MARYVILLE — Gerald Watson, 70, has begun keeping a notebook after deciding his diesel pickup runs a little different on Mondays following Tennessee home games. He would like somebody to tell him who buys the stadium’s used cooking oil, so he can rule it out.
“It sort of hangs up there coming out of the driveway,” Watson said. “By the time I get to the road it’s fine. Course, it did that last January too, and it was nine degrees, and I wrote that down, so I’ve got the temperature.”
Watson became interested after WBIR reported that Filta Kitchen Solutions services the 30 fryers at Neyland Stadium, filtering the oil for reuse before the spent oil is turned into fuel. He has made no claim that any of it reaches his truck. He has, however, watched the report several times with a pen, and his wife has stopped sitting in the room.
Saturday’s 26-10 win over Alabama takes up half a page. Watson noted that fans stormed the field, then left space under the score for Monday’s mileage. A fuel receipt is stapled over part of the margin. He can lift it if anybody needs to see the weather.
“I asked at the counter where their diesel comes from,” he said. “She said the distributor. Well, I figured she’d have a name on an invoice somewhere, so I stood there a minute, and then she had a fella behind me with a case of Mountain Dew, so.”
His wife, Linda, said the truck had been making the driveway noise since they bought the camper.
Watson has written that on the inside back cover.