Country is...
Y'all been watching that Country Music documentary on PBS? That's Channel 8 for all y'all in the Nashville viewing area. It's phenomenal. No. The history of country music isn't always pretty and you can't possibly get everybody who deserves attention into a documentary mini-series. I LOVE country music history (like, DUH) so I've been soaking it up. It's kind of dove-tailing with another new passion of mine, bluegrass. I've liked bluegrass a long time, but last weekend we went to Beanblossom, Indiana to Uncle Pen Days at the Bill Monroe Music Park. Wow! I have found my self!!! Yes, I meant my self and not so much myself.
I guess it could also be said that I found my calling. I've been educating people about the Grand Ole Opry all my life, showing pictures and telling Granny Ione's neighbors all about the Solemn Old Judge when I wasn't very old... 5 or 6 maybe. I remember thinking, these kids are really bored with this, I can't believe that... why don't they think this is as cool as I do??? I was different. I've often wondered if I had a mild case of Asperger's. I could read at age two with no apparent training and I felt everything very deeply. I was intelligent, but my emotional intellgence took years to catch up.
Over the years I've wondered how I didn't end up working in the music industry. It's simple. Fear. I feared being out there SO open to the public, living in a fishbowl. I knew I had talent and if I had only TRIED a little I might've been successful, at least on the level I wanted to play on, which was sometimes contemporary Christian, sometimes country, sometimes Southern gospel. I think I could've been a session singer, maybe, and that might've been enough for me because I wanted to live close to my family and they were already here, in Ridgetop.
However, here are a few things I always wanted to do that I've accomplished.
I became an MRI tech. I am still a nuclear medicine tech, but now I'm dual certified. I've got a teaching license as well. I'm planning to keep it, even if I never teach again. I started teaching people about country music when I was 5 or 6. I started teaching people about first aid when I was about 8, when I took a book I found in my grandmother's dresser... the very one in my bedroom. I used to stand on my swingset and pretend I was playing a benefit for somebody. I don't know who... probably somebody I'd made up. I've done it, though, on several occasions. Every time, I've felt that electricity - I was living the dream.
Could that be part of my calling, too?
I always felt like I had so much going on in my head that I could never do it all. I am not saying I'm more talented than most people... I doubt very seriously that I'm even more talented than anyone else. I do know that I have a lot of untapped potential and every day, a little less time.
I guess it could also be said that I found my calling. I've been educating people about the Grand Ole Opry all my life, showing pictures and telling Granny Ione's neighbors all about the Solemn Old Judge when I wasn't very old... 5 or 6 maybe. I remember thinking, these kids are really bored with this, I can't believe that... why don't they think this is as cool as I do??? I was different. I've often wondered if I had a mild case of Asperger's. I could read at age two with no apparent training and I felt everything very deeply. I was intelligent, but my emotional intellgence took years to catch up.
Over the years I've wondered how I didn't end up working in the music industry. It's simple. Fear. I feared being out there SO open to the public, living in a fishbowl. I knew I had talent and if I had only TRIED a little I might've been successful, at least on the level I wanted to play on, which was sometimes contemporary Christian, sometimes country, sometimes Southern gospel. I think I could've been a session singer, maybe, and that might've been enough for me because I wanted to live close to my family and they were already here, in Ridgetop.
However, here are a few things I always wanted to do that I've accomplished.
I became an MRI tech. I am still a nuclear medicine tech, but now I'm dual certified. I've got a teaching license as well. I'm planning to keep it, even if I never teach again. I started teaching people about country music when I was 5 or 6. I started teaching people about first aid when I was about 8, when I took a book I found in my grandmother's dresser... the very one in my bedroom. I used to stand on my swingset and pretend I was playing a benefit for somebody. I don't know who... probably somebody I'd made up. I've done it, though, on several occasions. Every time, I've felt that electricity - I was living the dream.
Could that be part of my calling, too?
I always felt like I had so much going on in my head that I could never do it all. I am not saying I'm more talented than most people... I doubt very seriously that I'm even more talented than anyone else. I do know that I have a lot of untapped potential and every day, a little less time.
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