Wednesday 27th January 2010 - An Unexpected Discovery

          The day starts bright and sunny.  This is not a good thing in Nashville, since eyes and brain have to be brought up to speed slowly.  As I adjust, I can see this is just the morning for a stroll along the Broadway to see the sights.  I walk along to the Cumberland River, which is big and fast flowing, and I guess, must be the subect of "Roll on, Muddy River" (or what ever its actual title is).

          I was diverted on the way back into a discount shop, and bought myself a winter hat.  The current trend among country singers and their roadies and bouncers and the like is to wear massive black hats, so naturally I bought myself a small white one.  I'm a dedicated anti-follower of fashion.

 

           The Nashville and Davidson County Library now has its great bronze doors flung wide open.  Although very grand and Victorian-looking, it appears to be almost new.  It is very well-appointed, except for, inexplicably, an almost total absence of grown-up ladies.  So, of course, I can't find anything, and nobody knows anything.

          But I bump into one of my unexpected and unlikely facts.  As I'm perusing the biography section, under "G", I find one for Ellen Glasgow, the writer.  She is from the family after which Glasgow VA is named.  As I thumb through it idly, I bump into a description of the ancestors who came to Virginia, and the surprising claim that they weren't called Glasgow originally, but Cameron.  There being another family in the vicinity (Ulster, I think) called Cameron, they got to be the "Glasgow Camerons" because they came from Glasgow, and eventually accepted the obvious shortening.  It cites references in the Ellen Glasgow papers for this.  If it's true, then, indirectly, Glasgow VA was named for Glasgow Scotland.

 

          Later that night, I decide on a turn around the more touristy bars on the Broadway.  Kris Kristofferson is appearing at the Ryman, so the town is quite busy.  I have now discovered that the system here is that the band play for tips, passing the hat round, so to speak, although it's usually a jar.  Apparently this is a long tradition on the Broadway.

          One of the bars is where the young people go to be seen.  It has by far the loudest band, fully amplified, with an even louder off-beat drummer.  I don't know how they get to be seen, since they're packed in like sardines.

          I allow the young people to see me for as long as possible, until my ears start to make it clear that if I don't leave soon, they're going to leave without me.