I got up today focused on tomorrow, September 12, my son's birthday, his last in his '20's. I was miffed about the way the New York post office blew the express mail delivery of the presents his mother and I sent. They got it there in twelve hours alright, but since he was working in the city, just left a notice to come get it at the post office. That's not what I paid $16 for, so I was "plenty hoo-hoo," as Hawaiians sometimes say when steamed.
Then I turned on the morning news and realized it was September 11. But in a real sense there is no more September 11. There is only 9/11, a day that will, like December 6, live in infamy as one of the most tragic days in our history.
I didn't want to get wrapped up in the commemorations and ceremonies at Ground Zero in Manhattan, the Pentagon, and the field near Shanksville, Pennasylvania. But I couldn't turn away. I couldn't turn away because I saw the faces of my countrymen and was riveted in the solemnity of the moment. As an American, I could not put 9/11 behind me, not this year, nor last year, nor any other of the seven years since September 11, 2001.
At 8:48 that morning I had just entered my humanities classroom at the university and was preparing to teach my 9:00 class when a colleague stepped in at the door and said, "CNN says a plane just flew into the World Trade Center!" It was terrible, I knew--a terrible accident, like the light plane that flew into the Empire State Building some years before. But when my friend opened my door again a few minutes later and cried, "Another plane just flew into the other tower!" everything changed in my mind. It was no accident. We were at war. My nation was under attack, on our soil, for the first time in my life. I didn't know by whom, but I immediately suspected terrorists, who had threatened us repeatedly and attacked our embassies abroad, our Marine barracks in Lebanon, the U.S.S. Cole and other targets around the world but had till then never succeeded in launching an attack on our soil.
My students were frightened and wanted me to cancel class. I said, "Anyone who wants to can go, but I intend to stay right here and teach this course. If I get scared off, the terrorists win." It was a pathetic false bravado I guess, but no one left. The horror of the full scope of the attacks unfolded after classes when we learned of the attacks on the Pentagon and United flight 83 over Shanksville en route to Washington when brave men charged the cockpit and saved an attack on the U.S.Capitol, or the White House, or other key target, readily sacrificing their own lives to save other Americans.
Yes, it was indeed a day that will live in infamy. But I also had a personal link to the events of that day, and I didn't find out till a couple of days later when I opened my morning paper and saw the face of a man I passed by in our Publix Supermarket aisle not more than a month or two before, peering out of a sinister black and white head and shoulders shot on the front page. His name was Mohammed Atta. He piloted the first plane into the north tower.
As I had approached and passed that man in that aisle we were alone, but so shaken had I been when I glanced into his intense eyes that I sought my wife in the next aisle to tell her, "Barb, that man in the next aisle there looks evil! I mean, really evil. He gives me the creeps!" My reaction was not unique. Residents of Tara Apartments where he stayed during his months in Coral Springs before the attack said he always made them uneasy also. I guess we had good reason. To this day I do not believe in judging people by their looks and recognize that appearances are often deceiving, but I am convinced that the hatred for this country and its people that that man carried in his heart could not escape notice in his face.
Today, though seven years have passed, I felt the need to listen, to watch, and at times to pray. I was very impressed with the ceremonies dedicating the amazingly fitting Pentagon Memorial, the Ground Zero reading of victims' names, the gathering on the site of United Flight 83 near Shanksville, and the solemn honoring of all Americans who perished in the attacks of that day.
When I had begun watching I was worried I would just get depressed. But the more I watched, the more I felt uplifted and proud of my country, its courage and bravery, its refusal to set aside the past and its lessons, and the sensitivity it showed to so respectfully honor the lives of those who perished that day. I saw today that America I grew up in with such pride, and felt the spirit of 9/11 once again which drew us all so close together as a people.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Here comes G through J
The bowling alley of hurricanes and tropical storms heading our way is in full operation: Fay, Gustav, Hanna, Ike, Josophine--they're all lined up for their turn to try to wipe us off the low-lying sands of South Florida. My community is on a mountaintop at 16 feet above sea level. That's because I'm almost 20 miles inland. But some of the oldtimers here tell of rowboats and canoes rowing and paddling on Sample Road, my nearest main street only 50 feet away.
Since moving here in Coral Springs in 1998, we've experienced probably twenty named hurricanes, some of them like Wilma, Katrina, and Andrew severe, ripping out our screen room and toppling our tall ficus trees. Now we can only watch what the tracks bring us and hope to dodge the hail of bullets this month. Three years ago, the year Katrina hit New Orleans, we had so many named storms the National Weather Service ran out of alphabetical names and had to go into the Greek alphabet to name them all. Remember that? I think the last English one was Hurricane Zebulon.
Then, by late October, just as suddenly as they had formed, they were gone. Our hurricane season begins June 1 and lasts till November 30 each year. But we very seldom get any major action till late July or August. When we do, they form off Cape Verde at the African coast and drift across the tropics westward. When they get into the Caribbean, however, they try to organize themselves into waves that hang around with nowhere to go till they decide to spin up into a tropical storm or hurricane and try to head north.
The natural track of hurricanes is to circle the Atlantic Ocean basin, which in normal times is surmounted by the Bermuda High, the humongous high pressure system that is the main guiding pressure for these storms. The hurricanes try to go up off the east coast of America and circle around until they cool off and dissipate in more northern latitudes. But this arrangement is often interrupted, especially at these peak times of September into October, by low pressure troughs that come across the continent. When one of these displaces the Bermuda High, whatever storm spins under Florida gets sucked right up to the north following that trough, and voila, we get hit. Sometimes the Bermuda High expands its high pressure westward to the Gulf, and voila, Katrina, Gustav, and other storms can't curve north till they get into the Gulf head north or west to the Gulf coast.
All these patterns are very cyclical, and we've had years where hurricane after hurricane sweeps up off our Florida peninsula and smacks the Carolinas silly, one after another. Other years the most ferocious-looking systems appear to be headed straight for us, only to be blown to bits by upper-level wind shear caused by El Nino or La Nina. Every once in awhile we get a hurricane that loops around all over the place and even returns to hit somewhere again. And Fay, our most recent to hit Florida itself, made no fewer than four separate landfalls as it curved up from Key West, headed east across to the Atlantic, curved back into Jacksonville and across to the west, emerged into the Gulf again, then came ashore one last time at Tallahassee and Pensacola. The only major areas of the state Fay didn't hit were Miami and Tampa. We felt her winds here for a week.
Hurricanes and Tropical Storms are part of living in Florida. We don't take them for granted, but we realize they are part of nature and forces to be reckoned with. We prepare for them all and hope for the best. But we realize they are nature's way of transferring billions upon billions of cubic feet of warm, moist tropical air for cooler, temperate air of northern latitudes. They are nature's air conditioners/humidifiers, and the exchanges must be made to avoid cataclysmic disruption of the climate worldwide. We stand in awe of these storms and respect them. But we'd still just as soon they do their mighty work offshore and in unpopulated areas, and steer around us.
Since moving here in Coral Springs in 1998, we've experienced probably twenty named hurricanes, some of them like Wilma, Katrina, and Andrew severe, ripping out our screen room and toppling our tall ficus trees. Now we can only watch what the tracks bring us and hope to dodge the hail of bullets this month. Three years ago, the year Katrina hit New Orleans, we had so many named storms the National Weather Service ran out of alphabetical names and had to go into the Greek alphabet to name them all. Remember that? I think the last English one was Hurricane Zebulon.
Then, by late October, just as suddenly as they had formed, they were gone. Our hurricane season begins June 1 and lasts till November 30 each year. But we very seldom get any major action till late July or August. When we do, they form off Cape Verde at the African coast and drift across the tropics westward. When they get into the Caribbean, however, they try to organize themselves into waves that hang around with nowhere to go till they decide to spin up into a tropical storm or hurricane and try to head north.
The natural track of hurricanes is to circle the Atlantic Ocean basin, which in normal times is surmounted by the Bermuda High, the humongous high pressure system that is the main guiding pressure for these storms. The hurricanes try to go up off the east coast of America and circle around until they cool off and dissipate in more northern latitudes. But this arrangement is often interrupted, especially at these peak times of September into October, by low pressure troughs that come across the continent. When one of these displaces the Bermuda High, whatever storm spins under Florida gets sucked right up to the north following that trough, and voila, we get hit. Sometimes the Bermuda High expands its high pressure westward to the Gulf, and voila, Katrina, Gustav, and other storms can't curve north till they get into the Gulf head north or west to the Gulf coast.
All these patterns are very cyclical, and we've had years where hurricane after hurricane sweeps up off our Florida peninsula and smacks the Carolinas silly, one after another. Other years the most ferocious-looking systems appear to be headed straight for us, only to be blown to bits by upper-level wind shear caused by El Nino or La Nina. Every once in awhile we get a hurricane that loops around all over the place and even returns to hit somewhere again. And Fay, our most recent to hit Florida itself, made no fewer than four separate landfalls as it curved up from Key West, headed east across to the Atlantic, curved back into Jacksonville and across to the west, emerged into the Gulf again, then came ashore one last time at Tallahassee and Pensacola. The only major areas of the state Fay didn't hit were Miami and Tampa. We felt her winds here for a week.
Hurricanes and Tropical Storms are part of living in Florida. We don't take them for granted, but we realize they are part of nature and forces to be reckoned with. We prepare for them all and hope for the best. But we realize they are nature's way of transferring billions upon billions of cubic feet of warm, moist tropical air for cooler, temperate air of northern latitudes. They are nature's air conditioners/humidifiers, and the exchanges must be made to avoid cataclysmic disruption of the climate worldwide. We stand in awe of these storms and respect them. But we'd still just as soon they do their mighty work offshore and in unpopulated areas, and steer around us.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Timid forecasters don't help anyone.
This weekend the first credible threat to become a hurricane headed our way appeared last Thursday as a disorganized tropical mass east of Puerto Rico. Unsure how to report it and not wanting to panic the public unnecessarily, our local NBC weatherman tried his best to ignore it completely. The other South Florida weatherpersons at least said we'd need to monitor it closely.
By Friday afternoon several stations reported the storm had reached 40 mph, and Tropical Storm Fay was officially the sixth named tropical system of the season. Though still very disorganized and slow-moving to the west, Fay was expected to brush south Cuba and head into the Gulf as had the past several systems, But Fay had a different potential track: a low pressure system centered over Denver was on the move south and east. The National Hurricane Center had projected it could arrive as a trough which could curve Fay north into Florida.
Friday afternoon my NBC timid friend acknowledged Fay but again refused to push the button that it posed any danger to us or we should begin to prepare for it. He reported only the facts of the present moment: Fay was now a tropical storm, moving West at 14-16 mph across Hispaniola. On to the local forecast.
I switched to Fox. A lady weatherman was urging the public to make preparations this weekend. Buy bottled water, batteries, gas, and any needed non-perishable foods, lumber or medicines--whatever would be needed to last about three to five days without power, should Fay curve our way. The cone of possible track of the storm's center, at that time, included the entire state.
I turned to The Weather Channel. A meteorologist reported Fay had the potential to "go right up the spine" of Florida, from the tip to the top.
Today our NBC timid soul finally got on board. Yes, we'd better get prepared, just in case. When I went to the grocery this evening people were hauling out cartsfull of bottled water and other supplies, trying not to appear panicked but not very successfully; their purchases belying their fear. I've seen that look in my fellow citizens' eyes before, several times. It says I can expect to drive in a community of total pandemonium if the power goes out, dodge the terrified fellow dodgem drivers as we play chicken at every dark intersection's automatic 4-way-stop mandate, grab every item on the grocery shelves like a Macy's supersale, and expect to hear the chorus of chain saws and generators all through the day and hot night till civilization is restored a block at a time.
School starts Monday, if Fay lets it happen. The districts won't let the children stand out in a storm, so if Fay comes close, this school year will begin with an extra day or two's vacation. We're used to this situation in South Florida; several years' first days have been postponed or interrupted by the approach of threatening weather.
But Monday doesn't give us much time. We have only Saturday and Sunday to prepare, board up, buy our supplies, set up our plans and get ready as best we can. I would have hoped that my NBC meteorologist would have been a bit more forthcoming about the possibilities of Fay coming our way. TV weathermen can go too far the other way, admittedly, and panic the population into a needless run on the system, but "We'll keep an eye on it for you" just doesn't cut it. At least report what the National Weather Service is predicting, and the National Hurricane Center is forecasting as the possibilities, given the interaction of pressure systems and trends. I think my NBC guy just looked out the window at the hot, sunny day, like most, and concluded nothing was amiss.
As I write, Tropical Storm Fay is projected to become a category one hurricane shortly after turning north over open water in the Florida Straits between Cuba and the Keys, continue north as a category one or category two hurricane, pass over Key West, and Tampa, and move up the entire state's west coast, curving further inland and eventually exiting into Georgia or Alabama.
Several years ago Charlie, a similar storm came inland before expected and curved right up the I-4 corridor. It decimated Kissimmee's streets, where my son, Scott, huddled alone in his dark apartment and watched neighbors' roofs blow off, street lights crash to the pavement, storefronts and signs blow to pieces and trees fall so thickly you couldn't even tell where the streets were. The city looked like a war zone. And Charlie was only a category two, they say.
Tropical Storm Fay could, with only a minor deviation, move up the Eastern side of the state instead of the Gulf side, as a category one or two hurricane just as easily, taking out half the metropolitan population and property without surprising anyone here. Or maybe the center of the state, or just as understandably, pass harmlessly northwestward into the Gulf and fizzle out.
With hurricane tracks it's impossible to know for sure.
I've seen hurricanes head north toward the Carolinas, do a complete loop, and return to S. Florida for another punch, like Katrina did several years ago, returning as a category one and crossing from east to west into the Gulf before curving north once more and eventually intensifying into the category four or five monster that devastated New Orleans.
One thing obvious to all who watched and most who reported, is that we were certain to feel the effects of Fay in South Florida no matter where she decided to go, or how weak or intense she would become. That much was clear last Thursday and should have been on every station then. Weathermen who don't have the courage to push the button and say "Look out, everybody, here comes trouble!," even at the risk of being labelled a Chicken Little, shouldn't be on the air.
By Friday afternoon several stations reported the storm had reached 40 mph, and Tropical Storm Fay was officially the sixth named tropical system of the season. Though still very disorganized and slow-moving to the west, Fay was expected to brush south Cuba and head into the Gulf as had the past several systems, But Fay had a different potential track: a low pressure system centered over Denver was on the move south and east. The National Hurricane Center had projected it could arrive as a trough which could curve Fay north into Florida.
Friday afternoon my NBC timid friend acknowledged Fay but again refused to push the button that it posed any danger to us or we should begin to prepare for it. He reported only the facts of the present moment: Fay was now a tropical storm, moving West at 14-16 mph across Hispaniola. On to the local forecast.
I switched to Fox. A lady weatherman was urging the public to make preparations this weekend. Buy bottled water, batteries, gas, and any needed non-perishable foods, lumber or medicines--whatever would be needed to last about three to five days without power, should Fay curve our way. The cone of possible track of the storm's center, at that time, included the entire state.
I turned to The Weather Channel. A meteorologist reported Fay had the potential to "go right up the spine" of Florida, from the tip to the top.
Today our NBC timid soul finally got on board. Yes, we'd better get prepared, just in case. When I went to the grocery this evening people were hauling out cartsfull of bottled water and other supplies, trying not to appear panicked but not very successfully; their purchases belying their fear. I've seen that look in my fellow citizens' eyes before, several times. It says I can expect to drive in a community of total pandemonium if the power goes out, dodge the terrified fellow dodgem drivers as we play chicken at every dark intersection's automatic 4-way-stop mandate, grab every item on the grocery shelves like a Macy's supersale, and expect to hear the chorus of chain saws and generators all through the day and hot night till civilization is restored a block at a time.
School starts Monday, if Fay lets it happen. The districts won't let the children stand out in a storm, so if Fay comes close, this school year will begin with an extra day or two's vacation. We're used to this situation in South Florida; several years' first days have been postponed or interrupted by the approach of threatening weather.
But Monday doesn't give us much time. We have only Saturday and Sunday to prepare, board up, buy our supplies, set up our plans and get ready as best we can. I would have hoped that my NBC meteorologist would have been a bit more forthcoming about the possibilities of Fay coming our way. TV weathermen can go too far the other way, admittedly, and panic the population into a needless run on the system, but "We'll keep an eye on it for you" just doesn't cut it. At least report what the National Weather Service is predicting, and the National Hurricane Center is forecasting as the possibilities, given the interaction of pressure systems and trends. I think my NBC guy just looked out the window at the hot, sunny day, like most, and concluded nothing was amiss.
As I write, Tropical Storm Fay is projected to become a category one hurricane shortly after turning north over open water in the Florida Straits between Cuba and the Keys, continue north as a category one or category two hurricane, pass over Key West, and Tampa, and move up the entire state's west coast, curving further inland and eventually exiting into Georgia or Alabama.
Several years ago Charlie, a similar storm came inland before expected and curved right up the I-4 corridor. It decimated Kissimmee's streets, where my son, Scott, huddled alone in his dark apartment and watched neighbors' roofs blow off, street lights crash to the pavement, storefronts and signs blow to pieces and trees fall so thickly you couldn't even tell where the streets were. The city looked like a war zone. And Charlie was only a category two, they say.
Tropical Storm Fay could, with only a minor deviation, move up the Eastern side of the state instead of the Gulf side, as a category one or two hurricane just as easily, taking out half the metropolitan population and property without surprising anyone here. Or maybe the center of the state, or just as understandably, pass harmlessly northwestward into the Gulf and fizzle out.
With hurricane tracks it's impossible to know for sure.
I've seen hurricanes head north toward the Carolinas, do a complete loop, and return to S. Florida for another punch, like Katrina did several years ago, returning as a category one and crossing from east to west into the Gulf before curving north once more and eventually intensifying into the category four or five monster that devastated New Orleans.
One thing obvious to all who watched and most who reported, is that we were certain to feel the effects of Fay in South Florida no matter where she decided to go, or how weak or intense she would become. That much was clear last Thursday and should have been on every station then. Weathermen who don't have the courage to push the button and say "Look out, everybody, here comes trouble!," even at the risk of being labelled a Chicken Little, shouldn't be on the air.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Comments Appreciated
As an occasional blogger I've come to accept that a lot of visitors drop by for a minute or less and move on when they find no pictures or rants of interest. But I've also come to treasure a few non-family fellow bloggers who regularly read this blog and sometimes offer comment. My recent paeon lamenting changes going on at my university (and effectively cancelling core English and Art Appreciation requirements I'm qualified to teach) apparently touched a nerve in two favorite readers, by the thoughtful and passionate comments they offered (read in two posts below). They are friends and I view them as colleagues, though we've never met outside our blogs. I appreciate what insights they've given me about teaching and higher education very much. Thanks, Pat and Carol Anne. I'm keeping my mind open to returning to the classroom if I get antsy, and it would probably be at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton or Broward Community College if I do. I, too, have taught and administered in four-year universities, private colleges, and community colleges; and I, too, enjoy the latter perhaps best. But for now, I'm kind of looking forward to a semester of down time this fall to try some other ideas. At 69, with gas prices making driving even across town regularly a pain in the wallet, and with SoFla drivers all but running one off the road or shooting one if he looks askance at them, I'm in no hurry to jump back into the fray.
Grand Ole Opry-- Super Show, Super Folks
On our way to Indiana to see the folks this June, we stopped in Nashville for a Grand Ole Opry show. Last year we tried to see the fabled show, but there was no performance the night we were in town. We made up for that by watching some of the regulars of the Grand Ole Opry like Jeannie Seeley perform in Nashville Nights supper and show near our campground. But this year we made it on a performance night, and we loved the experience.
On Briley Parkway the main building (there are four Grand Ole Opry sites) sits next to a huge Gaylord Grand resort hotel on one side and a big shopping mall on another, so parking was no problem, and our tickets of $39 each for Mezzanine front row seats were very reasonable, I thought. Outside before the show we posed with Minnie Pearl and Hank Williams and Roy Acuff live lookalikes, browsed the souvenir store, and listened to a warmup band on the front plaza.
Inside, the seating is surprisingly on long curving benches rather than individual armrested seats, but the padded benches were comfortable for the two-hour show. As in any broadcast studio, the wood stage had equipment strewn about everywhere, with cameras. cables, microphones, lighting and props skillfully manouvered by operators and stagehands who pirhouetted about in an intricate choreography. Talent waited in the shadows diagonally downstage left to await their call, and at eight o'clock on the dot a brief history of the Grand Ole Opry, its stars, novices, and rich traditions flashed over three jumbotron screens left, center, and right. An announcer approached the podium and introduced Jeannie Seely, hostess for the first segment (sponsored by Cracker Barrel.) Other acts whom she introduced were Jimmy C. Newman, the Whites, and Carolina Rain.
If we'd paid closer attention to past Opry broadcasts on radio and tv more, we wouldn't have been surprised. We weren't just watching a closed musical show. We were involved in a live network tv and radio broadcast, syndicated worldwide as part of the studio audience du jour. The show was in four thirty-minute segments, each with two to four different acts, commercial pauses and its own brand sponsor.
The second half-hour (sponsored by Bass Pro Shops) was headlined by the venerable pint-sized cowboy crooner Little Jimmy Dickens, all of 87 years old this month and still going strong. His only complaint: something in his ear was bothering him, and he went to the doctor, who retrieved a suppository. "Oh thank goodness," he told the doc, "Now I know where I lost my hearing aid." The Little General Cloggers from Kennesaw, Georgia clogged away onstage and Mountain Heart bluegrass band completed the segment.
9:00 to 9:30 featured Jean Shepard, Bobby Osborne and The Rocky Top X-press, hootin' and hollerin' out "Good Old Rocky Top, Tennessee," with Bobby's son on bass fiddle (sponsored by Humana.)
But the last half-hour was for me the best. The curtain rose on Riders of the Sky singing the Rawhide theme they recorded originally for the hit show, and they did Roy Rogers' "Happy Trails to You" and Gene Autry's "Back In the Saddle Again" with warm audience participation. Connie Smith and Kathy Mattea closed the evening with performances sponsored by Johnson Controls.
I have to admit that country/western isn't always my favorite style of music, but overall it is more tuneful, foot-tapping in its rhythms and listenable in its harmonies than a lot of other more popular genres. I think everyone has a little bit of country in him or her, and some of it I really enjoy. It's a national music, the closest thing we probably have to a traditional American genre. Jazz is American as well, but not perhaps as enduring and unchanging. The country/western music we heard this night was the same fifty years ago, in style and instrumentation, themes of love and heartache, patriotism and courage, religion and family. And far from its lyrics bashing the society and everything in it like rap's often trash-talking obscenities often do, country/western is unabashedly patriotic and proud to be an American. I like that--a lot.
As we left for our motel, I couldn't help but be impressed with a couple of things about Nashville's stars, and the overriding impression was one of honesty and openness, no guile, no phoniness, no pretentiousness in any of them. They seem totally at home onstage or off, willing to share their lives and talents with anyone and anxious to help newcomers make it to the top. Unlike the superstars of Broadway and Hollywood, they don't seem to have the giant egos that make them like planets in orbit, avoiding the pull of other planets and stars, isolated in their own groupies and fans and very lonely. These performers--some multimillionaires--are seemingly comfortable in their own skins with all levels of society and with each other.
And why not? After all, there are thirteen hundred and fifty-two guitar pickers in Nashville, according to Lovin' Spoonful in "Nashville Cats." Everybody is a singer-songwriter, and they write about their lives and feelings. It's one of the few non-phony professional groups I've ever met, and I felt right at home. I remembered last year when we saw the Opry stars and regulars perform on their off-night, they waited on us, served us our dinners before they took to the stage to do the show. I remember the drummer bringing me my iced tea, and our waitress joining in onstage for a couple of numbers.
On our way back to South Florida we stopped in Gatlinburg for some Christmas shopping and the local ambience, and heard some more country/western local bands performing on the streets. So we had fun despite the straight line route this year, and counted ourselves fortunate. There are far fewer travellers on the roads this year than we've found in years past. People are taking "staycations," as the travel editors call them on network news.
USA Today reported Americans drove thirty billion fewer miles in the first quarter this year than during the same period last year. Yet that amount represents only 3% of our annual fossil fuel consumption, I believe it said. That is a staggering figure indeed.
On Briley Parkway the main building (there are four Grand Ole Opry sites) sits next to a huge Gaylord Grand resort hotel on one side and a big shopping mall on another, so parking was no problem, and our tickets of $39 each for Mezzanine front row seats were very reasonable, I thought. Outside before the show we posed with Minnie Pearl and Hank Williams and Roy Acuff live lookalikes, browsed the souvenir store, and listened to a warmup band on the front plaza.
Inside, the seating is surprisingly on long curving benches rather than individual armrested seats, but the padded benches were comfortable for the two-hour show. As in any broadcast studio, the wood stage had equipment strewn about everywhere, with cameras. cables, microphones, lighting and props skillfully manouvered by operators and stagehands who pirhouetted about in an intricate choreography. Talent waited in the shadows diagonally downstage left to await their call, and at eight o'clock on the dot a brief history of the Grand Ole Opry, its stars, novices, and rich traditions flashed over three jumbotron screens left, center, and right. An announcer approached the podium and introduced Jeannie Seely, hostess for the first segment (sponsored by Cracker Barrel.) Other acts whom she introduced were Jimmy C. Newman, the Whites, and Carolina Rain.
If we'd paid closer attention to past Opry broadcasts on radio and tv more, we wouldn't have been surprised. We weren't just watching a closed musical show. We were involved in a live network tv and radio broadcast, syndicated worldwide as part of the studio audience du jour. The show was in four thirty-minute segments, each with two to four different acts, commercial pauses and its own brand sponsor.
The second half-hour (sponsored by Bass Pro Shops) was headlined by the venerable pint-sized cowboy crooner Little Jimmy Dickens, all of 87 years old this month and still going strong. His only complaint: something in his ear was bothering him, and he went to the doctor, who retrieved a suppository. "Oh thank goodness," he told the doc, "Now I know where I lost my hearing aid." The Little General Cloggers from Kennesaw, Georgia clogged away onstage and Mountain Heart bluegrass band completed the segment.
9:00 to 9:30 featured Jean Shepard, Bobby Osborne and The Rocky Top X-press, hootin' and hollerin' out "Good Old Rocky Top, Tennessee," with Bobby's son on bass fiddle (sponsored by Humana.)
But the last half-hour was for me the best. The curtain rose on Riders of the Sky singing the Rawhide theme they recorded originally for the hit show, and they did Roy Rogers' "Happy Trails to You" and Gene Autry's "Back In the Saddle Again" with warm audience participation. Connie Smith and Kathy Mattea closed the evening with performances sponsored by Johnson Controls.
I have to admit that country/western isn't always my favorite style of music, but overall it is more tuneful, foot-tapping in its rhythms and listenable in its harmonies than a lot of other more popular genres. I think everyone has a little bit of country in him or her, and some of it I really enjoy. It's a national music, the closest thing we probably have to a traditional American genre. Jazz is American as well, but not perhaps as enduring and unchanging. The country/western music we heard this night was the same fifty years ago, in style and instrumentation, themes of love and heartache, patriotism and courage, religion and family. And far from its lyrics bashing the society and everything in it like rap's often trash-talking obscenities often do, country/western is unabashedly patriotic and proud to be an American. I like that--a lot.
As we left for our motel, I couldn't help but be impressed with a couple of things about Nashville's stars, and the overriding impression was one of honesty and openness, no guile, no phoniness, no pretentiousness in any of them. They seem totally at home onstage or off, willing to share their lives and talents with anyone and anxious to help newcomers make it to the top. Unlike the superstars of Broadway and Hollywood, they don't seem to have the giant egos that make them like planets in orbit, avoiding the pull of other planets and stars, isolated in their own groupies and fans and very lonely. These performers--some multimillionaires--are seemingly comfortable in their own skins with all levels of society and with each other.
And why not? After all, there are thirteen hundred and fifty-two guitar pickers in Nashville, according to Lovin' Spoonful in "Nashville Cats." Everybody is a singer-songwriter, and they write about their lives and feelings. It's one of the few non-phony professional groups I've ever met, and I felt right at home. I remembered last year when we saw the Opry stars and regulars perform on their off-night, they waited on us, served us our dinners before they took to the stage to do the show. I remember the drummer bringing me my iced tea, and our waitress joining in onstage for a couple of numbers.
On our way back to South Florida we stopped in Gatlinburg for some Christmas shopping and the local ambience, and heard some more country/western local bands performing on the streets. So we had fun despite the straight line route this year, and counted ourselves fortunate. There are far fewer travellers on the roads this year than we've found in years past. People are taking "staycations," as the travel editors call them on network news.
USA Today reported Americans drove thirty billion fewer miles in the first quarter this year than during the same period last year. Yet that amount represents only 3% of our annual fossil fuel consumption, I believe it said. That is a staggering figure indeed.
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