Tennessee Week -- Tire Store Tradition

When I was an undergrad I took a history course taught by a tenured professor who was an acknowledged expert in the field of the history and culture of freed slaves in the antebellum period.  He taught several courses.  The one I took had some sort of prosaic title like HY-424 History of the Southern United States 1565-1860, but was universally known by students as “The History of the Old South”.

At any rate, on Friday morning of the third week in October, the professor showed up as usual and said:

Today, we will begin our lesson with some geography.  There is a very significant fault line in the southern United States.  It runs from an area northwest of Memphis, Tennessee, northeastward through Missouri and Tennessee and ending near the Kentucky/Illinois border.  The line is generally known as the New Madrid Fault.  This designation is in honor of the small town of New Madrid, Missouri, which was destroyed by an earthquake along the fault in 1812 and was ultimately submerged beneath the course of the Mississippi River, which was altered by the quake.  In fact, the earthquake was so powerful that for a time the Mississippi River ran backwards.

Geographic evidence shows that there have been numerous quakes along this fault throughout history.  Today, a quake similar to the New Madrid quake along this line would destroy Memphis and could cause significant damage as far away as Little Rock, Nashville, and Jackson. 

In many ways it is similar to the danger posed by the San Andreas fault in Southern California.  Some people believe that a powerful quake along the San Andreas might someday cause the State of California to slide off the continental shelf into the Pacific Ocean.  However, you do not need to worry.  Even if there is someday another major quake along the New Madrid Fault, there is no danger of Alabama sliding off into the Gulf of Mexico, because … Tennessee sucks. 

Roll Tide.  Beat Tennessee.  Class dismissed.”

And he gathered up his stuff and walked out of class.

Tennessee has a new coach who is an Alabama native, Alabama graduate, and former member of the Alabama coaching staff.  I hope we put half a hundred on them. 

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