Flowers in Knoxville, Paris and London

Flower Stand in London

Roses in London

One of the most delightful elements of my time in both London and Paris this summer was the bright, beautiful flowers. I'm not one to attempt to grow a flower and I can't tell you the names of very many of them, but I have to say that those bright bursts of color in a city send my heart singing. Whether the flowers are hanging from a balcony or window-ledge or in beds or pots along the street, they give color to the sometimes gray tones of the street.

Flowers in a Castle in Central France

Urban Flower with the flowers in the Roden Gardens, Paris

In London the pubs compete to see who can situate the most flowers on one small building. It's a tradition that goes back a long way and was intended to catch the eye of potential customers. It's still going strong and it was a wonder to me to consider the enormous chore of watering all the thirsty little critters in the blistering heat we found on our arrival in that city.

Flowers aboard a house boat boat in the Seine, Central Paris

In both Paris and London flower stands or shops were ubiquitous and they always held numerous customers or generated long lines. The sight of people carrying flowers through the streets waited around every corner. Paris featured many more flowers hanging from balconies and window-ledges. Both cities feature large parks with beautifully cultivated flowers.

Flowers at the Market Square Farmer's Market, Knoxville

Flowers at the Market Square Farmer's Market, Knoxville

Sunflowers at the Farmer's Market, Knoxville

Meanwhile in our city, flowers have generated quite a bit of excitement at the Farmer's Market. While there have been flower vendors before, it seems their number has proliferated. One vendor in particular has very brightly colored cut flowers with which he will personalize a ten or fifteen dollar bouquet. He also sells large numbers of sun flowers. I waited in line for about thirty minutes last week for a dozen sun flowers and others waited longer. Something about passing someone carrying flowers necessarily elicits a smile and a kind comment. It brings us into a more personal contact. I'm pushing the guy to open a stand downtown everyday. I think Knoxville is ready for that.

Flowers in James Agee Park, Knoxville

Flowers in James Agee Park, Knoxville

Flowers in James Agee Park, Knoxville

I also recently walked past James Agee Park and found it to be much more pretty than the last time I noticed. The flowers in it are also pretty, if in an English garden sort of way.

What we apparently aren't ready for is flowers on roof-tops. Bernadette West was informed recently that she is not to have flowers visible on the Preservation Pub roof-top. Apparently it violates some letter of the permit to allow her to open the rooftop in the first place. You may remember that was the subject of some brief skirmishes last spring. Why would we not want flowers visible on a roof-top? I'm not sure.

City worker waters one of the large planters located around the city.

Finally, I think it is worth a mention that we have city workers watering very pretty flowers in the pots on the street all around town. Anyone who cares has to agree that those flowers add greatly to the beauty and pleasure of our little city. It's an example of something our tax dollars support which is completely unnecessary. Some might call it frivolous. I call it an improvement to our quality of life and I'll happily keep paying those pennies on my taxes so we can all enjoy the result.

Sunflowers at an Undisclosed Downtown Location

Transportation: A Leaf, Europe and Smarttrips All in One Post!

All-electric Nissan Leaf, Knoxville

Nissan Leaf parked on Walnut Street

Downtown Knoxville has its first Nissan Leaf. I'm pretty sure Mr. John Craig, local developer and Knox Heritage board member is parking the first of these all-electric cars on our city streets. Guilty before of a little Prius envy (resolved), I'm feeling a little stir for a Leaf. Given my current level of funding, I'll just have to enjoy seeing John's on the  street.

Motorcycles in London

Also, I'm posting a few pictures of various kinds of transportation in Paris and London. Motorcycles and bicycles were, of course, much more prominent in each of these cities than in our own. In Paris the motorcycles had to be watched carefully because they felt very comfortable weaving in and out of traffic and then jumping onto the sidewalk to pop into a cycle parking place. I saw quite a few bicyclists riding in heavy London traffic and talking on a cell phone, which seems like not such a good idea. We loved riding the Tube in London and the Metro in Paris and found them both very easy to use, though sometimes very crowded.

Gloucester Subway station in London (our stop)

Walking was much easier for these Americans in Paris than in London. In London with the difference in sides of the road for travel we had to be very careful whenever crossing the road because traffic sometimes turned from places we didn't expect. In Paris crossing the road was much easier for three reasons: Most of the streets were one-way (one direction to worry about), the ones which were two way used the same side of the road we use in America and the cross walks were off-set from the corners enough that turning traffic was not a concern.

Double Decker Bus in Trafalgar Square, London

Meanwhile back at home we don't have subways and our bus system never seems to be as heavily used as some of us might wish. I do continue to wonder if a rail system east-west given our existing tracks might not work if we really tried to make it happen. We really need to do something if we want our air to be breathable and to avoid air-quality alert days all summer (No thanks, Joe Hultquist.)

It turns out there is a great group of people trying to make a difference in just this area. Smarttrips will help you find a car pool and give you rewards for biking, walking or car-pooling to work. I'd encourage you to join if you aren't already a member. Many downtown businesses participate. A while back they held a very fun event on Market Square (I had to work :-() in which they used large balloons they had been carrying around town all week to demonstrate the carbon pollution saved by their efforts. I'll leave you with the video.

Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville: Pere Lachaise Cimetiere, Paris

Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville, July 2011

Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Walking through Pere Lachaise Cimetiere in Paris made me think about Old Gray Cemetery in Knoxville, which is our best known cemetery and our most beloved if you read Jack Neely, who mentions it often. I'd never walked through it, so I decided this would be a good time to do so. Never mind that the day topped out around ninety-seven degrees.

Maynard marker, Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Whereas Pere Lachaise measures 118 acres, Old Gray is a more modest 13 acres. Pere Lachaise has hundreds of thousands of visitors each year and is thought to be the most visited cemetery in the world. I had Old Gray to myself except for about five or six homeless people wandering about, one of whom directed me toward a really cool stone in the shape of a Coptic cross.

Swan marker, Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Parson Brownlow marker, Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

A plaque at the entrance makes a point of the fact that a number of noted people in Knoxville and Tennessee history are buried within its gates, including a governor (Brownlow), as well as several senators and mayors. Indeed, the names of many streets and buildings in Knoxville are to be found among some of the more elaborate memorials. An additional marker notes the mix of Confederate and Union sympathizers buried in close proximity to one another, at peace at last.

Kern marker, Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Horne marker, Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

It's a beautiful cemetery to wander through. I'd suggest a cool day, though the trees, even after a number were lost in the recent round of storms, give a great deal of shelter and combined with a slight breeze make for comfortable viewing on a summer morning. I photographed highlights as I walked through. I'm sure there are more treasures to be found, including interesting inscriptions which I didn't take the time to explore. 

Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Tyson marker, Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

It's located just across Broadway from St. John's Lutheran Church which, in itself, is worth a walk up Broadway to see. I've never seen a church with spires quite like the ones it sports.

St. John's Lutheran, Across Broadway from Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

I walked to the cemetery via Broadway, so the distance isn't that bad if you like to walk. You do have to walk through the mission district and you may have some homeless friends for company as you walk around, so if you are allergic to those folks, this may not be for you.

Armbruster monument, Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

Mead monument, Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville

For those of you patient enough to read this far, I'll throw in a few bonus pictures from Pere Lachaise Cimeteire, Paris. With its scale and history, it was a stop for visitors to the city as early as the 1830's. It was one of the first places James Fenimore Cooper walked as he began his time in Paris. Enjoy.

Pere Lachaise Cimetiere, Paris

Pere Lachaise Cimetiere, Paris

Pere Lachaise Cimetiere, Paris

Pere Lachaise Cimetiere, Paris

Pere Lachaise Cimetiere, Paris

Pere Lachaise Cimetiere, Paris

Pere Lachaise Cimetiere, Paris

Pere Lachaise Cimetiere, Paris

Jim Morrison, Pere Lachaise and Forty Years

Two days ago I traveled to Nashville with Urban Daughter to see Bob Dylan and Leon Russell at the Ryman auditorium. We love seeing Bob, of course, and the Ryman Auditorium is a very special place to me. What I didn't realize until later was that we were to see two of the primary performers at the Concert for Bangladesh, the prototype for all musical fundraisers that would follow, on the fortieth anniversary of that show.

Interestingly, it was the second fortieth rock and roll anniversary I inadvertently ran into this summer. Jim Morrison, lead singer for the doors was discovered dead in his Paris apartment on July 3, 1971. On July 3, 2011, on my first full day in Paris, after a fluke change in plans, I took the Metro to Pere Lachaise. Forty years to the day after his death I arrived at Jim's side. If only I could have made it sooner, who knows . . .

Crowd as I approached Jim Morrison's grave, Pere Lachaise, Paris

Singing Doors songs and Quoting Poetry, Pere Lachaise, Paris

People in every direction, Jim Morrison's grave, Pere Lachaise, Paris

It was one of my very favorite Parisian moments. I'd plugged in my ear buds with Doors music blaring. I cued Riders On The Storm, the only Doors song I can say ranks among my all-time favorites and walked toward the grave. Having no idea an anniversary was afoot, I assumed I'd listen to the song, say, "hey" to Jim, take a picture and walk away. My vision of the moment was a quiet, forlorn acknowledgement between Jim and myself devoid of other participants. I certainly did not have several hundred other people in my fantasy.

Flowers, a song and a bottle, Jim Morrison's grave

Leader of the singing for most of the afternoon

I knew something was afoot when I arrived outside the cemetery and saw people dressed in Doors t-shirts and leather pants. My thoughts of being alone at the grave eroded as I began to hear a crowd singing loudly enough to be heard over my ear buds. If there was any doubt I wouldn't be alone it was erased when I rounded a curve in the sidewalk and was found myself face-to-face with a couple hundred other well-wishers. Unlike me, they were making their own Doors music.

Touches of hippie panache were in evidence, such as colorful, long dresses, flowers, long hair, head-bands and bubbles being blown into the crowd. Someone would sing the first line of a Doors song and the crowd would join in, sometimes singing songs we all know such as Love Her Madly and Break on Through and then veering off to Sanctuary or more obscure portions of the catalog. Most of the fans assembled would sing all the way through - in English. Another person would begin to quote passages of Jim Morrison's poetry and some would join, then drift out. Had I slipped back in time?

Very young fans at Jim Morrison's Grave, July 3, 2011

Recitations and songs were greeted with great applause from everyone gathered. Photographs were taken, bottles passed between friends. The bright sun filtered, dappled through the trees. The temperature hovered around seventy. It was a perfect Parisian Sunday afternoon and all of these people, many of them not yet born in his lifetime, used their perfect day in Paris to sing the songs of a man forty years gone. In some respects it was as if he never left.

Jim?

Unable to approach the grave, in a quiet spot he drummed slowly alone.

Since that day I've thought about Knoxville. I'm not sure people make pilgrimages here for any reason. While we still have the homes of James White and William Blount, we haven't done such a great job of preserving markers of the time spent in Knoxville by some of our more recent famous citizens such as Cormac McCarthy and James Agee.
It is a fact that Hank Williams, at the very least, spent his last hours alive in Knoxville, if he didn't actually die in the Andrew Johnson Hotel. James Agee's father's death is one of the most famous deaths recorded thanks to the book recounting it. Rachmaninoff gave his last concert here. General Sanders was killed here. Somehow none of that quite seems to measure up to the appeal of the charasmatic Lizard King.