Sometimes your loved one’s traditions become your own. My husband grew up going to his Great Uncle Johnny’s lake house in Tennessee. Uncle Johnny and Aunt Mary (whom I never had the pleasure to meet) would always invite Ryan up to his lake house on the Emory River for a week in the summer over the Fourth of July. The property was near the Kingston Steam Power Plant. He started going once his grandfather, Johnny’s brother, passed away when my husband was ten years old. Uncle Johnny wanted to include Ryan in the family get-togethers and treated him like he was his grandson. Uncle Johnny never did have any kids or grand kids of his own.
Other family members would join in the week at the lake including his distant cousin Ron (Ronny), Ronny’s parents Roger and Sis, and his brother Mike and sister-in-law Tammy. They would go for rides in Roger’s boat, water-ski, tubing, and also take spins on Ronny’s jet-ski. Often, Ryan and Uncle Johnny would just drive around and do nothing, a term they liked to call “piddling.” Ronny and Ryan would often take a late-night trip to get a slushy at Sonic, get gas for the boats, and get items from the grocery store that they wanted. Aunt Mary passed away when Ryan was in high school and Uncle Johnny later remarried to Lena.
When my husband and I started dating in college, I was invited to go to the lake too. On the fourth of July in 2006, Ryan and I drove the four hours to Tennessee and four hours back in one day just to be there for the holiday. Ronny was the only guest there that day and we rode on his jetski and saw the boat races at the annual Smokin the Water Festival in Kingston. It was a wonderful day and got a glimpse at what Ryan was so fond of about lake life in Tennesee.
The next year, we spent a whole weekend at the lake with Ronny. We would spend our days out on the water. Uncle Johnny and his wife Lena were so kind to us. We had so much fun tubing on the lake and riding on the jetski all weekend. Ronny was always so fun to be around. He was a kind man who was always up for a good laugh. He and Ryan grew very close over the years. A few months after our weekend visit, Ronny visited Ryan and we all went to see the Charlie Daniels band at the Freedom Concert. Ronny and Ryan talked and kept up with each other over the years, and we always meant to visit more often. Then, something very unexpected happened to the lake.
Bottom Left: Ronny and Ryan. Bottom Right: Uncle Johnny and Aunt Mary
On December 22, 2008, an ash spill at Tennessee Valley Authority plant in Roane County flooded the water at Uncle Johnny’s lake house. It was the largest coal ash spill in U.S. history. His lake property was ruined with ash sludge. Ryan’s dad owned the lot across the street from Johnny’s but had not put a house on it yet. His lake lot was also deemed unfit for use due to the ash spill. To learn more about the ash spill in Swan Pond click here.
The TVA bought out about 100 landowners near Lakeview Drive on the Emory River including Uncle Johnny and Ryan’s Dad. Uncle Johnny did not relocate to lake property, rather he bought a modular home in Rockwood, Tennessee with Lena.
Ryan’s dad looked all over for comparable lake property and ended up buying a lake lot on a different part of the river in Spring City, Tennessee. It is a small town that has one stoplight and doesn’t have a standalone McDonalds. (It’s attached to a gas station). The local grocery store is a small Piggly Wiggly and you have to drive 20 miles to reach a Wal-Mart. Spring City has grown on us. We now have a deep appreciation for the small town and what it has to offer.
In the fall of 2011, we found out that Ronny had passed away at the age of 43. He was taken from us much too soon. Maybe if the ash spill never happened, we would have gotten to get together with Ronny at Uncle Johnny’s one last time. We were busy with our jobs and life got in the way. Ronny will always have a special place in our hearts.
Ryan and I got married in 2013. A few years later, Uncle Johnny passed away. When our son Nathan was born in 2018, we decided to honor Johnny by naming him after Ryan’s Great Uncle. Nathan’s middle name is John after Uncle Johnny.
While I was pregnant with Nathan, Ryan’s Dad began construction on the lake house in Spring City. It was finally complete around the time Nathan was 10 months old. In April 2019, we stayed over at the lakehouse for the first weekend. The first of many weekend lake trips.
Nathan learned how to crawl during that first lake vacation. Must have been all the soft carpet in the living room! During another weekend trip, we took Nathan to meet late Uncle Johnny’s wife Lena. She loved meeting him and he loved exploring her home.
Every few months, we go to the lake house and make family memories. We love going there and now love sharing the love of swimming in the water with Nathan. We started a new tradition of taking porch pictures of the lake house. It was so neat to see how much Nathan grew from each visit to the lake house to the next. The last time we went to the lake house over this past Fourth of July, Nathan wanted nothing to do with the porch pictures. At age two, he is more interested in exploring than being held by mommy and daddy for a photo. He didn’t smile, but we finally got a decent shot or two on the porch.
Last year, we went again to Smokin the Water in Kingston. They no longer had boat racing but it was still a fun festival. This year, the festival was canceled due to COVID-19. We still had fun shooting off fireworks in the cul-de-sac and watching the neighbor’s fireworks from the porch.
We are going up to the lake house again in a week with our friends who have a boat and we will all go riding and tubing on the lake. I love making memories with my family at the lake house and in the water in Tennessee. Nathan loves going to the lake house and asks to go there almost daily. I hope he will always have a love of going to the lake. I’m excited to see what the future may bring for our family and to have him grow up visiting the lake just like his Daddy did when he was a kid.
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