DISPATCH FROM LAWRENCEBURG, TENN. - THE NATION - Thompson's hometown is getting ready for Freddie - Residents are eagerly waiting for him to announce his candidacy so they can reap the rewards.

"We're ready for Freddie."

Truth be told, Lawrenceburg has been ready for months for its favorite son, former Sen. Fred D. Thompson, to announce his candidacy for president. And in this middle Tennessee town near the Alabama line, it's considered as certain as Wednesday night Bible study that Thompson will launch his run in the public square, a block from the David Crockett Theater.

Rumors -- all unconfirmed -- about the timing of a Thompson announcement spread faster here than news of catfish biting in Shoal Creek. And while the political world has been waiting and waiting for Thompson's oft-delayed announcement -- once planned for the Fourth of July, and now expected next month -- Lawrenceburg and its 10,911 souls seem more impatient than most.

"We're just waitin' on the waitin' on," said Cromer Smotherman, 82, a retired manufacturing executive who is in charge of a new planning committee, known alternately as the Community Readiness Committee and the Getting Ready for Freddie group.

"It's a bit frustrating," he said of Thompson's delay, during an interview over dinner at his retirement community, where he moved after his wife's death a few years back. "In the meantime, we're just trying to stay busy."

These days, Lawrenceburg has the feel of a home whose owners must repeatedly clean up for a party that keeps getting postponed. Preparations have been made and remade.

The old public square has been pressure-cleaned for the first time. A store has opened to sell Thompson-related memorabilia and provide information on Thompson-related sites, and a local clothing store owner, Chunky Moore, has become the semi-official town spokesman on all matters Thompson. Economic development officials are plotting ways to capitalize on the higher profile that a successful Thompson candidacy might afford.

Earlier this year, the city's commissioners, citing the strong possibility of worldwide attention, went so far as to change municipal law: They banned citizens from leaving bulk trash curbside.

In the past, residents could dump anything they wanted, and city trucks would pick it up. But city fathers worried that visiting dignitaries and journalists might think less of Lawrenceburg if they saw refuse along the roads. Residents here now have to take bulk trash to a city facility -- and pay about $25 per ton for the privilege.