There is a lovely road that leads out of Nashville and into the hills. Before the hills, there are suburbs all the way to Murfreesboro. Then there is a place in Manchester where they’ve widened the road to accommodate the yearly music festival there. The road climbs about thirty miles to Monteagle: from there, if the weather is good, you can look down in either direction upon Tennessee’s finest, who enforce a low 55 miles-per-hour speed limit both directions up the hill.
This road, I-24, continues then on over hills and plateaus and lakes to Chattanooga. From Chattanooga, I-75 stretches southward into the sprawl of the ten-county metropolitan Atlanta area, the residents of which are largely unable to list all ten counties. I have driven between Nashville, TN and Atlanta, GA at least once a month, on average, since I moved to Nashville in 2009. In the three years before that, I did a much longer drive from Normal, IL, that also put me on 24 from Nashville to Atlanta. All of these things I have done for the sake of taking care of family.
I know my exits on this road. I know where the rest areas are. I know where I might get good food, coffee, or cheap gas. I know where it’s fun to stop. And, most of all, I know an amazing fireworks store where they sell racist tchotchkes and memorabilia.
At Jasper, before I-24 dips briefly into Alabama, near lake, the eastbound and westbound travel lanes of the divided highway diverge by an unusually large distance. Coming from Chattanooga, the westbound lanes curve right, and the eastbound lanes left, to reveal in the middle a huge marquee:
“Tennessee-Alabama Fireworks.”
I’ve always bought fireworks at this shop, and noted that it’s one of a declining number of places that can get away with selling blatantly racist items. In fact, I thought this shit was mostly in museums or dusty old documentaries.
This last visit, I paid a bit more attention to what was actually in the store. The most entertaining, in a vile way, was the putatively Native American dreamcatcher with a Confederate flag in the middle. The other items, especially the Uncle Tom and Mammie figurines, and the Mammie teapot, are hard to look at.
At first, I thought it was just a quaint little store with some backwards habits. Then I found their website, and determined they have a wholesale business and two locations. As a result, more recently, I’ve been thinking I’d ask to see a manager or something, but I’m too chickenshit. Maybe you’d like to give it a try? Just call and ask if they will ship racist items, or if those items are only available in the store. Alternatively, if you’re not white, ask if your business is welcome in the store.
Tennessee Alabama Fireworks and Racist Memorabilia 1 (800) 654-5267 Email:Wade - General manager wadetnal@bellsouth.net Anita - Office Manager anitatnala@bellsouth.net
