The American Dream is a national narrative that has been retold and repurposed for more than 100 years, often as a way of keeping hope in a difficult world.
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As you enter the city limits of Jackson, Tennessee, on either direction of Highway 45 there is a sign that gives passersby a brief insight into a school, a team, and a tradition that has its home just two miles from the South Fork of the Forked Deer River. If you continue driving south from that river, you will cross the bridge just past the fairgrounds, and enter the territory known as Hawk Nation–the domain of South Side High School and the Hawks.
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Michael Smith has always been a singer. When we met up to share some Shawarma House and talk about his music, Smith—also known by his stage name, Almost Isaac—told me that when he was a kid, it was a near-impossible task to get him to stop singing. “People couldn't shut me up. We had a rule at my kitchen table that if you start singing, you get three warnings. On the third warning, you had to go back into the back hallway of our house and scream at the top of your lungs for 45 seconds. And I was the only person that ever had to do it.”
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El Ganadero, tucked into the long plaza near Tractor Supply on Carriage House, is in many ways
like most Mexican restaurants in Jackson–familiar decor, familiar menu items–but in the ways
that matter, it felt much more like my favorite Summer Ave. dives in Memphis, where you can
almost bet that the lower quality the dining room furniture the better the pastor is going to be.
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