Traveling the Highways & Byways with Bill Graves

East Tennessee is part of Appalachia. It has the soft peaks and broad, river valleys of the Appalachian Mountains that run up the East Coast.

It’s the home of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the country-music metropolis of Knoxville. Here too is the “secret city” of Oak Ridge, where the nuclear material was secretly produced for the two atomic bombs that ended World War II.

The roots of the homegrown folks run deep into Appalachia. I suspect many can tell stories of their early kin, their struggles with poverty, of life and death in the coal mines, of clan feuding, and makin’ moonshine.

Remnants of those days are found in antique shops all over eastern Tennessee. But nowhere are antiques and collectibles bought and sold with more frequency than in Clinton, population less then 10,000. It has 22 antique stores: more than any town this size that I've been in.

I normally don’t go in antique stores, but in Clinton, it’s what ya do. I discovered they were selling as “antiques” things that were in my life when I was a kid. I watched a couple happily paying good money for a corrugated washboard. I remember when my grandmother appeared equally happy when she tossed hers in the trash, the day she realized her new washing machine had replaced it.

Then again, this is Tennessee, bluegrass country, where music is often made with a washboard in the mix. That couple may have been famous musicians, who I would have recognized, if only their world of music connected with mine.

Most of the antique stores are on Market Street. Two days a year, in May and October, the town closes the street Clinton, Tennessee Clinton closes its streets twice each year for antique festival. Photo ©Clinton Downtown Historic Association. Steve Jennings, Marvel Comics.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

to cars. Shop owners move merchandise out under canopies on the sidewalk, and they have an antique festival that goes all day.

Walking up Market, I was intrigued by a neon sign in a store window that said “Marvel Comics”. Inside, it looked like a shipping room where only someone who had worked there a long time could find things.

Steve Jennings, the owner, was at a desk facing the door. He was wearing his steel-rimed glasses on his forehead. The desk was covered with papers, boxes and an open check book. He obviously had plenty going on. A southern gentleman, he made me feel that since I was there, everything could wait.

Steve has been selling comics and action toys here – new as well as collectibles – for over 30 years. He works six days a week. “Most of my business is walk in.” he said. “Lots of kids. Families drive up here from Knoxville, shop and stay the night. And folks bring in collections, which I buy. Always ask questions though. Occasionally, someone tries to sell me stolen stuff. I can

Downtown Oak Ridge, TN. Photo courtesy Bill Graves.

tell. And I don’t want it.” “Ever sell on eBay?” I asked.

“Not now. I’ve got a 1000 pieces waiting to be priced. I’ve been here since ‘83, ya know,” he said, as if rationalizing work that he had been neglecting for a good while. He has an inventory of over 300,000 comics with 80 to 100 new ones coming in every Wednesday.

What he calls “showcase comics” can go for as much as $80 to $100 dollars a copy. A more-typical collectible would be a John Wayne comic for $30.

“No one has the back issues like we do,” he said.

I didn’t ask to see any. I should have. I missed a chance to look back into a world, an earlier time, to which I am still connected.

Welcome to America’s Outback.

About the author: After seeing much of the world as a career naval officer, Bill Graves decided, after he retired, to take a closer look at the United States. He has been roaming the country for 20 years, much of it in a motorhome with his dog Rusty. He lives in Rancho Palos Verdes, California and is the author of On the Back Roads, Discovering Small Towns. of America. He can be reached at Roadscribe@aol.com.