Been hearing about a place northwest of Nashville, about 7 miles or so
from the Kentucky line, where the food report was good and the history
intriguing. While running some errands this past Friday, I managed to
catch Mom on the cell and talked her into taking a long lunch drive
with me through some beautiful countryside on a very pleasant fall day.
The destination was Adams, Tennessee (12 miles outside of Springfield on
Highway 41 North), which is a little town that's made a serious effort
in recording and preserving its history. The Bell School Building,
built in 1920, currently houses the Adams Museum and Archives, the
Adams Antique Mall, a Tea Room, and the
School House Cafeteria [
http://www.meatandthree.com/tn/schoolhouse/]. A nice history of the Town of Adams can be found on Pat Fitzhugh's web site by clicking the following link:
http://www.bellwitch.org/adams.htm
We entered through the side entrance, walking into what appeared to be
the old cafeteria from years past. As it turns out, this room was,
indeed, the cafeteria from days gone by. In fact, one of the ladies we
talked with said the room looked just the same as it did when she went
to school there a number of years prior. And, she was there up through
the 7th or 8th grade back in the day. The junior high school closed
around 1975.
Our fellow diners included a group of six elderly men who were
overheard telling interesting fishing and golfing stories (or maybe
"tales"); several parties of two; a couple of singles; and what
appeared to be a three-generation group of mothers and daughters. As I
looked around the room and my mind wandered, I imagined an energetic
bunch of kids, laughing, talking and eating ... and poised to engage in
what was sure to be the most talked-about food fight of the year.
I'm sure the decorations are a little different now, but there were
some school desk chairs at some of the tables, including ours. The
wood-paneled walls exhibited a country crafts style with seasonal
decorations dotted throughout An ever-popular black board
contained the menu options for the day, while a white board on an
opposite wall featured the dessert offerings. The eighteen tables had
green-checkered tablecloths covered with clear plastic - some tables
seat four customers and a couple of them seat larger groups. Across the
room from our table, the kitchen was visible through a regular door as
well as one of those counter/window spaces that I remember from my
early school days. It was just like what you would imagine an old
country school cafeteria would have been like, if you had never seen
one before.
Jane, our waitress, helped us with our orders. We both had fruit tea
and catfish - Mom selected the cole slaw, red potatoes and hush puppies
to go with hers while I chose white beans and red potatoes as my sides,
and managed both a piece of cornbread and some hushpuppies to go along
with my Meat and Two. It was really tough to push away and not try the
Fried Oreo Sundae, but the extra pieces of catfish that Sharon offered
to us, to make up for the small first pieces we received, sent me over
the edge.
Mom and I spent time checking out the Museum and the antiques after
lunch, where mom could not resist a nice frame she had seen on a
previous visit, which will house one of her own recent paintings. In
our conversation with
Sharon Cockrill, who opened the School
House Cafeteria about 4 years ago, we discovered some mutual
"friend-of-a-friend" connections, which is always interesting. Sharon
and her family moved to Adams six years ago, and fell in love not only
with the scenic locale, but also with the people and the lifestyle
there. The genuine smile of satisfaction she exhibited, while relaying
a story of neighbors helping neighbors, revealed the kind of place that
is sorely missed these days. You know they are still out there, you
hear about them, but it is nice to hear about it first-hand.
I can't say that I want to go back to the days when Mom had to take me
to school, but I really think Mom enjoys having the roles reversed
occasionally, with her son playing the taxi driver. Tobacco barns
smoking, yellow and red and orange leaves falling from the trees on a
mildly windy Tennessee fall day, and beautiful rolling hills dotted
with cattle and horses with woods and farmland ... that makes for a
nice, long Friday lunch "road trip" whether you are driver or
passenger. I guess, if I have to go back to school with Mom, going to
the School House Cafeteria in Adams is not a bad way to go. You should
try it yourself.
Remember … if you have a story about the School House Cafeteria or the
Bell School Building that houses it, feel free to enter a
reply/comment, because the history needs to be told. The story of other
Meat and Three's needs to be told, also, so shoot me an email and tell
me yours. The email address is
phil@meatandthree.com and I'd love to hear from you.
Thank you for visiting. Come back soon.
