coded gates

Why is it called "The Holler With No Name?" It all started out as a joke between friends -- Cherokee friends. there's "Pumkin Holler," Skunk Holler," and "Flat Creek Holler," just to give you a few examples. These are places where the People live. There're hard to find though. No doubt about that. More than likely you'd miss the turn off driving along a highway or a twisty, dusty road. They are private and protected by their own gates. Much like the locked wrought iron gates of today that sit on their sturdy wheels, locked and not to be opened until given the secret code by one of the big house owners protected by the tall iron rolling fence. It keep out the "Others." But, they can still look between the bars to see what they are missing.

The Holler's are different. You can't see inside. You can't even find the gate as mainly it is just a thicket, intertwined with a mixture of overgrown native trees, bushes, and vines. But, no one would ever accuse the hollers of not being protected.

How the joke started was Les would talk about his Pumkin Holler and I listened to John one day tell a story about his "Miller Flats Holler." Later in the storytelling, for the first time ever, I wondered why our family holler had no name. Were we so poor we couldn't even afford a name? There evolved the joke.

No name perhaps. But, the place where we grew up, the place on #10 highway that cannot be found unless you know the key to unlock it's hiding place, opens the gate to a world of riches. They are not material, I'll grant you that. Rather, a treasury of childhood memories. I wouldn't trade for any of those things locked behind the iron gates of code for my memory holler on #10.