1967 - Edge O Lake

1967 - Edge O Lake

One of my earliest childhood memories is going with Dad and his friend Bill Pierce to look at the site where the Corps of Engineers was finishing work on the J. Percy Priest dam. I was five years old and riding around with Dad, and Bill was one of my favorite things in the world. We drove into a restricted area on a road that was closed. The Corps demolished a bridge over the Stones River on the side of the dam that would soon be flooded. Bill was very agitated because he was driving and shouted, "Dave! If we get stopped, I'm gonna get thrown in jail!"

"Oh, Bill, calm down! Nobody is going to throw you in jail! I'll talk to them if we get stopped," Dad said.

"Yeah. Huh! I'm sure you will!"

Dad didn't believe in restricted areas, so there was always an adventure right around the corner. We pulled up to a small berm made of dirt and gravel across the road where the bridge used to be. 

We all got out of Bill's truck.

"Dammit, Dave! I ain't going over there! Are you crazy?"

"Bill, you're a big pussy." My dad said, smiling. I giggled and put my hand over my mouth. For some reason, that word was amusing, and I wasn't sure if it was bad.

My dad looked down at me. "You wanna see it, Mikey?"

"Mmmmm ... okay," I answered nervously.

I really didn't want to see it. I was scared shitless.

My sense of wonder has always had a slight edge over my sense of fear, and my dad was fearless, so it must have rubbed off on me. I followed him over the berm. My five-year-old breath was taken away when I came down the other side.

"Wowwww! Don't go too close, Daddy!" Of course, he stepped right out to the edge. His tall slim silhouette was shadowed against the overcast sky.

The small section of the road ended in a rip of asphalt and dropped off a cliff. Hundreds of feet below, I could see a dump truck driving along a small service road at the bottom of the 'lake' side of the dam. It looked like a matchbox truck. The dam towered out of the river valley in an explosion of concrete and metal, invading the virgin countryside. It was massive. The river had been rerouted; maybe the channel was so small compared to the enormity of the dam and the panorama before me that I didn't notice. It was a huge hole. I could see a four or five-square-mile area from my vantage point. Much of it had been torn and reshaped by bulldozers and land movers. The green of the trees was only visible outside the boundary of the future lake. To a five-year-old, it looked like a man-made Grand Canyon with a few gutted houses and barns at the bottom of the valley that would soon be submerged forever. They were tiny from where we stood.

"What's going to happen to the houses?" I asked worriedly. 

"They are going to be flooded, Mikey." He made a sweeping motion with his arm. "This whole area is going to be a great big lake!"

"Wowww!" I said again, with wonder. "What about the people?" I asked with innocent concern.

"They all had to leave. The state bought all of their farms and houses, and they have been relocated."

I had no idea what relocation meant; I was just worried that someone would be left behind and wake up one morning about to drown.

"Gosh. I sure hope they don't forget somebody!"

I will never forget the sense of wonder I felt that day. Over the years, as I grew up around that lake, I would flash back to that day.

Edge-O-Lake subdivision was a new development in and around the Percy Priest Lake area about twenty miles southeast of downtown Nashville. There were woods, creeks, and a brand-new lake with recreation centers and campgrounds just a mile from where we would live. It was an excellent place for a couple in their mid-twenties to raise three boys.

I started first grade at Hill Elementary, close to downtown Nashville, where we had lived since I was born. We moved in the late fall, so I came to my new school, Lakeview Elementary, with the class in progress. I was the new kid. I was already a sensitive little tike, which worsened matters. I hated the change, and for some reason, I was terrified. Mom had to walk with me to school for a few days. I would cry all the way there when I got there and at night when I realized I would have to get up in the morning and return to this new hell. It was all very dramatic.

After a week, I settled down, made friends, and got used to my new surroundings. My little brother Paulie was four, so he had it made! He got to stay home with Mom all day. My other brother Jamie was not even a year old then, so he didn't feel like a brother yet. He was still "the baby," a fact we would not let him forget for many years.

Paulie and I were tight. We were always together and were always up to something. He and I shared a room and slept in the same bed until I was seven or eight. We lived in a three-bedroom white brick ranch-style house at the end of a cul-de-sac. We had a huge backyard that went back about fifty yards and tapered into a "V." Two creeks met there among a thicket of small trees. 

We built many forts in that thicket over the years. There were epic battles, major excavations, and secret fires, and later on, we had a very special fortress that doubled as our own "nekid girl" art gallery. (Thanks to stolen Playboys!)

I can't tell you how often we would sneak crawfish or frogs into the house. I bet Mom was thrilled that we lived at the convergence of two creeks.

On the other side of the creek to the left was a wooded area covering about fifty acres. Known as "The Woods," (I know, very original, huh?) This would be an area of many future adventures. All but the outer bank of "The Woods" was off-limits for now. A red butt was the price paid for testing this boundary.

I remember always being surrounded by music as a child. From when I was a baby until I was six, we lived on and around the Scarritt College campus in Nashville between Music Row and the Vanderbilt area. Jack Bates, aka Paw Paw (mom's dad,) had an office in the basement under the dining hall. He was the head of the maintenance department for the campus.

Paw Paw and my grandmother Bille had a house right on campus. Paulie and I were always over at Paw Paw's house. Mom and Dad rented an upstairs apartment in another house just around the corner. Dad was in college, and Mom stayed with us and worked some. Dad also did a stint as a night watchman at Scarritt while in school. I remember him coming around to "check" on us at night sometimes, and he would start making out with Mom in a joking way. I always got a big kick out of that. Seeing Dad showing his affection and hearing Mom giggle and laugh made me happy, and we were happy kids anyway.

Another of my first memories is laying on Paw Paw's belly in a recliner in his house while he played his clarinet. Paw Paw was also the leader of one of the most popular bands in town then. The Jack Bates Orchestra was the band for your country club dance or concert in the park during the fifties and sixties. They were a Glenn Miller-type band with seven to ten members depending on the gig. He ran four or five groups, and Mom sang with them from time to time. I grew up on Music Row, literally surrounded by music. When the guys would rehearse at Paw Paw's house, I was told I would wander around among the musicians with a big smile. 

Music made me happy.

We saw my grandparents on my dad's side all the time too. It was a very different vibe. They were very religious and ultra-conservative. My grandma Pearlie was a classic Southern church lady. She was the kindest person I ever knew, and I loved her very much. Her husband, James Simmons, also a "Paw Paw," was a taciturn and solemn man. He loved us but was totally old school regarding showing affection, meaning he didn't. The only music I ever experienced with my grandparents on my dad's side was the choir accompanied by an organ at Waverly Place Methodist church or the Lawrence Welk show after Sunday dinner. (Definitely #notmetal)

Mom and Dad, Dave and Judi Simmons, were fucking awesome parents. They were kicking ass with three boys and were not even twenty-five yet! Dad scored a management-level engineering job at Dupont after he graduated college, and Mom stayed home with us boys for a few years after Jamie was born.

There was always music around our house. Mom sang and played piano. Dad loved the Beatles, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, and other great music from the Sixties. I vividly remember first hearing the "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album. I'd never heard anything like this before! All I knew was: "Wow! This is so good."

This music made me feel things I had never felt. Something inside me clicked when I heard that one/four/five chord progression in the title song for the first time. Paulie and I did our first-ever pantomime rock show in the living room for Mom and Dad. We were going crazy, dancing around, and screaming with laughter. They loved it! This was way better than that crap they played at kindergarten. 

Mom and Dad were leaders of the Methodist youth groups at our church in the late Sixties and early Seventies. One of the best things about this was meeting an older teenager named Alan Fisher. Alan's dad was my dad's boss at Dupont. Dad kind of took Alan under his wing after he had gotten in some trouble for weed or something. All I knew was that Alan was cool. He had long hair, and he was into rock-n-roll. He was always kind to me too. I usually felt invisible around other teenagers, but Alan always talked and listened to me. I knew little, but soon he would bring some albums for my dad to check out that would change my life.