By Chris EvansI covet nothing other than the ability to sing.
The talent to croon like Johnny Cash or Willie is attractive to countless thousands. Some of us would simply like to pick and play like artist impersonators. As you know, lots of them sound just like the original.
Went on a short family outing recently down in the home country of western Tennessee. While searching for a place to dine one evening, brother suggested we try a little dive on the side of the road near the state line that looks more like a bar than a restaurant. Most of the time when I pass by it, there are Harleys and big Chevys lined up in front. Looks exactly like a place I’d have frequented 20 years ago. Now, though, with younguns in tow, there’s less desire to see what’s on tap inside.
With the reassurance from my younger sibling that this little country shack provides a family atmosphere – at least prior to 7 p.m. – we loaded the children and traveled up Tennessee highway 119 toward Ky. 121 to Largo’s. Come to find out, one of my old college fraternity brothers owns the place.
Endorsements for food are not my forte. A connoisseur of fine cuisine, I am not. But slap a big chunk of ribeye on a plate and my inner coyote takes over.
A little red oozing from the center of a well spiced steak is like honey for a sweet tooth. Have tried ribeyes and prime ribs from New Orleans to Chicago and never – I say never – have I dined upon a finer piece of meat than the one at Largo’s.
Surely, it’s the best ribeye in the Jackson Purchase. Let me take this opportunity to provide a little geography lesson to press home the point. Most of us know that the Jackson Purchase includes the eight Kentucky counties west of the Tennessee River, but few realize that the Purchase area originally included some 8,500 square miles and 20 counties in Tennessee.
That land deal – lesser known than the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 – was completed 15 years after President Thomas Jefferson snagged the entire Northwest from French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte for a mere $15 million in the Louisiana deal.
In 1818, Andrew Jackson (later to become president) and Isaac Shelby (the first governor of Kentucky) orchestrated the Jackson Purchase, which was thousands of acres known to the Chickasaw Indians only as their Happy Hunting Ground.
The Jackson Purchase completed a missing physical link right in the heart of America, taking colonial land claims directly to the Mississippi River and beyond. It opened massive areas along numerous navigable rivers, allowing pioneers an uncontested water route from the East Coast to the soon-to-be American heartland. A labyrinth of rivers and streams made property in western Tennessee and western Kentucky accessible by boat, aided rapid settlement and kept trading routes open and busy.
Strangely enough, all of these historic facts were running through my mind as a fellow stepped up to the microphone, went through a series of sound checks, then started wailing like the Man in Black. He took a long draw off a cigarette, blew the smoke toward a ceiling fan, then fastened the lit butt between the tuning pegs of his guitar before transitioning into a Waylon Jennings hit.
There were a few families still in the place by that hour, and the rednecks had started filing in by the droves. Oh, how I wanted to stay and relive my youth. Understand that in western Tennessee the term redneck is not offensive. In fact, it’s something of a badge. Its stripes are to be worn conspicuously on body or pickup truck.
A few weeks ago, Brian Murphy, the director of Quality Deer Management Association, was in Marion for a speaking engagement. He told me that he spent his younger days as chief of the wildlife restoration project in Australia.
Rednecks in America, he said, have nothing on the provincial outback yokels in the Land Down Under. That’s just a tidbit of information that some might find meaningful.
As the clock struck 7, it was time to grab the kids, pay and tip the waitress and say goodbye to one of the best meals west of the Tennessee River. It was time for the pool players and beer drinkers to take over this roadhouse that prompted an otherwise raveless writer to wax on about a cow part.
Chris Evans is editor and publisher of The Crittenden Press. You can reach him at chrisevans@the-press.com.
