Come Back Patsy Cline

VCome Back Patsy Cline By Sharon S. Wood Daddy had called it the Grand Old Opry and Anna Beth had thought it would be really grand, like the castle in the Snow White book at school. But, after leaving Carlisle Bottom before daybreak and driving all day, across the Tennessee line, on through Knoxville, and finally into Nashville late in the afternoon, all they had come to was this old brick building, hot and dark inside, with benches as hard as the 61 ones up to Calvary Believers Church. Anna Beth was already just so tired and there was still that long ride home after the show. Daddy had won the tickets to the Opry in a drawing the new Ford dealership had held, but there wasn't any money to stay in a room somewhere in Nashville. They'd climb back into the pickup as soon as the Opry was over and drive all the way home. Anna Beth had decided she didn't like the Grand Old Opry, even though Mama had used the prettiest feedsacks to make this new dress with a full, twirly skirt just for the occasion . She didn't like Nashville, didn't like a thing about this place except the little comb that folded down into its own pink case that had NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE—HOME OF THE GRAND OLD OPRY written on it in glittery gold letters. Daddy had bought her the comb because he said she was being such a good girl, but Anna Beth didn't think she was going to feel like being good much longer. "Anna Beth," Mama said, squeezing her arm, "in just a few minutes now it'll start and we'll get to see all the stars. We'll see Ernest Tubb and Roy Acuff and Carl Smith. Probably we'll see Mother Maybelle. We might even get to see Patsy Cline!" "Now darlin', don't get your hopes so high," Daddy said to Mama. "Patsy Cline might be off singing somewhere else tonight. They ain't all at the Opry at the same time you got to understan'." Daddy knew these things because he had soldiered at Fort Campbell, right across the line from Nashville in Kentucky, during the end of the war, and he'd used all his Saturday night passes to see the Opry. Now that had been before he'd come back to Carlisle Bottom and seen black-haired Luke Jenson walking down the street with a pretty girl that turned out to be Mama. That was before he married Mama right out from under Luke's nose, and before Anna Beth had gotten born. It had been quite awhile since Daddy had actually seen an Opry show, but Mama knew he knew more about it than she did, so she listened to him. Finally the men who had been seated behind a table on the stage, talking and reading fan letters into microphones, got up and walked off. The tables were carried away, the shiny coal bucket that people had been dropping notes into was pushed to the very front edge of the stage, and everybody in the hot dimness got real quiet. Then the house lights went out and the stage lights just got so bright. Loud music started playing and a tall, skinny cowboy galloped out to the microphone, sang a few words, and then pushed back his big old hat. "Thank ya, thank ya," he yelled to the applause and went back to singing "I'm a-walking the floor..." "It's Ernest Tubb, Anna Beth!" Mama called over the applause. "Lord, honey! It really is Ernest Tubb!" But Anna Beth had known that from listening to the radio on Saturday nights. When Mama stood up to cheer and clap for Ernest Tubb, she'd dumped Anna Beth off her lap. Anna Beth crawled up onto the bench and covered her ears with her hands as best she could so the shouting and yelling wouldn't be so loud. Anna Beth didn't think she liked the Grand Old Opry at all! After Ernest Tubb there was Minnie Pearl. There was Carl Smith, who Mama said was very...