From Bickering to Banding Together

By Tom Seest

At Sequatchie Crossing, we tell the stories of Sequatchie Crossing.

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🎤 Audio Overview

At 6:03 a.m., the town woke up and chose violence—the polite, potluck kind. Coffee burbled, roosters cleared their throats, and somewhere a leaf blower revved like a philosophy major. Before boots hit porches, Sequatchie Crossing’s thumbs were already limber, stretching for their daily cardio: finding a person, place, or parsnip to argue with.

By 6:07, the “Sequatchie Speaks (Be Nice, Y’all)” group had three new posts and two dozen comments. At 6:11, Dewdrop & Dixie took collars on WSCX AM about whether biscuits qualify as a food group. At 6:19, someone set out a “Free Cucumbers” box on Maple, which was immediately mislabeled “Zucchini (Fight Me).”

And by 6:23, three citizens had typed “I’m not going to argue with you…”—the town’s unofficial starter pistol—before unspooling arguments long enough to measure in nautical miles.

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Morning: Warm-Ups and Opening Statements

Trixie Jo Bartlett, proprietor of Curl Up & Dye, unlocked the salon and flipped the sign to WALK-INS WELCOME (WITH CIVILITY). She posted a helpful infographic on the right way to load a dishwasher—plates facing the center, utensils mixed, glasses on top—then added: “I’m not going to argue with you, but this is the hill I will die on.”
Fourteen replies arrived in a minute. One included a medieval woodcut of spoons.

Clovis Strickland, binoculars permanently slung, wasn’t going to argue either, on account of being quite busy proving that the cell tower hum changes pitch when government satellites are feeling nosy. He uploaded a 47-second audio clip, then spent the next two hours arguing about microphones.

Mabel Dean Ashcroft took her coffee black as a boundary line and posted a PSA: “Please do not leave your trash cans kissing in the road like teenagers.” She finished with, “I’m not going to argue with you, but the Lord prefers tidy curbs.” Replies included a photograph of two cans clearly holding hands.

Boot Barnes, man of many talents and exactly one tie (loaner), announced that his new vintage-pie-slicer was superior to any modern contraption. He added, “Not going to argue,” which is Boot for “I am ready to argue in the parking lot and have brought graphs.” He had indeed brought graphs—pie charts.

Sheriff Peeler kept his powder dry but pinned a note on the bulletin board at the courthouse:

Friendly Reminder: A disagreement is not a crime. A lawn flamingo heist might be.

Reverend Amos Gentry scheduled a Bible study on Proverbs called “The Soft Answer,” which—without irony—immediately spawned a debate about whether soft answers should be warmed in an oven first.

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The Feed That Feeds the Fire

By 8:02 a.m., the town’s social feeds were a quilt of meandering quarrels stitched together by that one phrase:

• “I’m not going to argue with you, but casserole is just soup with ambition.”

• “I’m not going to argue with you, but if God had wanted four-way stops, He wouldn’t have invented roundabouts.”

• “I’m not going to argue with you, but the school zone lights do mean slow down even if they’re winking.”

Someone posted a blurry photo of the sunrise, captioned: Not going to argue, but this is better than yours. Someone else wrote a 600-word defense of the superiority of pears over apples, then insisted this was “just a general comment, not directed at anyone, Sandra.”

At the Butter Churn Café, Marla Sue slid plates across the counter like defense exhibits: biscuits (flaky), sausage (guilty), gravy (thick as a closing statement). Booth by booth, folks performed their rehearsed niceties.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” said one.
“Of course you’re not,” said the other.
They argued.

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Field Guide: The Arguing Styles of Sequatchie (Observed)

• The Velvet Hammer: Starts with “bless your heart,” proceeds to cross-examination.

• The Historian: “Back in ’97…”—then cites three unrelated events and a weather pattern.

• The Link Farmer: Drops five links; has read two headlines.

• The Onion Peeler: “I’m not going to argue with you, I’m going to argue with your premises.”

• The Diplomat: Agrees with everyone, causes two new wars.

• The Pie Chartist: Uses dessert to present data (Boot’s specialty).

• The Silent Sheriff: Says nothing in public, settles everything in person with a clipboard.

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Escalations: Porch-to-Porch

By midmorning, the online skirmishes leaked into the streets. On Hemlock, two neighbors raised voices about whether the new LED streetlamps were “too citified.” On Oak, folks clustered around a pothole with the respectful hush of strangers at a crib, then proceeded to debate the Roman Empire.

Outside Town Hall, a whiteboard invited public comment on the proposed “Civility Mural.” Suggestions included clasped hands, a dove, a goat giving side-eye, and the words WE CAN DISAGREE WITHOUT BEING DISAGREEABLE in a font that itself provoked disagreement.

Mayor Jody Teeter, weary but upright, stood between a woman arguing about pickleball court hours and a man arguing about whether “supper” and “dinner” were synonyms. He tried a soft answer. It ricocheted.

Across town, Glowrietta the goat—famous, luminous, slightly magical—tugged on a length of festive bunting someone had hung between two maples and proceeded to make the world’s most beautiful maypole in under ninety seconds. Opinions were immediate and loud. Glowrietta was unmoved.

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The Turn: When Life Refuses to Wait

At 1:17 p.m., the sky did that Appalachian quick-change: a slate sheet pulled across the sun, then a clattering percussion of rain. By 1:21, thunder cracked like a judge’s gavel. Wind rolled a lawn chair down Depot Street; it fetched up against a newspaper box and declared itself a sculpture.

A lightning strike popped a transformer by the old feed store. Power went out along three streets and the square. Internet hiccupped, then failed. Phones fell back to a single stubborn bar. The beloved, cantankerous traffic light blinked into a four-way confusion.

At the same moment, a semi carrying a portable classroom misjudged the low bridge on Mill Road and wedged itself like a cork. The bypass flooded at the dip. Ambulance routes narrowed to a single lane. Freezers warmed in the Butter Churn. The Civic Center had elders who needed oxygen and cool air.

No one had time to argue.

Sheriff Peeler snapped into his very best self—hands steady, voice ordinary:
“Alright, people. Work the problem.”

He pulled a roll of caution tape from the trunk and tore off a strip. With a Sharpie he wrote in big letters: ARGUE LATER and strung it across the courthouse steps, a bright canary ribbon over the hive.

Reverend Gentry rang the church bell—three slow strokes that meant come ready to help. Folks’ heads lifted the way they do when a mom calls your middle name.

Trixie Jo ran inside and printed neon job cards on the salon’s flyer paper—PINK for Food & Water, GREEN for Traffic & Transport, ORANGE for Elder & Medical, BLUE for Clean-up & Power. She slapped them on the whiteboard outside Town Hall under a hand-lettered header: “I’m Not Going To Argue With You—Here’s What I Can Do.”

Boot Barnes arrived with a bullhorn labeled “MEN’S TASK MANAGER,” a gag left over from the Corn Festival, and discovered it had a righteous second life.
“Non-arguers to the left! Argue-later folks to the right! If you have a truck, back it carefully! If you have a casserole, bless you!”

Mabel Dean rewrote her morning energy. “Trash cans can wait. Sandwiches can’t.” She set up an assembly line on her porch, slicing bread with the briskness of a marching band drum major, packing coolers like Tetris.

Clovis, who had used his binoculars for spotting misplaced UFOs, used them now to sight the shallowest run in the flooded dip. He balanced on the rusting rail like a lifeguard. “You got clearance for a Tacoma,” he called. “Not for that—no, that’s a shame, you got hubris.”

Marla Sue fired up a propane griddle in the dark Butter Churn and cooked by flashlight, the beam clipped to her ballcap. “We gonna feed everybody who knocks,” she said, and nobody argued.

Deputy Eula Mae recorded street closures on a legal pad, then turned the pad sideways and made a crude map. It went up next to Trixie Jo’s board. Three boys from the soccer team volunteered as runners. “Phones are spotty,” Eula Mae said. “Feet ain’t.”

Inside the Civic Center, Miss Opal fretted at the heat, her oxygen concentrator blinking amber. Boot’s bullhorn scolded a generator back to life, and Reverend Gentry’s confirmation class dragged orange extension cords like heroic spaghetti.

On Mill Road, the driver of the wedged semi looked two sizes too small for his problem. He’d been on his first solo, a Kentucky boy with a clean record and a lot of apology. The town put their hands on the truck like it needed prayer and physics—jacks, teeter, deflate tires, ratchet strap to a farm tractor, slow crawl, cheer when it sighed free.

The goat, Glowrietta, wandered up to the edge of the flooded dip, dipped a hoof, and sneezed. This was considered a good omen.

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The Work: A New Kind of Choir

For three efficient hours, Sequatchie Crossing worked like a machine whose parts had finally remembered their jobs.

• PINK crew packed sandwiches, water, and liters of sweet tea in coolers and handed them off at the curb.

• GREEN crew directed traffic with both authority and hospitality: “You’re going to turn left up here, friend—I promise it makes sense.”

• ORANGE crew knocked doors, checked meds, and fetched ice.

• BLUE crew moved branches, cleared gutters, and untangled a jubilant trampoline from a fence.

Every time someone started to begin a sentence with I’m not going to argue with you, they caught themselves and converted the sentence into a job. It wasn’t magic. It was muscle memory, the good kind, rediscovered.

A teenage girl named Zadie, hair like fireworks, used a Sharpie to draw a box on the whiteboard titled ARGUE PARKING. “Put your arguments here,” she said. “We’ll claim them at sunset.” She wrote the first one: BISCUITS VS. TOAST. People lined up, smiling for the first time all afternoon, and added: LED STREETLAMPS, GENETICALLY SMUG GOATS, ROUNDABOUTS, IS CHILI SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEANS, HOW MANY TIMES A YEAR SHOULD WE AERATE THE SOCCER FIELD, DOES A FREE CUCUMBER COUNT AS A THREAT.

Sheriff Peeler, passing by, nodded. “Good corralling.”
Zadie shrugged. “Better than corralling us.”

Boot found the semi driver leaning against a fender, eyes still wide. “First day,” the kid said.
“Everyone gets a first day,” Boot said. “You get two. Sequatchie special.”

Mabel Dean delivered a sandwich to the mayor with the solemnity of a peace treaty. “I still don’t like the font on your mural sign,” she said.
“We can change a font,” he said. “We can’t change a flood.”
“True,” she said, and handed him a cookie besides.

In the quiet of a powerless hour, the town became louder in the right ways: human voices, instructions, reassurances, the odd whoop when a solution clicked in. It sounded like a choir that didn’t know it knew the song.

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The Ease-Back: Sunset, with Repairs

By 6:40 p.m., the worst of it was over. The transformer was replaced. Lines hummed. Lights blinked back in the Butter Churn, then the Civic Center, then across Maple like a rising curtain. The air conditioners sighed a collective hallelujah.

The semi sat unwedged and chastened in the gravel lot behind the hardware store, waiting on a new route and a stern lecture from a map.

People drifted to the square carrying folding chairs, potluck bowls, and whatever had survived the afternoon. Someone brought a guitar. Someone else brought a badminton set and set it up over the painted “ARGUE LATER” tape, which seemed like poetry.

Zadie rolled out the whiteboard. “Alright,” she said. “Argue Hour. We promised.”
The town laughed, gentle as creeks.

Rules of Argue Hour, by consensus and chalk:

1. You must begin by restating the other side’s point fairly.

2. You may only use metaphors involving local produce.

3. If you raise your voice, you must also raise a casserole for the community freezer.

4. At the thirty-minute mark, everyone must switch sides for five minutes.

5. At the end, trade a compliment like a recipe card.

Mabel took fonts (inevitable). Boot took pie slicers (no surprise). Clovis took streetlamps (“I merely seek a spectral compromise”). Trixie Jo defended the dishwasher diagram like a closing argument that smelled faintly of conditioner. Sheriff Peeler moderated, which mostly meant, “Speak up, now hush.”

It was civil, then silly, then human. People said, “Oh, I hadn’t thought of it like that,” which is a cousin of apology and twice as rare.

Mayor Teeter proposed something practical on the back of the good mood. “Let’s formalize what worked today,” he said. “A phone tree for weather. An ‘Argue Parking’ board that lives at Town Hall. Volunteer crews with colored clipboards.”
Mabel suggested a Disagree & Donate jar for the food pantry: “Every time you say I’m not going to argue with you and then do, a dollar.”
Clovis pledged two weeks’ allowance in advance, on general principles.
Laughter rolled around the square. It felt like the tide returning.

Reverend Gentry closed the evening with a short prayer that was mostly gratitude for extension cords and the hands that hold them, for the gift of opposing opinions, and for the bigger gift of shared work.

Boot Barnes lifted his paper plate like a toast. “I’m not going to argue with any of y’all today,” he said.
“No, you’re not,” the town said back, and clinked lemonade.

Glowrietta, adorned in leftover maypole ribbon, considered the badminton birdie and decided against it. She had made her point.

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Overnight: The New Ritual

Sequatchie Crossing added a notch to its routine in the days that followed.

• The whiteboard stayed on the courthouse lawn, laminated against the weather. In the mornings, you could write your ARGUE PARKING items. In the afternoons, you could sign up for the colored crews—Food, Traffic, Medical, Clean-up—for whatever life delivered next.

• The Civic Center hung a bell on a rope by the door, with a sign: RING IF YOU’RE READY TO HELP.

• The Butter Churn installed a tiny shelf marked CIVILITY MENU: free coffee if you’re willing to listen first.

Arguments didn’t stop. The town never pretended they would. Opinions were oxygen. But they learned, in the condensed curriculum of one storm, one stuck truck, and one goat, that you can store arguments safely like jars in a pantry and open them at the table—after the sandbags are stacked, after Miss Opal’s air is cool, after the sandwich cooler is empty but you’re not.

“I’m not going to argue with you” didn’t die. It changed shape. It became a badge you wore to your own better self: Not now. Not until the work is done. Then we’ll sit and taste each other’s recipes for being right.

And more nights than not, sunset painted the courthouse bricks a polite orange, and somebody fetched the chalk, and the square filled with laughing voices choosing to argue—on purpose, with rules, and with room for the other guy to finish his sentence.

Which, around here, counts as a small miracle.

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Social Media Excerpt (Collected That Night)

Sequatchie Speaks (Be Nice, Y’all)
Trixie Jo B.: Dishwasher debate tabled during emergencies; diagram laminated anyway.
Boot B.: Pie slicer remains superior. Survived flood. End of study.
Mabel Dean A.: Today we packed 184 sandwiches. If you argued with me tomorrow, bring mayo.
Clovis S.: Streetlamp brightness adjusted 7%. Regrets to moths.
Mayor J. Teeter: Thank you, town. Whiteboard stays. Also, we’re getting a height bar on Mill Road.
Sheriff Peeler (Moderator): If anyone took my Sharpie, kindly return. No hard feelings.
Glowrietta (via fan account): 🐐✨ [no caption]

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Disclaimer

This story is a work of fiction. Sequatchie Crossing is a place that exists mostly in memories we wish we had and neighbors we hope to be. Any resemblance to actual small-town feuds, goats, or portable classrooms wedged under low bridges is purely coincidental but statistically plausible. No cucumbers were harmed, and all arguments were reopened at a mutually agreeable time.