"Mapmakers call it Highway 127, but the folks who live inside the dots on the map just call it Main Street.
"U.S. 127 meanders through lush valleys and scenic highlands, pausing to be the main drag in small towns and hamlets from Dunlap to the Ohio state line."
...
Ugh. I think I'm going to be sick.
I wrote those sugarcoated sentences in The Chattanooga Times in August 1987 on the eve of "America's Longest Outdoor Sale Festival." Still in my 20s, I remember being charmed by the brand-new event that has since come to be known internationally as the World's Longest Yard Sale.
Looking back, that first sale was a novel idea. Mike Walker, a 28-year-old Fentress County executive, had conceived the sale as a way to divert tourists into the heartland.
Two interstate highways (I-65 and I-75) had bled traffic away from the rural communities of the Cumberland Plateau, and Walker thought the Highway 127 sale would be a good way to push his dream of a vast Kentucky-Tennessee "vacation corridor."
The big outdoor sale was just a starting point. There were plans to add Civil War battle re-enactments and genealogical tours for people with family roots in the region. Existing tourist destinations such as Fall Creek Falls State Park and the coke ovens in Dunlap, Tenn., were to be featured.
The people I interviewed along the sale route in 1987 were like extras from central casting. There was a general store owner in Clarkrange, Tenn., selling Dr. LeGears Hog Prescription, and an antique car salvage yard proprietor near Grimsley, Tenn., dressed in overalls, whom I had to coax out from under his shade tree. These were good, authentic folks who seemed mildly amused about the whole deal.
...
Now, flash ahead 24 years. The 25th edition of the World's Longest Yard Sale begins this week.
I don't begrudge folks who make a buck on this event but, come on, this beast is out of control. It has grown into a 675-mile monster stretching from Hudson, Mich., to Gadsden, Ala. (So much for the Tennessee-Kentucky vacation corridor, huh?) HGTV even has tips for navigating the yard sale on its website.
Prime real estate along Highway 127 is leased by traveling flea-market vendors who set up elaborate warrens filled with boxes of VHS tapes, Harlequin romances and Beanie Babies. Oh, goody.
Depending on your point of view, the World's Longest Yard Sale has become a treasured middle-American phenomenon or a public nuisance. I'm leaning toward nuisance.
My perspective has changed 180 degrees, I guess. I was 29 years old the year of the first sale; now I'm 53. I lived in East Ridge then, and now I live about two blocks from Highway 127 on Walden's Ridge.
In the days before the yard sale, my family braces for the onslaught of traffic that will make us virtual captives in our home for a weekend in August.
On Saturday, Highway 127 traffic will slow to a crawl. I've seen people park in the middle of the highway and assume you don't mind waiting five minutes while they exit their SUV and browse a bit.
Well, of course not, neighbors. You take your time. So happy you have decided to buy a tax-free birdhouse from these good folks from Nebraska who have leased this half-acre lot to help us poor Appalachian folks with our tourism problem.
Meanwhile, from dusk to dawn, strangers will cruise through our neighborhood assuming anything they see is for sale. Leave your garage door open, and you invite the question: "What'll you take for that fancy leaf blower, buddy?"
My answer: "Oh, I don't know, Hoss -- $500? 'Bout what you paid for that truck, I guess."
Let me offer a radical thought: Maybe the World's Longest Yard Sale should take a break. It's been 24 years -- that's twenty-four chances to be introduced to the glories of the Tennessee-Kentucky vacation corridor.
I say it's about time for these folks to go meander through somebody else's hamlet.