The Grand Ole Opry

~Nostalgia is a file that removes
 the rough edges from the good old days.~


Doug Larson

There are some things we do because we get nostalgic for the happy times we remember from our childhoods; putting too much sage in our turkey stuffing, day trips to the country, making fruitcake at Christmas, or drinking ginger tea when you come down with a cold.

A few nights ago, just before I tucked myself in under my cuddly new duvet cover that reminds me of my grandma's guest room, I felt a little disconnected.  I was reaching back into my past for a little comfort, maybe for a touchstone, like those hugs from my grandma that I haven't had in so very long.  Sometimes I pull out old photos, or let old memories ramble around, but I was a bit restless, so I popped in an DVD that my newfie neighbours gave to me.  It was one in a series of a bazillion Grand Ole Opry Classiscs videos. This collection of videos was the "Legends" DVD.   Granted most of the performances happened way before I was born; Faron Young singing Hello Walls, Ernest Tubb croaking out Waltz Across Texas and Dolly Parton with her Coat of Many Colours.

Not only was I raised with no other choice but to occasionally have to watch the Grand Ole Opry on the weekends, but I was also exposed to Hank Williams via the neighbour's vinyl record collection that would twang through his open bedroom window. My family owned a Box Car Willie album that would find it's way to the turntable every now and again, and I would shout out the lyrics at the top of my little-kid-lungs.

It was kind of fitting that on the day I went to Tennessee to scatter my grandma's ashes, I ended up, by complete surprise at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, watching the curtains rise and fall as the performances were broadcast out into the living rooms of little jammie-wearing-girls watching the Grand Ole Opry the very same way that I did twenty five years before that. There, in the flesh, was Whispering Bill and Little Jimmy Dickens.  I almost cried, and my best friend did cry when Charlie Pride came out on stage and sang his classics, "Crystal Chandelier" and "Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger". To make a very long story short, we were flown to Nashville instead of Knoxville, our original destination, and when in Nashville, well......

The next day at Tower Records, Kitty Wells came out and played her guitar, singing "Honky Tonk Angels" within a few feet of where I was standing.  We bought straw hats, hit the wild horse saloon, and two country-turned-city-girls kicked up our heels and had a romping-good-honky-tonk-time.

Snuggled in the other night, as I watched Patsy Cline sing "Crazy" all of these memories came back to tuck me in to bed.  Patsy would have made one heck of a Jazz singer!  A short-haired and unrecognizable Willie Nelson (who, I must confess I've secretly always been in love with my entire adult life and own his jazz and reggae albums), sang a medley including, "Funny How Time Slips Away", "Night Life" and "Crazy". Until that night, I did not know that he wrote that song.  I guess it goes to show you that being nostalgic and going back in time can teach you a few things. 

Johnny Cash, head too big, and legs way too skinny, sang "Ring of Fire", and no matter how much I try not to think of it I always think of that darn Preparation H commercial. What a shame. Roseanne Cash, his new bride was singing back up and both of the m were glowing. Youth is truly wasted on the young isn't it?

All of the old country stars that performed, standing simply by a microphone, or perhaps with a band or some people sitting on hay bales in the background, simply sang. They weren't dressed in meat bikinis, or made up like Disney characters. They just came out and sang, and boy oh boy could they sing.

A fresh, young, beautiful Loretta Lynn came out in a tie-dyed dress and sang "Coal Miner's Daughter". Under my snugly duvet, I remembered going to the drive in as a wee little kid, stretched out in the back seat, bored to death and  falling asleep while my parents watched the movie on the big screen. 

As the singers made their way across the Grand Ole Opry stage, I thought of the country community dances that may or may not still happen way out there away from the city where I live. You didn't tart yourself up in "club clothes", pushing your boobs out and wearing dangerously high stilettos like we do now.  You had your dinner at home and maybe the neighbours and their kids came over for a cocktail before the dance.  Everyone dressed in heir best casual clothes and went out to meet almost everyone else in town to enjoy the evening. Farmer's, factory workers, small business owners...Everyone got together in the town of Thomas Edison's birth place, at the little community hall, the same one where everyone had their wedding receptions.

 As a child you played with your classmates, giggled, danced and ate and drank.  That's where you learned to dance, with your sister, your brother, your great uncle who dragged you around the floor like an ill-coordinated robot trying to do the two-step. You danced with your neighbours, your cousins, your mom, your dad.  You skidded across the dance floor after they sprinkled the pebbly wax that made it slippery, and laughed until it hurt when the first couple went for a tumble.

Tonight I'd like to be out there with all of my friends. Dressed in jeans, sipping  vodka and orange juice ('cause that's what country girls drank...ok, maybe just this one because the smell of whiskey makes me gag), and cutting up a rug to some good old fashioned country music.