When our children walk through the front door, they hear western music. Kitty Wells sings, “As I sit here tonight, the jukebox’s playing the tune about the wild side of life. It Wasn’t God who made honky tonk angels.” Or, with his smooth buttery voice, Ray Price sings “For the Good Times,” and my Sweet Al and I tap our toes and remember our good times, and the stories behind the music.
I mute the volume on the “Country’s Family Reunion” show when I hear our children come in. They snicker. They indicate their skeptical silence with raised eyebrows. I read their minds: “Really? You two need a life. Get out more.” Somehow it has escaped our children. They don’t believe Al and I were once young and had a life before them. We loved to dance to western music and we shuffled around the wooden floor every Friday night.
Al and I fell in love dancing to Glen Campbell’s music in 1958 before he became famous. The pianist tickled the piano keys and the band member made the steel-guitar cry like a baby. The lonesome moan floated through the dance hall as Al held me close and whispered in my ear.
Today, two months at home since the accident, I’ve taken only three trips out of the house, twice to the doctor’s office and once to a funeral. It sounds like a movie title. My feet and legs took the brunt of the accident. Much of my time is spent with my feet propped higher than my head while Al is catching a nap in his recliner.
The music is from our younger days. I knew Al Slade in high school, but we saw each other again at the Hitchin’ Post on Route 66, west of Albuquerque, N.M. Barely 18, I was there with a date. I was in my senior year and Al had graduated two years before.
The one and only time I’ve ever seen Al drunk, and high as a kite, he walked past the booth where I was sitting. He tripped over my date’s feet and fell into my lap and asked me to dance.
Al twirled me around, and after the music had stopped, he kept me on the dance floor. He said he was going to take me home. I said, “No, I came with someone.” After several dances, Al finally took me back to the young man I was with.
I went home with my date. Al went home alone. I didn’t think this would be the beginning of a life together. The next morning Al was at my mother’s house bright and early. He hung around and he is still hanging around. It’s our story behind the music, and the rest is history.
As we listen to the stories of all the great singers and their songs on the “Country’s Family Reunion” and the “Next Generation,” we hadn’t known or thought about the stories behind their songs. We saw the singers and musicians as icons and they shined brightly in the spotlight. We didn’t know of the heartbreak, their families and spouses they left at home. Or when they stayed at some two-bit motel.
The children spoke of their parents and where their songs came from. One told of his father when he said this song came from next door in the motel room, a woman yelled at her husband, “Please release me, let me go. I don’t love you anymore.” The song was written by Eddie Miller and Robert Yount in 1949. In 2018, Engelbert Humperdinck released the song and brought it back to life.
I love how the singers and songwriters spoke highly of each other. They praised the talent of the other entertainers and laughed at those times back when. Each of those lyrics came from somewhere, mostly in heartbreaks and hard living. Most of them today are releasing gospel albums and singing in churches.
For me, there is no dancing today as Al pushes me in my wheelchair from the recliner to the kitchen. It’s a different kind of shuffling — an old-person shuffle.
Final brushstroke: Today, I am making a transition from the wheelchair to the walker. That’s a sight to see: a tiny step with a lot of ouchy, ouchy, ouchy. Al asked me why I grunt all the time. I told him, “It feels better when I grunt.” It’s a long way from when we were shuffling on the dance floor when Al whispered sweet nothings in my ear.
If you want a good laugh, check out Tim Conway’s “The Oldest Man” on “The Carol Burnett Show.” I am still laughing.
This video is too close to home, but you will get a better idea of where Al and I are. No wonder our children are shaking their heads. It could be another honky tonk story that needs a song: “I’ve been here too long. I’m running away. Don’t try to catch me.”
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