After the last reunion event on Saturday night, I got in my car and attempted to navigate my way out of downtown Beaumont. Downtown areas always seem to get the best of me because they involve a lot of one way streets that seem to lead to a lot of locations, none of which seem to be the location I’m actually interested in. So I locked my doors and meandered around until I finally saw a sign that read “I-10”. I wasn’t sure that was what I was looking for, but I figured it was an interstate and, worse case scenario, I’d end up in Baton Rouge.
While driving around, I scanned through the available radio stations in the hopes of finding some decent music to listen to as I possibly headed to the Louisiana state line. When I last lived in Beaumont, twenty years ago, I was a big fan of B-95 FM because they alternated between a mix of Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Erasure and Depeche Mode. What’s not to like?
Other than “Shake Your Love” since even at the tender age of seventeen I knew it was just a little too peppy and the odds were not in favor of it becoming a classic, as opposed to “Chains of Love”.
Right about the time I discovered that I was actually headed the right way, I stumbled upon Kenny Rogers singing “Lucille”. Just to clarify, I found it on the radio. I didn’t actually run into Kenny Rogers standing on a street corner singing it, although if I had it would have easily qualified as one of the top ten moments of my life. I think I’ve mentioned before that, during the formative years of my childhood, my Pa-Pa drove a baby blue 1977 Fleetwood Cadillac and the “Kenny Rogers’ Greatest Hits” album was permanently stuck in the 8-track player. I was a young, impressionable girl and, even though I didn’t exactly understand what he meant when he warned Ruby not to take her love to town, I knew she should have listened to him and stayed home.
So there I was, aimlessly wondering the streets of Beaumont and listening to Kenny Rogers when it dawned on me that my Pa-Pa was probably doing the exact same thing twenty years earlier, except he was in a sweet ride with an 8-track player. I turned up the volume on “Lucille” and sang my heart out because, even though it’s a dreadful song about a woman leaving her husband with four hungry (not four hundred as I used to believe) children and some crops in the field, it makes me so happy. Maybe he deserved it. Why was he counting on her to help with those crops in the field anyway? Shouldn’t that have been his job?
The next morning (I eventually found my way home) my sister and I loaded our two hungry children in the car, stopped to buy some cookies for the road and began the long journey home. We hadn’t been on the road for more than five minutes when guess what I heard on the radio?
“Lucille”
I almost felt like it was some sort of sign, but a sign of what? Am I about to come into some land that will yield crops? Will I have four hungry children? Is my radio stuck on some “All Kenny All The Time” station?
As it turns out it was just purely coincidence which is such a relief because what would I do with some crops?
I’d had the good fortune to find the best classic country station ever. EVER. It’s 97.1 in Houston which, to my great joy and delight, transmits all the way to Beaumont and lasted for about two and a half hours of our road trip. It was like listening to a soundtrack of my childhood and I seriously clapped my hands with joy when we hit the Houston city limits and, I kid you not, Larry Gatlin started singing “Houston” and then five minutes later it started raining and Willie began to sing “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”. It was like the radio could see into my soul.
I was so inspired that I got home and immediately downloaded the following songs to my iTunes:
1. “Danny’s Song” – Anne Murray
2. “Two Doors Down” – Dolly Parton
3. “Lucille” – Kenny Rogers (obviously)
4. “Somebody’s Knockin” – Terri Gibbs
5. “Looking for Love” – Johnny Lee (I’m embarrassed it took me this long)
6. “Good Hearted Woman” – Waylon Jennings
7. “Jolene” – Dolly Parton (seeing all the Dolly options was like opening Pandora’s box)
8. “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” – Willie Nelson
9. “Lousiana Woman, Mississippi Man” – Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn
10. “It Must Be Love” – Don Williams
I’ll be honest. I think I got a little carried away, but I don’t regret it for one instant because listening to all these songs brings me right back to somewhere around 1979. It’s just too bad that I can’t listen to them on an 8-track player.
And in case I feel the need to download about twenty-six more songs, what would your choices be?