Six Definitions, Zero Peace
By Tom Seest
At Sequatchie Crossing, we tell the stories of Sequatchie Crossing.
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🎤 Audio Overview
Emergency Session to Define ‘Temporary’
Act I – The Word That Would Not Sit Still
In Sequatchie Crossing, the word temporary had lived a quiet life for eleven years.
It had existed peacefully inside Ordinance 14-C, tucked between phrases like “portable display device” and “visual obstruction of civic harmony.” Nobody noticed it much. Nobody tested it. Nobody argued with it.
It was a good word.
A simple word.
And like most simple words in town government, it had been written by someone who assumed no one would ever read it again.
Until now.
By the time the Emergency Session of the Sequatchie Crossing Town Council was announced, the town had already spent two weeks in escalating philosophical distress over portable banners, inflatable tube men, yard signs, church announcements, seasonal promotions, and a casserole dish that had accidentally been labeled as a “temporary advertising platform.”
What nobody had realized until the third enforcement notice went out was that the entire ordinance depended on one fragile pillar.
The phrase:
“Temporary signage may be permitted under certain conditions.”
The problem was not the signage.
The problem was the word temporary.
Act I – The Word That Would Not Sit Still
Nobody agreed what it meant.
Which is how, on a Tuesday evening thick with humidity and unresolved opinions, nearly the entire town gathered inside the Sequatchie Crossing Municipal Building for what the agenda described optimistically as:
“Item 1: Clarification of Temporary.”
Mayor Calvin Pickett opened the meeting by adjusting his glasses and reading from a sheet of paper he had rewritten four times.
“We are here tonight,” he began cautiously, “to determine the legal meaning of the word temporary as it relates to signage within town limits.”
He paused.
The room was full.
Farmers. Shop owners. Church leaders. Retirees. One confused tourist who had wandered in while looking for a restroom.
And in the third row sat Boot Barnes, already leaning forward like a man who had opinions stored in reserve.
Mayor Pickett continued.
“It has come to our attention that the ordinance does not specify a time limit for temporary signage.”
Clovis Strickland raised a hand.
“Correct,” he said. “The word appears four times but is never defined.”
Clovis, as everyone knew, kept archival copies of town records in a binder system so organized that several residents suspected it might qualify as a second municipal government.
Mayor Pickett nodded.
“That is why we have called this emergency session.”
Behind him, the chalkboard read:
TEMPORARY – WORKING DEFINITIONS
Someone had already written six possibilities.
No one agreed with any of them.
And the meeting had not even started yet.
Act I – The Word That Would Not Sit Still
Act II – Six Definitions Enter the Room
Miss Darlene Whitcomb, town clerk and reluctant referee of civic debates, stepped forward with a dry-erase marker.
“All right,” she said calmly. “We will review the definitions one at a time.”
She pointed to the first.
Definition #1: Temporary Means Less Than 24 Hours
This definition had been proposed by a visiting zoning consultant who had left town immediately afterward.
Clovis read it aloud.
“Temporary signage may remain in place for no longer than twenty-four hours.”
The room reacted instantly.
“Twenty-four hours?” Boot Barnes said.
“That barely counts as a morning,” someone else added.
Mabel Dean raised a hand politely.
“My molasses muffin sale banner stays up for three weeks,” she said.
Sheriff Roy Peeler, sitting near the wall with a borrowed tape measure in his pocket, cleared his throat.
“If we enforce twenty-four hours,” he said, “we will be issuing about eighty citations before lunchtime.”
Mayor Pickett sighed.
Definition #1 was erased.
Definition #2: Temporary Means Seasonal
This proposal had come from the Chamber of Commerce.
Clovis read again.
“Temporary signage may remain for the duration of a seasonal event.”
Boot Barnes stood up.
“How long is a season?” he asked.
“Three months,” someone offered.
“Depends on crops,” someone else added.
A farmer in the back row raised a hand.
“Pumpkin season runs from August until Thanksgiving,” he said.
“That’s not a season,” someone muttered.
“That’s a lifestyle.”
Miss Darlene wrote on the board:
Seasonal = unclear
Definition #2 survived approximately six minutes before collapsing under agricultural testimony.
Act II – Six Definitions Enter the Room
Definition #3: Temporary Means Less Than 30 Days
This proposal came from Sheriff Peeler.
“Thirty days is reasonable,” he said.
“It’s measurable.”
Clovis nodded.
“Thirty days is legally defensible.”
Boot Barnes raised his hand again.
“So if I take the banner down on day thirty-one and put it back up on day thirty-two, what happens?”
Sheriff Peeler stared at him.
“You’re not helping.”
Boot smiled.
“I’m clarifying.”
Miss Darlene wrote:
Loop risk identified
Definition #3 was temporarily postponed.
Definition #4: Temporary Means Until the Purpose Ends
This proposal came from Reverend Gentry.
“If a banner advertises a church revival,” he said gently, “it should remain until the revival concludes.”
This seemed reasonable.
Until Clovis asked the obvious question.
“What if the event repeats?”
The Reverend blinked.
“Well… revivals often return annually.”
Boot Barnes leaned back.
“So technically that banner could remain up forever if you schedule the next revival before the previous one ends.”
The room murmured.
Miss Darlene wrote:
Potentially eternal
Definition #4 quietly slid into the same philosophical ditch as the others.
Act II – Six Definitions Enter the Room
Act III – The Debate Expands Beyond Words
By the time the meeting reached its third hour, the chalkboard had begun to resemble a philosophical crime scene.
Temporary had been defined as:
• 24 hours
• Seasonal
• 30 days
• Event-based
• Weather-dependent
• Spiritually motivated
None survived contact with the town.
Sheriff Peeler spoke again.
“What we need,” he said, “is a definition that prevents banners from staying up forever.”
Boot Barnes leaned forward.
“What if forever is temporary?”
The room turned.
Boot shrugged.
“I mean compared to geological time.”
Act III – The Debate Expands Beyond Words
Clovis pinched the bridge of his nose.
Mayor Pickett whispered to Miss Darlene:
“Do we have a rule about geological time?”
She shook her head slowly.
Meanwhile, a new idea emerged from the back row.
A retired science teacher stood.
“What if temporary means removable without tools?”
This intrigued the room.
Sheriff Peeler brightened.
“If you can remove it easily,” he said, “it’s temporary.”
Boot raised his hand again.
“My banner is zip-tied.”
Clovis nodded.
“That requires scissors.”
Sheriff Peeler frowned.
“That might count as a tool.”
Miss Darlene wrote:
Tool ambiguity
Temporary remained undefinable.
Act III – The Debate Expands Beyond Words
Act IV – The Expert Witnesses
At hour four, the meeting took a turn no one had predicted.
Clovis produced a stack of documents.
“I have compiled definitions of temporary from multiple sources.”
He began reading.
Dictionary definitions.
Legal precedent.
Insurance terminology.
Academic language.
Each offered a different time frame.
Temporary could mean:
• A few minutes
• Several months
• Until replaced
• Until removed
• Until conditions change
Boot Barnes raised his hand again.
“So temporary basically means not permanent yet.”
Clovis paused.
“That is… not incorrect.”
Mayor Pickett stared at the board.
“We have spent four hours trying to define a word that apparently means ‘not forever but maybe longer than expected.’”
Miss Darlene wrote:
Provisional conclusion
Temporary = complicated.
Act IV – The Expert Witnesses
Act V – The Near-Breakthrough
At hour five, exhaustion began producing creativity.
Mabel Dean suggested a compromise.
“What if temporary means ninety days?”
The room considered this.
Ninety days felt reasonable.
Long enough for sales.
Short enough for enforcement.
Sheriff Peeler nodded slowly.
“I could enforce ninety days.”
Clovis calculated quietly.
“Ninety days aligns with quarterly administrative cycles.”
Act V – The Near-Breakthrough
Mayor Pickett felt hope for the first time all evening.
“Does anyone object?”
Boot Barnes raised his hand.
The room groaned.
“What happens,” Boot asked carefully, “if the banner fades after eighty days and you replace it with a new one?”
Clovis stopped writing.
Sheriff Peeler closed his eyes.
Miss Darlene sighed.
Boot continued.
“Is that still the same banner or a new temporary banner?”
Silence.
The room understood instantly.
The problem had not been solved.
It had only moved.
Miss Darlene erased ninety days.
The chalkboard now contained only one word.
Temporary
Act V – The Near-Breakthrough
Act VI – The Meeting That Solved Nothing
At hour six, the meeting had become something else entirely.
People were no longer arguing about signage.
They were arguing about time itself.
A farmer insisted temporary meant until the wind took it down.
A business owner suggested until the next promotion.
Reverend Gentry argued temporary could last until a spiritual need had passed.
Boot Barnes proposed:
“Temporary means until the town complains.”
Clovis finally stood.
“We may be approaching this incorrectly.”
The room quieted.
Act VI – The Meeting That Solved Nothing
Clovis adjusted his glasses.
“The ordinance never required us to define temporary.”
Mayor Pickett blinked.
“Then what have we been doing for six hours?”
Clovis closed the binder.
“Debating philosophy.”
Miss Darlene looked at the clock.
It was nearly midnight.
She wrote one final note on the chalkboard.
Temporary = to be determined later
Mayor Pickett raised the gavel.
“All in favor of postponing the definition of temporary?”
Every hand went up.
The motion passed unanimously.
Act VI – The Meeting That Solved Nothing
Epilogue – The Banner Still Flaps
The next morning, the banners still hung.
Boot’s flapped beside the hardware store.
Mabel’s muffin sale sign waved politely beside the church parking lot.
The inflatable tube man outside Carl’s Auto continued dancing with legal ambiguity.
And somewhere inside the town ordinance, the word temporary remained exactly where it had always been.
Undefined.
Unsettled.
And quietly waiting for the next meeting.
Epilogue – The Banner Still Flaps
Disclaimer
The events described in this report are part of the ongoing fictional chronicles of Sequatchie Crossing, a town where civic enthusiasm often outruns administrative clarity. Any resemblance to real people, towns, or debates about portable signage is purely coincidental, though the philosophical difficulty of defining the word temporary is widely acknowledged by municipal governments everywhere.
Disclaimer – Emergency Session to Define ‘Temporary’
Real Places Behind the Ruckus – From The Dunlap Directory
Real Places Behind the Ruckus – From The Dunlap Directory
Yes, this story was fictional; even the parts that weren’t true. These places? Absolutely real. Stop by, support local, and keep the Wi-Fi away from livestock:
- Dunlap Building Stone
- 580 Tactical Training
- TN Waterfront Vacation Rental
- PostalAnnex
- Ketner’s Mill
- Omni Automation – Custom Business Solutions
- Domino’s Pizza
- Kubota of Chattanooga
- Pickett’s Trout Ranch
- U-Haul – Affordable Storage Guys
- TA Surveys
- Bleep Net
- NHC HealthCare Sequatchie
Real Places Behind the Ruckus – From The Dunlap Directory
At Sequatchie Crossing, we tell the stories of Sequatchie Crossing.
Please share this post with your friends, family, or business associates who may want help telling the stories of their legacy.
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