Episode 3708

- [Presenter] "Tennessee Crossroads" is made possible in part by.

- I'm Tennessee Tech President Phil Oldham, here in Cookville, Tennessee's college town, we are bold, fearless, confident, and kind. Tech prepares students for careers by making everyone's experience personal. We call that living wings up. Learn more at tntech.edu.

- [Speaker] Averitt's Tennessee Roots run deep. They've been delivering logistics solutions here for over 50 years. And though Averitt's reach now circles the globe, the Volunteer State will always be home. More at averitt.com.

- [Instructor] Discover Tennessee Trails and byways. Discover Tennessee's adventure, cuisine, history, and more made in Tennessee experiences showcased among these 16 driving trails. More at tntrailsandbyways.com.

- This time on "Tennessee Crossroads," we discover some top chef barbecue in the home of Jack Daniels, then meet a national artist who's covering the town, with her murals, we'll discover how a Robertson County man's hobby turned into a furniture making profession. And a flashback to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. Hi everyone, I'm Joe Elmore, it's time for "Tennessee Crossroads" and I'm glad you're here. Our first story takes us to the home of the world's most famous whiskey. Well, Cindy Carter didn't travel to Lynchburg for distilled spirits, but your spirits might be lifted when you see the barbecue she discovered there.

- [Reporter] All aboard. Today's destination, Lynchburg, Tennessee, as we ride the rails to some really great barbecue at the Barbecue Caboose Cafe.

- Well, thanks for being here. Good to have y'all.

- [Reporter] You'll know when you arrive, a warm greeting and the distinctive smell of barbecue await all who buy a ticket.

- I love seeing the people come in, have a good time, smiles on their face. It's great.

- [Reporter] Owner, Lori Frame wanders from customer to customer, making small talk and talking up all the menu items that make the Barbecue Caboose a favorite spot for locals, tourists, friends and family.

- Got your usual Red Band Swirls?

- Yeah, very good.

- Yeah, good deal.

- [Reporter] Lori and her husband took ownership of the cafe in 2022. Her father Ken Fly, started the restaurant decades prior. No brick and mortar back then. Just a wagon parked on the town square and some recipes.

- And on the square when we put it over here, we pretty much knew what we were doing and built a pretty good business doing that.

- [Reporter] Eventually Ken took his business inside, serving up what he calls special stuff like barbecue sausage and ribs, which is what they were pulling off the smoker when we arrived.

- Barbecue caboose, it's got red beans and rice and jambalaya and exceptionally good ribs and pork barbecue, so baked beans and coleslaw's all made right here, so it's all special.

- [Reporter] Pulled pork, smoked chicken, even barbecue pizza, dessert? No problem. Lisa's got you covered.

- [Lisa] I make the desserts. We have a pecan pie, fudge pipe, red pudding, lemon pies.

- [Reporter] And not surprisingly, many of the recipes prepared in the Caboose kitchen come from within Lori's family. Something Lori believes sets them apart.

- Got the favorite pig night?

- Yeah.

- It's good stuff.

- It's so good.

- Well, enjoy.

- The Jack Daniels distillery is less than a quarter mile away and certainly whiskey and barbecue go great together. But the Caboose was designed to be its own destination, independent of, you know who.

- [Owner] But the idea of having Jack Daniels be in our draw was not the point. The point was to have the Barbecue Caboose be a draw and have it be its own tourist destination. And so that's kind of what we work for. ♪ Hey you put the blue right one me ♪

- [Reporter] Ken and now Lori have also worked to create a strong presence in this community. Bringing music on board is a big part of that. In fact, live music has been a part of this operation since Ken started working out of his old wagon.

- We had music and barbecue for years and that was primary really because we've always played music, always liked music. And we've had live music. We've had live music for years, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.

- [Reporter] If you happen to glance up, you'll see the little engine that chugs round the dining room, look more closely, and you'll also see signatures from hundreds of customers who've stopped by the Caboose over the years.

- A guy from Memphis came in here and sit down and he said, "Hey, you run this place?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "That's best red beans and rice and barbecue, I ever eaten." I said, "Where you from?" He said, "Memphis." I said, "Sit right there, don't move." I went back to the kitchen, I cut the top off a pizza box and I put the best I ever ate on there and laid it on the table. He said, I'll sign that. So he did. And I put it up on a wall and people started signing it. And that's where it all came from.

- [Reporter] And it all just seems to come together at the Barbecue Caboose Cafe, small town, home cooking, good Tennessee barbecue and music, and the magic touch of a family committed to making this trip worth the ride.

- [Customer] Great service, great food, great atmosphere, just the whole package

- [Owner] When they walk in the door, they're the most important person in the building. They need to know that they're welcome and know what we got and feel like they're gonna have a good experience.

- Thanks, Cindy. If you take a walk or drive through the streets of Nashville, you're very likely to see some of the murals that seem to pop up everywhere. Well, in our next story, Miranda Cohen introduces us to a young mural artist, one who's hard at work decorating Music City with their colorful creations.

- I think I've always loved painting and drawing my entire life. It was definitely my favorite activity in school and in high school I started kind of getting serious about it.

- [Miranda] Tess Davies is tucked away in her Nashville loft, carefully blending colors and painting images on a canvas that only a true artist can imagine. A Nashville native and a graduate of Sewanee: The University of the South. She appears to be blending fragile, exotic colors in her refined style of art, but in truth she is using something much more common and accessible.

- I guess I'm so used to using house paint now and exterior paint and spray paint that I've incorporated that into my studio work as well. So it's kind of, it all sort of melds together now.

- [Miranda] In one of her many studio styles, Davies will use everyday exterior paint to carefully paint delicate details of interior rooms which conjure up memories of her childhood.

- I was the "Barbie" generation, so I had to make everything pink because that's the color I think of when I think of my childhood. So yeah, that series is just, it's about home and comfort and confinement and a little bit also about isolation and loneliness because they're all empty rooms. So I think thematically they kind of tie into everything else that I'm doing.

- [Miranda] Expecting her first child with husband Barton Davies, also a local Nashvillian and a member of the band Boy named Banjo. It was her love of people and feeling of isolation during the pandemic that caused her to start thinking of both her art and her impact on her community on a much larger scale.

- [Tess] So those pieces kind of came as a result of COVID. We complained about Nashville's growth a little bit and crowds and traffic and everything else. And then you started to miss those things. So those pieces specifically speak to that. And, not taking for granted, closeness and togetherness.

- [Miranda] The faceless people coming together to share and to be close, the blending of color and texture, fluidly interacting to reflect the feel of community that we all so desperately missed. That is when Davies began to think bigger on a larger scale and to make broader strokes, both on her canvas and on her beloved hometown. So she began painting murals.

- I did a lot of interior walls with hotels and restaurants around town, and a few exterior walls with Metro and I've done some apartment buildings, so it's just kind of all over the map. I think the biggest one I've done is seven stories. And when I was working on it, you're right up against the wall, so you don't really appreciate the scale. But now looking back, I'm like, wow, that was a big wall. So it's cool. I like being able to see it and pass by it. It's fun to see the expansion that's happening with our city and developers that are coming in from other cities. They do want to make spaces that feel like Nashville. It's been exciting. I definitely have loved being able to put my mark on it as it's grown

- [Miranda] From her smaller in studio works, to her pieces soaring over the skyline of Music City, Davies likes to color outside of the lines and hopes her art will mimic the ever-evolving landscape of Nashville.

- But I never want to settle on one style. I like to just continue to challenge myself and switch it up and change my style and change the subject matter so that I'm never too comfortable in what I'm doing.

- By the way, good news, Tess, just welcomed a new artist into the family and of course we offer our congratulations. How does a hobby become a full-time profession? Well, usually with a heavy dose of passion. That's the way it was for a young man in Robertson County who always loved making furniture with both new and old wood. Now partnered with an old school chum, Kirk Chaffin is living the dream so to speak, one board at a time.

- They're wanting something that is made out of solid wood. They're not wanting to buy something that's cheap, particle board, shipped from overseas, whatever they want something that has a story with it. It's almost like they're creating their own piece of what they want. We are just the hands that do it.

- [Narrator] It all started in 2011 when Chris Chaffin and her friend began crafting Adirondack chairs for family and friends using local reclaimed barnwood. Before long that hobby evolved into the Orlinda Furniture Company. Now located in a 2,500 square foot freestanding facility. After his co-founder Harris Green left the business, well, Curtis was in need of a partner who shared his passion and philosophy. That person turned out to be his old high school chum, Chris Newberry.

- Well, I've always been good with my hands, taking stuff apart, putting it back together. I've always loved creating, I've always loved seeing the finished product, the feeling of satisfaction. There's no other comparison.

- I was looking for a business partner and I asked him and he jumped all over it. He was ready to go.

- [Narrator] Every day is different here in the shop, often with several pieces in the works simultaneously. For years, Curtis and company would tear down old barns themselves to salvage the wood. But times and trends have changed to make things more efficient.

- Our time is better spent in shop. So as far as that goes, people bring us the lumber, we'll buy the lumber and stuff. But when we first started, the reclaim part was big. And now we're starting to see the pieces of furniture that we do are kind of more your new wood, your walnuts and new poplar and things like that. It's still there. The repurpose reclaimed kind of look is still there but you can kind of see it slowly fading out.

- [Narrator] The first step in most projects is cutting the wood to length. That is, unless it's reclaimed wood.

- First, it's denailing, which is very aggravating. So you gotta get all the nails out. You do the best you can but sometimes you do miss some and you'll find them when you run it through the planer or the table saw. Just depending on what the client is looking for, we can run it through the planer. We can take all that rough off of it 'cause with the barnwood there's an inner beauty to it. Everybody sees something that looks like it ought to be thrown in fire and discarded. But when you run it through the planer that material is so pretty. It's got so much character to it, different coloration to it.

- [Narrator] After trimming the edges straight on a table saw they often use a good old fashioned hand planer to finish the job. The job in this case will result in a new table.

- This is going to be like a corner table. So this is the top to the table. And what we've done is we've run all it, was reclaimed material. So we've run it all through the planer, straight edged it and now we've got it in the glue up process. Here in a couple more days, we'll have some legs on it and a drawer and sending it out the door.

- [Narrator] Despite having state-of-the-art equipment this is the only way to create a fireplace mantle with that now popular Rough Hume look.

- We're buying, just sawed out Pine Lumber six by eight. And what we do with it is we will chop it out and give it the appearance of a hand hue log. So it looks old, but it's new wood made to look old is kind of what it is. But we chop 'em out. They got a hand Hume look to 'em and kind of a free floating mantle.

- [Narrator] Curtis and Chris can create just about anything made with wood, including custom cabinets, counters, sliding doors, and well, you name it. Oh, and the Adirondack chairs that started it all, they're still a mainstay, now in two styles.

- There's the traditional style and then we do a set that's done out of tobacco sticks. And that's really unique to the Adirondack kind of look is just those tobacco sticks but they can be made out of anything. Most of it of our Adirondack sets are done out of the reclaimed wood. But these are these over here, those are new Poplar.

- [Narrator] A philosopher once said, "Ambition is enthusiasm with a purpose." Curtis Chaffin had a growing enthusiasm for creating with wood, now working with his childhood friend, Chris Newberry, a shared purpose unfolds each day at the Orlinda Furniture Company.

- The best part about it for me, is when I get to see the finished product and I get to see the customer enjoy that product for the lifetime and to see the look on their faces when they receive it. Nothing like it.

- And we're having a good time. We got big plans for later down the road and we just going to keep riding this train.

- Well, finally we take a look back at a story we did about 30 years ago. That's when Janet Tyson visited Huntsville, Alabama for a look behind the scenes at Space Camp. By the way, the astronaut trainees you're about to see could be grandparents to little astronauts by now.

- The father of modern rocketry, Dr. Warner Von Brown was also the father of US Space and Rocket Center. But his vision didn't stop there. One day while touring the facility, he noticed the excitement and the enthusiasm of the children. He remarked to a colleague, we have camp for football, cheerleading, music, why not Space Camp? We could inspire children to study math, science, technology and so US Space Camp was launched. Only 700 youngsters attended the first US Space Camp in 1982. Now over 20,000 kids come here each year bringing their dreams of becoming tomorrow's astronauts, pilots and scientists for the grownups who watch today's astronauts with envy, there's Adult Space Camp now the two age groups can work together. Matthew and I began our space adventure with check-in at Habitat, the futuristic dormitory that gives the feeling of living and working in a space station. At opening orientation, we joined five other parent child teams to form the BDM mission team named for one of many aerospace corporations that sponsor Space Camp. Our team leader, Tracy Tucker, briefed us on our goal for the weekend to fly a smooth successful space shuttle mission. We were assigned positions on the flight crew.

- [Instructor] Mission specialist one, Matthew Johnson.

- [Narrator] The training floor is the center for hands-on experience with some of the actual equipment used by the astronauts. Our team rehearsed on the mock-up of mission control and the scale model of the Columbia's cockpit. Instructors checked out each crew member on the equipment they'd use during the flight.

- This is the STS 'cause that's the external tank, the left and right solid rock and main engines, one, two, and three.

- [Narrator] Specially designed simulators like the Space Station Mobility Trainer recreate weightlessness. The microgravity chair simulates one-sixth earth gravity for a walk on the moon, floating on pads of air, this chair shows the five degrees of freedom during a spacewalk. The true test of courage comes on the multi-axis chair that spins simultaneously on three axes. It's a threat to some, a thrill to others. But it's not all fun in space games. There's serious instruction here. Trainees study the complex technology of the space shuttle. The Space Center Museum becomes the classroom for learning about space science. The principles of modern rocketry unfold as each trainee builds a model rocket.

- Just put your launch log right above the fans straight across from the engine mount.

- [Group] Three, two, one, lift off.

- [Narrator] But the moment every shuttle team member lives for is the mission into space.

- [Operator] Good luck, Godspeed.

- [Handler] All systems are go.

- [Operator] Roger, all systems ready.

- [Narrator] As mission specialists, Matthew and I aggress the orbiter for our EVA, extra vehicular activity. We become the astronauts who walk in space to repair the orbiter or deploy its payload. All too soon, it's time to return to the Blue Planet.

- [Narrator] At graduation, trainees receive individual recognition for meeting the challenges of the weekend. For the team leaders like Tracy, there's a special reward.

- I can look out there and see this mom and son or dad and daughter and see the smiles on their faces and the little glisten in their eyes that they have experienced something that a lot of people don't get to experience and the happiness that they've done something together they can say this was their accomplishment together.

- [Narrator] These kids may earn their first wings at Space Camp but for many of them they won't be the last. Someday whole families may move skyward to settle our new frontier, perhaps from these parent-child teams may come just those families with the right stuff.

- Well, that brings us to the close of another "Tennessee Crossroads." But hey, don't forget about our website, tennesseecrossroads.org. And that's where you can find the PBS app to watch your favorite shows anywhere, anytime. Oh, and please join us next week, we'll see you then.

- [Presenter] "Tennessee Crossroads" is made possible in part by.

- I'm Tennessee Tech President Phil Oldham here in Cookville, Tennessee's college town, we are bold, fearless, confident, and kind. Tech prepares students for careers by making everyone's experience personal. We call that living wings up. Learn more at tntech.edu.

- [Speaker] Averitt's Tennessee roots run deep. They've been delivering logistics solutions here for over 50 years. And though Averitt's reach now circles the globe, the Volunteer State will always be home. More at averitt.com.

- [Instructor] Discover Tennessee Trails and Byways. Discover Tennessee's adventure, cuisine, history, and more made in Tennessee experiences showcased among these 16 driving trails. More at tntrailsandbyways.com.