1993 Ernie and Nashville
In going through a drawer in the sideboard, trying to empty it of junk so I could fit something else in it, I found these pictures I'd been looking for. Our first trip to Nashville, 25 years ago this year. I know there are more pictures somewhere but I was delighted with these. Look at my sweet, skinny baby. It was a major birthday of sorts, and we were both listening to a lot of old school country, as well as some of the great stuff coming out at that time. It was a whole new world. I remember sitting in our apartment in Chicago, listening to Marty Stuart do an interview on WGN (my mother had alerted me). That was back in the day when we followed Marty from county fair to country fair. He was talking about the Grand Old Opry in that inimitable Marty way, and I thought, "HELL, THAT'S what I'll do for Ernie's birthday!" So I called his boss, Jim Mayhercy, at Second Hand Tunes, the used record store in Hyde Park that Ernie ran, and arranged with him for Ernie to have some time off work without him knowing about it. I ordered Grand Old Opry tickets and had them sent to my parents' house so he wouldn't see them. I planned that we would leave after he got off work and drive half way there or so. Of course, that morning, our wonderfully reliable little Honda broke down. I was hysterical, calling our cute mechanic a few blocks over on Clark Street. He couldn't get it back to us that day...don't even remember what the problem was, so I had to take our old beat up cargo van that we used for antique shows. Oh well. It worked. I picked up Ernie from work, and as I headed for the Dan Ryan, I handed him the gift wrapped Grand Ole Opry tickets. He looked confused, and said that if he'd known this he would have gone to the bathroom. That response has been brought up to him many, many times in the ensuing 25 years.
We decided to take pictures of Ernie standing in front of various spots..something we never did at the time. Of course, we hardly took pictures at the time...it was indeed a different world.
Forgive the spotty, dusty scans (if I wait until I edit them, I'll never post them)....and just look at Ernie and Nashville in 1993.