Episode 3328

- Get ready for a one-hour special edition of "Tennessee Crossroads," as we count down your top 10 story clicks, the most watched stories on "Crossroads" online. Hi everyone, I'm Joe Elmore. Welcome. These days, television is just one way to enjoy shows like "Tennessee Crossroads." Thanks to YouTube and our website, TennesseeCrossroads.org, well, you can view your favorite stories anytime, anywhere. So we're gonna revisit your 10 online favorites, starting with a West Tennessee hatmaker who's on a mission to put a lid on every head.

- You know, dermatologists say it's really a good idea to wear on a hot, sunny day like today, and trying to find a hatter these days, well, well, speaking of hatters, this is Buckaroo Hatters here in Covington. We're gonna go in and see if we can find one. Well, we certainly came to the right place. The shop is full to the brim, so to speak, with hats of all shapes, sizes, and colors. And if you want one made to your own personal requirements, then Mike Moore is the person to see.

- That I can make, and this string tells me, I can make this customer's hat.

- [Ken] Mike started making hats around the turn of the century, the 21st century, that is. It's an age-old art that's being preserved by only a few hundred hatters across the United States, and Mike Moore is one of the best.

- Well, I kinda just had been a history nut and I've always had a passion for hats and I never could find that right hat so I would just take modern cowboy hats and do things to 'em and cut the crowns out of 'em and sew 'em back, and I'd wear it to an event and somebody would buy that one off my, literally speaking, and I'd come back and I'd make another one and that was just my passion 'cause I grew up always wearing a cowboy hat. You know, I'm at the age that I watched Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and Gene Autrey, so that was kinda my love. I wanted to be a cowboy, okay?

- [Ken] But while cowboy hats are his top sellers, the fedora and other more traditional hats are making a comeback.

- Right now, the ratio is probably about 30% of my sales are in fedora hats, where 70% just stays into the true Old West modern cowboy look hat.

- [Ken] No matter what the style, when the size and color are selected, Mike begins his creation using the finest materials and some of the original hatmaking tools from the 18- and early 1900s.

- When you, the customer, decided what hat that you want, I take it, and I put it into a machine called a plater. What I'm doing at that time on the plater's I'm just trying to get what's called a brim break line, where the crown and brim meet at. Then from there, I'll take it out of the plater, and I'll take the hat block that I've chosen to make your hat off of, and I will pull that hat body down onto that block. I'll pull it down and push and pull and pull 'till I get it all on there, then I tie a special little rope with a knot called a hatter's knot and cinch it up tight. I put that hat body onto a spinner that I spin, and I sand that crown with different grits of sandpaper to take it from a rough, like a corncob, down to a silky, velvety smooth. Once I've got that done, I will then take some alcohol and squirt onto that crown, and set it on fire, and singe any remaining fibers that are sticking up, and sand it again, 'cause I want that hat crown to be just as smooth as silk when you touch it. So once we've got that done, I'll cut the brim down to the correct size for your hat, and then from there, we'll take it and we'll sew the sweatband in. Then we'll go sew the bound edge, if that's what the customer wanted... Then we'll put the bow and ribbon onto the hat.

- Mike, you said that just about anybody can wear a hat and it kinda changes their personalities when they do, so what do you think?

- Nah, nope.

- Not it, huh?

- Nope, that's not it.

- I got one for you here that I really like. This is, I think this is me. What do you think?

- The crown, yes, the color, no, and not your size. Let me hand you one I think is similar to that that's in your size. This kinda mimics your heroes hat right there a little bit.

- Aw, hop along Cassidy home. Boy, that gives me goosebumps.

- So that's a good look on you.

- But the secret is, is you wearing the hat, not the hat wearing you, okay? And the role of a hatter is to work with you, the customer, and determine what really is the best style. But also, I think that you might want to be, since we're in the great state of Tennessee, may have a little loyalty to something or other, try the UT hat on.

- Oh, where's the Rocky top?

- There we go.

- There we go.

- That is you right there, okay?

- All right.

- That's your hat, right there.

- Go Vols.

- [Ken] Word about Mike's quality and attention to detail is out for sure. Buckaroo hats are receiving worldwide recognition. Still, he continues to pursue making that perfect hat and really hopes he doesn't, so he'll always have something to strive for every day. And happy customers leave with a new look, even if it's a Rocky Top topper. Howdy, ma'am. Let me get that door for you.

- Thank you.

- Growing up in the '80s, I think that was one of the major effects, 'cause everything had a car in it. You watch "The Dukes of Hazard," you watch "Knight Rider," you watch "Starsky and Hutch," it was probably as big as a star as the rest of the actors were.

- [Joe] Rusty Robinson's lifelong obsession with cars, especially TV and movie cars, was the driving force behind the opening of this museum in Jackson.

- The museum always has around 30 cars in it most of the time, and then there's probably 30 more, 40 cars at the house.

- [Joe] How did it start? Well, perhaps with this replica of maybe the most famous TV car ever, the General Lee '69 Charger.

- I always wanted a General Lee and got one, and then you notice, there could be a $200,000 Ferrari sitting there, and people would walk over that thing to get to the General Lee. They come in, and one of the first questions is, where do you get all of 'em from, and I had to tell 'em, I said, every one of 'em's got a different story.

- [Joe] Rusty happily shares those stories with visitors Friday through Sunday. He's got hero cars, the ones you see the actors in, and some stunt cars. Some are replicas, like the Batmobile and the Blues Brothers' Ford. Some, like the Ghostbusters' Caddy, Rusty painstakingly built himself. Two of the of the major attractions are original cars once driven by the late great "Fast & Furious" star, Paul Walker.

- [Rusty] The green Eclipse that's in the museum, it's one of the three that they used for actually running and driving cars from the very first "Fast & Furious." I was just lucky, and I bought the car 'cause I just loved the movie and the car.

- [Joe] This car would be just another Nova, had it not starred in a Quentin Tarantino car movie.

- [Rusty] The Nova is from "Death Proof," and it was Kurt Russell's car in the film, and that was filmed in Austin, Texas, and this one is one of the grunting and driving cars. I've got the wreck car, too.

- [Joe] There's a Shelby gt500 under this car from the movie "Death Race" and a good bit of Hollywood makeup on the outside.

- Even though it looks like it weighs a million pounds, it's real light metal. A lot went into making it look that bad. You know, they computer scanned the car, and all these panels are interchangeable, almost like a LEGO set. And that car will actually fire two real 30-millimeter machine guns. ♪ Wayne's World ♪ ♪ Wayne's World ♪ ♪ Wayne's World ♪

- [Joe] Even a dowdy AMC Pacer can become a star when it has famous comedians in the front seat.

- We get certain people that come in. I've had, for some reason, Norway, that is one of their favorite cars from that country. I don't know why, but you get more of them in here that love "Wayne's World," and plus, that car, not only in the movie, I tell everybody, it had a hard way to go anyway.

- [Joe] Remember the "Starsky and Hutch" Torino? It had a big effect on how manufacturers felt about providing cars for shows and films.

- [Rusty] Chevrolet wouldn't do any kind of deal with 'em, and Ford give 'em like six cars, man, and sold so many Torinos, they started making 'em with a stripe on 'em, but that was kind of the beginning of product placement of cars. You know, now, they beg to get their car in a TV show or movie.

- [Joe] The DeLorean from "Back to the Future" is now a movie icon. Rusty's is not, but the wild-looking red ride above it is a rare original prop car.

- [Rusty] The red car was used in the second "Back to the Future" movie, and in 1989, that's what they thought a 2015 Ferrari was gonna look like. ♪ Scooby Dooby Doo ♪ ♪ Where are you ♪ ♪ We got some work to do now ♪

- [Joe] Another favorite among visitors of all ages is Rusty's rendition of the most famous cartoon van in TV history. ♪ Come on, Scooby Doo ♪ Does anyone ever ask you, is this the original Mystic Machine in "Scooby Doo"?

- I get so many people that say, is that the original Mystery Machine from the cartoon? I've gotten to the point where I say, yeah, that's it, you know, but , but I wanted the cartoon version.

- [Joe] So you did this yourself.

- [Rusty] Uh uh, did that one myself.

- [Joe] Rusty is living his car guy dream with this collection, and he's quick to credit his late father with making that dram a reality.

- He went out of his way to help me, and he was successful and helped me do this, and he couldn'ta done it without my mother.

- [Joe] Well, as Rusty mentioned, this is only about half of his collection. That means he can change up the museum contents frequently. And because of his still-severe car-loving obsession, his inventory is likely to keep growing.

- Car guys know, you get one, you think this is gonna solve it, but then I want another one, and I think that might fix whatever problem I got in my mind, or there's probably some kind of therapist or something that you could probably go to for this, you know, it'd probably save me a lot of money .

- Over 200 miles away, and over 100 years ago, the legend of a true American hero began on an engine much like this, and now it's being preserved here in Jackson, Tennessee. It's the new Casey Jones Museum, and it's certainly a fitting memorial for honoring this American railroad hero who died saving hundreds of his passengers' lives. And if you don't know much about the story of Casey Jones, he was on a run from Memphis to Canton, Mississippi back in April of 1900 pulling six cars full of passengers. Casey was always on time, but this evening, he was late, traveling just as fast as his old steam engine would take him. With less than 20 miles to go and almost back on schedule, Casey saw the worst possible sight an engineer could see on the tracks at Vaughan, Mississippi.

- So coming into Vaughan doing 75, knowing he's going on through, he and his firemen spot a red light on that caboose, which signals to them there is something on the main line.

- [Ken] There's no one who tells Casey's heroic story better than museum historian and author Norma Taylor as she takes us back in time to that fateful night when Casey met his demise.

- I think he was the kind of man who instinctively did everything he could do to save everybody that he was responsible for. First, he told Sam to jump, so his fireman jumped. He was fine, shaken up a bit, but he was fine. With one hand, Casey pulled his break on, did whatever the engineer does to slow his train down, and slowed it from 75 to 35 before he plowed into the back of that stalled train. With the other hand, he pulled on the whistle to warn everybody to get out of the way, because there were people involved with that other train. His engine turned over and he was killed, but because he had stayed and slowed that engine so much, every passenger car stayed upright on the track, nobody was killed, there were no serious injuries, everybody was fine because Casey Jones had stayed with that train and slowed it down. He had pulled on the whistle, everybody was out of the way, so Casey died saving everybody on that train.

- [Ken] So to honor Casey's memory, a museum with a rather modest beginning in Casey's old house was established in the 1950s. This is when Jackson's leadership began to recognize their hometown legend with style. But they didn't stop here.

- [Norma] Two years ago, a grant was given to the city of Jackson to add to the museum, so we have our wonderful new building now, and we have expanded, we have lots of exhibits, and we can accommodate so many more people, visitors from everywhere, and we are very proud of our new facility here, which honors Casey Jones and all the railroad workers that did so much to make our country what it actually became, an industrial country.

- [Ken] And not just anyone who's demonstrated the ultimate act of courage has a song written about them. Now Casey Jones not only has his own museum, but a ballad as well. ♪ We're one hour late with the Southern mail ♪ ♪ He turned to Sam and then he said ♪

- [Norma] That was a common occurrence during that era that engineers would die saving their passengers or their freight or their trains. Now what made Casey different is that after he died, a song was written about him. ♪ Orders in his hand ♪ ♪ Casey Jones mounted to the cabin ♪ ♪ Took a farewell trip to the promised land ♪ A African American, Wallace Saunders, wrote a song, and that song soon was being sung up and down the Illinois Central Line that Casey was working for at the time that he died, and Vaudeville people picked it up and then copywriters picked that song up, and the song went all over the world. So Casey died a hero, but the song made him a famous hero, so because of that song, he was known all over the world.

- [Ken] In addition to the extensive display of Casey Jones memorabilia and railroad artifacts, the museum includes a theater, complete with a movie about his life. There's a gift shop filled with unique items of all kinds, and there are trains everywhere to entertain and to inform.

- [Lawrence] There you go.

- [Ken] Norma's husband, Lawrence, is the museum's director. You'll find him all around the exhibit space making sure everyone enjoys their visit.

- This is where you ring the bell. Watch this.

- [Ken] People used to say they could set their watches to the time Casey came rolling through their towns. Now in addition to hundreds of historical items about his life, guests can actually see the timepiece that kept him on schedule. It's the one he carried the night of the train wreck.

- [Norma] People have heard the name Casey Jones. Most people are not aware that he was a real person, so they're shocked. They'll say, you mean, he was a real person. They think he was just a fictional character, that his life was just a story that was made up, so first of all, they find out he was a real person. He lived right here in Jackson, and I think that's a lot of the appeal, is his story, and a lot of the appeal is the trains. People are drawn to trains. I think they always will be. There's just something romantic about this story of the trains and the rides and the people who worked for the trains, and the families who were involved in the railroad industry, and I think all of these things draw people to our museum.

- [Ken] Actually, Casey probably wouldn't want people making this big of a fuss about him. He simply did what he was supposed to do, just like all the other ordinary people who perform extraordinary acts, but this is what heroes do, and this is why the museum in Jackson is such a special place to honor a man who truly personifies the spirit of the American railroad.

- [Sharon] The hardest thing is starting your project, because the needles will flop around for a while. There are two sides to the needle. There is a round side, which is very smooth, and then there is a rough side. To make a perfect item that would be museum quality, you would want to see more of the smooth side.

- [Tressa] Sharon Eckert may not have her work in a museum yet. Still, she works as if every piece will be on permanent display for all the world to see. Sharon, a retired teacher from Indiana, didn't know the first thing about making baskets out of long pine needles and raffia. That is, until she and her husband, Tom, moved to Cumberland County back in 1995 to live at the Uplands Retirement village in Pleasant Hill, and that's when she met Elizabeth McKutchen.

- Here at Uplands, there was a resident who did this, and I saw some of them in her house and on her walls. It just looked unique. I had never seen anything like that before, and I just thought that I'd like to learn that. I was able to go to her house very Monday night for over a year and a half, sit with her, and she taught me how to do this.

- [Tressa] When Sharon asked Elizabeth to teach her, she had no idea she could no longer make the baskets. Elizabeth's hands were just worn out. Elizabeth couldn't demonstrate the ancient technique of coiling 12- to 15-inch-long needles and securing them tightly with raffia, but she could talk, and Sharon soaked in every word.

- [Sharon] I miss her. She has died now. And there are times that I get to a point or I want to do something with the pine needle baskets and I don't have her to ask, and so I do miss that.

- [Tressa] What are some of the main things you believe that you've learned from her?

- I remember her always saying that the front has to look as good as the back, and the back has to look as good as the front. And I have an example of one that is not like that, that I keep, so that I'm reminding myself that that is part of Elizabeth's process.

- [Tressa] Sharon says Elizabeth was a very traditional basket maker, using only the needles and raffia., and given the amount of time it takes to prepare the raffia, which can be hours, because the plant has to be soaked in water, then straightened and cut to various widths, you'd think she would have embraced synthetic thread. Well, she didn't, and you never saw Elizabeth use shellac to preserve her work.

- Over the years, Sharon has ventured away from the very traditional way of making a basket that Elizabeth taught her. You might say she's added a little bling, making them with things such as gourds and even mirrors.

- [Sharon] There are a couple of 'em, yes, that I'm every happy with and very proud of, yes. I also developed the mirrors. I had not seen mirrors done by anyone, and to start with a ring and then to make a border for the mirror, and then to put a mirror in it is a fun thing to do. Many of the things with raffia centers become just novelties, they become very decorative and very model-like, and very fancy. Sometimes they just come. The pine needles, when you're working with them, seem to have a life of their own. And you start out with an idea, you start out with something that you think is going to be a certain bowl or a certain shape, and as you're working on it, it just seems to evolve into something different. Pine needles are kinda ordinary, and sometimes, when people look at 'em, they just kinda turn up their nose and say, oh, you made that outta pine needles. You know, they're just on the ground, or I have some in my yard, and so it's kind of looked down upon because it's so common at that particular point, but to really turn it into something that is creative and beautiful and to dress it up in some way is really kind of exciting.

- [Tressa] For Sharon, it can evolve into a precious piece of art. A frame for a mirror, a decoration on a gourd, a bowl, even a coaster, the list is as endless as your imagination. So the next time you see a pile of pine needles, stop for a moment and think of Sharon and what she can do with something we often think of as just plain useless.

- Well, that wraps up our first four. What do you think? Any surprises? Well, you might be surprised to learn that mules are a bit hit with online viewers. Number six is all about a vanishing breed of mule skinners.

- [Rob] On a beautiful Saturday morning in Woodbury, these folks gather to do something their ancestors would've considered back-braking work... Cutting hay using the latest technology of the 18th century, the mule team. They are members of the Middle Tennessee Mule Skinners Association. Their president, Andy Duggin, says to them, Mules are just about as good as it gets.

- A mule is really a smart animal. They get a bad rap. Of course, they're stubborn, and they get set in their ways, but they're really smart. Take for instance, if your horse gets out and gets hung in a fence, he'll tear hisself all to pieces to get out. If that mule gets hung in a fence, he'll wait for you to come get him. He'll take care of himself, and if you've got him trained right, he'll take care of you, too.

- [Rob] Mules are smart. Smart enough not to work unless they're asked to, which means Thomas Summers, who lives outside Morrison, has put on a lot of harnesses over the years.

- I was driving mules when I was six years old by myself with a wagon, and then I've been with 'em ever since, just about.

- [Rob] Mr. Summers has a profound respect, even affection, for mules. He even puts them through their paces at shows around the country. He's a national champion mule skinner who believes mules should be recognized not only as show biz animals, but the hard workers they are.

- The younger generation never saw anything like this. People just raised in towns, and so they give people a chance to see how mules used to be worked when they had to make 'em for a living, so we just like to get together and do it.

- Step up there, boys.

- [Rob] The younger generation is also into mules. Take Trent Hencock of McMinnville. He used to be a horse lover, but now finds he's really more attracted to spending times with Ike and Pete, his mules.

- Whoa. They just work, just amazed. You'll see after a while how they work. They're just so smart and easy. I love the old heritage. I just love to keep it going through the older folk and stuff, just people love to talk to you and come out and socialize about it and stuff.

- [Rob] Sure, there's plenty to talk about when a bunch of mule skinners get together and enjoy each other's company and the experiences with animals they all respect and appreciate in a shared relationship.

- It's kind of a swap off. They ask us to feed 'em, and we ask 'em to work. So far, they haven't said anything against it, so.

- So they were telling me anybody could learn to drive. Is that true?

- Yes, sir.

- I'm put you to the test, 'cause I'm anybody, believe me. How would I drive this thing?

- You'd just walk up here, step up here--

- Okay.

- Put one line in your right hand, one line in your left hand.

- All right, so just sit up here on it, one in the right hand, one in the left hand.

- Ask 'em to step up.

- Ask 'em or get their attention?

- Whichever way you can do it.

- All right, step up, there!

- Go Pete.

- Step up, Pete, come on, boy. Step up, now. There we go. Boy, that's good. It's easy. Since the mules are smarter than the driver, for sure. Keep up, boys.

- [Rob] Once the mules are harnessed and set to work, the labor for the human driving them can be relaxing. Hearkening back to a day when people didn't have to have music blaring all the time, the sound of the labor itself could free the mind to actually think.

- When you get out here cutting this hay and you're listening to that mower click off and you're just in your own little world just meditating, it's enjoyable. It's really a lot of fun.

- [Rob] You might say these mules and mule skinners are harnessed together by an appreciation of, and an attachment to, the past, and in turn, they do their best to make certain that appreciation is passed along to the much younger generation, who may grow up themselves one day to be members of the Middle Tennessee Mule Skinners Association.

- [Tressa] It reaches high into the sky, well over the treetops. It's on a rarely-traveled dirt road just outside of Crossville. It's the world's largest tree house. Well, who really knows for sure, but builder Horace Burgess calls it that. When people first drive up and see this, what do you want 'em to think and feel?

- [Horace] The peace of the place, and the art of it all. When they come out here, they're expecting to climb up a ladder and push through a little hole into a four by eight or something.

- [Tressa] I think it's a little bigger than four by eight.

- I don't know how many square feet's in it.

- You haven't counted?

- No, I haven't had that much spare time --

- I understand.

- To measure it.

- [Tressa] Where did you get the wood?

- [Horace] From everywhere. From a lot of construction sites. No one will refuse when you walk up to a job site and say, I'll clean up your job site for the pieces, you know--

- [Tressa] Sure.

- [Horace] 'Cause they always burn 'em.

- [Tressa] Sure.

- So they're endless. I call myself a cobbler, not a carpenter. I mean, I just, I've helped build homes, I know how to do everything to precision, but it's just more fun if it looks good, nail it, that kinda things. Some things that are architecturally correct doesn't look right, you know, so it's more the artist eye than having to be totally level, straight, those kind of things.

- [Tressa] What you're seeing is 15 years of work, very hard work. One side of the tree house resembles a hotel because of all the balconies, while the other side just looks like a typical house. There are small rooms, big rooms, secret hiding rooms, and in the middle of it all, there's a church.

- This is a sanctuary. This was... It's got like a 30-foot skylight, I mean, 30 feet to the skylight.

- [Tressa] To the skylight.

- [Horace] And have services in here, like youth groups and the Native Americans of this area come here on Saturday afternoon and have services in it. They cook out down on the grounds, and then they come up here and worship.

- [Woman] It's great. It's very beautiful in its own way.

- [Tressa] Horace started building this tree house after his neighbors in an upscale subdivision frowned about the one he had in his front yard. Then Horace had a dream about how his new tree house should look. And still, to this very day, the only blueprint is in Horace's head.

- You could get lost in here, you really could.

- Well, no one ever sees it all. You can feel safe when you come to visit, because it has 500 pounds of number-16 common nails that I've nailed by hand, and 258,000 nails that I've shot with a nail gun.

- [Tressa] Later on, his motive changed. As an ordained minister, Horace began building the tree house for a higher power. He wanted it to be a place where people could come and hang out for a while and just feel better spiritually when it came time to go home.

- This is like the kind of chapel that Jesus himself would have said was just perfect.

- So you've seen enough of the tree house to think there is no way in the world you'd ever be able to make it to the top. Well, Horace hasn't forgotten about people like you and me. On every floor, you will be able to find a place to sit down, catch your breath, so that you can make that final assent to the top.

- [Tressa] All right, let's go to the top.

- [Horace] Okay.

- [Tressa] Let's go.

- [Horace] Let's go.

- Last couple o' steps to the top. Oh man, what a view. We can see for miles.

- You can see the full outline of the rim of Cumberland County.

- [Tressa] Horace, how high are we now?

- 82 feet, and the level up here is 97 feet to the top of it, but you're standing 80 feet, 82 feet in the air right now.

- I've never seen the tops of trees like this before.

- [Horace] It's pretty amazing. Most people don't ever get to look down on things, and it's a different perspective of things that you gain when you're actually looking from the top down.

- [Tressa] You can see and hear a lot of things at the top, and if the wind is blowing just right, you'll hear the chimes that Horace made from discarded oxygen tanks. And if you look down, you'll see a very unusually garden, and you know what? It's even more spectacular in the springtime.

- Mom, come here. It says something in the grass.

- It says Jesus.

- [Tressa] What do you hope that they remember, or are told by others?

- Horace Burgess, he was a wild country boy that actually tried to do something with his life, I mean, just that would benefit people around him and make the world a better place to live.

- [Rob] The Tennessee aquarium is well-known as a great spot to find out all about the creatures who call the depths of the waters of the Tennessee river home. The aquarium does an outstanding job showing us these creatures and recreating their homes. Still, there's nothing quite like the real thing, is there? Not to worry, the folks at the aquarium can help us with that, too.

- Welcome aboard the River Gorge.

- [Rob] We're headed downstream from Chattanooga to one of the most spectacular sights in the state, the Tennessee River Gorge, 16 thousand acres, beautiful anytime, particularly striking in the fall. And we're going to see it from quite a striking sight itself, the River Gorge Explorer, a special boat that is designed to get to the gorge, and as Captain Mike Hoseman tells us, get there in a hurry.

- [Mike] What we're doing today in a two-hour period would take a conventional boat over four hours to cover the same amount o' ground.

- [Rob] The folks at the aquarium decided they needed a way to get people to the river gorge and back, and so The Explorer was built just for that.

- This boat was custom-built for the Tennessee Aquarium from the drawing board up. The architect from New Zealand came here, the engineers from Bellingham, Washington came here, we sat down with the Coast Guard, we went all up and down our route and we extrapolated the various parameters necessary to achieve the kind of performance we felt would be necessary and that would still be in good keeping with what the aquarium stands for, so the result is one of the most unique watercraft in the world.

- [Rob] Did I mention this boat is fast?

- [Mike] We can do about 56 miles per hour under perfect conditions here on the waterway.

- [Rob] But how fast would it go?

- That's about it.

- [Guide] 40 feet of water--

- [Rob] Which can make for some mighty fun stops when The Explorer slows down for other river traffic.

- [Guide] We'll be slowing down for this barge right here by the cement plant, so make sure you hang on tight, 'cause we'll be slowing down here in just a second.

- [Rob] As you might imagine, being in charge of The Explorer is a dream gig for Captain Mike.

- [Mike] This is an awesome boat to run. It handles better than any boat I've ever run.

- [Rob] And Mike loves putting his craft through her paces. But you know, you can't go pedal to the metal all the time. After all, the passengers, and The Explorer will carry 70 of 'em, want to get out on deck and see the beauty of the gorge. So while The Explorer is cruising, Captain Mike is happy to let a landlubber take the wheel, except there is no wheel on this boat. It's more like a video game or a jetliner.

- Feel that stop there?

- Yeah.

- Now bring it all the way to the right.

- Okay.

- 'Kay, that's your entire range. Okay, now put it straight back up. Easy to move, right?

- [Rob] Yes.

- Now push that orange button that says "take control."

- Oh, all right. Are you sure?

- Yep, that's it.

- Oh, my gosh.

- Okay.

- Now what do I do?

- Now you're in charge.

- What should I do?

- Avoid the river bank.

- Is that all there is to it?

- Keep it in the middle of the ditch.

- So if I do that, we're actually turning--

- [Mike] The Tennessee river is traditionally, particularly this section of the waterway that we're running in right now is very deep bank to bank.

- [Rob] Good thing, huh?

- So as long as you don't run into the bank, we're in deep enough water.

- [Rob] Sadly for me, but luckily for the passengers, I didn't get to go full throttle on The Explorer and slam on the breaks for one of those awesome stops.

- [Guide] You ready for one more stop? Here we go! That was a pretty good one. Good job.

- [Rob] While the passengers love to look at the spectacular gorge and the amazing wildlife that inhabits it, an equal number would almost certainly admit, half the fun was getting there.

- I liked the splash, when you like went forward, and then woo, you know like when you go back. You know, when they did the really hard stop and everything? Yeah, I loved the thrill.

- [Man] Look again--

- The thrill.

- [Rob] Good thing, because the thrills don't stop until The Explorer is back at the dock. Captain Mike keeps the good times coming.

- [Mike] Why do we do this?

- 'Cause you can.

- Because we can.

- [Rob] You bet it is Chattanooga Captain Mike, home of the Tennessee Aquarium, and home of The River Gorge Explorer, an exciting ride to one of the most spectacular sights anywhere, the Tennessee River Gorge.

- Yee ha, if you ever wanted to be a cowboy, then you gotta learn to do a lotta things with rope. And when they get old and frayed and it's time to put 'em to pasture, so to speak, you've just made Mike and Lisa Low's day.

- [Lisa] Course, they don't look very washed.

- [Ken] You see, to Mike and Lisa, these dirty old rodeo lariats are treasures. And with lots of tender loving care and a corral full of creativity, they turn them into beautiful works of art in the form of baskets.

- I had gone out to Wyoming to visit my daughter, and we went to a Western store, and I saw a basket in the store and wanted to buy it, made outta rope, and it wasn't for sale, and we had a bunch of ropes at home because our son was a roper, and we came home and we just started practicing, trying to make 'em.

- It took a while to get it right, too. The first few were not very good.

- [Ken] Well, things have certainly changed since then. After making hundreds of baskets, they have truly perfected the art.

- [Mike] So the first thing we do is soak them in a tub, just a big plastic tub, for a few days, with a few little cleaners, and then we either power wash 'em, or if I'm allowed, I put 'em in the washing machine. They don't get as clean in the washing machine, and the power washer gets 'em really clean, but it takes quite a while. Then we let 'em dry and they get sorted by length. Then there's different colors, you find out after you've cleaned 'em. And after that, we'll just grab one and start a design on it. We kinda know by the length what we can get done out of it and what we can't. Sometimes we put two together, and it's just a slow process. We don't get in a hurry about it. We might make 40 or 50 baskets a year, that's about it. But the way we put 'em together is we have some soldering guns. We just heat 'em, we melt 'em together. A lotta people use hot glue. We tried that when we first started, and we found out that didn't work. To Mike, making rope baskets is just a hobby. He's an elementary school teacher, and Lisa takes care of their home, called Little Creek Farm in Cornersville. Neither one of them consider themselves artists, but they know that these rope baskets are truly unique and receive lots of attention when they take them to crafts fairs.

- People who buy our baskets think of it as art. And a lot of 'em come over and think that it's pottery. From a distance, they come over to our booth and they think, that looks so much like pottery. They pick it up and it's a rope, and they're just amazed that it's made outta rope. Quite a few people that were not expecting, I think, to buy a basket, to pick it up, put their hands on it, and then they chose to buy one.

- We started out just doing it for friends and--

- [Lisa] Right.

- Relatives, and then I think you did the first place, she took eight baskets up to Ellington Center with a cardboard table, and I think she sold out--

- Right.

- So that started it right there.

- That was the beginning.

- Yeah. And then we've kind of evolved into other cowboy-type things, too.

- [Ken] As you can see, the materials Lisa and Mike use to create their works of art certainly are not exotic by any means. In fact, most were considered trash.

- [Lisa] Everything has been made from something that was gonna be put in a landfill. That, I am proud of.

- We make barnwood signs. We've sold a lot of those. A lotta people like those, the barnwood signs. We make barnwood crosses, just started that in the last year or so, and barnwood angels. What else do we do barnwood?

- [Lisa] Chalkboards.

- [Mike] Anything barnwood, you know, frame, we frame old chalkboards.

- [Lisa] Boxes.

- [Mike] We made some barnwood that people would put the remote in and tapes and CDs, different things, just anything that looks Western or cowboy, we just kinda come up with an idea for it, and then we might see something and think we can do something like it, or something a little better or a little different. Yeah, if it involves horseshoes or barbed wire or barnwood, again, recycling something that probably most people probably wouldn't even want.

- [Ken] So as long as there are cowboys and old barns and horses who wear new shoes, Mike and Lisa will continue to have a hobby they love and lots of pride and passion in what they do.

- We've had nothing but fun with it, and everybody that's come out to the house, super-nice, it really has been fun for us.

- [Mike] Yeah, and it's really nice to think somebody likes something you've made and they wanna take it home with them or give it to somebody else. It's just kinda--

- [Lisa] Yeah.

- [Mike] Kind of a good feeling.

- Okay, we're down to the final two favorites, and number two has almost 500,000 clicks so far. It's all about a craftsman collector and his small world of cars.

- [Joe] It's little wonder that Andy Roderick has a garage decorated like this. He's a self-professed car nut and retired curator of the Corvette museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He even has a small-block Chevy engine on display.

- Small-block.

- [Joe] Well, it appears so until you lift the lid and turn on the gas, for cooking, that is. I'm ready for a hotdog. But you gotta go in for closeups to discover Andy's related lifelong passion, creating dioramas of car shops and working garages all in 1/18 scale.

- Well, it actually started when I was a kid. My brother had HO trains, and we had a little building somebody gave us to build to go with the train, and that did it. I've loved the little buildings and so forth, and been with it since I was about eight years old, I guess.

- [Joe] Andy goes for painstaking detail with his diorama work and builds each one so the visitor can explore the realistic activity inside. He's got collector customers for his original works all around the country, and as far away as Germany.

- And when I build something for one of 'em, and I send pictures to the other ones, they go, oh, I need one of those . So I tend to build things in triplicate when I build it for somebody.

- [Joe] Andy also sells parts and pieces he creates to other hobby builders as well.

- I make a little lift, car lift, that snaps apart into three pieces, tension fit. And that thing just sold like hotcakes until somebody manufactured one cheaper , you know. In China, of course.

- [Joe] The figurines and most vehicles are manufactured. However, all the buildings are handmade, along with much of their contents. This often takes some resourceful creativity.

- [Andy] It's a little piece of wire and a little piece of wood.

- With patience and the right paint, the inside of cardboard becomes corrugated metal.

- It's the only thing in my life I've ever had patience for. I am the most impatient person you've ever met in your life, but when it comes to my dioramas, if it takes two weeks, three weeks, doesn't matter. This is my bonus room.

- [Joe] He displays some of his more detailed dioramas up here, including this one of historic Beech Bend raceway, where Andy used to work as track announcer. Well, Andy, this brings back a lot of memories, and some people probably don't remember 'em. When I was a kid, we'd ride our bikes down and fill the tires with air at these type stations.

- And then of course, you've got the cars being serviced and a lift, and even an air hose, air line that runs around the shop, out the back wall to the air compressor, and you always put 'em in a cage out back to keep the noise and dirt out of the shop. There's even a removable balcony with all these parts I store.

- [Joe] An old tobacco barn behind his house is Andy's workshop, and home to even more of his dioramas, like this thriving Route 66 garage behind a sliding door. One of Andy's specialties is de-restoration work, that is taking a nice pristine vehicle and giving it decades of age and wear, even down to the rips in the seat covers.

- [Andy] I spend a time perfecting how to make the pumpkin and the transmission look dirty and grimy and oily, even though you don't see it when it's displayed.

- [Joe] Perhaps the most prized diorama is this abandoned Route 66 service station.

- [Andy] The idea took hold so hard I couldn't sleep at night, literally. I would wake up and think, how would I do this? In the front door that's boarded up, glass is broken, and you can see the remnants of an open sign. And on the back of the building, one of the boards has been pried off. The crowbar's on the ground there, the nails are sticking out of the board, and the door's been kicked open and broken, and kids have busted in to go drink beer and smoke cigarettes.

- [Joe] Have you ever calculated how much time you've put into these things?

- Altogether?

- [Joe] Yeah.

- I don't want to.

- [Joe] It'll scare you, huh?

- Yeah. I'd say I want those years back.

- [Joe] You won't get rich making detailed time-consuming dioramas. No, it's a resolve to further perfect the craft that keeps Andy Roderick going, along with those priceless moments of adoration.

- [Andy] I really enjoy when somebody really takes the time to look, and says, oh, there's a screwdriver, and it's even rusty, and each diorama, I try to go into more detail and challenge myself and do something I've never tried or done before.

- Okay, here it is, with nearly three quarters of a million hits, the most clicked-on "Crossroads" story. It's a story Tammi Arender brought us, all about a Nashville guy and his once high-flying homestead.

- [Tammi] If you're not expecting to see the DC-8 Jetliner nestled in the woods of Cheatham County, you can really be taken aback. It's almost like coming up on a crash scene, except this plane is intact, and the pilot is alive and well.

- Well, all I had to do was take the walls out and move in, basically, you know, and because you don't have to do anything as far as, the inside was just all there.

- [Tammi] Red Lane, a former airplane mechanic and now an accomplished songwriter, calls this jet home sweet home. Red actually found this DC-8 in Smyrna, of all places. It was one of only two places in the country that worked on DC-8s at that time, and to get this plane to Cheatham County, it had to be cut into pieces, and matter of fact, this tail section was so tall that he had to cut it off and it had to be laid horizontally. Also, it took five flatbed trucks to get each of these pieces to Nashville from Smyrna, traveling at a maximum of 25 miles per hour, and just during the overnight hours. It took him almost 28 days to get the plane in all totality to Ashland City.

- And when I got to Smyrna, this airplane was sitting out there, and they were taking it apart, and I'd ask 'em, I said, "What are they gonna do with that old airplane?" Because I saw a house with no maintenance, you know? And the guy that ran the place out there, he said, "That's what you need, Red. "You need that old airplane." Everybody laughed. Two weeks later, I bought it.

- [Male Voice] You are now free to move about the country.

- [Tammi] It is now safe to move about the cabin. Red furnished the fuselage the way you would any home. He built a full kitchen as a real bathroom. All fasten seatbelt signs have been removed, so you are free to eat, sleep, and play your guitar in the aircraft slash house. ♪ Parachutes ♪ ♪ And it said, jumping out of airplanes is the thing ♪

- [Red] You can't beat being surrounded by what you love, you know, and even if it's nothing but a couch and a chair or something in a house that you live in, when you get there and you close the door, you're home.

- [Tammi] Red has left some non-traditional decor intact. Not many homes tell you where you can find your life vest, and you certainly won't have to fight over a window or aisle seat, since the 177 seats were taken out. Red's dream of living in an airplane took flight years ago when he and John Wayne's pilot were introduced.

- His pilot and a friend of mine, Hank Cochran, the songwriter, got together, and I found out about it and I wanted to get one of those. I wanted a house that flew.

- [Tammi] Once he got his house that flew, he continued to write songs. He's had dozens of cuts by Merle Haggard, George Strait, George Jones, and Ray Charles, and many more. One of his biggest songs to soar to the top of the charts was John Conlee's "Miss Emily's Picture," which actually had a big impact on my life in 1981. ♪ Look out the window ♪ ♪ And what do I see ♪ ♪ Nothing but pain looking back at me ♪ ♪ And all that my future means to me ♪ ♪ Is tossing yesterday's love out into the wind ♪ ♪ And straightening Miss Emily's picture now and then ♪ ♪ And I wake up in the morning in a state of fright ♪

- That's almost gonna make me cry, 'cause do you know what, when that song was a hit, I thought that phrase, "looking out the window and what do I see, "nothing but pain looking back at me," that's when I knew I wanted to be a writer.

- Oh, really?

- I didn't know if I could ever be a songwriter, 'cause I couldn't play anything by ear. I could play the piano, but not by ear. But that's when I knew I wanted to be a writer. My head is in the clouds now, but Red's head is usually in the clouds. He and his aviating neighbors have even put on air shows for their relatives and friends in their residential respite complete with a runway. You either have to be invited to this gated community or live here and own an airplane. But if you are invited, the directions aren't difficult.

- Come to the bicycle and windsock and turn left, and I'm the first airplane on the right.

- [Tammi] While the DC-8 gives Red ample living space, he's also enclosing an area under the belly of the plane. This area is still under construction. He's using the landing gear as the center of the room and building around it. Red asked his songwriting friend, Tommy Smith, to build a very unusual fireplace for this area. It doesn't really have anything to do with flying, but it does have something to do with fire and ice. The fireplace is surrounded by two waterfalls, but you certainly can't forget that you're directly underneath a jetliner. It's that constant closeness to the DC-8 that keeps Red happy, because it reminds him of his favorite thing to do, and that's fly.

- It's kinda like flying around on a motorcycle at about 5,000 feet. You know, you got the cap and the goggles and the scarf and the whole deal.

- [Tammi] You look like Snoopy in the air.

- Hey, boy.

- [Tammi] That's great.

- It's a fun deal.

- [Tammi] Red is one of only five people in the world who lives in a jet. As far as he knows, he's the only one in the U.S. For him, it's about living the American dream with wings.

- I have never ever woke up in this place wishing I was somewhere else, never. ♪ But I can't remember ever being more afraid ♪ ♪ Than the day I jumped from Uncle Harvey's plane ♪

- That was great.

- Well, there you have it, the most clicked-on "Crossroads" stories, so far, that is. And you can click on any of your favorites on our website, TenesseeCrossroads.org, follow us on Facebook, and join us next week for one of our regular shows. See you then.