LOVE, LIFE & SUCC
Hey Haywood County! Welcome to the month of July and thank you so much for opening another issue of Moxxie Magazine
and reading about our cover story. It’s pretty amazing that we're more than half way through the year! We are really excited to
be here today with Troy and Scott, partners in life, owners of The Cabbage Rose in Maggie Valley and so much more here. If
you don't know these two figures, it would be quite surprising. We're stoked to be here and to be able to share some of their
story. So, we're going to dive in together with these two wonderful gentlemen.
SCOTT: Oh, whatever!
(Laughing) So, anyway, one
day he needed a place to stay
and I offered him a room where
I was living, and we've just
been together ever since.
MOXXIE: So when you both
said that neither of you were
impressed by the other when
you first met, what exactly was
it about each other that you
were put off about?
SCOTT: I don't know, he just, I
don't know.
TROY: You didn’t see my
wonderful personality?
SCOTT: Yeah, that must have
been it. Your wonderful
personality was turned off.
(Jokingly)
TROY: Yeah well, you ended
up winning the prize in the end.
SCOTT: You’re right. We
quickly became good friends
and from then on we've been
together.
MOXXIE: And that was 44
years ago?
SCOTT: Yes, 44 years ago.
TROY: And we are legally
married. So he is stuck with
me.
MOXXIE: That's amazing.
Congratulations to both of you!
TROY & SCOTT: Thank you
MOXXIE: So you met and fell
in love in Gatlinburg. What
was it like being a gay couple
moving to the valley and opening
up a business right away?
SCOTT: We kind of just
appeared one day.
TROY: Shocked the system,
I'm sure.
MOXXIE: So, tell me a little bit
about how you guys connected, how
you guys found each other.
SCOTT: We met forty-four years
ago in Gatlinburg,
Tennessee.
TROY: I'm from Sevierville
originally.
SCOTT: I moved from the Florida
Keys by myself to Gatlinburg
because I wanted to get away from
the Keys.
MOXXIE: Why did you want to get
away from the Keys?
SCOTT: My lifestyle
was a
little bit different,
and in that day and age it
wasn't really accepted.
So I moved and I got a
job as a waiter, I kind of
fibbed a little bit because
I had never been a waiter
in my
life. Actually, on
my very first morning the
cook looked at me and
said "you've never done
this before have you?"
And I'm like "no!" So she
ended up helping me out
a lot. Once I got a little
more situated and was
meeting people, everybody
in town started
telling
me that I should
meet this guy named
Troy. So, eventually we
met, and let me tell you, I
was not impressed. I
wasn't impressed with
him at all to be honest.
TROY:
I wasn’t either. I
was not impressed with
Scott at all. (Laughing)
SCOTT: In the beginning, I
thought they might burn a cross
in my yard.
MOXXIE: No way! Did you
really?
SCOTT: I really did. There
were certain bars that we did
not go out to at night because
of our lifestyle. The people
here, back then, weren't used to
it.
MOXXIE: How did you
change people’s perspectives?
SCOTT: Well, we donated
many things to the town. We
showed the town what we
could do for The Valley. Eventually,
the people started liking
us and realized that "Oh, just
because you're gay" doesn’t
mean we have a disease, and
we're not going to kill you. You
know, that's what they thought
"Oh, I'm going to get AIDS."
No! That’s not accurate. And
then that TV show, Glee, came
out. That made a huge difference.
TROY: And Will & Grace!
SCOTT: Yeah. I mean seriously,
if you'd been here thirty
years ago, we're talking the
80's and 90's. It was a different
time back then. We were
shunned all the time. It was
really tough, but things are so
much better now.
MOXXIE: Was there ever a
time where you guys felt like
you made the wrong decision?
That you picked the wrong
location?
SCOTT: Not really, but I mean
we talked about it a couple
times, but not really.
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