AB1 Tour 2014 - Week 24 - Nashville, TN

So that song has been running through my head all this week:
     “Take the last train to Nashville,
          and I’ll meet you at the station …”
     That can’t be right …
     Oh, I know, it’s “… and I’ll meet you at the depot …”
     Still doesn’t sound quite right, does it?
     Well, I’ll remember the words by the end of the blog ... “remember” being the operative word.
     Yes, we’re in Nashville, Tennessee, also known as “Music City.”  This burg has many other sobriquets: religiously it’s “The Buckle of the Bible Belt”; artistically it’s “The Athens of the South”; but most commonly it’s known as “The City of the Honky Tonks.”
     We liked the last one best.
     On Sunday, September 7, we made our way into the Volunteer state and camped in Goodlettsville, a convenient 15 minutes north of downtown Nashville.  The park was a “KOA,” the McDonald’s of RV parks, so it had everything we needed.
     Our Monday Rules dictated we just hung out and got caught up on the news.  Well, apparently in our adopted native Arizona, they were experiencing the wettest September 8 in their desert history.  We even heard Phoenix canceled school because of the rain …
     WAIT … WHAT?
     Now just a darn minute!
     When I grew up in Minnesota, we’d walk through three feet of snow to get to school … and that was in April!  Now, those sissy Arizona kids don’t have to go to school because of a little rain …
     What’s that, dear? … They had 2.9 INCHES of rain?
     Oh, well, that’s different.  Maybe the governor should call out the National Guard …
     2.9 inches … Now I’ve heard everything.
     Simmering down.

 The next day we made it to the Tennessee State Fair.  Our Minnesota buddy RJ’s goal is to attend all 50 state fairs.  He’s an absolute fanatic about the Minnesota State Fair.  This would be our fourth state fair after seeing ones in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Arizona.  And as it happens every time I attend a state fair, I have to sing the state fair song from the movie of the same name:
     “Oh, our state fair is a great state fair!
          Don’t miss it!  Don’t even be late!
     Cause it’s dollars to donuts that our state fair
          is the best state fair in the state!”
     NOTE: I think the words mean that some states have more than one state fair.  You may have to check with Pat Boone on that.

 We got to the fair grounds at 8:30 AM when it was supposed to open.  Somehow, we parked for free, although the sign said “Parking-$5.” Then we got in for free … the sign said “Seniors-$6.” (I had read in the paper that they would have free parking, free admission, and free lunch for seniors today.  So whoever said there’s no free lunch, well, apparently in Tennessee, they’d be wrong.)  I mean, there was no one there selling tickets or even taking them.  So either way, we had already saved $17.  Of course, we did have to open the place up.  I helped the roustabouts pound in stakes for the big top tent while Diedre made a few bucks selling popcorn at a vacant snack trailer.  This was one loosely run operation.
 Although the Tennessee State Fair has been around for 108 years, it’s really pretty small.  The swine barn was empty as was the mule barn, the sheep/goats stalls, and the cow barn.  It was the first time Diedre has ever been able to walk through one of the animal barns at a fair without getting asthma.  Of course, it’s always easier when there are no animals.  Only the duck, chicken, and rabbit enclosures had any inhabitants at all; oh, and there were four horses in a horse barn which had over 100 stalls.
    The TSF was a bit stronger in the vegetation competitions.  Their pumpkin winner weighed in at a Tennessee record 1,287 pounds … the pumpkin, not its owner.  Still, there wasn’t a whole lot of competition there.  And the food sales booths were pitiful, hardly any that would compare with Minnesota’s behemoth concessions operations.  TN’s was even smaller than Arizona’s which we thought would be hard to do.  It’s like they weren’t even trying.  They did have deep-fried Oreo’s, which of course, are ridiculous.  I mean, “deep-fried Twinkies” I can see, but “deep fried Oreo’s”?
     I don’t think so.
     One of the few things that was going on were the pig races.  Our favorite there was a feisty little porker named “Jean Claude Van Hamm.”  They got the pigs to run faster by putting an Oreo cookie at the finish line.
     Oreo’s again?  Does the TSF have some sort of sponsorship deal going on with Nabisco?
     My diabetic cheat for the day (Diedre says it’s “my CHEAT for the month”) at the State Fair was a scoop of “Squirrel Hollow” chocolate ice cream.  It was just excellent, although it would be hard to compare it to my favorite at the Minnesota State Fair, their legendary “cheese curds.”  Now there are some serious carbs.
     Being seniors there on “Senior Day,” we were offered a free lunch in order for the state to fill us in on the benefits of Medicare.  The lunch consisted of a pimento-cheese sandwich (Is that even a “thing”?) of which I can’t eat the bread; potato chips (which I can’t have); and a cookie (see “potato chips”).  All in all, a pretty good deal ... if you’re four years old.  So after all, it DOES prove the old adage: “They’re AIN’T no free lunch.”
    At the Minnesota State Fair, it takes you a good two days to see everything; Wisconsin’s and Arizona’s consume about a day each.  At Tennessee’s, we were out of there after two hours, tops.
     Live and learn.
    Our walking tour of downtown Nashville now shifted into high gear and much for the better, I might add.  We walked to their State Capitol and visited the tomb of our 11th president, James K. Polk, who was buried on the capitol’s grounds.  
We then made our way along Broadway, the Nashville equivalent of Memphis’s Beale Street.  It’s the heart of country music.  While I’m not a big country music guy (I’m not really that much of a music guy in general, except for the hard-acid rock of the late 60’s and the occasional banjo-harmonica-accordion trio), Diedre does like it.  She was once a radio disc jockey personality going by the nom de plume “Diedre Kaye of the Milky Way” on radio station KKJR, HOT Country Music, in Hutchinson, Minnesota.  That girl can really do it all.
     

We stopped in for lunch at the hu-mongous Wildhorse Saloon.  The place had three levels with a bar on each one.  We meet up with some real western types at the bar.  Diedre talked with a pair of cuties, but the gal I sat next to was a real horse-face.
   

 Diedre then considered buying some “Kinky Boots.”  It seems they didn’t have anything in her size.
     Continuing with our tradition of three weeks, we walked across the Cumberland River on the town’s Shelby Avenue Pedestrian Bridge.  This was the third city in a row where we’ve walked across a lovely downtown bridge while looking out at the beautiful scenery on either side of the river.  In Arizona when we walk over a bridge, we look down upon … sand.
     Not quite the same thing.
 The Shelby Bridge was right next to the Tennessee Titans’ football stadium.  The city view from the center of the bridge had inspired Bob Dylan to write his “Nashville Skyline” album.
     We ended our Nashville walking tour that night by meeting up with former Arizona actor and good friend Mitchell Van Trease at the Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar.  And get this … WE got carded!
     Either we’re looking very young these days, or else the waiter was an idiot.  I know, probably the “latter.”
     We continued our Nashville tour Wednesday by going to see their replica of the Athens (Greece) Parthenon.  The original was built in the 5th century B.C. atop the Acropolis to house a 42’ tall statue of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and ladies’ shoes.  Nashville’s Parthenon was built in 1897 (permanently completed in 1931; I think their original construction utilized mainly Lincoln Logs and Erector Set pieces).  Located in Centennial Park, it’s the only full-scale replica of the original in the world.  It existed for 93 years without an Athena figure, but on May 20, 1990, Nashville’s Athena was unveiled.  Apparently, it solidifies Nashville’s reputation as “The Athens of the South” … that is, if you don’t count Athens, Georgia. 
     Back in 2010, good buddy John Harberts and I visited the original Parthenon in Greece.  Unfortunately, it was undergoing a lot of restoration at the time, and the scaffolding surrounding the building made it difficult to take any kind of quality photographs.  But this time it would be different …
     … or would it be?
   

(That tiny red spot in the corner of the building is Diedre posing for me.)

 Sure enough, as we walked up to Nashville’s edition of the Parthenon, we immediately spotted construction vehicles all over the place.
     RATS!
     Or maybe “Not RATS.”
     The powers that look down on AB1 were with us on this day.  The construction was mainly on just two sides of the building, so we were able to get some nifty pictures on the other sides.

     From there, it was a short walk over to Vanderbilt University for another of our monthly college campus visits. 
      And then it was on to a venue we were both excited to see: The Belcourt Theatre.
     This theatre had opened way back in 1925 as “The Hillsboro Theatre”; this was so long ago, they were running silent movies.  This lovely setting then became the home to “The Grand Ole Opry” from 1931-1934.  It went back to its roots as the Belcourt Cinema in 1966 (sound movies, this time), but closed up in 1999 and then waited for the wrecking ball.  As usual, some idiots figured they needed another parking ramp.
     Fortunately, it was saved by a local non-profit group and has been open for the last 15 years showing art house flicks as well as some plays and even doing some music videos.  They even got a beer license, so you could watch a movie while cooling off with a frosty Yazoo Porter tap beer.  We didn’t need much cooling off as we watched a fun independent movie, “Land Ho,” about two old guys touring Iceland.
     There’s your Academy Award winner right there.
   

 We topped off the evening with a visit to our new favorite pizza chain which we discovered in the south and east this year (and apparently now has a franchise only 9 miles from our Arizona home), the Mellow Mushroom.  It was gooo-ood!
     After two days of town-walking, we relaxed at the camp on Thursday as the good folks at KOA sponsored a picnic with a pair of local singers.  But on Friday, it was back to town for your intrepid duo, and this would be a monumentally fun night: we had tickets to The Grand Ole Opry!
   

 The Grand Ole Opry is actually radio’s longest running program ever.  They got their start back in 1925.  After some time at the Belcourt, they moved downtown to the Ryman Auditorium in 1943.  But in 1974, they then moved into their spectacular new digs on the outskirts of town.  In order to bring a little of the original Ryman GOO along, they cut a six-foot diameter circle of oak wood out of the middle of the Ryman stage and made it the central part of the stage at their new 4,400 seat venue.  The history came along for the ride.
     Unfortunately in May of 2010, the city had a tremendous rainfall followed by a once-in-a-lifetime flood.  The new GOO was quickly submerged under four feet of water.  But this country-western community is nothing if not plucky.  Everyone pitched in and five months later on September 28, 2010, they re-opened the Opry better than ever.
   

 It was a very fun night, even for someone (me) who isn’t a big country-western fan.  They had, in essence, four half-hour shows, each with 3-4 acts each, for a total of 13 acts in all.  We got to see, among others, Mel Tillis, Ray Stevens, Lee Greenwood, The Riders in the Sky, and Roy Clark.  The show was simultaneously broadcast on AM radio, Sirius Satellite Radio, Opry.com, and on a mobile app.  Since everybody was limited to one or two songs, we only got to see their best, and let me tell you, it was!
     We were now developing a severe case of “hitch-itch,” RV talk for wanting to get out and go somewhere, so on Saturday we saddled up Zippy the Wonder Honda and took off for points south of Nashville.  Our first stop was the well-thought of “Loveless Café”
     

You know how I’ve written often that everything in life (at least for me) is a “Seinfeld” episode.  So it was at the Loveless café:
     Our waiter’s name was “Kramer.”
     The café opened in 1951 with a husband-wife team serving secret-recipe biscuits and fried chicken to weary travelers on the outskirts of Nashville.  It seemed to work.  The business now serves more than a half-million customers a year.  Noted felon Martha Stewart has been quoted as saying about the LC, “It’s the best breakfast I’ve ever had.”  The Food Network calls it “America’s Best Biscuit.”
     Right about now, you’re probably going through withdrawal because you haven’t heard me talk about baseball in like, FOREVER!  (It’s actually been only eight days).  Well, never fear.  Our next destination that fateful Saturday was a visit to see eight teams competing for the coveted “Sulphur Dell Cup”!
     “What’s that?” you say.
     I’m glad you asked.  The SDC is the year end state tournament for “The Association of Vintage Base Ball” teams.

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     “Again,” you’re asking, “what the hell is Vintage Base Ball?”
     Well, I’ll tell you.
     “Vintage Base Ball” is where teams play by the rules and customs of 1864 baseball as set down in the publication “Beadle’s Dime Base-Ball Player.”  There are currently over 400 teams in the U.S. and Canada playing.  Some interesting baseball terms from that era were: three hands dead (three outs); striker (batter); bug bruiser (ground ball); scout (outfielder); and muckle (power hitter).
   

 The major rule differences included the pitcher throwing the baseball underhand at a moderate speed; no called balls or strikes; no gloves used in the field; when a ball is caught on one bounce, the batter is out; no over-running of first base; the arbiter (umpire) could request the input of the crowd if a close play was in dispute; no infield fly rule; whenever a base runner scores, he rings a bell hanging on the backstop; the umpire let the spectators know how many outs there were by stuffing rags in the chicken-wire backstop each time an out was made (3 rags=3 outs); and ungentlemanly behavior such as spitting or cursing was subject to a fine by the arbiter.  They have made one concession to modern baseball, however, this regarding video replay: “All reviews are transmitted via telegraph to the league office and are reviewed within a fortnight.”
     

The tourney was played at the “Carnton Plantation” in Franklin, TN.  On November 30, 1864, this was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.  In a fatally deadly last attempt charge by the Army of Tennessee, 10,000 soldiers died, 7,000 of them on the Confederate side, after only five hours of fighting.  The Confederacy lost six generals, pretty much spelling out the beginning of the end for the South.  The landowners, the McGavocks, put aside two acres as a cemetery for 1,500 fallen men.  Today it is the largest privately owned military cemetery in the nation.
     We watched one game of the tournament, choosing to support “The Highland Rim Distillers” because they were from the town where AB1 was parked.  Our “boys” easily handled “The Phoenix of East Nashville” 16-4.  Afterwards, their cheer for the other team was: “HUZZAH!  HUZZAH!  HUZZAH!”
     We finished the afternoon with a walk through Franklin, TN, which is on the “Top Six List of Most Beautiful Towns in America.”  The houses in the pre-Civil War part of town displayed some great architecture.
   

 Back in Nashville that night, we made it over to the Ryman Auditorium to see a “concert” (you can tell I’m not a big fan; Diedre says he was great, so you’ll just have to take her word for it) by Kris Kristofferson.
     The Ryman is the city’s most recognized taber-nacle.  It’s referred to as “The Mother of Country Music.”  Built as the Union Gospel Tabernacle Church in 1892, it was the longtime home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943-1974.  It’s now a National Historic Landmark.  The Ryman is the epicenter of Music City; past performers include Louis Armstrong, James Brown, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Etta James, BB King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, Elvis, and Bruce Springsteen.  Renovated in 1994, it now has 2,300 church-pew seats.  Diedre loved Kris’s concert; I enjoyed the building’s history.
     Win-win for both of us.
   

Horses with their riders pass before the wild deer scamper away.

 Sunday, our last day in town, was supposed to be another meet up with a Carleton College classmate, fellow basketball starter Herb Fritch.  Herb has a farm about an hour outside of Nashville with the world's largest group of white bison, red deer, elk, and watusi cattle.  Unfortunately, he had been on an Alaskan fishing trip and didn’t get back to Nashville till too late that night for us to meet up.  So, our last day in town included a lovely river-walk hike at a local park followed by the movie, “Dolphin Tale 2” (We’re known suckers for any movie with animals in it).
     OK, we’re up to the week you’ve all been waiting for.  It’s …
     THE BIRTHDAY THAT WOULD NOT END!
     Oh yeah, we’re going to Branson, Missouri, too.
     See yawl there!