Book Description

Spirit of Americana presents a sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, scenario of rural communities, especially "The Ridge" in middle Tennessee. This book explains how such a setting can promote freedom and democracy, especially in America, and possibly in other countries as well. Spectators were entertained watching a tug of war between "Old Jack" a big mule, and a new 1935 Ford coupe. Many of the same people were saddened a few months later when the contest sponsor and his mother died the same day of pneumonia, an epidemic rampaging through The Ridge. Twin coffins were hauled to a hillside graveyard on a flat bed log truck. How did this widow and her seven little children survive the great depression of the 1930's? Since making moonshine whiskey was illegal in the 1930's, how did federal, state and county law enforcement officers cut down a huge still on Moonshine Island without making a single arrest? Furthermore, how did one of the nation's most wanted criminals serve as a deputy sheriff in the same community in later years? Spirit of Americana provides some logical answers to these puzzling questions. Necessity being the mother of invention explains how a resident of this poverty stricken ridge harnessed his waterfall to generate electricity for his home using automobile and bicycle parts. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the Rural Electrical Association (REA) followed this same method a few years later bringing electricity from huge dams and generators to many houses on The Ridge and elsewhere. The Ridge did not lack military heroes during two World Wars, as well as wars in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Some came home alive. Some did not. Freedom was not cheap. The Ridge residents believed in America maintaining its freedom.