Smokey Mountain Breakdown

I think it was during one of our movie nights that he mentioned it to me. We were watching whatever Cyrillic subtitled movie offering of the week that Scott had brought over.

“You know, the guy who invented the Moon Pie is buried in Newport.” He says offhandedly.

I see him cut his eyes at me to see my reaction. He knows this is exactly the sort of tidbit that I live for.

“Really? What’s his name?”

“Dunno.”

“You know,” I say, “We must visit his grave and pay homage to his greatness.”

I’m deadly serious. The Moon Pie is such an icon of Southern culture that such a visionary should be honored. The least we could do was visit his grave site.

But first I had to do a bit of research. I found some text with the story of the Moon Pie’s history and the name of Earl Mitchell. Then I headed off to the local library to find out if it were indeed true.

I asked Meschelyn Barrett, the director of the library, “Scott told me something and I need to find out if it’s a 8,000 dollar hound dog or if it’s true?”

The hunters up here will often refer to their favorite hound dog as an 8,000 dollar hound dog…or whatever exorbitant price they think up. I’ve spoken with lots of hunters and they all tell the same version of the story. Some hunter from “outside” will admire their dog and offer 8,000 dollars for it. The dog’s owner will always say no, the dog’s not for sale. Then when times are tough, they’ll bemoan not selling the dog to “that man” who offered so much money for it. But that dog will forever after be known as the “8,000 dollar hound dog”.

“What happened to the dog?” I’ll ask.

“Bear got it.” They’ll sometimes say.

I’ve come to think of it as a euphemism of some of the tall tales I hear.

Not that Scott would ever, ever tell a tall tale. But I thought it best to check first.

And Meshelyn did indeed confirm that it was true! They held a tour of the cemetery and ended up at Mr. Mitchell’s grave and handed out a Moon Pie to everyone. She also told me where the grave was located.

So, yesterday, after having Chinese, we went and bought some Moon Pies and some RC Colas and tooled over to the cemetery in The Red Claptrap of Death and paid homage to Earl Mitchell and his wonderful invention. We toasted him with Moon Pies and offered a libation of RC Cola.

As we clattered off, I wondered what his life was like.