Nashville is my town.
Street preachers in the heat and humidity. It's always raining in Guitar Town, you know. The tourists have taken over Lower Broad, swishing in their windsuits down Second Avenue. The homeless down on the Cumberland River have mostly been moved out of sight, so as not to offend the visitors who'll buy a gee-tar that'll never come out of the closet when they get home to Ohio.
The Indigo Girls once deplored my town, with reason.
Hateful Baptists. Provincial minds. Did I mention the heat and humidity? And that commercial crap they mainstream as music.
But, Lord. There's more there--a milkshake on Elliston Place, the memory of Minnie Pearl, even that god-awful replica Parthenon. The town drew Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline. Mandy Barnett sings there.
And by God, the Ryman still stands.
Nashville is where the doctors fixed my heart. It's where my daddy died. It's where my niece came into the world.
Nashville. I can't quit her.
Listen to Lacy. She knows.
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