Nashville Stories

My first real paying job in high school and, for some college breaks, was as a lifeguard at my local Holiday Inn, which had a Holidome.

If I ever wrote an autobiography, not that my life is that interesting, there would be at least one chapter on the hijinks of my lifeguarding nights at the Holiday Inn.

But as a socially awkward teenager, I never got invited back to a room by a girl or a woman. Some creepy old guy once demanded that I do, and said if I didn’t, he was friends with our hotel general manager and would make sure I got in trouble. I told our GM, who rolled his eyes and told me not to worry about anything.

 

I last went in 2004 for the NCAA tournament and was shocked how underrated it was as a non-country music destination — right as megachurched northerners began moving in and ruining the place.

 

@Driftwood, I want to hear more about that goat.

 

It was pouring the rain that day. For some reason, they were handing out some kind of passes at the gate. They were yellow. We went into the petting zoo area, and one particular goat was attracted to the yellow pieces of paper and kept trying to eat them. A guy came in with a yellow rain poncho on. The goat fell in behind him and started eating the entire back side of the poncho. The dude never noticed, but I had the best time watching it all.

 

I don't drink and don't follow country music, so each time I've been to Nashville, it has been to check out Vandy or great used bookstores.

 

Vandy?!? How much do you hate football?

 

So after my sister graduated Vandy she packed up her long black hair and Southern twang and move to NYC where she landed a PR job. Her galpal, Gina, celebrated her graduation from Belmont by visiting Sister TV in her new town, where they went to lunch and my sister noticed a long haired, distinguished guy with a British accent checking them out. “That’s Steve Winwood” my sister informed her friend, who replied “who’s that?” Well, who could blame her? This was more than a year before Higher Love reignited his career.
But the quick looks back and forth were soon followed by his introducing himself because, dear readers, Steve had fallen in love at first sight!
Soon enough the couple were married and living in a beautiful view home tucked in the hills off Tyne Blvd in Forest Hills in Nashville.
Wanting to learn as much as he can about his new hometown, Stevie decided he needed to go to a football game. Because this was of course before the Titans, he had slim pickings but he rounded up tickets to a Vandy game hosting Florida. And needing a local to help explain things, Sister TV asked if I would like to chaperone him.
And that’s how TigerVols spent an afternoon with Steve Winwood (and his guitarist Dave Mason) on West End watching Vandy pound Florida 24-9.
All these years later the couple are still together.

 

I think the most prophetic time in my life came in downtown Nashville.
I don't remember what year it was, but within the last decade, Nashville has stared having these little scooter things all over the place.
When I first saw them, my thought was, "Well, that's fine if you are going down hill, but eventually they will all end up down by the river."
If you are familiar with Broadway, from about 5th up the Rosa Parks, it's uphill. I was standing on the corner of 7th and Broadway, and I saw a guy on one of them zipping uphill.
"Ohhhhhh. They're motorized. That won't end well."
That was March. In May of that year, I see a headline in The Tennessean: Scooter Rider Dies in Downtown Crash.

Called It!

 

The most unbelievable part of this is the idea of Vandy thumping the Gators by two touchdowns, even today.

 

Holidome and Wabash Cannonball veteran here, as well.

Saw my first college game there, Vandy vs. Ole Miss in 1978. Still have my $8 ticket stub.

Fast forward: was sitting in the Hilton bar with co-workers watching the Auburn-FSU championship game. We were there for a trade show. Auburn scored its final touchdown and the place went bananas. I got up from the table to go to the bathroom, prompting my co-workers to ask why I wasn't going to watch FSU's last drive.

"Because it's Auburn, and I know how this game will end."

FSU scored as I was walking back to the table for another beer.

 

Sometimes teachers in high school would bring in successful adults in different career fields to give us an idea of the opportunities available to us if we worked hard in school.

Then there was my drama teacher, who brought in Coyote McCloud and Rhett Walker from the Y107 Zoo Crew, a show so risqué for the early 90s that it got featured in a 48 Hours segment, an editorial in our Podunk paper calling for a boycott and a perma-ban in the Dixiehack household that led to a good bit of subterfuge with my portable radio.

 

I miss Coyote.

Carl P holding forth on big butts during the Tonya Harding trial caused my then-boyfriend to nearly swerve off the road. He was from Memphis and thought Nashville was a den of moral turpitude anyway.