Possum Philosophy: Chasing a ‘bear’ of a story

One thing about writing for the Smyth County News & Messenger, you never know what’s coming next. I was sitting at home here near South Holston Lake when the telephone rang. It was Stephanie, my boss at the SCN&M, who told me to get off my lazy, well you can probably guess what, and hunt down the producer who filmed a movie in this area back in the late fall of 2006. Seems the movie has finally been finished and released, the Hollywood premier having just taken place and the local one coming this weekend in Abingdon.
Now one might think a busy journalist such as I would hardly be able to remember a movie he covered some year and a half ago. One would be wrong. First, even big-time newspersons such as moi don’t get invited to see that many movies being filmed. Second, this movie stars Glen Morshower, an actor I have seen many times in movies and television and who has a recurring role on the TV series, 24, as a straight, honest and brave Secret Service agent who does as we wish they all would. Third, the other big star was Brody. For those of you readers who may be a tad uninformed, Brody is a big, and brothers and sisters I do mean big, Alaskan grizzly bear. As in some 1,300 pounds of big old brown bear, rompin’, stompin’ paws-big-enough-to-rip-your-head-off, mouth-big-enough-to-swallow-it bear. Big bear… big, big bear.
My first question was how do I find Ms. Avery and company? Last I saw of them, they were planning to pack everything up and hit the trail back to L.A. the next day, and that was 18 months or so ago. So, I did what any trusty scout would do, I Googled her. All I got was an e-mail address, but I sent one hoping she still used that account.
After a couple of days, with the premier drawing near, I was growing desperate. I heard, or at least thought I had, that she and her husband had bought the old General Store in Alvarado, put in a deli and were catering to the many hikers and bicyclists traveling the Virginia Creeper Trail. So I hopped in the car and headed for Alvarado. Now Gregg Harris, my brother and I have fished there on more than one occasion so I should have been able to drive right up to the door of the store. I would have too if I hadn’t missed the first turn-off. I ended up wending my way through the countryside as I entered downtown Alvarado through the back door.
I located the store quickly enough, only one there as I could tell and asked a couple of fellows sitting on the porch. Thank goodness one of them was a local fellow who told me how to get to her house, which was, by the way, just down the road a tiny bit.
I pulled up to a beautiful home on the banks of the Middle Fork of the Holston River. It didn’t appear that anyone was home although a truck was parked in the driveway. My first thought was I’m likely going to get bitten by a big old dog. But no dog was there that I saw. I walked up on the porch and knocked on the door. Just as I was about to leave, I heard someone coming. Fortunately, it was Ms. Avery herself.
She is the antithesis of a high-pressure Hollywood movie producer. Although she was extremely busy, she was kind enough to spend a few minutes with me talking about the movie. Avery was the first to bring up that as movies go, Grizzly Parks was a fairly low-budget film. However, she also pointed out that even a film with a small budget benefitted our local economy by about $600,000. That’s a pretty nice piece of pocket change by any standards.
We both agreed that this area is ripe for film production especially historically themed movies. I told her how I disliked tremendously that the Civil War film “Cold Mountain” was filmed in Romania with foreign folks rather than right here in the heart of the Southern Highlands, where it was supposedly set. She agreed. However, she did enlighten me as to why such things were done. Money. The old “love of money is the root of all evil” stuff. Our region lacks people with the skills needed when making a movie, although Avery agreed local folks could easily learn the business. She also explained that movies made in this country usually pay Union scale, which is pretty fair wages indeed. She said someone who did something such as making wardrobes or building sets will make a very nice hourly wage in the U S, while in Romania these same craftspeople might expect to be paid less than $10 U.S. a day.
However, all other things being equal, if this area really went after movie production, our citizens would soon learn the skills needed and the cost of traveling abroad and seeking the type sites we have, authentic sites at that, would offset the higher wages and help a good bit with our local economy. This is definitely something for our community leaders to consider.
So this weekend I have been invited to attend a big, Hollywood style premiere. I have never been to such a gala affair, but who knows, an enterprising young country lad such as I might even learn to like this stuff. I just so hope that Brittany or Lindsay or Paris aren’t there to make a scene over me, Terry might just kill me and be done with it.

A freelance journalist, Robert “Rocky” Cahill writes regularly for the News & Messenger.