A tale tenuously tethered to the Fair
by Scott McNutt
June 1982. The country was in a severe recession. War was brewing between Great Britain and Argentina over some undistinguished piles of rocks in the middle of the ocean called the Falkland Islands. The FBI was probing incidents of Congressmen having sex with underage pages. Israel refused to withdraw its forces from Lebanon despite PLO leader Yasser Arafat's insistence he was willing to negotiate terms. Destined-to-Become-Classics like Porky's and Conan the Barbarian were in the movie theaters. That stupendous ode to integration, "Ebony and Ivory," warbled from every radio. And Knoxville had a World's Fair.
The following story has nothing to do with any of that.
Well, marginally it has to do with the World's Fair. I lived in Knoxville, but I never went to the Fair. Friends from that era whom I contacted for personal reminisces of the Fair either did not respond or offered some vague references to drinking beer at the Strohaus. So, for lack of better, this is my World's Fair story.
That June, our first summer break after our first year at UT, most of my friends were living back home in Oak Ridge with their folks, because, well, because that was what you did on your first summer break after your first year in college. So one night in June, I and my small cadre of friends—Steve, Tony, Jim, Scott (a different Scott; you did know we come in an assortment of flavors, didn't you?)—were at a party in Oak Ridge. And somebody got the bright idea that we should go steal some of the flags representing nations participating in the Fair from Oak Ridge's shopping center.
Back then, the shopping center wasn't a mall, just a big U-shaped grouping of stores with a huge parking lot in the middle. The flags were on some of the light posts in that parking lot. So we all piled into Steve's car and off we went.
As Steve recalls, "You were the more mature one and probably were saying something to the effect of, 'This is a bad idea.'" And he's right, I was repeating that over and over again as we drove. Not because I was more mature. Because I was more chicken.
Again, according to Steve, "We circled around the lot a couple times to assess the flags that we wanted." Then we parked, and "I remember everybody just taking off across the parking lot in the direction of the flag they claimed on the drive around." I stayed by the car, quietly panicking.
Something you may not know about gigantic parking lots lit only by the occasional lamp post: They are very dark. Once people disappear from your sight, it's difficult to see them again, even if they later emerge into a cone of light, because the space is so vast. You might be looking in the wrong direction, you see.
So the minutes ground on. One by one my larcenous cohorts returned out of the darkness. Steve with the Saudi flag. Scott with the French. I don't remember whether Tony got a flag or not, but he came back.
Jim didn't come back. And nobody knew where he had gone.
Ever watched a group of reasonably intelligent but quite intoxicated juvenile delinquents try to organize a search party? We scrambled haphazardly about the lot calling his name, then shushing one another with mumbled warnings about being discovered, and receiving only echoes in reply. I'm sure I was muttering "Told ya so," as we ran.
Eventually, after an eternity compressed into perhaps 20 minutes, we found Jim. He was lying on his back near a light post, unconscious, blood pooled around the back of his head. This isn't a cautionary tale, so please don't be alarmed; Jim recovered just fine. But we didn't know that would be the case at the time. So we were scared. (He later told us he remembered climbing about halfway up the post, then no longer having hold of the post, then, nothing.)
We lifted Jim into the back of Steve's car and rushed him to the emergency room. We formulated our cover story on the way: We had been at a party, and Jim had fallen off a wall. Steve will dispute this and may not forgive me for repeating it, but I remember him saying, "Is he bleeding on the seat? Try not to let him bleed on the seat."
The emergency staff was calmly efficient and accepted our story. There was one catch, however: Somebody had to call his parents. I, who had been against the escapade from the start, I, who stole no flag, I, the "mature" one, I was elected to call Jim's parents. This is my memory of that call:
"Hi,Mr.xxxxxxx,sorrytowakeyouupandthereisnocauseforalarm,butJimhas
beeninanaccident.Hehithisheadinafall,andhehasaslightconcussionand
thedoctorswanttokeephimovernightforobservationbuttheysaythat'sjust
aprecautionandheisgoingtobefine."
Wheeee-eeeze. Deep breath.
Pause.
Sleepy voice on other end: "You say he's okay?"
"Yes."
"Do we need to come down?"
"...Uh, no..."
"Okay. Thanks for letting us know, Scott."
"Sure."
Click.
Thirty minutes later, Jim's parents arrived. It seems his mother did not share his father's somewhat laissez-faire attitude over their baby's well-being. But once she was reassured that Jim was, indeed, going to be fine, we all relaxed. And we all stayed at the hospital until Jim recovered consciousness. Then we all went home.
I don't know what happened in all these intervening years to the flags the fellows collected. But that's my most significant memory from the summer when "The World Came to Knoxville": the world's flags came home with us.
May 9, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 19
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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The Great Flag Caper