My first visit to Gatlinburg, Tenn., was a 1972 "A Club" trip in the eighth grade. My most vivid memory of that trip involves keeping my eyes peeled for a certain ninth-grade cheerleader - a normal preoccupation for a 13-year-old boy, I suppose.
I also have a vague recollection of visiting the "Ripley's Believe It or Not" museum and being repulsed - in a delightful way - by an exhibit purporting to show actual shrunken human heads.
A few years later, in the summer of 1975, my Middle Tennessee family embarked on a mini-vacation to Gatlinburg, but I got sick in transit. My illness ended up diverting the family to St. Mary's Hospital in Knoxville, where I was relieved of a ruptured appendix.
While recovering there, I almost literally burst my stitches laughing at a sketch on "The Carol Burnett Show" on the 13-inch color TV in my hospital room. Pain meds and a post-op infection left me delirious for a time, and I remember my stoic father kissing me on the forehead as my condition briefly became dicey.
I survived the ordeal, though, and lived to take another family trip to Gatlinburg several years later during a college summer. By that point, I was a self-absorbed young adult and remember straining just to outlast the trip, while consumed by an intense bout of irritability.
In more recent times, my wife, children and I have visited nearby Pigeon Forge, home to Dollywood, on several occasions. Meanwhile, Gatlinburg's subtler charms of candy shops, kitschy souvenir emporiums, T-shirt vendors and all-you-can-eat pancakes had eluded us.
Until last weekend.
On Labor Day weekend, our family booked a two-night stay in a family hotel in downtown Gatlinburg. We were there for R&R and a two-day soccer tournament in which my 14-year-old son was a participant.
From the beginning, my younger son, age 9, was mesmerized by the wandering hordes on the main drag.
"Why are all these people here?" he asked, incredulously.
"Mostly for pancakes and fudge," I said. "And, sort of, for the mountains."
"Really?" he asked.
For kids weaned on Disney World, explaining Gatlinburg is a bit of a stretch.
"Who is that woman on all the Dollywood billboards?" asked a member of my older son's soccer team.
"That would be Dolly Parton," my son answered, somewhat sarcastically.
"Dolly Apartments?" his friend said.
A few minutes later, my 14-year-old quizzed me about a store we passed advertising wedding sets for $19.99.
"What's a wedding set?" he asked.
"It's like a wedding ring," I explained.
"Oh, is $19.99 a good price for a wedding ring?" he said.
"I wouldn't recommend it," I said.
Meanwhile, my younger son, a car nut, honed in on the Hollywood Star Cars Museum in Gatlinburg. After negotiation for the senior discount for myself, I agreed to buy tickets so he could see the Lamborghini he had spotted inside.
Among the movies and TV shows he had never heard of were "The Munsters," "Back to the Future," "Ghostbusters" and "Smoky and the Bandit." On the other hand, he was instantly drawn to an Aston Martin he correctly identified from the Fast and Furious movies.
I told him that he could pick out one other attraction to visit while we were in the Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge area, and he chose to ride go-carts. So, on our way home Sunday afternoon, we looked for a place to stop. At the first go-cart raceway, he was determined to be an inch too short to drive. At the next he was deemed six weeks too young. Drat!
Desperately disappointed, he began to cry and I bent over to kiss him on the forehead.
Eventually, our travel party found a track where our son made the cut, but I imagine he will remember the earlier disappointment more than the eventual "thrill."
I suppose I will continue to associate trips to Gatlinburg with family drama, discovery and forehead kisses - with a few laughs sprinkled in for comic relief.
Come to think of it, that's that's a good capsule summary of life.
That, and an occasional plate of pancakes.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.