A series of goodbyes: A bite of cornbread for the road

The goods from Cornbread Alley

The weather had been good for so many consecutive years, I forget what rain on the last weekend in April feels like.

2019 would not change that. From the moment I left Nashville, the crispness in the air told of another perfect Saturday in South Pittsburg.

I crossed into town around 7:15, having left Nashville at first light and not faced any challenges. Runners buzzed around the staging area, and an army of volunteers readied the business district for the onslaught of visitors headed their way. In less than two hours, they would line up for miles approaching South Pittsburg. At 7:15, there were plenty of spots a block from the festival entrances.

Only twice did I enter South Pittsburg without a cornbread festival in full swing. Once involved a wreck closing I-24 around Monteagle, another time we stopped for an ice cream on the patio. For me, South Pittsburg is synonymous with the National Cornbread Festival. The festival always falls the same weekend as the Country Music Marathon, which was the reason I discovered the Cornbread festival.


The year I gave up on the Country Music Marathon (2012) , I hunted for other races. I had to go five counties over from Nashville to find a race, but what a race.

At race time the air still felt cool. But leave it to the morning sun to scorch off any traces of comfort. Soon enough the sun blazed on the entire course.

Credit the race organizers for changing the race each year enough to be unpredictable, but preserving the challenges that make it one of the harder 5Ks in Tennessee. It’s the most consistently challenging race I have run, and the most consistent race I have run, this race my eighth cornbread 5K, besting the seven Richland Creek Run 5-milers I completed (2008-2014).

I never stay for the awards, knowing there was not a category for least improved time or most consecutive years running slower than the previous year. I finished, mounting the steep hill during the third mile that crests above Loyd Park one more time, descended and called it a cornbread 5K career.

These eight races span good running years and my poor ones. I only saw one person wearing a shirt from an old race, the 2013 edition with an anthropomorphic running skillet. Some of that owed to the technical running shirts issued the past four years, which have gotten me through any number of 5Ks, daily jobs and one half-marathon in Montana.

With the race time in the digital books, the business of cornbread awaited. It’s always Christmas morning kind of moment, waiting to enter Cornbread Alley, wondering what the local civic groups conjured up for the new year.

This might have been the best batch yet. I probably say that every year, but there was not a dud in the bunch. A few might have not been as exciting as billed, but I refused any disappointment. East Indian cornbread delivered a spicy payload of coriander, turmeric and cumin, while Rockin' Moroccan garbanzo cornbread balanced chickpeas, shredded chicken and cumin.

The dessert cornbreads really finished off the bunch in style. War Eagle cornbread gave little indication of what came next, but ended up tasting like cinnamon raisin breakfast cake, pairing nicely with the destined finale of German gingerbread cornbread.

I was full and almost hydrated. It seemed a cheat to leave the festival so soon, but the vendors were consistent, and I knew what to expect. So I retreated to the car and changed clothes.

But the day was not done. Heading home at 9:30 felt like defeat. The beautiful day tugged at me, and I knew what came next. I had few opportunities for side trips left on my calendar, so I took a right into Alabama.

Beyond a few nearby ridges sat Russell Cave, too hard to skip on a beautiful day.

I forgot how picturesque the Appalachian valley hiding Russell Cave is. The steep green hills radiating off the Appalachian Plateau hide numerous broad valleys filled with quiet farms, crops ready to burst from the tilled earth. I cannot do justice to how green this region southeast of Monteagle grows in spring.

Occupying just 300 acres of the valley and hillside, Russell Cave joined the National Park Service after the National Geographic Society excavated tons of artifacts and discovered the rock shelter offered some of the oldest evidence of human habitation in the Southeast.

Lizard at the Russell Cave visitor center

Having visited during a rainstorm in 2013, I was not prepared for the creek’s reduction to a trickle and separated ponds. It raged on that morning – anyone could hear the waters from the head of the boardwalk. Today it was as quiet as the still deer I spied upon arriving. In a field near the picnic area,  the patient beast stood watch, his plastic body heating up by the second.

I arrived just before a nature hike up the monument’s steep 1.3-mile trail. I joined a disparate band of hikers, and we meandered up the slope, our guide noting flowers and plants along the trail.

The trail had not grown less steep since I last visited. If the NPS’s Mission 66 program had not paved the trail, it might have been easier to traverse. It didn't matter. It was welcome relief from the 5K. Steep and leisurely we worked back to the visitor center. I chose not to visit the cave mouth, my mind stuck on the roaring waters of the past.

Next year there won’t be a sunrise descent from Monteagle, a drive into the still blocks of South Pittsburg, a wait for the 5K starting gun. The gun will still fire, and somewhere far away, I might have a stray thought about cornbread.

Maybe it will be my turn to fire up the skillet and concoct a few tasty squares of my own. After eight festivals, I might have a recipe or five dozen to pick from.

Russell Cave sign and the valley beyond