and stretch, and finally it roused itself enough to demand something. So, I began climbing into the Lexus for a drive to kill time until noon had passed. I spent hours listening to Big D and Bubba on The Big 98 while rambling around Davidson and Williamson counties. I never stopped anywhere, just admired the scenery outside my windshield. Granny White Pike was a nice long stretch of road from Brentwood to downtown; lots of pristine green golf courses, stacked stone walls, grand entrances to estates, and stretches of pretty white fences with horses behind them. Roy informed me that these were “gentleman farmers” and that if I wanted to know the real farmers, with tractors and dirt under their nails, I should get out of the city, especiallynorth and west, where they grew corn, tobacco, and soy. In fact, Roy went to great lengths to educate me about the social strata of various Nashville communities.
He told me that Franklin was Old Money, Old South, but that the truly rich lived in Belle Meade, and it was what you called Really Old Money. According to Roy, those people didn’t like the country music industry at all. He maintained the folks in Green Hills were “Cliquish and married to their money.”
One of my favorite stretches of road was along Franklin Pike, particularly the place where Tammy Wynette’s former home sat behind a black iron fence. Back then, before the novelty of living in the same area as these idols of mine had worn off, I always slowed down there, rubbernecking as I tried to imagine their dazzling lives.
After I’d been at Harmony Hill for almost an entire year, I set out one particular Sunday for a drive along Old Hickory Boulevard. A road that once simply circled the city, it had become a complicated course interrupted by lakes and rerouted sections. I enjoyed the twists and turns, passing by what seemed to be an enormous church on every single corner. Roy called them “The land-baron churches.” During worship services, a cop or two parked along the roadsides at every one of these mammoth churches, with blue lights flashing, waiting to direct traffic in and out. Something as foreign to my little church back in Blue Ridge as a paved parking lot. Back in Blue Ridge . . .
Sure don’t want to go there
, I thought, turning up the volume on the radio and mashing the accelerator. Near the Four Points Sheraton and the Waffle House, I spied a warmly lit Panera Bread and decided I sure could use a large espresso.
No one inside Panera recognized me, but I wasn’t surprised because my face was not yet so familiar to the public, and plus, I wore no makeup and had my hair tucked up in a ratty denimbaseball cap, pulled down over my eyebrows. My Sunday uniform consisted of a shapeless cotton shirt and slouchy Bermuda shorts and the raggediest high-top Converses you could imagine. I could have been the Queen of England and no one would have known.
I loved the fact that there were no waiters in Panera, and after I’d been nestled down with my espresso in a comfy chair in the tall-ceilinged front room for a while, the scent of warm cinnamon wafted out. I could not resist, and I followed it back to the counter where I discovered a mouth-watering array of carbohydrates behind clear glass: bear claws, giant cookies sprinkled with M&M’s, good-looking muffins called cobblestones. I ordered a cinnamon crunch bagel and returned to my chair, sitting and happily watching the world go by outside the window.
I realized I’d found my safe place. Each and every Sunday after that, I drove to Panera, ordered an espresso and a cinnamon crunch bagel, and sunk myself into the same pillowy chair in the Great Room.
Panera had an assortment of magazines and tabloids scattered on the tables from
Strum
to
Country Music Weekly
, and as I sipped my coffee, I liked to pour over the latest news about country’s hottest stars as well as music events around town. Whenever I came upon an article about Jenny Cloud, it was like
He told me that Franklin was Old Money, Old South, but that the truly rich lived in Belle Meade, and it was what you called Really Old Money. According to Roy, those people didn’t like the country music industry at all. He maintained the folks in Green Hills were “Cliquish and married to their money.”
One of my favorite stretches of road was along Franklin Pike, particularly the place where Tammy Wynette’s former home sat behind a black iron fence. Back then, before the novelty of living in the same area as these idols of mine had worn off, I always slowed down there, rubbernecking as I tried to imagine their dazzling lives.
After I’d been at Harmony Hill for almost an entire year, I set out one particular Sunday for a drive along Old Hickory Boulevard. A road that once simply circled the city, it had become a complicated course interrupted by lakes and rerouted sections. I enjoyed the twists and turns, passing by what seemed to be an enormous church on every single corner. Roy called them “The land-baron churches.” During worship services, a cop or two parked along the roadsides at every one of these mammoth churches, with blue lights flashing, waiting to direct traffic in and out. Something as foreign to my little church back in Blue Ridge as a paved parking lot. Back in Blue Ridge . . .
Sure don’t want to go there
, I thought, turning up the volume on the radio and mashing the accelerator. Near the Four Points Sheraton and the Waffle House, I spied a warmly lit Panera Bread and decided I sure could use a large espresso.
No one inside Panera recognized me, but I wasn’t surprised because my face was not yet so familiar to the public, and plus, I wore no makeup and had my hair tucked up in a ratty denimbaseball cap, pulled down over my eyebrows. My Sunday uniform consisted of a shapeless cotton shirt and slouchy Bermuda shorts and the raggediest high-top Converses you could imagine. I could have been the Queen of England and no one would have known.
I loved the fact that there were no waiters in Panera, and after I’d been nestled down with my espresso in a comfy chair in the tall-ceilinged front room for a while, the scent of warm cinnamon wafted out. I could not resist, and I followed it back to the counter where I discovered a mouth-watering array of carbohydrates behind clear glass: bear claws, giant cookies sprinkled with M&M’s, good-looking muffins called cobblestones. I ordered a cinnamon crunch bagel and returned to my chair, sitting and happily watching the world go by outside the window.
I realized I’d found my safe place. Each and every Sunday after that, I drove to Panera, ordered an espresso and a cinnamon crunch bagel, and sunk myself into the same pillowy chair in the Great Room.
Panera had an assortment of magazines and tabloids scattered on the tables from
Strum
to
Country Music Weekly
, and as I sipped my coffee, I liked to pour over the latest news about country’s hottest stars as well as music events around town. Whenever I came upon an article about Jenny Cloud, it was like
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