit the club in the basement, I found him to be a funny guy, not funny – funny, but very humorous, quick witted, and very talented. He was at least four years younger than I was, but he made me laugh frequently and we soon had comedy and model cars in common.

His passion was the model car demolition setup he had fashioned from plywood. If you had model cars, and I had plenty, then you would quickly be inducted into the “crash club” at “Jaybee Whale’s” demolition track! Guys all over the neighborhood showed up at the “demolition derby” once a week, having worked the rest of the week at reinforcing their plastic models to win the next “smash off!”

Anything went and nothing was illegal as long as the car was still the original model on the outside and had its original working wheels.

I soon learned to pour molten lead inside the front fenders and around the grille area, using aluminum foil as an insulating shield. Extra strips of plastic, like those long round pieces the pretty chromed parts came attached to worked well…just like 2'' reinforcing pipe used in real race cars. A whole tube of glue might be used in one “welding” session!

During the event, opponents ran their cars down two opposing eight-foot sheets of plywood and into each other at full speed…by the end of the tournament, owners would be using full-arm shoves to increase the speed to that necessary to crack the opponents car into splinters! What fun - juvenile yes, but loads of fun!
“Jaybee” and I were fast friends that summer and he kept me from being bored and lonely for those few weeks before school.

Soon, summer ended, school started, and as I got reacquainted with former classmates, I soon put the childish things aside. “Jaybee” must have been hurt when I began to ignore him for my older friends.

I never went to his basement again after the summer of ’62; however, as I passed by “Jaybee’s” house with a new friend or date, I would see him standing alone in his yard. I thought about the basement and even longed, at times, to be laughing again with him as our cars exploded into a hundred pieces – probably much like his heart did as he watched me pass.

1 Corinthians - 13:11. When I was a child, I spoke as a child; I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away the things of a child.

THE MOCKINGBIRD

Does anyone out there remember the Mockingbird Trailer Park (Court), in Florence, Alabama, that was a thriving community in the late 50s and early 60s? I think Fred Bevis owned the court and all the surrounding land.

I doubt anyone comes forward; it has been too long ago, and I was by the area not too long ago and it is not there – just some condos.

My family moved there when I was in the sixth grade, probably 1958 or so, and back again in 1961, when I was a sophomore. My dad and most of the families that lived there worked at either Wilson or Wheeler Dams, or the Colbert Fossil Plant for TVA.

The first time, the trailer park was brand-new and a very exciting place to live. The park had its own grocery store and gas station, barber and beauty shops, a laundry mat, a park with picnic tables, swings and slides, and a swimming pool.

The trailer spaces we evenly spaced and had concrete runways with high-wind tie down anchors for each house trailer. There was a little grassy yard in front, convenient water, sewer, and power hookups.

This was the best trailer park that we ever lived in and it holds fond memories for my entire family.

I learned to swim in the pool, play Marco Polo, do fancy dives, and bond with several kids my age.

I remember that once a pipeline installing crew moved temporarily into the park, only staying a few weeks, and my dad caught one of the dirty crewmembers bathing in the pool. My dad chewed on the guy pretty good, telling him that “my kid swims in that water” and that it was not for bathing! It never happened again.

I remember that a Mockingbird lived in a cedar tree near the pump and filter that would swoop down and pull your hair if you got too close to its nest in the spring. I hated that bird and tried unsuccessfully several times to kill it.

The owner’s son was the unofficial lifeguard and in charge of the pool. He organized a spring clean-up crew every year to bleach and paint the pool and get it ready for summer. I enjoyed this work and learned a lot about organization and delegation of duties from this Florence State student.

I also remember they used to put a railroad tie in the water to keep it from freezing during the winter. I once found something else floating in that water…a baseball glove my maternal grandfather gave me for my twelfth birthday. I still have the glove, but it was never quite the same after the thief tossed it.

It snowed that first winter, yes, even in Alabama, and I loved it! I did not want anyone walking through my yard and making it melt. I attributed footprints to aiding the snow to melt, and protected it from the other kids. They saw that I had a sore spot and picked at me, threatened to run through the yard, and when I made a snowball, they ganged up on me and began pelting me some of their own.

Not to be out done, I loaded my next round with a core of rocks. As soon as they started across the yard I threw as hard as I could – and missed!

“Crack!” The snowball hit our living room window and the rock continued inside.

My dad was immediately out the door and into the yard. “Who threw that,” he demanded. “Tell me!”

I looked around, but everyone else had long since disappeared. “I did sir,” I said, my lips already beginning to quiver.

There was the familiar sound of leather slithering from grey khaki work pant loops, and me already whimpering “No daddy! I didn’t mean to! They were in the yard, daddy, messing up the snow! Please daddy! Momma!”

That night I learned that I did not own the yard or the snow in it – daddy did! However, I became the proud new owner of a large living room window.

TRAILER TRASH

If you have been reading this biographical blog, you know that I first lived in a trailer in 1954, but that was only a temporary situation when my mom and I stayed the summer with my dad in Paducah, or rather Kevil, Kentucky while he worked at the government’s gaseous diffusion site there.

My family abandoned the traditional frame house in 1956 when we moved to Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Dad had resigned himself to following the Tennessee Valley Authority construction work as an electrician and bought our first “house trailer,” I think it was an Elkhart model made in Indiana. It was blue, white, and just 8-feet wide and about 35-feet long. There were two bedrooms and my brother’s baby bed sat in the alcove space in front of the back door.

Besides the scary moment when the lady scared me during the Wolfman movie, the only other thing I remember about the trailer was that mom almost caught it on fire one day went the pilot light on the oven went out and the propane flowed out and ran invisibly underneath my bed, which was nearest the kitchen. When she struck a match to light the oven, it flashed over and almost cost us the trailer. However, it apparently did not cause much more than some singed hair and life resumed.

We lived in that trailer until we moved to Florence, Alabama. During that time dad purchased a 10 by 48 footer that was oddly painted brown, golden-yellow, and white. I remember this because mom insisted we wash and wax it once a year! To us this was a mansion of great proportions! There were still only 2 bedrooms, but everything was much larger and the kitchen and dinning area were located in the front section, with the living room located mid-trailer, and now the washer and dryer were inside.

Two other trailers come to mind, between this one and the next one my family owned, but they were only rented for the summers: one was in Birmingham, Alabama, the other in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

I do not remember too much about either trailer, but I do remember the trailer in Birmingham had a foot peddle to flush the toilet and we often got called down for kick starting the toilet just for the fun of it.

However, we lived in the brown, golden-yellow, and white one until I left home for the Air Force in 1964, at which time my brother got full custody of our bedroom. I remember that bedroom, because my feet extended into the hallway and every time someone passed by, my feet got brushed and I woke up.

I also remember sleeping with my brother and giggling and poking at each other almost every night. Once dad told us to quite down and go to sleep and said he did not want to hear another peep out of us.

Well, that recalled a story from my mom who slept in a room with at least 4 siblings and they were told to do the same one night and that if another “peep” was heard they would all get a spanking. Well, someone said “PEEP” and they all got it! So, my brother said “Peep” and we got it!

However, in the dark my dad could only see general shapes. I raised my leg up slightly, deflecting the burnt of the belt licks and my brother and I screamed as though he was killing us. He soon tired and felt satisfied we had learned our lesson and left the room reminding us to “go to sleep.” It was all we could do to keep him from hearing us snicker under the covers with our faces muffled against our pillows!

While I was in the Air Force, maybe in Vietnam, mom and dad bought their last trailer. It was a grand 12 by 65-footer from Norris. They were made not too far from where we lived in Norris, Tennessee. They even got to visit the factory and watch some of the construction. Dad was so proud of the real 2X4 and 4X4 wall construction that he could talk for several minutes about how much it was like a “real house.”

This trailer seemed like home to me mostly because I had my own bedroom in the front of the trailer, but also because it was my last home with the family. I only lived there only a short time before I married and moved out.

Just a few years before my dad died, they bought a lot in a residential area, took the wheels off, put it up on a block foundation, put aluminum awnings on both sides, and made it appear as a much like a real house as they could. It was a nice place and because they tore an old eye sore down, even the neighbors welcomed them to the neighborhood. The place was full of flowers, a garden, children playing, and mom continued to wash a wax the trailer until it was sold some five years later and a permanent house was built on the lot.

As I look back, I have to say that I am proud of my “trailer trash” past. The people that traveled the country in the late 40s, the 50s, 60s, and 70s helping build power plants, dams, and secret government research sites were a different breed of folks. In a way they lived the end times of the American pioneers and just followed the work. They pulled up stakes, jerked the kids out of school, and just moved expecting only better conditions and better pay. They were welders, electricians, boiler makes, pipe fitters, carpenters, masons, and all the other craftsmen and labors that built a better world for us all.

They did not live in trailers because they could not afford better, but because it was easier to move their families and follow their work. They did not sit around and let things grow up around them, rust, and fall down around them. They were proud of their little home on wheels and their pride was evident to those that passed. Evident in the mowed grass, the brilliant flowers that grew from seed they saved and moved with them, in the waxed trailer and car, and in the laughter of the happy children that lived there.

They also took their values with them and passed it own to their children - the boomers of today. These people, our parents, still valued God and family, friends, and this country. The worked hard for what they had and took care of it, and instilled the same pride in their offspring.

In my mind they are a dying breed that is not being replaced, and dying with them is our sense of values. And deep in my heart I know that you are only “trash” if you sit by and let things that should be valued slip away, and you do not have to live in a trailer to let that happen.