Please bang the drum slowly for Jesus' (and Scorchers') beloved cowpunk percussion wizard

Bang the drum slowly….

One of the greatest drummers in rock ‘n’ roll history is gone, his frail and battered body apparently finally giving out on him.

To be fair I didn’t know Perry Baggs (or Baggz, as his rock ‘n’ roll persona was occasionally spelled) best as a drummer.

He was the librarian at The Tennessean who liked Van Halen and admired my Hawaiian shirts. He liked to talk about music and faith.

And he liked to laugh if I quoted Dylan, Kristofferson, Lennon, Jagger or George Jones.

Oh sure, I knew who he was and I loved his band, having first seen Jason & the Scorchers way back when they were a sensation, playing at Cat’s or Kat’s or whatever that record store was just below Vanderbilt.

My good pal, Michael Gray, a music expert, scholar and genuine nice guy who spends his work hours at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, tells me that show was “legendary. I’ve been hearing about it for 20 years.”

There are a few of us left, I guess, who actually were there.

Andy McLenon was there, of course. He's been about everywhere Nashville rock has been fashioned.

He and the late Jack Emerson and their Praxis International – a mighty big name operating out of a basement – pretty much took Jason & the Scorchers to the world.

“I don’t know why I’m shocked, but I am,” says Andy, when reflecting on the death of his old friend, who joined up with front man Jason Ringenberg, guitarist Warner Hodges and bassist Jeff Johnson in the first (and best) version of the outfit.

McLenon says he remembers Perry as nice “kid,” a 19-year-old, who auditioned for the band that for awhile had the proverbial “Next Big Thing” moniker written about it everywhere.

“He was a soulful little guy. He was really focused, really sweet, a joy to be around,” McLenon says, adding that the medication Baggs had to take “would affect his moods” and perhaps influence the tension that sometimes existed between him and the band.

“But I know those guys love him. Jeez, Warner was like his big brother and protector from the real world. Perry was very lovable. He just got confused about reality sometimes.”

Then McLenon, who is one of Nashville’s truest rock scholars, reminds us that Perry was not just a drummer (although that was plenty.)

  “If you look back and look at the songs he wrote early on. It’s interesting. He had this musical melody thing. “He was really melodic in his writing,” he says, remembering how “Jason would write the lyric and Perry would add the fetching melody on some of the great early songs like ‘White Lies’ and ‘Money Talks.’

“Jason wrote a lot by himself, but the ones that Perry was involved in tend to be the more catchy ones,” says Andy.

Then he draws a straight line between the Ringenberg-Baggs pairing and another little rock pairing of writing and singing partners.

“When you listen to Jagger and Richards, you know those are two guys whose vocals are not technically great, but when they are together with Richards making harmony …. Well, I loved when Perry would sing with Jason. It was very soulful and very distinctive and very melodic.”

One thing that many people probably don’t know is the country side of Baggs. No, not the raucous hillbilly rock (aka “cowpunk”) of the Scorchers – which has been honored with a display in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

“One of the interesting things is that in the ‘80s, before it was cool to do such things, Perry created this alter-ego, Austin Taylor, who would record these really country demos, things like ‘If Heaven’s Just a Fairy Tale, Then What’s the Story Here.’

“He would sing it so intensely. Seriously, they were very strong vocals. Before the hipsters – and Perry was never a hipster – thought George Jones was cool, Perry Baggs instinctively knew he was and tried to emulate him in his alter-ego.”

He adds that Baggs, who was raised in the Southern Gospel tradition, never really left that.

Later in life, after fashioning different lineups of country-fried rock efforts, Perry found his truest calling in his church. “Perry never really had a rock ‘n’ roll heart,” says McLenon.

“He had a big heart.”

Tommy Womack, who admits his love of Jason & the Scorchers and that his own band, Government Cheese owed a debt to that group, today lamented the loss of his good friend.

“Perry was one of the best drummers in one of the best bands ever. His health issues in the second chapter of his life shouldn’t obscure that.

“He was one of the greats with a big heart and huge talent. I’m privileged not only to have seen him play many times, but to know him as a friend.”

My own encounters with Perry were less musical, as mentioned a few paragraphs above. Perry worked in The Tennessean library in my final decade in daily journalism.

Before I got too old… But that’s another story.

Perry not only was a devout consumer of my writing, he was a big fan of my Hawaiian shirt wardrobe and of my curly hair.

He liked to sit down by my desk and talk about everything from Van Halen to the Scorchers to God in either lightning manic speed or a slow tired drawl, depending on where his health was taking him that day.

He would describe his own musical dreams, his latest effort and, even though it was obvious his health wasn’t good, he would thank his God for all that he had and all that he had experienced.

Even in physical distress, with his rockstar dreams dimming if not dead, he didn’t complain.

Sometimes he’d talk about Jason & the Scorchers regrouping. He’d talk about getting together with his old mate to write “the best songs yet.”

Other times he’d talk about Jesus & the boys and their impact on his life.

 And he would give thanks. He had obviously found peace.

The Scorchers, of course, are regrouped and back out there playing.

  But Perry had to step away, about 10 years ago.

His body frail, though his spirit strong, he no longer stand those randomly long nights in a van and didn’t have the strength to sustain those marathon drumming sessions that helped punctuate the Whirling Dervish antics of the front man in the buckskin fringe or the churning and explosive guitar work of Warner Hodges.

Perry Baggs’ body was discovered by police when loved ones were worried because he didn’t show up in church at Scottsboro First Baptist Church the other day.

Katrina Cornwell, also a former colleague at The Tennessean, was the one who sounded the alarm.

“We were very special to each other,” she said.

“I loved him very much. I appreciated him for the larger-than-life individual that he was.”

Her concerns about Perry first showed up on Facebook a few hours ago, when she asked for prayers because she couldn’t get in touch with him.

“For our mutual friends, please pray for Perry. Neither my friend Kay at church nor I can get in touch with him. I am EXTREMELY concerned, and if I don't hear from him pretty soon, I will take action to make sure he is OK.”

Later she wrote me: “I was praying for him initially because he didn't come to church and wasn't answering phone calls or texts from me or other church members. We sent the police to do a welfare check, and they found him inside dead. I don't know the cause of death yet."

"The medical examiner is doing the autopsy this morning.”

Katrina wrote the following obituary for her beloved drummer and soul mate:

    Perry Armand Baggs III, 50, was born in Nashville March 22, 1962 to his parents, Perry Armand Baggs II and Betty Grace Baggs.

He was raised in the Sylvan Park area and went to Cohn High School. Perry's family attended Park Avenue Baptist Church during his childhood and adolescent years.

His mother and father were talented singers, who played a key role in the church's musical program. Perry has a daughter, Faith Elizabeth Baggs, El Paso Texas; three sisters, Grace, of Nashville, Kelly and Rachel, both of Knoxville; and several nephews.

When Perry was about 19 years old, he got an opportunity to audition as a drummer for the Nashville-based, country-punk band Jason and the Scorchers.

He spent the next 21 years as the band's percussionist. Jason and the Scorchers were on major record labels.

They had music videos on MTV and toured with some of the best in the business, notably REM and Bob Dylan. Jason and the Scorchers garnered critical acclaim in the early 1980s for its unique blending of the country and punk rock musical genres.

The critics loved the band, and in 2008, Jason and the Scorchers earned a lifetime achievement award for best musical performance at the Americana Music Awards, held at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

Perry also worked as an archivist in the library of The Tennessean newspaper for 17 years before he was offered a buyout as part of a massive, company-wide reduction in staff at that time.

 He then sought disability because he had already been on dialysis for kidney failure for two years.

He began receiving a disability check within six months of the initial filing.

Since that time, he has been an active member of Scottsboro First Baptist Church.

For the past three years, Perry has been a dedicated soloist and bass player at church. For a few months, the church has been paying him to play bass. Before that, he donated his time. Perry's contribution to the Scottsboro First Baptist music program helped the worship services to come alive, to touch someone's heart for Christ.

Perry was kind, compassionate, funny, generous, loving and high-energy.

  He was someone who enjoyed life.

Perry loved home-cooked meals, movies, music, surfing big waves at the beach and to spend time with people he considered family: blood relatives, church members, friends and his significant other.

  Most of all, he loved God, and he lived his life for Jesus Christ every day.

Of course, that obituary is written from the perspective of a broken heart, of one who has loved deeply and whose loved one has died.

And as just an old freelance writer who sometimes enjoys music, I really can’t add much to that, other than to say that the young fellow with the country-flavored heart who climbed to the near-heights as a rock star is at peace.

Bang the drum slowly.

My pal the Afro Doc drank with Waylon, threw better than Jefferson Street Joe and fought killer pit bulls

William 'Doc' Jones -- the Afro Doctor -- has been dead now for awhile. But as I took a break from my work today, I came upon this old column I wrote about him on the first of my many visits to his joint on Jefferson Street. This was published in the Nashville Banner, which actually was a very good newspaper, when such things actually did exist.


"The Afro-Doctor" drank with Waylon and battled killer pit bulls. He could throw a better spiral than his pal Jefferson Street Joe. He shares these and more recollections while dangling the remainder of his right leg over the arm of a barber chair.
"Cut it off from here down," says William "Doc" Jones, holding his hand just below his knee. "Diabetes." He raises his voice above ESPN hockey highlights blaring from the GB's Barber Shop television.
Outside his window on Jefferson Street, saggy-trousered punks and well-groomed good guys who call him "Doc" probably don't know that's a shortened version of the moniker of an almost forgotten legend.
As a healthy young man, he owned barbershops built on his reputation as the sculptor of the most magnificent of Afros. The 57-year-old amputee's just happy to be well enough to sell shaves and trims as a part-time employee at the shop whose initials stand for God's Blessings.
He pushes back the sleeves of his Predators sweatshirt and promises that the amputation was more blessing than curse.
"I could be dead. I was really close to the edge a couple of times. I could have died from the bacteria. .... I've never had a depressed day from it. I've had some days where I realize I'm not as mobile, but I'm not a person to allow myself to be depressed over what was.
"It's like the church story about the man who complained about having no shoes until he saw a man with no feet. I've seen guys in carts, with no legs, pushing themselves. And they aren't giving up, so why should I?"
He savors a slug of Diet Pepsi. "Course, I still got diabetes. Days I don't feel good. I try not to let a little minor ailment get me down." That minor ailment also claimed two toes on his left foot.
Dependence on a walking cane even has an upside: "I used it to beat off two pits when they rushed me." Guy without a cane might have been mauled.
Doc smiles at the writer swirling in the facing barber chair. "When I first started barbering .... I was going to Tennessee State (studying criminal justice and psychology). Between classes, I'd cut hair in the beauty shop on campus. I would wear a doctor's smock instead of a barber's smock.
"One day as I was coming from class, a girl asked me if I was a doctor. I told her 'Somewhat. I'm an authority on what I do' ... bringing big Afros down to a shape."
In addition to the smock, he wore a distinctive hairstyle. After Vietnam, "I went seven years without a haircut. First Afro I ever saw. Biggest, too." He measured it once: It was 56 inches in diameter.
Like Clark Kent to Superman, William Jones was transformed into "the Afro-Doctor," heroically rescuing errant hair growth on campus, in North Nashville and out to Bordeaux.
He credits The Beatles for his early, heady success. "They came over here with their hair in little bangs, but then they let their hair grow. That's why we let ours grow, too. They had as much to do with it as James Brown saying, 'I'm black and I'm proud.' "
Doc's love of The Beatles as well as Jethro Tull and the Allman Brothers illustrates his contention that "more than anything else, music doesn't have a color."
He celebrated that fact one evening when a buddy who knew Waylon Jennings brought the two together in a Music Row hotel room. The honky-tonk hero and the Afro-Doctor enjoyed each other's company. "He was a real nice guy. We just chitchatted and drank. Good night."
Earlier in life he had found a place where only one color mattered. It was neither black nor white. It was blood red. The former Cameron High quarterback - "I could throw the ball farther than anybody I've ever seen, 86 yards, and there was no wobble" - was drafted in '68.
Sent to Germany, he volunteered for 'Nam. "I decided I'd rather die in a tropical paradise than in the tundra."
"I was in the jungle most of the time. It was war, but I guess I had as much fun as anywhere else I've been," the former 1st Air Cavalry E-5 says with a shrug. Wedged between stacks of body bags that awaited helicopter hearses to negotiate the monsoons, he found that camaraderie and farewells came in quick succession.
"One day you'd be playing poker with a guy, and the next time you see him, he's dead." Appreciate moments.
Back home, he became "a personal friend of Jefferson Street Joe. He was a nice man. But he hadn't really been exposed to the streets. He developed some issues."
Doc laments the ignorance that cost TSU and NFL quarterback Jefferson Street Joe Gilliam his life - ignorance that thrives outside, on the athlete's namesake street. "There's a lot of riffraff. It's kind of a drug-infested area. But if you mind your own business, you get the lay of what it takes."
The thugs and dealers "have a lot of respect for barbers. They have to get haircuts. They know barbers don't have a lot of money. And they know if they take on a barber, they just might get popped."
The Afro-Doctor fingers his salt-and-pepper beard and smiles at the sunshine.

One less finger to count on: The death of a News Brother

Scott “Badger” Shelton is dead.
Anyway, it seems like only the other day that he and I – remember I am “Flapjacks” -- were, with my big brother, Eric, and my pal Rob “Death” Dollar hanging out with the Lone Ranger. And it was Scott who was egging me on to head for the Kentucky-Tennessee border when Trooper Rudy tried his best to shut down the fun. I got a ticket, but I think even Trooper Rudy liked the damn nice guys who were riding in

the old Plymouth Duster.
After all, we were not only friends of the Lone Ranger, we were The News Brothers..
That was 30 years before Jan. 23, 2012, when Badger died.
Damn cancer. I’d like to use the ”F” word instead of “damn,” but it might offend. I mean I only use that in anger and in private, like when someone cuts me off in traffic and I figure I’m going to die. Or, I’d guess, when Trooper Rudy’s lights flashed as I pulled over on U.S. 41A, just south of Hopkinsville, Ky., where we’d been befriended by Mr. Lone Ranger.
Hold it, I know Mr. Lone Ranger is dead. But not Scott… He couldn’t be… . I mean how long ago was it that he joined Rob and me to ride the notorious newsroom shark back at The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper, where I spent my early years and flavored my soul? The shark ride was a News Brothers’ protest of everything and nothing. Mostly we were laughing and being friends who shared a peculiar trade, gathering news, him for the local radio station, WJZM, me and Rob for a newspaper for which we bled in effort to serve “our city” … the beautiful still in my heart Clarksville, Tenn.
Screw cancer. Yeah. Still wanted to let the “F-bomb” fly.
But he’s still here, isn’t he? Wasn’t it just the other day, give or take 30 years, that he stood there, with his lab coat covered with Beatles badges – that’s how he became Badger -- and applauded as I almost fell off the roof of The Leaf-Chronicle?
We were filming a second movie to the first one Rob and I did with a few other friends. The original -- “Flapjacks: The Motion Picture” – had been in our minds a huge success, as we raised money for charity and enjoyed our relatively minor celebrity. We did a little Christmas short subject, but never finished near-legendary “Flapjacks II: Revenge of The Big Guy” feature film because life – personal and professional lives – got in the way.
Another close friend of mine once said “Life’s what happens when you’re busy making plans” … or something similar. Course that guy’s dead now too. And all he had wanted to do was give peace a chance. Course that’s not a part of this story, really.
Our nearly fatal News Brothers roof scene – which almost had me going head first onto Commerce Street -- was going to be kind of like The Beatles on the roof of Apple Records. Flapjacks (me) was – by temperament and philosophy – the Lennon figure of the group. Death was the kinda-McCartney. Badger was Ringo – he has the drum kit in his basement as evidence. Jerry “Chuckles” Manley was a sort of George, although much thicker and with an accent that’s much more heavily Petersburg, Tenn., country boy than Liverpudlian Scouse.
Anyway, I didn’t fall off the roof and laugh my way to my death that day. It would have made good film footage. But Badger was glad I regained my balance. Death and Chuckles and a fellow I’ll just call “Tennessee” and a little bald-headed guy named “Danny” joined in the wondrous wall of applause. Then we shot another scene before climbing down through the roof and into the newspaper composing room, getting ready for another day at work.
Still got that Super 8mm film and at times have thought about having it developed to see what’s there. Then maybe film a grand finale with some much older guys. Heck, even my old pal, film editing wiz Robert Smith, could have taken it and spliced it together like he did with our first feature 30 or so years ago.
Course the rooftop scene film’s probably no good. Wouldn’t matter now, anyway, because Badger died Monday, so who would repeat that feverishly bored applause?
To hell with cancer.
Almost all of the true News Brothers made our annual reunion trek to Clarksville a couple months ago. We stopped for our customary plates of flapjacks, of course, at G’s on Riverside Drive. Even Badger made it out of his home off Memorial Drive, thanks to his beloved wife, Elise, also a former colleague, and his own determination.
We went by the Badger residence afterward. He was tired and weak. But he laughed. When I hugged him goodbye, I knew it could be the last time. But I didn’t want to believe it. I mean after the “goodbyes” “I’ll pray for yous” shared by all of The real News Brothers, we laughed.
Maybe, we figured, Badger was going to bounce back from his cancer. He’d tricked it before. Maybe this wasn’t goodbye, but instead “see ya later,” and we’d reunite again, with Scott getting the last laugh. That full-bellied laugh that he tried to punctuate the air with as we shared that lovely November night in Badger’s basement. The laughter wore on him, though.
Vile cancer.
My life now is into its fourth score or something like that. I’m 60, so I’ve completed three score and two months. There’s a lot of stuff muddled and muddied in my mind, but then there are the big Kodachrome images from back when we all thought the world was a sunny day, Oh yeah…
So many of the snapshots are from Clarksville, where I spent 14 years of my newspaper career. I believe that’s 42 in human years, as the lifestyle takes its toll. Everything looks worse in black and white, and the cost on a newsman’s soul has been demonstrated by many other friends as being potentially mortal.
But I’m still alive. Scott’s not. He died Monday.
Damn cancer.
Still as I searched out the details of my friend’s death, as I talked with my pal, Rob, and with the wonderful widow, Elise, I kept lighting on crystal clear and Kodachrome images.
There I was, scrambling up the stairs of the old WJZM radio station in downtown Clarksville – very near the church where Badger now will be memorialized.
I’d become his friend because journalists in a small city have to lean on each other sometimes. Besides that, we liked to laugh. I’d go up to the WJZM newsroom and talk about what’s going on. Maybe I’d get a guest spot on Jimmy in the Morning’s program – complete with the news breaks by the fine Scott Shelton reporting. He was no Les Nesman, that’s for damn sure.
Maybe I’d even get a chance to spin some discs, some stacks of wax. I remember both Scott and Jimmy looking in wonderment when I played “Helter Skelter” on the 23 watt AM station … not your common 6 a.m. wakeup fare on pop radio. When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide….
There are other times, like when Scott would drop in at the newspaper to stir up trouble or just visit with kindred souls. Almost everyone I knew in Clarksville knew Scott, so he was almost everywhere I went.
I moved from Clarksville 23 years ago or so. Over the years we’ve gotten together occasionally. But even when we were apart, Scott, well all the fellows in the News Brothers, owned a piece of my heart. If I really needed help or prayers – some think I need them – I knew I could always reach out to one of them. When so many of my so-called friends seemingly were frightened to be associated with me, Scott would shoot me an e-mail. Just encouragement. A very spiritual man, he offered up prayers that I’d have “a long and lucrative freelance career.” Getting there Scott. Thanks for the faith in me.
Damn cancer.
I’m not going to say Badger couldn’t get ornery. But that’s OK. Friends know friends have faults. Hell, look at me…. And some people still love me.
One less now, unfortunately.
There really is no need to go into a long and melancholy tribute or to replay my friend’s battle. All I can say is he had guts. His wife, Elise, had and has guts. So do their boys. It was a family affair, good and bad. Hell, just last Christmas Badger’s wife got him a nice HD TV, so he could watch the bowl games.
As the cancer seemed to slow, I’ll bet he was already waiting for the Vols next football season…. But he’ll get better reception where he is now. Course I heard God’s an Alabama fan – just look at the record for proof – and doesn’t let folks watch UT games. That’s not to say an angel can’t slip away to Neyland Stadium, though.
Another great friend, Tony Durr, who died many years ago in some lonesome and desolate Alaskan outpost once told me that “you’re lucky if by the time you get to the other end of life you’ll be able to count your true friends on the fingers of one hand.”
And then before I knew it I had “his” finger suddenly and mortally available.
I’m not sure if the “one hand” philosophy is correct. Seems I still have (yessir, yessir) two hands full.
Most of them are News Brothers, a strange and endearing fraternity of guys who came of age telling tales of bloodshed and of county fair chicken pot pie winners.
In recent years, I’ve even added fingers, because I’ve been in need of help or encouragement and there are those who have stepped forward, as I would for them.
But there is something so special about the News Brothers.
And now there is one less of us. Rest in Peace, Badger. I love you.
Fucking cancer....

My pal Vince Gill talks about how much fun it is to make sweet music with lovely Amy Grant

OK, so it's Christmastime. I guess it was three years ago I wrote this piece for the Nashville Symphony. They didn't use this version because I mention that Vince Gill enjoys sleeping with Amy Grant and other light-hearted things. I was proud of the version that was used, but figured you might like to read this one. By the way, I'll be back in full bloom soon.


“Earthy elegance” is how Amy Grant describes her husband’s cross-genre appeal.
Country icon George Jones says the man he nicknamed “Sweet Pea” has “the kind of voice for just any type of music,” whether sung in a high lonesome saloon or the grandest of symphony halls.
The guy in question, Vince Gill, says he’s just a “hillbilly” who respects his surroundings and audiences.
“I always try to play what’s appropriate,” he says. During his three nights at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, “I’m not going to do the crying-in-your-beer, cheating songs. I want to do what’s beautiful for the room, honor the room for its integrity and honesty.”
Some argue country music is best when played in a barroom. If so, for three nights, Turner Hall in the Schermerhorn Symphony Center will become the most acoustically pure honky-tonk in the business.
Grant points out her beloved is at home in the most-reckless joints as well as in the elegance of the Schermerhorn. “I’ll say this about Vince Gill: The one thing I’ve always loved about him is he’s such a combination of elegance and rough around the edges.
“His voice, the way he carries himself can be absolutely down-home. He could get along comfortably in the roughest barroom – that’s his roots – and he can put on a tux jacket and walk out with the symphony.”
She notes, though, that playing with a world-class symphony offers challenges not found in the smoke-filled roadhouses where Gill honed his pure-tenor voice and guitar-playing skills. For example, the music must be orchestrated and the singer must resist any whim to call out set list shifts. Plus there’s a certain pomp, or at least propriety, when playing to the tie, gown and Chardonnay crowd.
Gill admits the challenge, but mostly he simply relishes playing the venue he says will become “Nashville’s Carnegie Hall.”
While he is a heralded artist – 19 Grammys, 18 Country Music Association Awards and six Academy of Country Music Awards are just some of his hardware – he also is the music world’s “class clown.” As showcased during his dozen years as CMA Awards host, Gill’s self-effacing, roll-your-eyes charm allows him to tip-toe the line that defines good behavior.
Again, he tries to fit his tongue to the circumstances. Perhaps he tuned up – or toned down -- for his symphony stand during a three-week Christmas tour with his wife.
“It’s always a lot of pressure performing with Amy,” he says. “I mean, I’ll say just about anything between songs. But I’ve always got to be on my best behavior with Amy.”
Regardless, this funny man -- who jabs at himself for being “calorically challenged” -- says the “awesome” thing about touring with his wife is not just that he’s traveling with his best friend: “I get to sleep with the other act,” he deadpans.
That “other act” isn’t on the Schermerhorn bill (“But I’m in town and I’m available,” she teases), but her remarkable passion for the Nashville Symphony might apply a dose of musical performance anxiety to Gill.
Beginning in 1993, when the symphony was in dire fiscal straits and perhaps facing extinction, Grant began performing with them in a series of fund-raising concerts that helped retire the debt. Beginning in 1996, she and the symphony barnstormed the land with Christmas concerts, raising the orchestra’s profile.
The Nashville Symphony arose with flourish to become a world-class, Grammy-winning, Carnegie Hall-playing outfit beneath the baton of late Maestro Kenneth Schermerhorn.
Instead of fading to black, the orchestra now performs at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, a monument which meshes the best of the world’s great halls with modern technology.
Gill hardly takes performing in the Schermerhorn’s Laura Turner Hall for granted.
“I want to honor the room in its most glorious state,” he says.
Gill remains mindful of his surroundings and audiences wherever he plays.
This modern-day soul of the Grand Ole Opry inserts vitality into that institution by performing regularly there and by challenging younger country artists to take that venerable stage. He stays true to principles nurtured by Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe. “I never play the electric guitar out there. I like the way acoustic music plays there. I play bluegrass. I try to honor the tradition of the place where I’m doing the music.”
One might argue the Schermerhorn is too young for traditions, but Gill uses his career’s fail-safe tool to scour the songbook for tunes suitable for the hear-a-pin-drop confines.
“I follow my ears,” he says. “My ears are my greatest asset. It’s not my hands. It’s not my voice. It’s my ability to hear.
“And if I can hear what’s appropriate to sing or play, that’s what I point toward.
“My ears haven’t let me down in a long time. I just trust them and try to do what they tell me is the right thing for me. And I still hear pretty good.”
His symphony choices are songs that “orchestrate well.”
“I hope I can keep it fairly organic and try to honor the symphony and honor the room.”
Don’t expect the electric guitar wizardry that long-ago earned him an invitation to join Mark Knopfler’s Dire Straits (“Money for Nothing”).
He’ll keep it acoustic. “I’ll be trying to do the things that are beautiful, do ballads. There’s no
point in trying to rock the crowd.
“It’ll be more in the jazz or subtle blues world. I don’t see a lot of flash and dash.”
Expect the “Go Rest High On That Mountain” vocal purity that earned him legions of admirers, among them country icon Jones, whose own voice turned many a barroom ballad into a thing of beauty.
It is said that Jones, in his prime, possessed the best voice in the history of country music.
Jones, the man they call “Possum,” disagrees: “I think Vince has the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard. He’s the man and the singer that everyone would like to be like. He just overwhelms me.”
Jones, who worked package tours with Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn and Gill, adds “I don’t think there’s a nicer person in country music or any music.”
Jones says “He Stopped Lovin’ Her Today” and the like never belonged in a symphony hall. “I don’t have the type of voice that fits in, but Vince does.”
Gill has played the Schermerhorn before. And while he takes his job seriously, he is, after all the impish Vince Gill…. So to the genteel souls in the audience: Be forewarned ….
One night, while dazzling a Turner Hall crowd, he got it in his head that he really, really wanted
to sing a tongue-in-cheeker he’d recorded with The Notorious Cherry Bombs, a country super group that included, among others, pals Rodney Crowell and Tony Brown.
That song: “It’s Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long.”
“I looked at Amy and I told her: ‘I’m sorry, dear, but I’m going to have to do this.’ ”
Christian-pop star Grant, who’d signed on for the better and the worse, didn’t stop him.
While he doesn’t rule out a repeat performance this month, he says it would have to occur during his solo segments. “I would have the good taste, at least, not to ask the symphony to play along on that one.”
Once again, his mind turns to the special environment. “I’ve been to Carnegie Hall. And I heard the symphony at the Schermerhorn the first night. I have not heard rooms that respond to the music the way the Schermerhorn did.
“The sound of the instruments, when played lightly, it was beautiful. When they bear down on the violins, you could hear the actual wood of the instrument.
“That’s a testament to how great the room sounds. It’s magical.”

A reflection of Christmas lights and birthdays with Little Jimmy Dickens, a giant of a human being

Little Jimmy Dickens is one of my favorite people, deservingly loved for his charm and personality. People sometimes forget he's one hell of an artist. But that's an aside. Saw him Saturday night at the Preds game and we all sang Happy Birthday to Little Jim. Anyway, in appreciation of a great man's 91 years -- his birthday is today -- I thought I'd resurrect a story I wrote for my friend, Susan Leathers, and her Brentwoood Home Page last Christmas. Remember,this story is a year old, so it doesn't reflect anything happening today. I haven't been out to see if Jimmy has his lights back. In any case, the story you are about to read is true.

Little Jimmy Dickens sits in his house on West Concord Road in Brentwood and chirps, softly, about the activity on his one-acre lot.
“I’m just kicking back and watching the birds,” says the Grand Ole Opry legend, adding quickly that something is missing from his yard this year.
For the first time in more than two decades, the homestead in Brentwood Hills is absent the elaborate light display that has raised children’s smiles and bedazzled holiday sightseers.
Closing in on his 90th birthday, he simply decided not to partake in the elaborate decorating this year. You see, he’s not one to hire yard decorators. This salt-of-the-earth soul always has done it himself.
“It’s such a struggle to put them up by myself. I just let it go this year,” says Dickens on a blustery Williamson County afternoon.
Then he pauses. “I miss it. A lot. I been doing it for so long.”
He explains that this year he and his wife, Mona, and their two daughters and their families – “I’ve got two granddaughters and a great-grandbaby, a girl. I’m surrounded by pretty girls” – are going to spend Christmas away from Brentwood.
“We have a chalet up on the mountain in Gatlinburg that we’re being given to use,” he says. “I’m looking forward to it.”
While up there, they’ll celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Christmas Eve marriage to Mona. “We’ll just be with everybody,” he says, of that celebration.
Because of the plans to Christmas in the mountains rather than home in Brentwood, the genial heart of the Opry figured he’d limit the decorating to a lonely wreath or two.
He doesn’t blame age, although he could, of course. He was a mere youth, perhaps not even 70, when he began turning his home place into a holiday showplace.
It sounds like even he has a hard time believing it when he says: “I’ll be 90 Dec. 19.”
That birthday, by the way, will be celebrated at home. But Dickens doesn’t know yet what’s in store for him.
“My wife is full of secrets. She don’t tell me much, but I’ll be in the middle of it,” he says, breaking into the laughter that has delighted Opry fans since he joined that historic broadcast family in 1948.
“Tater” – as his pal Hank Williams dubbed Dickens after the 4-foot-11 performer’s song “Take an Old Cold ’Tater (And Wait)” --reckons that since his birthday is on a Sunday, at least it will be one of his days off. He still works the Opry regularly, performing Tuesday, Friday and Saturday nights as well as being available whenever the show needs him.
“They keep me busy,” he says. “But I don’t do any recording or any touring much anymore. Oh, I’ll do a few things with Bill Anderson and the casinos here and there.”
Other than that, he’s content with his work for the Opry. He also admits delight at the newest generation of fans hatched after he began appearing in videos and televised appearances with reigning CMA entertainer of the year Brad Paisley, who as a teenager opened for Dickens and who still regards the older, smaller man as a mentor.
“Brad’s been so very kind to me to use me in his videos and stuff. He’s just a prince,” says Dickens, who began his show biz career in 1938 on the radio in West Virginia.
For the next decade, he plied his musical trade for radio stations throughout the Midwest, where in addition to singing and picking “I was selling anything from baby chicks to trees.”
He found his permanent home in 1948, when “Mr. (Roy) Acuff brought me to the Opry.”
That King of Country Music died in 1992, but this firecracker of an entertainer continues to thrive.
When Dickens isn’t at the Opry, there’s a good chance he’s talking about it. “I do a lot of interviews and things like that. I enjoy talking to people. I appreciate their interest. I worry when they don’t call me.”
When he’s not engaged in Opry pursuits, he keeps busy taking care of the house and his acre yard in Brentwood Hills.
“There’s always something to do around here daily,” he says, of the chores he’s tended to in the four decades or so spent in “the third house built on this hill.”
As noted earlier, the wildlife rank pretty highly on his list of passions. “We feed a lot of birds,” he says, pointing out “at least a dozen” feeders within eyeshot.
“We have those little bitty wrens and whatever you call them. They’re beautiful. Got a lot of redbirds, too.”
He also tends to the pond filled with “big Japanese coy. They go to the bottom, though, this time of year.”
But on this cold and gray December day, he admits regrets about not putting the lights up this year.
“Oh it’s a lot of work. It takes me about a week to put them up,” says this lively nonagenarian.
He’s unlike many holiday decorating enthusiasts, in that he can’t quantify his work by rattling off the number of lights he has put up in years past.
“Golly, I have no idea. I just kept putting them up until I ran out.”
And there are some special reasons he laments not taking the effort to get his yard decorated and lighted up by the day after Thanksgiving, as has been his tradition.
“I like it when the kids in the neighborhood come by and look at them. And down at the Orphans Home, well, they bring the children by and see them lights. That was worth it.
“They would just bring them buses by. That’s the part I miss more than anything. The people in the neighborhood thanking me for putting them up and the kids enjoying them.
“That meant a lot to me.”
There is a long pause and a twinkle. “I think I’ll probably do them again next year.”

It's a damn wonderful life ... aka 'The Big Guy got run over by a reindeer and some wise guys from not afar '

As you know, old Flapjacks is working on a longer project that is sure to delight. But can't let this holiday season pass without revisiting one of my favorite damn Christmases ever.


“Have a Damn Nice Christmas.”

Makes you feel like breaking out the hot chocolate and singing about that Wenceslaus fellow feasting on Stephen or whatever.
That Damn Nice holiday sentiment nearly cost me my job back in the winter of 1982. Fortunately, I was able to make The Big Guy, our publisher blink. Perhaps the dollar signs I’d help him earn blinded him temporarily, long enough for me to back out his door, put on my yellow fedora and fire up a smoke.
Hell, for all I remember, and sometimes that isn’t much, The Big Guy maybe even smiled. At the very least he jangled the change in his pockets and nodded, blankly, thinking “How in the world can I get back to Carolina and out of this institution....” He was from that state populated by basketball and Biltmore and his prize, upon retirement, was to get back to the mountains and drool.
Call me naive or innocent (few do, you know), but I was surprised by the fuming anger of The Big Guy, as I didn’t understand what was so wrong with this sentimental greeting. I even sent one of the cards to my mom, and she didn’t object. She was willing always to have a Damn Nice Christmas right up til she died. I think she hung the card on the Christmas Tree. Still she had been a journalist, so I suppose she got it.
That greeting that was broadcast around Clarksville came during the heady early days of the fraternity of nicotine-stained journalists who came together with purpose and pride and along the way became known as the News Brothers. Blue-collar journalists, telling blue-collar stories to a blue-collar (and Army-drab-collar) town.
Most people liked it when we wished them a “Damn Nice Christmas” 28 years ago.
After all, wasn’t that the last line from It’s A Wonderful Life? Jimmy Stewart looks into the camera, eyes twinkle as the bell tinkles and says: “Attaboy, Clarence: Have a Damn Nice Christmas!” Listen closer next time, as that part of the line gets drowned out by all the joyous singing.
In the weeks and months leading up to delivering the holiday greeting to The Big Guy, our publisher, I’d been helping to guide what came to be prize-winning coverage involving the deaths of two beautiful and innocent young people. Of course, we weren’t looking for recognition. We just were looking for the truth. And justice. And, when the adrenaline and nicotine wore off, perhaps some sleep.
Kathy Jane Nishiyama and Rodney Wayne Long still stir nightmares in sections of my soul scarred and raw by their monstrous murders almost three decades ago. There still are the sweats on cold nights.
Children, really. Promise extinguished. Forever frozen as “mug shots” that ran daily on the front page with eerily parallel dispatches about the mysteries, searches, chases, savagery and mourning.
The newspaper wasn’t large in staff, but the staff was large in heart. We were pretty young ourselves, though our own innocence had been washed away by years of covering trailer-trash murders and gunfights involving prostitutes, transvestites, serial killers and soldiers. Our photographer would show us some of the not-ready for prime-time shots he got of bodies and bullet holes. Even I was shocked by one of a fatal wound right below a guy’s testicles. He not only bled out, but his once-proud – to him I’m sure -- private parts were making the photographic rounds of police departments and newsrooms.
Sure there was gallows humor. When you are making $150 a week and aswirl in bodies, sometimes you just had to laugh when you saw the photograph. Sorry. But it’s true.
The Kathy Jane and Rodney stories touched us and I’ll tell you much more about them some other time.
Suffice it to say that for the most part, we worked around the clock to tell those stories, to cover the deaths and the get to know the families of the teen-age victims and the killers. Some of the finest police coverage ever by my dear friend, Rob “Death” Dollar, with the occasional assist by me and by our vigilant Baptist wordsmith, the near-legendary Frank “Wuhm” White, a successful businessman and downtown roof owner. Another story. Another night. For this is Christmas.
Long-time copy desk pal Jerry “Chuckles” Manley, a semi-portly boy with a reddish beard, edited the copy with expertise and with at least one keen eye while Virginia Slims smoke made the other eye run. His sidekick, “Flash” – a fresh-from-school news virgin – aged every time he helped copy-edit those stories and write a headline about a body found or a gleeful, boasting killer.
My boss Tony Durr – whom I still love and miss a couple of decades after he died, alone and perhaps in mortal remorse, in a lonely Alaska Coast Guard barracks after washing out of journalism and a half-dozen marriages -- pranced around the newsroom, excited by the grisly coverage and his occasional assist and /or attempt at deflecting the slings and arrows of upper management .
Sure, great coverage of two murders that occurred at about the same time in the same Southern town. “Things like that aren’t supposed to happen here in Clarksville,” barked one police officer who enjoyed back-shooting dope-smugglers, pimps, throat-slicers, chicken thieves, father rapers and other everyday perpetrators and predators.
Sixteen-hour work days could be punctuated by cigarettes exploding in the newsroom. Yep, we booby-trapped the open packs on our desks with “loaded” cigarettes. There were those who never wanted to admit they smoked by buying their own. Wives would object if they openly indulged. So they bummed and as a result I loved watching them jerk around in their chairs, gasping when the smoke cleared, the frayed cigarette pursed between Lee Oswald lips.
Seems pretty juvenile, but then again, so does rubber vomit.
But this is a story about Christmas 1982 and the card. You remember the Christmas card, don’t you?
It actually seemed like a great idea, guaranteed to raise a smile, in the wake of all that had gone on in the news. And besides that, Rob and I were coming off the success of the movie we’d produced and directed, written, whatever the word might be, and even starred in ... along with “Flash” and “Chuckles” as co-stars and others who occasionally dropped in to take part. Half the town’s police force and firefighters and charitable organizations were involved to some extent. Even the mayor and the first American to circle the globe participated.
“Flapjacks: The Motion Picture” -- with its intricate plot revolving around news events, along with its slapstick and satire poking fun at journalism (we didn’t realize we were the last generation of practitioners of that profession at the time), law enforcement, pop culture and current events -- holds up to this day.
With all the pie-throwing, gun-slappping, confetti-flying, car-chasing and finger-flipping scenes, it also really is a portrait of my life at the time. I could have called it “Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine,” after the Doors album, because it came out of my head – and out of Rob’s – as we went along, coping with the disaster and death we’d been covering.
We’d meet for coffee at 7 a.m. on Saturdays with a “script” for the day’s shoot, film for a few hours, then wash the shaving cream from the pies or the sideshow elephants turds off our sneakers, go to the newsroom with a couple fresh packs of smokes and put out prize-winning newspapers well into the night and next morning.
OK, you may be wondering what this all has to do with a Christmas.
You see, the movie played until dawn in an abandoned theater in the city and raised a few hundred bucks that went to a homeless agency, the fire department’s Christmas toy drive and the Police Department’s children and widows’ fund.
Even the newspaper hierarchy was pleased by the movie that came a month before Christmas ... some young staffers, after all, had done this on their own time, made headlines in Clarksville and in the corporation for raising money for charity ... and at the same time won journalism awards.
Of course, with all this holiday cheer floating around, Rob and I decided the best thing a group of guys can do is put together a Christmas card to thank our friends and to express our belief in peace on earth and goodwill to all mankind .
It in turn would reappear the following December on our planned News Brothers calendar, again a fund-raising proposition. More on that too another day, as I’m sure you are anxious to get out and shop for some children who really don’t care what you give them, as long as they get something. See the loaded cigarettes or rubber vomit section above for last-minute ideas.
When we weren’t immersed in the most heinous of murders, driven to drink (and sometimes getting a ride home) by the human carnage we’d witnessed, we got further involved in charity.
We wore our shades to give blood and to visit dying children. . There even were plans under way for a News Brother Basketball Tournament, that we were going to host at one of the local high schools, again to raise money for charity.
There was nothing complex about the Christmas Card. We’d wear our News Brothers’ best – bits and pieces of the tuxedoes we’d worn in the days of the “Flapjacks” premiere.
Rob, Chuckles, Flash and I showed up in our finery. Our clerk, a pretty woman named Neesa, was good enough sport to show up to don the top half of a Santa costume and expose what were and likely still are damn nice legs.
Fresh from the photo shoot, Rob and I dashed to our favorite printer and ordered a few dozen postcard-sized copies of that picture, with the phrase “Have a Damn Nice Christmas” printed below the picture.
Delighted by the result, Rob, in his white top-hat and I in my yellow fedora immediately distributed these cards around town.
We started out in the old Royal York Hotel, a high-rise former swank joint that had degenerated into a flop for widows, widowers, lovable losers, liars and murderous drifters. Many of them were our closest friends. “I was so tough my spit would bounce,” one of my friends told me when I wished him a happy 83rd birthday. Again, another story.
We went up the elevator – it was one of those you drove yourself – and stopped at each floor, sliding a card beneath each door. “Gunsmoke” reruns blared from the TV sets in 90 percent of those rooms.
We then left a stack at the desk to be distributed in the lobby.
In the next hours, we wandered the streets of the city, handing them out, sliding them into the mail slots for county and city officials. It was sort of a Charlie Dickens scene we were creating in the cold, snowy Clarksville night.
We even saved one in case Chico the Monkey ever came back from the dead. I still have that one. Just in case. That too is another story and it actually took place later. I have told you about that tragedy before and likely will again, as Chico’s death haunts and delights me to this day.
Then, spreading Christmas cheer, we went to the newspaper complex, going from the press room to the advertising offices, to the camera room, to the job shop, sliding cards beneath doors and leaving them on desks.
The last one, and we didn’t hesitate, went beneath the office door of The Big Guy, our publisher.
“He’ll like this,” said Rob.
“Yeah,” I said. We didn’t really think he’d mind one way or another, as long as he could jangle the change in his pockets as loudly as possible.
Perhaps he was angry by the Chico coverage. Maybe it was my long interview with a drifter named W. Robert Cameron. I’d caught him while he was resting along a railroad siding, taking a breather from his mission of hitchhiking to Austria.
Maybe it was Rob’s steady stream of stories about death and destruction –”No more wreck stories” we were commanded after about the 24th traffic fatality involving a drunken soldier in six months. Not good for the Chamber image, I suppose, in hindsight. Especially at Christmastime.
“Tim, uhh, this is The Big Guy, uhhhh,” was the voice the next morning when I picked up the Flap phone, one of those blue plastic contraptions that I kept next to the Mr. Potato Head collection on my desk. “Could you come down here and see me.”
I still didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t sound angry. Just self-important.
“Uhh, Tim, uhh, could you close the door and, uhh, sit down.” I noticed he was jangling his change harder and faster. I wondered if I should offer him a loaded cigarette.
He held up the card. “This is wrong,” he said, sounding like a sinister Bobby Knight. “You do not put ‘Damn’ and ‘Christmas’ in the same sentence. You guys have gone too far. Do not give any more of these out.”
Once I explained that half the town had them, he stood up and walked across the room. He was jangling wildly. The rosewater scent of his hair spritz filled the tiny confines.
“Tim, uhh, you are a great newspaperman, uhh, but this is too much. Do you have any of them left?”
I nodded. “Sure. How many more do you want? And I can order more”
He stood there, in silence, nodded to the door and then said “don’t do this again.”
I looked at him and smiled.
“What?” he said, in a benign bark.
“Big Guy, Have a Damn Nice Christmas.”
He shook his head. “You too,” he muttered. “You too.”
I ambled back upstairs to the newsroom, where Rob greeted me. He put on his top-hat, fired up a Kool and we went for coffee.
A dozen hours later, about five blocks from the newspaper, a house caught fire. A guy dressed like Santa Claus, apparently en route to a party, stopped.
By the time Rob and the Fire Department got there, a soot-covered Santa Claus, with a handicapped woman slung over his shoulders, walked from the fiery house.
He handed her over to the rescuers and anonymously disappeared into the night.
I can’t remember if we ever identified the Good Samaritan with the jiggling belly and the soot-covered white beard. I’d like to say there were flying reindeer involved, but if so, they all vanished without a trace.
All I know is it was a great lead story on a holiday that should revolve around generosity, love and peace. As papers rolled off the press early the next morning, I carried one outside, onto Third Street, where a little snow was falling. Rob was standing out there, with our old friend, Skipper, the old carny and merchant marine who once served spaghetti to Al Capone. Rob had rousted him from his room at the old hotel. It was cold. Boy was it cold.
We shared nips of cheap brandy and wished each other a great holiday: “Have a Damn Nice Christmas.”
Skipper looked up as Tony, Jerry and Jim arrived. He handed them the bottle of cheap brandy.
Skipper, who wasn’t wearing his teeth, looked up to the sky and began singing “Silent Night” in his amazing Irish tenor.
With that beautiful voice echoing off the old buildings around us, I looked to Rob and the others and smiled. “God Bless us every one.”

Life beneath the scoreboard: 'I don't have time to be sad'

All the talk about the "new" Sounds stadium at different locations sent me mentally trekking back to a day spent in the old neighborhood beneath the Greer Stadium scoreboard. It is a neighborhood that should be revitalized, but Metro powers-that-be look instead always at downtown and the riverfront for their showpieces. Anyway, here's the chronicle of an afternoon spent with one of the now-vacant neighborhood residents when I was writing for the Tennessean, Nashville's morning daily.


Monica Bender's dad was only 32 when he collapsed and died while jogging. His daughter, on this day shooting hoops on a South Nashville hard court, is that exact age.
Her mom also died way too young. Breast cancer claimed her four years ago, at age 57.
The young woman's 85-year-old grandmother has diabetes and needs considerable attention. Grandma also worries that heavy winds will blow Greer Stadium's guitar-shaped scoreboard onto the family home, almost directly below it on Chestnut Street.
"She also is afraid the fireworks noise will hurt the house," says Monica, who lives with grandma Ellen Taylor and tends to her medications.
Heavy load? Perhaps. But Monica is happy.
"I don't have time to be sad." She stops dribbling her well-worn basketball.
"You can hardly read what it says." Monica rolls the ball forward in her hands to expose the almost invisible Rawlings logo. "It's so smooth now, sometimes it's hard to control."
I had been driving through the Greer Stadium neighborhood when I spotted her. It was midday, and here was a grown woman attempting a jump shot from the top of what would approximate the key, if there was such a marking on the asphalt parking lot. As the shot echoed off the rim, she snagged the rebound and delivered a tidy layup. It was time to park my car.
"Basketball's my hobby," Monica explains after I interrupt her solitary game outside the old SNAP Neighborhood Center at Martin and Humphreys.
"I like to come out here for an hour or so when I'm not working." Seldom are games - or even other people - involved.
"I just like to shoot," she says. "Do my own strategy."
This is Monica's serene oasis. Warehouses, office buildings, the Sounds ballpark and her grandmother's home pretty much fill her horizons.
"I like the scenery," she says, running her right hand over the almost cue-ball-smooth basketball's skin.
Monica grew up in Mt. Juliet, but her heart forever has been tied to the house behind the scoreboard.
"My mother was raised right down there," she says, looking toward the white house beneath the giant guitar. "It always was home. We came here every weekend when I was growing up. Never missed a weekend."
Monica physically moved here just three years ago. Her mother had died, and her grandmother's health woes became a concern for the whole family.
"Somebody needed to take care of her, make sure she got her shots," Monica says.
She has two brothers and three sisters, but she volunteered for this role.
"I've never been married. Got no children, not that there's anything wrong with being married and having children. I just never thought about it. I just have been busy being my own self."
Monica never thought twice about moving here to help her grandmother.
"It was home anyway. It's been rough sometimes, but, hey, Jesus is going to help me out. That's my source. I do what he says to do."
Besides that, she enjoys living with her grandmother. She can't say the same for Blackie, the poodle.
"Old, black poodle. Little dog. Little ornery, too," she says, the sunshine catching her bright smile. "Blackie's my grandmother's dog. If it was up to me, I'd do fine without him. But it's her entertainment."
Tending to medical needs of her dying mother, and now her feisty grandmother has sparked her to change her career focus.
A Donelson Kroger cashier by day, she's taking night classes to become a medical assistant. "I want to help people," she says.
Regardless of her career path, her nights will be spent on Chestnut Street.
"I'm staying here with my grandmother until God calls her home. That's the plan.
"Taking care of your family is just what you do."
The 5-foot-5 woman fingers the basketball logo again. "I made the high school team, but since I just had one parent, I couldn't get to practice.
"I love all sports, except golf. I don't understand it. And car racing. Who wants to watch cars go around and around all day? But I like the rest of them. Hockey's pretty good, got those fights."
And baseball? After all, her life's home is beneath the Greer Stadium outfield wall.
"I like it. I like the lights and the fireworks. I guess I've only been to two games in my life. We just sit on the porch and look at the people going in, and we listen."
Her preference is obvious as she dribbles the ball twice, stops and sends it toward the hoop.
"God's given me life," she says. "You should be sad when you don't have it."