Inktober 23: #Celestial
In which Joe Huddleston convinces his classmates that Tennessee is a Shangri-La
When I was at Miller Elementary School, I had a classmate named Joe Huddleston whose parents hailed from Tennessee. He would come home from holidays and tell us about mountains he had seen, cold clear streams, and other things we didn't have in our part of Georgia. He told us about his delightful Tennessee grandparents and their big garden and the funny things their neighbors said and did. In short, he made Tennessee sound like some kind of Shangri-La.
After Christmas break one year, Joe brought a jar to school, labeled “Tennessee Water” and let everybody take a drink. We were astonished: the water in Warner Robins didn’t taste like anything, but Tennessee water was sweet and refreshing—almost like sweet tea without the tea part. We were all ready to catch the next bus to Tennessee and take up residence on its #celestial plains.
It soon came out that Joe’s mother, who was both a Tennessee booster and a wag, had concocted this "Tennessee water" by dissolving sugar in regular Warner Robins water.
I love the thought of Joe's mother going to the trouble to play a practical joke on third-graders.