#counce

I’m at work, right?

I work at a bookstore where we have the books Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance and The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris on display by our information booth as they’re highly requested items. We are technically a Blue state but we have a high Red population where I live, so I’ve heard negatives by guests about both books.

Anyways, this is why you should never judge by appearances.

A man walked up looking very much like he would approve of Vance based on his appearance, and he was looking at the book and had it in his hand, and then he turned to look at me.

Now, you absolutely can judge by my appearance because I am definitely as gothy queer as I look, wearing all black and my death’s head hawkmoth shirt, dark tattoo visible on my chest, rainbow glasses, and buzzed and dyed hair.

This man holds the book up and goes, “You know none of this true, right?” with so much disdain in his voice. And he continues to tell me that Vance himself was not truly Appalachian, and just going off on how much of a liar he was who never really did anything.

So I see the opportunity. I’m pleasantly surprised. I say before I can remind myself I’m at work: “Well yeah, he’s been too busy with a couch.”

This man LAUGHED.

Like…out loud, echoing, startled laughed. He covered his mouth and near bent over with how startled and embarrassed he was, his face full of his delighted humor.

Pickwick Lake, Counce, MS Pickwick Lake is bordered by Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. It is a reservoir created by Pickwick Landing Dam built in the 1930s as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal to overcome poverty and the Great Depression. This is the land of electricity by water and the Tennessee Valley Authority. All along the Great Loop and of course at home, Nature has…

I once lived in Hardeman County, TN which is the middle of nowhere in rural West TN. The next county east, McNairy, was home to the PCA, Packaging Corporation of America, paper processing plant in Counce. When the wind blew in the right (wrong) direction it smelled like rotten egg farts. Horrible. I was told the people living in Counce either worked at the plant or had lived there long enough to be used to the smell. Ugh, after 11 years I still gagged.

I ran across a story by Rachel Stroop about forestry and it had some interesting facts about Tennessee and trees. 52% of TN land area is covered in trees and there are more than 120 species. I was told one time that due to 20th century forest management practices that there are more trees in TN now than ever before. I can't prove this, but it sounds about right. If you cut down trees you plant new trees to take their place, only makes sense, and makes them 100% renewable. West TN is mostly agricultural due to our proximity to the Mississippi River and the rich Delta soil. It's great for crops, they love the soil, climate, and flat landscape but his meant that farmers uprooted a lot of trees clearing farmland. We're still overrun with trees, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing like East Tennessee where the mountains are.

Counce has a linerboard mill, making the inside & outside of corrugated boxes. We all know them, use them, and are glad when Amazon delivers our orders in them. They're sturdy and protect products well. Ms. Stroop writes that the plant opened in 1961 as Tennessee River Pulp & Paper. This makes the plant and I the same age. We're both doing fine, thank you very much. I learned linerboard is made from pine trees; I would have thought hardwood since we have so much of it. The mill removes bark from the logs & chips the wood. Ever seen the movie Fargo? Yuck, but it showed a small private use woodchipper. The chips are broken down into pulp in a kind of pressure cooker. This is when the rotten egg smell comes about. The pulp is formed into the linerboard which is then shipped to a box plant and turned into the packaging we know. PCA has several plants in TN and employs around 1,000 people in rural areas that always need good paying jobs. PCA isn't the only paper plant in TN, Resolute actually makes toilet paper. Being close to the source of the trees makes the plant sites logical.

I'll end with a few statistics.

The Counce mill produces 1.1 million tons of paper each year.

Forestry contributes $24 billion dollars annually to the TN economy, that's 2.7%.

98,154 people are employed by the industry and each of these jobs supports 3 in other industries.

Not something I'd thought about until I moved to a farm near a stinky paper plant.

*I found this old photo (look at those cars!) in the TN archives and it's supposed to be the Counce plant. I can only take their word for it.*

Enchanted Rhythms at Paloma next weekend, house, techno, garage, breaks, electro etc

Line Up Hugo Massien (XL Recordings, E-Beamz) Elissa Suckdog (Cashmere Radio, REEF) Counce aka Jonathan Nash (West Wing Rec.) Enchanted Rhythms (Cashmere Radio, REEF, Operate)

Cheap door tax and don't forget it's a Sunday but isn't a school night!

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