Local News

BELL BUCKLE, Tenn. — The old Dodge pickup, dark green with bright red doors and a crumpled fender, clattered around the corner, crossed the railroad, and vanished over a small hill, blue smoke bubbling from the exhaust.

No one paid any attention to the lone discordant note in a peaceful afternoon in a town that is still pretty much of its past.

And is not of the past, either.

Bell Buckle, 450 or so people, survives on two things:

1. Tourists, people like me who come here and keep coming here ... just to wander through shops, make friends with strangers, eat fried cornbread at the Bell Buckle Café, and add a few extra calories sitting on a stool at the Bluebird Antiques and Ice Cream Parlor.

2. The Webb School, a private school that straddles the winding road into a downtown of maybe two blocks, shops on one side, the railroad on the other.

On this afternoon, with the foliage struggling for bright autumn that isn't going to happen, I'm perched on a stool at the Bluebird. It is an old-fashioned soda fountain, and a nice man by the name of Albert Phillips is the ice cream king here.

Today he is extolling the virtues of "White Chocolate Raspberry."

"It's my own recipe," offers Phillips, a genial man of silver hair who is well-stocked on Bell Buckle stories.

He hands me a sample.

Different, but I order Pralines ... and sit there quivering and eating and talking for a good half hour or so.

A framed picture on the fountain is the Bluebird's history.

At one time it was "Haynes Groceries Fruits and Vegetables and School Supplies."

The photo is of Jeanne Haynes, her sister Ester Parker, and brother-in-law Bill Parker. "Miss Jeanne," a spinster, owned and ran the place for near on 40 years.

"She wore printed flour sack dresses," says Phillips. "Never saw her without one on. Miss Jeanne was a saint."

After a few more stories, I feel the call and head for the public restrooms just down the street, where a sign brings my attention to the fabric of life here.

Bell Buckle United Methodist Church, 110 Maple, Is a Bedford County Emergency Management Agency Approved Shelter.

For safety, a hole is being cut in the exterior wall and a door installed. Project is estimated at $8,000.

There's information on where you can donate to the cause.

Comforted by the comfort in the sign, I wander around the corner to Main Street, taking a seat in an old church pew facing the railroad. It is a great place to count passing boxcars. Today isn't all that good. I get one for 59 cars, another for 78.

Why I enjoy counting railroad cars, I have no idea. Maybe it's because I'm still a little boy inside, and if that's true, I hope I never grow up.

And I pray there will always be a Bell Buckle somewhere that I haven't seen and need to go take a look ...