Nostalgia and the Great Smokies

Terry Teachout posts a lovely account of his recent trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee:

Nostalgia is incommunicable. Try as we might, we cannot share it with those who stand outside the magic circle of common memories. So I can't tell you what it really felt like for me to drive through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Monday morning, or to walk along the main street of Gatlinburg, the Tennessee resort town where my family spent several of its summer vacations some forty-odd years ago. Even if you'd been with me, you wouldn't have seen what I saw from the Sky Lift whose swinging yellow chairs look down on the town, or smelled what I smelled when I walked into the Ole Smoky Candy Kitchen in search of chocolate taffy logs. What I saw and smelled was, of course, myself when young, and you didn't know me then, back in the days when I was a nearsighted nine-year-old brat with close-cropped hair who wasn't any good at sports and spent all his spare time reading.

Read the whole thing.

[Spoiler warning: Teachout gives away the last line of The Wings of the Dove, in case anyone cares.]