My birthday took a wild turn in Bell Buckle
Join my wild crew for a day of small-town surprises, tall tales, and an unforgettable Tennessee legend!
My birthday wish list this year? Ditch the predictable and dive headfirst into the delightfully unexpected. I needed a day steeped in old-school charm and fueled by friend-induced giggles, preferably somewhere with a healthy dose of small-town serendipity.
Enter Bell Buckle, stage left (after an intense Pinterest investigation, naturally). This one-street wonder, oozing antebellum charm and just a stone's throw from Nashville, promised exactly the right level of delight and surprise. After all, I'd heard that in Bell Buckle, some of the best adventures happen on accident.
I’d been there ages ago, cheering my son’s lacrosse team against Webb School, but this time? It was me and my crew of nine, bonded by our twenty-something kids through Nashville’s soccer/lacrosse fields, school plays, and garage-band gigs.
What a crew: the gardener, the one with a voice made for radio, the newbie, the craft genius, the artist soul, the party host extraordinaire, the glam goddess, the legendary latecomer, and the one who can outlast the rest of us like it’s still 1999. And then there’s me, the birthday girl.
We're talking way back—to the era of 15-month-olds who wobbled like they'd already closed down the bar.
It was a formative time, teaching us the vital skills of interpreting slurred baby babble and anticipating sudden naps... skills surprisingly relevant to our adult gatherings today.
Trying to plan this get-together with nine women was pure chaos—like trying to round up caffeinated squirrels.
I suggested a bright and early 7:30 a.m. arrival at our usual meeting spot, and the group chat instantly became a digital town hall meeting of "no's." Apparently, even the loudest morning debaters draw the line at sunrise.
Fine, 8 a.m. it was. And off we went.
Two cars, eight women, and vibes unmatched. One held her coffee like it was a sacred relic. Another clutched the front seat, praying through my driving like I was headed for a NASCAR tryout. Handmade gifts teetered in the back—tissue-paper flowers, birthday sparkle, and enough snacks to feed a small town. Someone who insists they aren’t “creative” had prepped like an event planner. And the one who rolled in from out of town brought the kind of fashion that made us all rethink our carpool attire.
We rolled out on a sunny spring day, past Murfreesboro into Tennessee’s two-lane glory, gasping at mansions—new-Franklin-level estates—and hollering, “Who’s hiding this cash?” I guess Bell Buckle’s close enough to Nashville for real-estate dreams.
Bell Buckle is a one-street wonder pressed up against rusty railroad tracks, like a Pinterest board titled Southern Time Machine.
Born in the antebellum 1800s, it boomed as a Nashville-Chattanooga Railroad hub, shipping cattle and hope in equal measure.
But this isn’t some faux-small-town fantasy. Bell Buckle’s been here since the 1850s. And its name? That’s a story.
Legend has it early settlers spotted a bell and buckle carved into a tree near a creek—left behind by the Cherokee as a warning:
“Anything wearing a bell or buckle will perish.” They named the town Bell Buckle anyway. That kind of defiance runs deep.
Things dipped mid-century, but the town roared back in the ‘70s with artists, antiques, and the wonderfully quirky RC Cola & Moon Pie Festival. Yes, it’s that Southern.
Storefronts from the town’s railroad-era heyday still stand—antebellum bones decked out in Victorian gingerbread: spindlework, drop pendants, and zigzag vergeboards. Every square inch begs to be photographed.
The trains slowed, but Bell Buckle didn’t disappear. It got weirder. Warmer. Better. Fewer than 500 people live here now, but there are more antique shops than stoplights—and more charm than any town its size has a right to.
When “How Do You Know Each Other?” Spun a Tall Tale
Desperate for caffeine, we tumbled into Bell Buckle Coffee Shop and Book Swap, a snug den of roasted beans, library of books, and small-town whispers, where the air hummed with the promise of stories yet to unfold. My California transplant friend, slung her book swap books onto the counter, ordered her latte, and froze—her senses picking up on the Bay Area energy radiating from two strangers.
These supposedly best friends from high school stood, like figures from a wandering tale: one, a local with a beard and the air of a professor, as if he’d wandered from a lecture on transcendental poetry; the other, a Reno drifter, all pressed shirt and dark jeans, looking like a professional something-or-other—maybe a lawyer, maybe a conman, nobody could tell. I slid into the fray as Ginger, with a theatrical flourish, hailed me as the birthday queen of this Bell Buckle quest.
“How do y’all know each other?” they asked. “Cell mates,” I shot back, cool as a cucumber. The Reno man’s grin split wide: “Soul mates, you mean?”
Then he launched into a yarn wilder than a moonlit possum chase, swearing that he and his friend had actually met in the French Foreign Legion. Their tale twisted and turned, slippery as a river eel, and we lapped it up, our laughter echoing through the coffee shop. That moment, friends, set the trajectory for a day spun from pure, unhinged magic.
Enter the Legend: A Bell Buckle Surprise
Then, a woman—caregiver to Tennessee’s poet laureate, Maggi Vaughn—said Maggi, in her wheelchair, was rolling through town.
Hold up—legends in Bell Buckle?
We spotted her outside, and I nearly dropped my coffee. My 6th grade Tennessee history teacher in Martin, TN, Miss Jenny would’ve been so proud.
Maggi shared her story: born in Murfreesboro, raised between buttoned-up Tennessee and the wild coast of Gulfport, Mississippi, where strip joints and New Orleans jazz widened her world.
She was the first woman slinging ads at the Tennessean, yes—but before that, she handed her mama a country song in third grade and declared she’d be a poet.
Today, Maggi has penned over 2,000 poems and 26 books, including The Light in the Kitchen Window: Poems. I came across a review that read, “It’s awesome—I first learned about this book from watching American Pickers.” Wow, I love American Pickers! At 86, she’s nearly finished with her autobiography—and I can’t wait to read it.
She’s written inaugural poems for governors, her bicentennial poem hangs in the state capitol, and she’s served as Tennessee’s poet laureate since 1995—nearly 30 years.
She looked at us and said, “Fate takes you where you wanna be.” Tears, y’all—I’m still a puddle. Maggi, you’re our queen.
Her life reads like a Southern novel: fire and loss, jukeboxes and newspaper ink, stitched together with stubborn hope. She lost her firefighter father before her first birthday, found her footing writing songs with Loretta Lynn, and beamed with pride when she told me she’d met Maya Angelou.
People told her she was crazy to quit her job and move to tiny Bell Buckle—but she knew. This was the place. From her front porch studio, Maggi has spent decades capturing Tennessee’s soul—writing about the Grand Ole Opry, quilts passed down through generations, governors, and the women who raised her.
Maggi still writes every single day—poems, songs, whatever comes. Among her favorite poets? Whitman, Dickinson, Longfellow, and Frost. And one of her favorite poems of all time? Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.
Maggi doesn’t just write poetry—she writes us.
More Surprises Await
Bell Buckle had already delivered its share of surprises, and we had barely stepped inside the shops, eaten lunch, or met another artistic gem yet. Stay tuned—Part two promises even more chaos, and a gift that’ll melt your heart. Who knew this little town would give me the best birthday surprises, making it one of my all-time favorites?
Love Bell Buckle! Hope you ate at the cafe!
Lisa, what a wonderful post. Probably my favorite so far!