Travel Reference
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covered verandah overlooking a lawn with two trees and a tiny concrete swimming pool,
which at this time of year was empty but for a puddle of wet leaves and one pissed-off-
looking frog. Beside each door was a metal armchair with a scallopshaped back. By the
sidewalk an old neon sign thrummed with the sound of coursing neon gas and spelled out
BENNETT'S COURT / VACANCY / AIR CONDITIONED / GUEST POOL. / TV, all in
green and pink beneath a tasteful blinking arrow in yellow. When I was small all motels
had signs like that. Now you see them only occasionally in small forgotten towns on the
edge of nowhere. Bennett's Court clearly would be the motel in Amalgam.
Itookmybagsinside,loweredmyselfexperimentallyontothebedandswitchedontheTV.
Instantly there came up a commercial for Preparation H, an unguent for hemorrhoids. The
tone was urgent. I don't remember the exact words, but they were something like: “Hey,
you! Have you got hemorrhoids? Then get some Preparation H! That's an order! Remem-
ber that name, you inattentive moron! Preparation H! And even if you haven't got hem-
orrhoids, get some Preparation H anyway! Just in case!” And then a voice-over quickly
added, “Now available in cherry flavor.” Having lived abroad so long, I was unused to the
American hard sell and it made me uneasy. I was equally unsettled by the way television
stations in America can jump back and forth between commercials and programs without
hesitation or warning. You'll be lying there watching “Kojak,” say, and in the middle of a
gripping shootout somebody starts cleaning a toilet bowl and you sit up, thinking, “What
the-” and then you realize it is a commercial. In fact, it is several minutes of commercials.
You could go out for cigarettes and a pizza during commercial breaks in America, and still
have time to wash the toilet bowl before the program resumed.
The Preparation H commercial vanished and a micro-instant later, before there was any
possibility of the viewer reflecting on whether he might wish to turn to another channel,
was replaced
by a clapping audience, the perky sound of steel guitars and happy but mildly brain-dam-
aged people in sequined outfits. This was “Grand Ole Opry.” I watched for a couple of
minutes.BydegreesmychindroppedontomyshirtasIlistenedtotheirsingingandjesting
with a kind of numb amazement. It was like a visual lobotomy. Have you ever watched an
infant at play and said to yourself, “I wonder what goes on in his little head”? Well, watch
“Grand Ole Opry” for five minutes sometime and you will begin to have an idea.
After a couple of minutes another commercial break noisily intruded and I was snapped
back to my senses. I switched off the television and went out to investigate Bryson City.
There was more to it than I had first thought. Beyond the Swain County Courthouse was a
smallbusinessdistrict.IwasgratifiedtonotethatalmosteverythinghadaBrysonCitysign
