Day 512: Joseph!

Fabulous! Energetic! Awesome!

We loved West High School's performance of Joseph. The star-studded cast included Molly and Faith!

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Day 478: Knoxify.com

Our neighborhood, Forest Heights is the latest neighborhood to be profiled on the Knoxify.com Neighborhood Guide. Knoxify.com, noted that, "Located just off of Sutherland Avenue, and just a hop skip and a jump from Kingston Pike, Forest Heights is right in the heart of Bearden in close-in West Knoxville." It goes onto highlight nearby amenities, including the Third Creek leg of the Knoxville Greenway system, the EarthFare/Kroger/Fresh Market grocery triangle, restaurants within easy walking distance. The look of the neighborhood is also celebrated, particularly the cottages, tudor styles, lots of stone accents. Plus, they note we have a wonderful neighborhood association. Here is more of what they "dig" about our neighborhood:
* an older home with tons of character
* a very walkable neighborhood
* a location right in the thick of things, surrounded by restaurants and shops
* something very convenient to downtown, UT and I-40
Read the review here (source)->

Day 429: Neighborhood Christmas Party

Our wonderful neighborhood had it's annual Christmas Party last Saturday night. We met lots of people and got to know several people better. And, I fell even more in love with our neighborhood. Two items of note:
1. There were several people in the neighborhood that have owned multiple homes. They have loved the neighborhood so much that they moved from one house to another. Meanwhile, several others have added on to their homes. There is certainly room to grow in Forest Heights, especially with our lots. Plus, our neighbors are wonderful.
2. Guess what was the primary topic of conversation?
The COYOTE!
Yes, a coyote has been repeatably spotted in our neighborhood. And, it seems to be injured, so it is likely to linger.
Seriously? Can this be happening? A coyote in the middle of town?
We have been told by wildlife officials to shoot it. And then we have been told that shooting anything in the middle of town is illegal. So, we'll see. Ah, the adventures of Forest Heights!

Our sweet little neighborhood.



More at www.forestheights.org->

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Day 383: Exit 383

According to my calcalations, October 18, 2010, is day 383 of my life back in Knoxville. Exit 383 is my interstate exit, when I am coming from West Knoxville and Farragut, back to "slightly less west west Knoxville, a.k.a. the heart of Bearden, where we live now.

Day 256: Golf Range Apartments

At the end of a long run, I took a stroll down memory lane today...
The Golf Range Apartment complex is located less than a mile from our new house. A property of the University of Tennessee, it was closed in May and will soon be converted to reccreation fields. This will certainly be a welcome addition to the campus facilities and to Sutherland Avenue.
But it is also a little bitter sweet for me. In 1983, my family moved to Knoxville. We planned to stay 2 years, for my dad to complete graduate school. Well, low and behold, 27 years later, we are still Knoxvillians. Growing up in university housing was an incredible experience, with friends literally from around the world right outside your front door. I loved it! As I strolled through today, everything seemed so small. I remembered the play area where I busted my lip and needed stitches. I saw building K were Valerie lived and building M, home of Bethany. In between these 2 friends, I lived in building L. L1 to be exact. As I walked by, I thought of marvelous trick-or-treating, girl scout meetings with my mom as my troop leader, and ball games on the notorious K hill.
Here's to Golf Range. My prayer is that the new rec fields will hold as many memories for future students, their families, and our neighbors, as these apartments did for me.

Day 241: Memorial Day on the Dead End

The only thing that could be better than our new home and it's welcoming neighborhood? And award winning BBQ society 5 doors down that cooks up a Memorial Day feast for neighbors and a couple hundred of our closest friends. Pull Pork, Brisket, Ribs, Chicken, the Dead End's Award winning sauces (Gratefully Dead is my favorite), smoked corn on the cob, and more! Wow, that is neighborly.
More about the Dead End->

Day 237: Savelli's

This is an overdue post about my new favorite Italian place, right in our new neighborhood. After closing on our house a few weeks ago, Brad and I celebrated with a wonderful meal at Savelli's on Sutherland Avenue. Great specials and classic Itialian family cooking. It is BYOB and the place was clearly packed with regulars. our waiteress had work there for 4 years. As she talked to us about the quality of the rich riccotta cheese they used, other patron stopped by to huge her and congratulate her on her college graduation.
Amazing food and wonderful people.
Savelli's

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Day 232: "The Marble City"

Here is what i learned today, about Knoxville and my new neighborhood (which also happens to be my old neighborhood circa the early 1980s).


The Marble City
The whole city of Knoxville was once proud to be known as the Marble City, and that phrase has re-entered currency just recently with the city's recent spiritual renaissance.

However, for almost a century, a stretch of Sutherland Avenue from Concord Street west to Bearden has been known as Marble City. The term isn't used quite as familiarly as it was 50 years ago, but the Marble City Baptist Church and Marble City United Methodist are both still there, right in the middle of that section.

Knoxville had a lot of marble industry all around the county, quarries on the east and south sides and even out in Cedar Bluff, which is named for a marble quarry. South Knoxville's unique marble Candoro headquarters, host of the annual Vestal festival known as Vestival, is still well known today as a historic site. By the 1890s, the city was making much of its "Marble City" monicker, as several businesses used the name, which implied some class and authenticity, and durability. The Marble City Hat Co., the Marble City Bank, the Marble City Fire Extinguisher, the Marble City Saloon, etc., all thrived about a century or more ago. It can be puzzling to historical innocents that they were all downtown, not in the west-side neighborhood later known as Marble City.

However, at the early 20th-century height of Knoxville's marble industry, several of the big marble companies had mills and warehouses on the west side of town, convenient to the Southern and L&N freight lines, in the vicinity of Sutherland and Concord: the Empire Marble Co., Grey Eagle, and the John J. Craig Co., to mention three, plus the Appalachian Marble Co. over on Middlebrook at Third Creek.

By 1911, the area just between Mechanicsville and Bearden was listed separately in city directories as a "western suburb" called Marble City. It included a county elementary school known as Marble City School, which christened the community by that name... read more here from the Metro Pulse's Doc Knox->

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Day 231: Big Fatty's

Last night I finally got to try the grilled cheese I have been hearing so, so much about. Our friend Janetta introduced me to one of her favorite places in our new neighborhood. She and Paul came for the fried cornbread, Brad was all about the fried chicken and potatoes, and Patrick went for a good lookin' poo-boy.

Yum. Yum. Yum.
And s close to home

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Day 214: Our New Home!

It is official! The future Fitch family has a new home. We are proud home owners in the Forest Heights neighborhood of Knoxville!

Here is a little history of the neighborhood from the Forest Heights Neighborhood Association Website

The heavily wooded, hilly neighborhood now called Forest Heights has been a stable, attractive, and desirable residential area for over seventy years. The present neighborhood is made up of four separate subdivisions - Forest Hills, Forest Heights, Highland Hills and Highland Hills Addition, bounded on the east just east of Forest Hills, to the south by Sutherland, to the west by Highland Memorial Cemetary, to the north by Interstate 40/75, and in its entirety was annexed by the City of Knoxville in 1960.

Although the earliest homes of the area are from the 1920s and 1930s, most of the building is of the post World War II period. The residents of this neighborhood were and are a diverse group of people who have found the location, the natural beauty and the friendliness of their neighbors an enticement to move here, to raise their families, and often to remain and welcome their grown children back as new homeowners in the neighborhood.

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