Weekend with Roy

.....Acuff, that is. Roy Acuff reigned supreme at the Grand Ole Opry when he was alive and well.

This past weekend, early Saturday, I left Huntsville, Alabama hoping to find an adventure in Nashville, Tennessee.

On weekdays, it must be a pretty robust place with lots of new building construction and sporting new 8 lane super highways. My GPS was leading me toward old downtown and the Ryman Auditorium.

If Nashville is Mecca to country music fans, the Ryman has to be the Holy of Holies.

A converted church that still has stained glass windows,the Ryman was the home of the Grand Ole Opry for years until Gaylord Entertainment began hosting it at Opryland.Years ago, Broadway Street was the heartbeat of country music. It's just a half block from the original Grand Ole Opry and spawned country stars like Roy Acuff, Little Jimmy Dickens, June Carter, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, Minnie Pearl and others.

Many like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Roy Orbison had early success there.

Still today, country music hopefuls make pilgrimages here in hopes for that rainbow, playing for tips during the day and playing in groups at Tootsie's and any number of bars during the night.

This town's brand is definitely music and the Music Row area is lined with music companies small and great.

As you drive the area, recording and production companies are separated only by attorney offices and virtually every light pole has a half dozen posters advertising some singer, musician or banjo player.


During the day, some open up their guitar cases and play for tips until time to tune back up at the lounges.

Nashville nods to others other than traditional hillbilly music icons. There's a Hard Rock Cafe and a Coyote Ugly with young men and women sporting multiple tattoos, body piercings and purple hair walking the sidewalks in front of the Wildhorse Saloon.

While many come here

in search of their dreams

some are not so lucky and found the end of that rainbow a place of discouragement, despair and loneliness.

But as Willie Nelson once sang, "Sad Songs And Waltzes Aren't Selling This Year".

At lunch, I dropped into a Chinese Restaurant. Just before leaving, the waiter plunked down the ticket on the table accompanied by the traditional Chinese Fortune Cookie. Ironically, the message in the cookie pretty much says it all.


(I promise, I really got this cookie and took the picture myself)

Call me a pessimist but I'd guess the lucky numbers wouldn't win me the lottery either.