TAKING PICTURES WITH YOUR MIND

By Dick Byrd

We came to Gatlinburg and the Smokies almost every summer as the kids were growing up.  And, being kids, while in the car in route to or while in East Tennessee they’d often be reading a comic book or playing with a toy while riding in the back seat.  But my wife and I wanted them to witness the beauty, the history, the wonder of the Smokies.  So we told them to put away the comic books and the toys, look out the windows, and “take pictures with your mind.” 

So they did this…riding through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, through Gatlinburg, while walking along the Parkway, inside the shops, in the restaurants, poolside at the motel, playing miniature golf, or wading in the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River.  Little did we know then that our kids, now grown, would call on those “pictures in their minds” in later years…at times of stress, times of want and at other times when they just needed a quick break from the affairs of the day.  We didn’t know they called on those pictures until, as adults, they admitted how wonderful those “pictures in their minds” had become…how useful…how essential to their everyday lives.

Oh, we took photos on those trips:  the kids in front of the Wishing Well gift shop, at Fanny Farkle’s playing games, getting a free candy cane at McCutchens Candy Shop, riding the Sky Lift, wading in the river.  But, in later times, once they had kids of their own, they tell us they still call on those “pictures in their minds” from their family vacations to Gatlinburg and the Smokies and they use those memories each and every day. 

                                        the Byrd Family at Newfound Gap in GSMNP 1979

Now my wife and I are in our mid-60’s.  Our children have children.  And some of those children have children.  Our kids are spread out across much of the Eastern U.S.  And my wife and I, after all those years coming to the Smokies each summer finally decided to move to the area.  Now the two of us can visit the park whenever we want.  We can drive through Cades Cove, take a picnic lunch to the Chimney’s Picnic Grounds, let the breeze blow across us at Newfound Gap or stroll a quiet walkway.  We can also venture into Gatlinburg for lunch or dinner when we want.  We can sit for a spell on the benches in The Village and just watch the people go by.  We can walk along the Parkway among all of the “visitors, basking in the moment and think back to all of those earlier times…times with Suzi, Brad and Bryan.  Times that meant so much to us then and still mean so much to us now.