The True Vyne

Christmas 1993, when Buck and I purchased our quaint white cottage with forest green painted wooden floors on Douglas Street in the inner city Knoxville, we didn't get the New Year's Eve memo. Instead Buck and I fell to the floor from our bed at the stroke of midnight in sheer terror. Being nine months pregnant, I crammed in every inch of sleep my ginormous body would afford, so we weren't awake and glued for any television Times Square ball action which announced 1994. Instead we were jolted from the dead of sleep by gunfire on all sides. The Handguns resounding their single jarring pows and shotguns blasts first sent us to the floor. But it most likely was the rtt,ttt, tttt, ttttt on semi automatic weapons which caused me to gulp mouthfuls of air. Had Oakridge been the target of an enemy of the United States setting off WW III? Heavens, no. Turns out, gunfire equals the 'hood's version New Year's fireworks. My next door neighbor, Jack told me so the next morning. He casually met my morning hysteria with "Don't worry about it. The bullets are fired into the air- not at people. Everybody consider's midnight of the New Year as a time to clear out the barrel of all their guns."

I made a mental note for Buck and I to wear a bullet proof vests to bed New Years 1995, and to research if armor was available in baby sizes.