Lil' bit country

Magnet #637 - Grand Ole Opry

I never got into country music until I met one of my college roomies who listened to it alllll the time. It sounds a little cheesy, but she always had a song in her heart, and on her lips, and she introduced me to the best of the early 90s, inadvertently teaching me all the lyrics. And, I guess it took.

Of course, nowadays, I'm finding that my country music love is in stasis. In the 90s.

My friend went to Nashville and brought this back for me from her tour of the Grand Ole Opry. I've never been - I mean, I didn't grow up with it in the house, so I guess it's no surprise that we skirted the Opry in favor of Opryland, instead.

Oh, my.

I just went to go look up Opryland, and realized it was shuttered and demolished in the 90s! Talk about stasis in the 90s. Nooooooo! But it was the Home of American Music, it says!

The park had some cool rides, including a bunch of long-lost to memory kiddie rides. And oh, those fun cheesy performances where everyone swings and claps to overenthusiastic "get your hands clappin'!!" performers. What's weird is that I can't really imagine my parents running around at Opryland, going to what had to have been country music performances.

I do remember my parents would fob me off on my Uncle Oscar to take me on the scary rides - the most memorable one was a scary, scary plane ride. In my head, I've built into a bunch of planes that were hung from a chain (!!!) That flew around a tower (!!!). But, to be honest it's one of those hazy dazy memories the I distinctly remember being is the air, flying around at breakneck speed, and it was dark. And there may have been a joystick.

Or, that was just a hazy dazy memory of being in a cockpit...on television.

eta:
Found it! Apparently, there was a plane ride. It was called the Barnstormer (natch) and it was a 100-ft-tall spinning airplane ride. Whoa, from Themepark Timelines. Just whoa. Really? My parents let me ride in that thing?

You can take the girl out of the country - GAR Day #3

Magnet #86 - Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN

So today, we're in Nashville, TN, visiting the Bluebird Cafe, the Parthenon, and the Hermitage this morning. Driving to Memphis in the afternoon. (Yes, this was an ambitious day. They all were.) Man, my verb tenses are gonna be nuts for the next two weeks, huh.

I've been to Nashville, but not as an adult. One of the GAR roadtrippers brought this magnet back from her own Tennessee roadtrip.

Ryman Auditorium was built in the late 1800s, and found itself as the home of the Grand Ole Opry for years and years and years, becoming the launching point for many country music careers along the way.

Even though I'd grown up around it most of my life, I had a healthy distaste for country music until one of my college roommates educated me on the best of country music. Still love the stuff, though living in New York, you don't get much exposure to it. So much so, that when Garth played Central Park almost a decade ago, I was heartily convinced that I would be the only one in the park.

Man, was I wrong.


GAR Track of the Day: Thunder Rolls