At least we're smarter than Alabama

Yeah. Tennessee's ranked #42 on the list of smartest states.

And this isn't necessarily a blast on my birthplace of Athens, Tennessee.

But, I think the best barometer of your average Tennessean's awareness and intelligence is found in the Soundoff Line page of the Daily Post Athenian. It's not on the website, that I could find, but it appears on the Op/Ed page (page 4, the one what with the comic at the top) every Tuesday.

It's a call-in line for the citizens of Athens and the surrounding area of McMinn and Meigs counties to call in and voice their concerns about the political and social issues of the day.

Politically, it concerns itself with the tempest in a teapot that is the McMinn County Political scene, which generally surrounds the county manager. Property taxes came out, and a number of folks were appalled that their property taxes went up! These comments are found adjacent to the people who angrily and vehemently complain that their road has a pothole that broke open this morning at 9, and has heretofore been ignored by the county road crews.

Other political issues:

There are often complaints about the traffic in downtown Athens. Which embarrasses me for the town of my birth to read, because Athens is a city about 13,000 strong. There is no traffic. The traffic in downtown Athens doesn't even begin to compare with the traffic of a....Cleveland. Which in turn is a fraction of Murfreesboro's...which is about 8% as bad as Nashville. And Nashville, idiot drivers excepted, is a peach to drive in compared to just about any other major metropolitan area.

Also, there are many open messages to people who drop off animals on the sides of roads, or in dumpsters.

Generally, you'll find some complaint about how teachers shouldn't complain about their jobs because all they do is babysit nine months of the year.

Occasionally, a social issue will creep into the commentary: this week's column contained a cryptic comment about how somebody's neighbor should just mind his own dang business.

But my favorite running commentary comes from what I believe is a single person. This person decries the utter lack of good restaurants in Athens...especially when the thriving metropolis of Cleveland (which is about 25 miles south, and is right around double the size of Athens) is getting all the nice restaurants, like Golden Corral and Ruby Tuesday's!

See, for years and years we voted on whether Athens should have liquor by the drink in restaurants. And it was always turned down. But in the past decade, industry picked up a little bit, and I think the people that moved in with these companies turned the tide. But one of the selling points to the unconvinced was that many of the chain restaurants wouldn't move into town unless we had liquor by the drink.

Now, all these years later, we have an Applebee's. And I think Monterrey, the Mexican eatery, also serves, but they were open before all that mess started, six or seven years back.

But now people (i.e. this one person) are pissed, because we don't have the "nice" restaurants.

Personally, I could do without the fern bars and T.G.I. Fridays in my little town.

But there have been comments the last couple or three weeks, asking why the guvmint of Athens is keeping all these "nice" restaurants from opening. Never once admitting to themselves that a town of this size, even on the interstate, probably wouldn't be able to support anything even the size of a Ruby Tuesday's.

But I think a Cracker Barrel might be pretty cool.

And I miss Snuffy's. Anybody else miss Snuffy's?

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