Morning. I went down to the lobby and ordered a coffee. I was carrying my banjo. Nobody even looked twice at me.
“Room for cream?” the guy said.
“No, thank you.”
I waited for him to stare at my banjo and ask what was in the case. Everyone asks.
But not in Nashville. Banjos here are superfluous. In fact, it’s more unusual NOT to be carrying a banjo in Nash-Vegas.
But before I left, he smiled and said, “Break a leg, man.”
I played banjo on the 650 WSM AM morning show. Bill Cody interviewed me and did his best to make me sound interesting and smart. After a lifetime in radio, Bill Cody could make a fire plug seem interesting and smart. Which is exactly what he did this morning.
Then I left the studio and met an older woman from Bowling Green, Kentucky, who has attended well over 500 Grand Ole Opry performances. Elaine Sledge. Tonight she’ll be bringing her sister to see me. We got our picture made together. She told me to break
a leg.
Then, I went back to the hotel. I had a whole day to kill. So I played my fiddle for several hours until someone knocked on the door and interrupted. It was a veterinary doctor with a medic bag.
“Hello,” he said, “we just received a call about a dying animal in this room?”
So I played banjo instead.
Then it was almost time for soundcheck.
I took a shower and kept thinking to myself how surreal this all is. Me, an ordinary fire plug, playing the Opry.
I put on my suit. My lucky red socks. Socks which have not been laundered in over 20 years and smell like it. My wife won’t come within 200 feet of them.
I picked up my guitar case. I walked out the door.
“Break a leg,” the hotel clerk said.
“Yours or mine?”
…