2010 - March 10 – From Mother’s Tape, that date - Trip to Nashville
I’ve been sitting here rocking, listening to the tapes and trying to figure out what that noise is. I just realized that noise on the recorder is my rocking chair; so when you hear that noise you will know that mom is a rocking.
I wanted to talk about mine and Faye’s vacation to Nashville. We were going to go to Virginia Beach. Faye had called and we were talking back and forth and she said, “Sis I need a vacation and I think I want to go to Virginia Beach.
I had been taking care of Jim (J. C. Jennings) before his death. I had talked about needing a vacation for sometime. Faye told me about going to Newport News, Virginia when her son Phil was stationed there and how much she had enjoyed it. They had gone to Virginia Beach and that was the place to go. So we decided we would go, but not tell Mom Shoupe. Mom had a habit of inviting a bunch of kin to her house and then calling me to come and cook and clean for the lot of them. This was something that I normally liked; but I just wasn't up to it at the time. I was still missing Jim and needed a break.
Darline and Dana were staying with me, while Dan was in process of being discharged. So I told Darline that Faye and I were going to take a vacation but not tell Mom. I figured it was about time for Mom to pull one of these family get to gathers, and I knew I wasn’t up to it.
Sure enough Mom called just before we left, she had invited Aunt Myrtle’s kids, Dalma from Ohio, A. D. and his wife, their little boy, Betty Lou and Bob all in. She called and said, “Faye came in unexpected and I’ve invited all the gang. Bring your big coffee pot gal and get started cooking.”
I told her that I knew Faye was in but it wasn’t for a long visit, but for a vacation that Faye and I were going to take. “Not without me, you’re not!” ”Oh yes I am.” Well Mom and Faye had been arguing about the vacation all ready with Faye telling her she was coming to my house after breakfast and Mom telling her no she wasn’t without her.
Faye came to my house after eating breakfast with Mom. Well Mom started to pout. She called me and told me that Faye had said she couldn’t go but she knew I would let her. I never could stand up to Mom like Faye could, she was working on the weakest link.
I told her, “Mom, Faye is right this time. I need a vacation. I really do need to get away. You can’t go.” I knew Faye would kick my butt if I gave in.
We got away from the house without Mom; Darline was laughing her butt off because she thought it was so funny that two grown women were arguing with their mother like that. But we had held our ground and were on our way to Virginia Beach.
We really did have every intention of going to Virginia Beach. But it was dusky dark by the time we got to Nashville so we decided we would stay in Nashville for the night. We stopped at a Holiday Inn there in Nashville.
We got our stuff out of our car and went to eat in the Holiday Inn dining room. Just before we got through eating we could hear a band striking up. And boy was it good! It sounded like it was just around the corner from us. We decided as soon as we got through eating we would go check it out.
Not only was there a live band, there was a dance floor! Jim and I had gone dancing and listening to bands before he got sick; but Jim had been sick a long time before he died with cancer, so it had been a long time since I had been near a dance floor. Faye and I decided we would go in and at least hear the band play.
We sat down at a two seater table. People started coming in; but they were all men! The first couple of men that came in, asked if they could join us and when we said yes, they scooted a two seater table over and joined it to ours. As new men came in they would scoot another two seater table over; another two seater; and another; until there was a string of twenty men sitting with us!
The guys wanted to start dancing. Just us two women and twenty men! When that first man asked me to dance, I said yes. So another man asked Faye to dance and she said yes. Between us and those twenty men we danced with all of them at least once.
We figured they were all married; but we didn’t want to get married and neither one of us wanted a man; just to dance; so we figured it would be okay. We were just having some good clean fun.
It turned out that the first man I danced with was retired military. He told me that this same group met there once a year and had a conference. He also told me he was married to a Japanese woman and had three kids. He showed me pictures of his wife and kids.
We really enjoyed dancing and listening to the music. Well I didn’t have a cell phone, and neither did Faye. I still don’t have one. I wouldn’t know how to use it if I did. At any rate we decided we needed to call home.
Darline had promised me that she would go and get groceries or anything else that Mom Shoupe needed. But we still wanted to be sure that everything was okay at home, so we called. We found out that Mom was mad at both of us because we hadn’t told her we were going on vacation and that we hadn’t taken her when we decided we were really going to go. Now she was mad at Darline too because she told her she didn’t know where we were and wouldn’t give her a number where she could reach us. She thought Darline was lying.
We were going to give Darline the number but told her not to give it to Mom, or she would be calling us constantly. Darline told us no she didn’t want to know where we were and did not want the number; that way she wouldn’t be telling a lie when she said she didn’t know and didn’t have a number.
After we talked to Darline that night next; the next day we went on a tour with the Greyline Bus Tour. We forgot all about going to Virginia Beach. We traveled all over Nashville; then went on a General Lee Ship for a boat ride. We saw different stars than the ones at home, Music City you know. On the deck of the General Lee there were people playing and singing; we thoroughly enjoyed that trip; just having good clean fun.
The men we had danced with the night before had asked if we would be there to dance that night. We had told them yes but that if we did it would be for us and not them because we were not on a schedule; we were on vacation and just having good clean fun. We might be there after we ate.
But we didn’t have any supper, just went on down to the music. We ordered drinks. I hadn’t had anything to drink in an ion of years. So I just sat there and sipped, pretended that I was drinking; but after a while that drink tasted pretty good. I soon forgot my worries and my troubles. Yes, that drink had a pretty good taste.
We decided that we were going back to our room. Those men walked us to the door. That was when we found out that we were downstairs from them upstairs. When we got back to the room Faye called Russell.
Mom had called Russell trying to start trouble, she said we were down there messing around with men and we were where we don’t have any business. Russell had told her Faye had a credit card, enough money and if she didn’t have enough money, she had a check book and could get some more money. So now Mom was mad at everyone. She was on the warpath.
Although Faye had been use to liquor while she worked at the Ford motor company and had drunk pretty often, she wasn’t use to drinking now. So next morning, not being use to drinking; we both had diarrhea and were sick at our stomachs. We decided not to do anything today, just to sit around pool.
Faye said, “You know Sis, it always made me feel better to have a little hair of the dog.” So Faye went to get some liquor, just a little bottle of it, we used the glasses and the ice in our room and took our drinks to the pool with us.
It was May; for May the sun was pretty warm. In fact that was the hottest May we had ever had. So we were just sitting in the sun, sipping our drinks, and fell asleep. We got sun burnt really bad. Later on we found out that drinking and sitting in the sun will make the sun light worse. You will burn a little quicker. We found that out the hard way, we were both blistered.
Faye could swim, I couldn’t. Pop had always told us not to go near the water until we had learned how to swim. Faye had gone not only near the water but into the water and learned how to swim. So she tried to cool herself off by swimming. Anyway, the blisters started raising, we didn’t think we had been out that long,
I sat on one bed, her on the other. We could see the blisters raise and pop. I couldn’t even put on my bra; and I don’t go anywhere without my bra. We took baths, and the blisters raised even more. We couldn’t stand clothes on.
Faye said we needed to let someone know where we are in case we died. I told her that was a bunch of foolishness; She said to at least call emergency room. So I called the emergency room at Baptist Hospital. I told the man that answered the phone that my sister and I both had diarrhea and were both sun burned with blisters popping and running. He wanted to know how it had happened so I had to tell him that neither of us was use to drinking and the whole story of what had happened. Faye kept asking if we were going to die. He said you could die if you had enough of the sun. Faye kept asking if they could have someone to call and check on us.
The man told us to get vinegar, and pour over the sun burned areas. I told him we were both pretty good size women; we would need a bath tub full of vinegar to cover us. He laughed at that.
So here we were diarrhea, sick at our stomachs, and sun burnt. I knew we would have to get something to doctor with. So I broke my cardinal rule of not going anywhere without a bra on. I put on a baggy shirt, no bra, and a loose pair of shorts. I found out that even the tops of my feet were burnt. I drug up to top of the hill to the Days Inn, I didn’t want anyone from the Holiday Inn to see me. I knew there was a restaurant at the Days Inn too. So I went to side door and asked to speak to the manager. When she came to the door I asked if she had any vinegar.
She told me that she only had one gallon of vinegar and that she would need that to use for salads and all since it was the weekend; but she could probably spare one cup. I told her I would take all she could spare. I don’t even remember what I paid for that small, really small, coffee cup of vinegar.
When I got back to the room I halved that cup of vinegar with Faye. I took my half and poured it into the ice bucket, added water; then I used a wash cloth to put the vinegar water on my shoulders, which were worse. Faye was worse on her legs and arms. Faye tried to use hers in the bath tub. In a little bit I heard her cussing and raring because it had leaked out of the tub.
She asked me, “Can I use some of yours? Mine has all gone down drain.” So she got another was cloth and used mine too. No dining room tonight for sure! What with no bra and not being able to stand clothes on. We couldn't dance, no matter what kind of music it was.
So when those guys knocked on our door, we pretended we weren’t there. Our car was out front in the parking lot but we didn’t answer the door. We hid from those guys for the rest of the week. By Friday, when they left, we had gotten better. We thought we were safe so we went outside.
We could hear music coming from up the lane, so we followed our ears. There was a little place there called Gabe’s Place. It was a little country music joint and they had a guitarist, a drummer, and one guy that played a keyboard, playing there. We were sitting at a table and this woman came up and joined us and told us that the men in the band were from the Grand Ole Opry.
She told us that was her husband was the man playing keyboard. So we got acquainted with the wives and girlfriends of the musicians from the Grand Ole Opry and they invited us to go next night to the Grand Ole Opry.
We started counting how much money we had and found out that we had spent more than we thought. I had bought Kaopectate at the BP One Stop Service there. They hadn’t had any vinegar but they had had Kaopectate. I had bought that vinegar from the Days Inn and Faye had finally got well enough she had gone and gotten more vinegar and stuff to help us get better. The motel was over a hundred dollars a night.
We had had a pretty good amount of money when we left out but we were in Nashville and everything was double and sometimes more than double because there was no choice, you paid or else. We had gone on the bus tour and for a boat ride. Now we were about out of money. We had both maxed out our credit cards. We had spent our cash on shopping and all before got sun burnt. So we decided that we were spent out. Instead of going to the Grand Ole Opry we had better be headed home.
We had a continental breakfast at the motel before we headed out for home. We were aways down the road, almost to Cave City, when we saw a sign that said, “Foot long hot dogs and milk shakes.” We didn’t have that much cash on us and we knew we couldn’t charge them to our credit cards, they were maxed out.
When we counted our change we had enough for one milk shake and one foot long hot dog. We split that milk shake and that one foot long hot dog; and it tasted really good!
We told everyone what a good trip we had going to Nashville; and it was! We really had a good trip. It took me three years to pay off my credit card and we didn’t make it to Virginia Beach. In fact we haven’t been there yet!