Where Outsiders Ain’t the Problem, But Explaining That Sure Is

By Tom Seest

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

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🎤 Audio Overview

Act I – The Welcome Wagon with Flat Tires

Boot Barnes reporting for the Sequatchie Crossing Dispatch, where the only thing faster than gossip is the Wi-Fi we keep pretending we don’t have.

It started, as many small-town scandals do, in the community center under the hum of fluorescent lights. The folding chairs were half-rusted, the coffee was half-burnt, and the mood was half-civilized.

“Everybody’s packing up and moving to Tennessee like it’s Heaven on Earth!” declared Clovis Strickland, thumping a mason jar of sweet tea like a gavel. “And they’re bringin’ rules with ’em! HOA’s! Recycling! They’ll probably want sidewalks!”

Daisy May Patterson fanned herself with the church bulletin. “You can’t have freedom with sidewalks, Clovis. It funnels the people too much.”

From the back, Sheriff Peeler murmured, “Sidewalks sound safer than Clovis’s driving,” earning a few cough-laughs that weren’t quite brave enough to be real laughs.

Clovis pressed on. “Next thing you know, we’ll have city ordinances about how long a rooster can crow before it’s considered a noise complaint!”

Mabel Dean, who’d been refilling coffee, spoke up in her steady, sugar-coated tone. “Well, one of them newcomers came by the diner last week. Bought a whole pie, tipped real nice, and said thank you kindly. Didn’t sound like tyranny to me.”

Clovis squinted. “That’s how they get ya, Mabel. First it’s politeness, then it’s Pilates.”

The crowd murmured in agreement, which in Sequatchie meant the room was now 70% sure of something false. A motion was raised to “form a Committee for Defending Sequatchie Values,” though nobody could define what those were. The motion passed unanimously, 16-0, with one abstention because Janine Blakely had to go check her casserole.

I wrote in my notebook: ‘Sequatchie Crossing now has a committee dedicated to defending what nobody’s attacking.’

The crowd dispersed, buzzing with satisfaction and caffeine. Outside, the mountains glowed with that warm pink hue they get when they’ve seen it all before.

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Act II – The Committee for Protecting What Nobody’s Changing

The first official meeting of the Committee for Defending Sequatchie Values was held in the church fellowship hall, under a banner left over from last year’s bake sale that read “Faith, Family, Fudge.”

Reverend Gentry called the meeting to order. “Let’s remember,” he said, “we’re not against outsiders. We’re just for insiders staying inside.”

Boot (that’s me) was assigned to take minutes, though I suspected they meant it metaphorically. Mabel Dean provided muffins, which immediately made her a suspect in some eyes.

“I hear those muffins came from a recipe off the internet,” whispered Daisy May. “That’s a gateway bake to cultural decline.”

Clovis adjusted his ball cap. “Now, first order of business: defining what Sequatchie Values actually are.”

Reverend Gentry scribbled ideas on a whiteboard: Faith. Family. Football. Front Porches.

Someone added Freedom. Someone else added Fried Chicken Wednesdays.

They debated for an hour whether “y’all” should be capitalized in the town charter, and by the time we adjourned, Sheriff Peeler had been accidentally voted in as “Chief of Cultural Defense” because he walked in mid-argument thinking it was the chili supper.

Then came Ellen—from Indiana.

She stood, polite as a library bookmark. “I’d love to volunteer some graphic design help. Maybe make welcome signs for the highway entrances? Something warm and friendly?”

The room froze. You could hear the squeak of an old fan turning through decades of suspicion.

“Welcome signs?” Clovis said, horrified. “That’s how they know where we are!”

Reverend Gentry cleared his throat. “We do already have a sign—says ‘Population: fluctuating.’ We like to keep it vague.”

Ellen smiled patiently. “I just thought—”

“That’s where you went wrong,” muttered Daisy.

The committee voted to “keep things as they are,” then immediately argued about whether that included Wi-Fi. Mabel finally adjourned the meeting by running out of muffins.

I wrote: ‘Committee successfully prevented progress by running out of pastries.’

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Act III – Outsiders in Hiding

Out on Ridge Road, life was quiet. The outsiders everyone was so worried about were busy not caring what Sequatchie thought of them.

Roger—the supposed ringleader—was an engineer who volunteered for the fire department. His wife planted wildflowers along the roadside. They’d donated paint for the playground and paid the roofer who fixed the church steeple after last spring’s storm.

They waved when they drove by, but that just made folks wonder what they were plotting.

Facebook lit up like a lightning strike.

“Outsiders spotted planting foreign flora!”
“Probably invasive species!”
“They’re gonna open a Starbucks under that barn, I just know it.”

In Sequatchie, minding your own business is considered suspicious behavior.

Clovis, acting in his new self-appointed role as “Field Investigator,” took to late-night stakeouts in his pickup truck. He kept notes on “outsider activity,” which mostly consisted of Roger mowing the grass and taking his trash out on Tuesdays like a radical.

One evening, while creeping down Ridge Road in the dark, Clovis tripped over a garden gnome and twisted his ankle. Roger found him groaning in the ditch and drove him home. The next morning, Clovis told everyone he’d been “ambushed by northern landscaping.”

Meanwhile, Ellen quietly printed flyers for the Corn Festival, which ended up being the most attended in five years. Nobody thanked her, but everyone took credit.

I wrote: ‘Sequatchie Crossing: where paranoia’s homegrown and imported goodwill is treated like contraband.’

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Act IV – The Revelation at Dean’s Diner

Saturday morning brought the usual crowd to Dean’s Diner. The coffee smelled strong enough to wake a possum and Mabel’s molasses muffins were disappearing faster than gossip after church.

Clovis, his ankle wrapped in elastic and pride, sat at the counter holding court.

“I’ve been investigatin’,” he said. “Turns out these outsiders are real sneaky. Fixing stuff. Donating money. Trying to make us look bad by doing good.”

Mabel slid a plate in front of him. “They’re sitting two booths behind you, Clovis.”

Silence. The kind that lands heavy as a wet biscuit.

Roger and Ellen waved sheepishly. The diner turned as one organism, somewhere between curiosity and guilt.

“Wait,” said Daisy May. “You’re the ones who paid for the playground repairs?”

“And the church roof,” added Reverend Gentry, arriving mid-conversation.

Roger shrugged. “We just figured it was the neighborly thing to do.”

Clovis turned red enough to stop traffic. “Well… you coulda told us.”

Mabel leaned on the counter, smiling. “You never stopped talkin’ long enough to ask.”

The diner erupted—half laughter, half relief. The town’s self-appointed sentinels suddenly found themselves grateful for the very people they’d been guarding against.

Reverend Gentry offered a brief sermonette right there at the counter. “Love thy neighbor,” he said, “even if their license plate still says Indiana.”

Someone clapped. Someone else ordered another round of muffins. The air lightened like fresh dough rising.

By noon, the Committee for Defending Sequatchie Values had quietly dissolved into what it always was: breakfast club with a superiority complex.

Boot Barnes signed off that day with a line that would end up tacked on the diner’s bulletin board:

“The real problem with Sequatchie Crossing ain’t outsiders — it’s the idea that somebody’s always gotta be one.”

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Mabel’s Five-Star Scandal

Just as peace returned, Mabel’s Diner found itself at the center of another controversy: a five-star review on Google Maps written by—heaven forbid—an outsider.

“Best sweet tea this side of the Mississippi,” the review read. “Friendly folks and pie like my grandma used to make.”

Clovis printed it out and stormed into the diner. “Mabel, you can’t just let strangers write things like that! What if more of ’em come?”

Mabel wiped her hands on her apron. “That’s the point of a business, Clovis.”

Reverend Gentry tried to mediate. “Maybe we should leave our own reviews.”

“What would we say?” asked Daisy May.

“‘Good food, but too many outsiders’? That’ll look funny next to the pie photo.”

Within a week, locals started competing to write their own reviews, each trying to outdo the other in homespun praise. One said, “Pie so good it made me forgive my cousin.” Another simply wrote, “It’s fine.”

Sequatchie Crossing’s Google rating hit 4.9 stars, which the committee declared “suspiciously high.”

Mabel, of course, just kept baking.

And so, in the end, Sequatchie stayed Sequatchie — loud, proud, and somehow always surprised when kindness comes disguised as a neighbor.

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⚖️ Disclaimer

The Sequatchie Crossing Dispatch is a mostly accurate record of entirely true events as they occurred in the collective imagination of honest citizens who swear they saw it happen. Any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental, except for the parts that aren’t.