Murray makes a move…east

“Our life together…”

Dateline: Spring City, Tenn.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
~ Lao Tzu

I am several thousand Tundra steps down I-40 West at 70 mph plus the legal fudge factor.

It’s about quarter to eleven a.m.-drive time on the music pumped down from the sky.

At 70 MPH plus legal fudge I have the Tundra’s tire thump in beat with the music coming from the eight-speaker plus woofer in the cab: Martha & The Vandellas…”Dancing In The Street”  thump…thump…thump of rubber on pavement on the downbeat.

I’ve been ticketed for up-tempo a few times. Me playing “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” on the Jersey Turnpike is a fine waiting to happen.

Email buddy Phlash Phleps is on 60’s on 6 and has just answered some obscure geographical question that only he would know so I send him this email: 

“I am in Tennessee with GPS and I don’t know where I am, crazy man… headed to a small town somewhere between Knoxville and Nashville I think to do a story for tomorrow no idea about the area…”

And this is exactly what comes back from Phlash:

“I was just between those 2 twice in the last week…cool barn on the eastside of Crossville, Tn   it’s an iconic See 7 States Rock City barn just stopped to photograph it on Phriday.”

As long as Phlash knows where I am and what’s around me, life goes on, the dude is the best in the biz, he hits play on “Incense and Peppermints by The Strawberry Alarm Clock,” I back off the throttle to match up with the song and smile, I may not know where I am but I know where I’m going…

…Spring City, Tenn.…

…and Elite angler John Murray and his wife Amy’s, new digs.

The Murray’s have moved…east…to right here in Tennessee.

“…is so precious together…”

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
~Les Brown

Exit 347, rural America, radar detector flipped to high, music to low.

I get it now.

Not sure if I’m still in the Smoky Mountains or not but I see rolling hills and mountain tops, cruise control set to 40 mph, no legal fudge factor.

Soon I see this sign…Spring City…and some hometown pride.

Spring City, population around 2,000 or so, small town USA, downtown filled with America pride and a history that began here and became law across the country…if you are driving behind a school bus and it comes to a dead stop at railroad tracks it does so because of a tragedy that happened here…

…and a movement that made bus rides safer for all the children of America to this day.

Props to these folks here in Spring City.

I head over to the local chamber of commerce to check in mainly because of the way I look and the way everyone around me in a small town does not look like me.

I get it now.

Walk inside an old railroad depot turn a corner and run right almost dead smack into…a Murray…Amy Murray, John’s wife.

“db…”

Hugs and stuff and talk about how the universe lined up for that one since neither of us knew the other one would be here.

Back outside we go, “I’m running errands, db,” and as Amy crosses the street to go into her local bank I shout out exactly this, “So how do you like it here?”

And Amy says nothing back but does this, grabs the nearest light post and swings…you tell me from this photo how she feels about her new home:

 “…we have grown…”

“A time comes when you need to stop waiting for the man you want to become and start being the man you want to be.”
 -Bruce Springsteen

“db for the first time in my entire B.A.S.S. career I got to sleep in my own bed during a tournament…”

John Murray and I are sitting on a log cabin porch where he is now rooming with Skeet Reese and Brent Ehler during school days…

“…I got to go home and see Amy and my son TJ on practice day and that’s NEVER (his caps not mine) happened before.”

I’m a Murray family fan, if you haven’t heard much about John, know this, he is flat out a West Coast fishing legend, check out this story I did with him a couple years back.

The dude has won so many boats that he could qualify as a dealership by his own self…not to mention a boat load of awards:

I’m not sure what the official brochures say about all this but the fact of the matter is this here tour of ours is mainly a Southern/Midwest/East Coast gig. Sure every few years we head over the Rockies but for the most part we stick within a couple time zones.

Any Elite angler who lives out west gets his head handed to him when it comes to travel.

“I drove on average about 40,000 miles a year and that’s the driving and flying thing.”

Translation: We USE (my caps) America probably more so then you do. It is nothing for me to anymore pull my rig somewhere (mainly K-Pink and Kerry Shorts house in Arkansas) and drop it off and hop a plane home for a week or 10 days even if I have to rent a car at home.

All of us do it, we are long-term lot warriors: “db I’ve parked my truck and boat in airports all over the place to hop a plane and head back home, trouble is not so much renting the car locally but whatever tackle and stuff I leave in the boat is pretty much the tackle I have to deal with and use when I get back. I didn’t have the luxury or bringing the boat home and swapping things out.”

And for John “bringing the boat home” meant back to his hometown of Phoenix, Ariz. “I grew up there, was raised there, never lived anywhere else really…”

Until now.

“…although our love…”

“The secret to living the life of your dreams is to start living the life of your dreams today, in every little way you possibly can.”
-Mike Dooley

“My dream has always been to live on a lake.” 

Me too John.

“I was at BASSfest a couple years back over in Dayton, Tenn., and I saw how pretty the area was, how nice it was here in Tennessee so, so I drove around some and then went on the Internet.”

Two years ago on Father’s Day his Internet surfing paid off, “I saw this house on Watts Bar Lake, on the water, in our price range so I came out to see it.”

Turns out, that house wasn’t meant to be but…

“…then I came across another house, wasn’t directly on the water but had additional land with a dock that was, it was on a cul-de-sac which was perfect for TJ to play in, was in a nice neighborhood…”

And so he went to see it, when he walked through this front door…

…and out onto the back porch…

…this is what he saw (minus Amy standing there)…

“…it was perfect.”

Perfect enough to, “Sell the house I lived in for 50 years, my childhood home in Phoenix and move.”

“…is still special let’s take a chance…”

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“At first db to tell you the truth I wasn’t real sure about it, John had never lived anywhere else but Phoenix, I have, but you know it snows here, didn’t do that where he grew up…”

Amy grew up on a farm somewhere in the Midwest where it snowed, John, um, no, “…we went back to Phoenix for Christmas though db.”

John’s mom still lives there so it wasn’t a complete snow-wuss for John to do but then he told me, “We moved here and one of the first things I saw was this small, very small Christmas parade the town put on with like the Boy and Girl Scouts and vets, I thought to myself as I watched it…I’m home…db I thought, I’m home man, home.”

Back to the reason for the move…TRAVEL (both mine and John’s caps).

“This season the longest drive I have is maybe 14 hours up to Lake Champlain, when I lived in Arizona and came East it would take me 12 hours just to get across Texas and that doesn’t account for the hours in Arizona, New Mexico, Mississippi or Louisiana.”

Bottom line: “It gives me more time to be home with Amy and TJ, I now have a garage I can use for the boat and tackle, we have a dock, TJ loves to go out on the boat and it’s nothing to do that now…and I walk out my back door to this…”

Not to mention more time for the important stuff like this:

Right turn signal, click, click…

I-40 East up to speed plus legal fudge…

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida up full…

Fast lane passing cars to the beat of the drum solo.

Hey Phlash…where am I going next?

“…and fly away somewhere starting over.”
(Just Like) Starting Over
John Lennon

db

“Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page.”
Henry Ward Beecher