Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
hour in such a place. He had just two criteria for gauging the worth of a holiday attraction:
Was it educational and was it free? Gatlinburg was patently neither of these. His idea of
holiday heaven was a museum without an admission charge. My dad was the most honest
man I ever met, but vacations blinded him to his principles. When I had pimples scattered
acrossmyfaceandstubbleonmychinhewasstillswearingatticketboothsthatIwaseight
years old. He was so cheap on vacations that it always surprised me he didn't make us sift
in litter bins for our lunch. So Gatlinburg to me was a heady experience. I felt like a priest
let loose in Las Vegas with a sockful of quarters. All the noise and glitter, and above all the
possibilities for running through irresponsible sums of money in a short period, made me
giddy.
I wandered through the crowds, and hesitated at the entrance to the Ripley's Believe It or
Not Museum. I could sense my father, a thousands miles away, beginning to rotate slowly
in his grave as I looked at the posters. They told me that inside I would see a man who
could hold three billiard balls in his mouth at once, a two-headed calf, a human unicorn
with a horn protruding from his forehead and hundreds of other riveting oddities from all
over the globe collected by the tireless Robert Ripley and crated back to Gatlinburg for the
edification of discerning tourists such as myself. The admission fee was five dollars. The
pace of my father's rotating quickened as I looked into my wallet and then sped to a whirr-
ing blur as I fished out a five-dollar bill and guiltily handed it to the unsmiling woman in
the ticket booth. “What the hell,” I thought as I went inside, “at least it will give the old
man some exercise.”
Well, it was superb. I know five dollars is a lot of money for a few minutes' diversion.
I could just see my father and me standing outside on the sidewalk bickering. My father
wouldsay,“No,it'sabiggyp.Forthatkindofmoney,youcouldbuysomethingthatwould
give you years of value.”
“Like what-a box of carpet tiles?” I would reply with practiced sarcasm. “Oh, please, Dad,
just this once don't be cheap. There's a two-headed calf in there.”
“No, son, I'm sorry.”
“I'll be good forever. I'll take out the garbage every day until I get married. Dad, there is a
guy in there who can hold three billiard balls in his mouth at once. There is a human uni-
corn in there. Dad, we could be throwing away the chance of a lifetime here.
But he would not be moved. “I don't want to hear any more about it. Now let's all get in
thecaranddriveI-75milestotheMolassesPointHistoricalBattlefield.You'lllearnlotsof
