De-Clined

Today was the first Labor Day I've fully appreciated in the past 8 years. As a stay-at-home mom, three-day weekends usually just meant that Handiman was going to be home an extra day totally busting my groove. But today I was all about the laziness of it all. I slept in, cooked a big breakfast, watched an episode of "I Love Lucy" with the family and spent the day goofing off at a Nashville Mall. We played Glow Golf, did a little window shopping and stopped for Frostys on the way home. In the midst of that, Handiman and I had a conversation that got me thinking.

We were eating lunch and discussing the ill-advised decision some business executive-types made to tear down the Opryland Theme Park and build the mall monstrosity we were sitting in, Opry Mills. We were reminiscing about the rides, the shows and the parking lot with designated areas named "Minnie Pearl 2 " and "Roy Acuff 6". (I once lost my car in "Ernest Tubb 4" because I forgot to write it down. I wandered around "Loretta Lynn 12" for hours.) In the midst of our stroll down memory lane, I wondered out loud how my life might have turned out had I taken the job I was offered at Opryland my senior year of college.

Opryland held auditions for their shows all over the country and in 1989 they came to Birmingham. My mom took me and we waited around all day for my chance to sing "Crazy" for the judges. I got called back a few times and even went through the dance audition. Then I was sent home to wait. Eventually, I received a notice in the mail that they wanted me to play Patsy Cline in the "Legends of Country Music" show. They also wanted me to start work before my semester was over. I remember wanting that job so badly but knowing I would regret it forever if I didn't graduate with my class. So I turned it down and figured I could always try again.

After graduation, I moved to Nashville and got a sales job with a small independent record label. When that didn't work out due to low pay, no benefits and a seriously crazy boss (that is another post for another day) I started looking for a real job. Since I was completely devoid of mathematical skills of any kind whatsoever I took a job at a bank. It was an impending disaster and would only last 6 months but during that time I learned a little about what God had spared me from a year before. You see, our location was very close to Opryland and quite a few of it's performers were customers. And they were not exactly my crowd.

I'm pretty sure had I taken that Patsy Cline job, I would have run home a week later crying and never come back to this town. I had lived a pretty sheltered life and wasn't prepared for how much "alternative" living was being lived in the show-business arena. If you know what I mean.

I might have never met Handiman. I might have never had the Little Ocho. I might have never realized that my true gift is not impersonating Patsy Cline, but impersonating Cher. So much would have been lost!

I've held down a few jobs in my day: Baskin-Robbins ice cream scooper, telemarketer, bank teller, secretary, office manager, sales assistant, teacher and mommy. It might have been nice to add Patsy Cline impersonator to the list, but it just wasn't meant to be.