Saturday 30th January 2010 - Eating Out

          I cruise up and down the main drag looking for a breakfast place.  I spot a huge sign outside a restaurant saying "Brunch".  So in I go.  "Oh, we don't do Brunch anymore".  "But it says it in large letters across the front".  "Oh", (goes away)  "OK, you can have brunch".  As I wait, two men sneak hurriedly out of the kitchen and pull the sign down.  So I guess they don't do brunch anymore.

 

          The freeze is going to be bad again tonight, so I arrange to meet my Scottish Society friends early in town.  I am determined to walk.  It's about a mile and a half.  It's a kind of bravado.  If the power lines come down, I can make it to town on my own.  Of course, there is no sidewalk, and the parking lots are, by now, treacherous.

          Although I make good progress, I only get halfway before my friends appear beside me.  Apparently the planned rendezvous is closed to let the staff get home safely.  So we have to find somewhere else.  I have a problem getting into their car, because the back door is frozen shut.

         The big chain restaurants are still open, and doing good business.  The waitress, who obviously works for Social Services, decides us "oldies" ought to pay the bill of the young family at the next table, as well as our own.  We are mean, and, after some discussion, decline.

         But it's home early, before the roads turn into an ice-rink.

Friday 29th January 2010 - A Mexican Standoff

          I get out of Nashville with the weather closing in fast.  I'm heading for Tullahoma, on the Tennessee border, where I have a date.  It clears a bit, but by Tullahoma it's snowing heavily again.  There is no problem driving.  It's down I-24 to Manchester (Manchester?  How did Manchester get into it?  Actually, I don't know why I'm saying that, the Glasgow I'm headed for seems to be a suburb of Birmingham), then Highway 55 to Tullahoma. 

          The motel is happy to accept me early.  It's snowing heavily, but they have a bar and restaurant on the premises.  Drawback is: it's a MEXICAN restaurant.  I'm pretty tense.  The young staff seem to be touching things all the time.  In the case of the young men, mostly themselves.  I suppose it's a latin thing (although I do have to say I never saw my latin master doing it).

           The staff keep rushing up, asking me if I'm ready to eat.  Little do they know!  But when I'm ready for another drink, nobody notices.

           In the end, I can't bring myself to eat.  It will clearly be some time before the trauma of my last Mexican meal passes into history.

 

           Later that night, in heavy rain, I meet up with some friends from the Glasgow, KY hogmanay party.  The reason I'm stopping here is to read my favourite Burn's poem at their Scottish Society Burn's Birthday Celebration. 

          Unfortunately, the weather has won this round as well.  I had fans flying in by the thousand, but the airport is closed, and the roads are not offering any guarantee against being snowed-in; the event is being postponed.

          We have a quiet dinner in town, in a restaurant where they keep fairly good beer, and very good Scotch.  The rain is making driving fairly safe, but if it stops and the ground freezes, it will be really treacherous.  So it's home fairly early.

Thursday 28th January 2010 - My Annual Retail Therapy Session

          The buying of the hat must have tripped some primitive, Scottish 'it's January clothes are cheap' switch.  For quite some time, I've been living in jeans.  This prevents me standing out.  Everybody in America wears jeans all the time.  I wouldn't be surprised to discover they all wear denim pyjamas.  Anyway, between jeans and tuxedo, I've got nothing to wear.  In addition, at least one of my shirts is only fit for meeting people I'm never going to see again.

          I ask Google to find me the nearest Macy's.  That's kind-of code for a shopping mall.  In fact, when I get there, it seems just to be Macy's.  They've actually got valet (Americans use the French pronunciation) parking.  Whatever gave them the idea I was going to spend that much?

          Everything is, indeed, in a sale, some things nearly half-price.  It doesn't take much to satisfy my mild retail lusts, so the event is soon over. 

          The gentleman's gentleman who has decided to help me through the event claims some Scottish ancestry.  I don't point out to him that nearly everyone in America does: the Scots who came here originally must really have put it about quite a bit.

 

          The afternoon is spent obsessively watching the Weather Channel.  I'm moving on tomorrow, and what they call a 'winter storm' is approaching.  American Weather is very predictable.  They can see the extent of the storm, which is presently closing down bits of Texas and most of Oklahoma, and the direction it is travelling in.  It's not so much a forecast as a description of the inevitable: only the timing is slightly open to question. 

          Apparently, these Winter Storms lay down a mass of snow in the middle, with heavy ice and rain on the periphery.  Almost all American power transmission is overhead, so the weight of ice brings down lots of lines, and even poles.  It must seem very malign to Americans: it not only freezes you, it cuts off your power as well.

 

          Later that night, it's a fancy mid-town bar, with lots of dead furry and feathered things stuck to the walls.  The service isn't very good, but the company is, which is what matters in a bar.  Anyway, I'm from the UK, I have very low standards when it comes to service.

          The place is showing its class by having golf on the TV.  It is replays of some T. Woods matches.  For months now, whenever I've seen any golf on TV it's usually been TW.  I think the media and fans are going through some grieving process and have got to the denial stage.

          One of the matches is from La Jolla, in California.  There is a Californian present: "La Hoya" actually.  No wonder the Spanish lost their empire, if they can't even spell.

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.

Tuesday 26th January 2010 - A Bit of Peace and Quiet

          Venturing out in Nashville seems, inevitably, to be accompanied by a delicate start the following day.  I don't think I'd like to have to work here.  Except, of course, as a musician.  Maybe that's how they do it: maybe they're all musicians.

          The Nashville Fire Department sent an alarm call for me.  American fire engines, as well as the usual lights and sirens, have a tug-boat horn which can be heard quite a long way away.  They sent their entire fleet to the federal courthouse opposite:

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quite a wake-up call.

 

          I spent most of what was left of the day in the state archives.  Such an oasis of peace is hard to believe in this riotous city.  Perhaps that's why they have to close on Mondays; perhaps all the staff get together downtown and sing and dance and shout at each other for eight hours.  Then they can put up with all this quiet for the rest of the week.

          I was checked in at the door by a grown-up lady from Spain.  From Madrid, she said, although she didn't say it like that, she said it the way Spaniards say it.  I was immediately assigned a researcher who was waiting at the door, a bit like a taxi.  He found the date of Lube Glasgow's death in no time at all,  so I found the appropriate edition of the "Weakley County Press, Martin Mail, and The County Times" in one shot.  And there it was on the front page:

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Reading old newspapers is intrinsically fascinating, so I tried to skim through the 1920s to see if any mention of Glasgow the place appeared, but I wasn't lucky.

 

          Later that night it was back to the Station Inn where, on Tuesdays, they not only have an acoustic jam session, they also have cheap beer.  On the way there, I passed the old Union Station, where I spotted a beer bar called the Flying Saucer.  It serves up eighty-one draft beers.  It also, reluctantly, serves wine and spirits, but there are none on show.  They are having a quiz night, and also selling a cheap beer, the very splendid "Fat Tire" from Colorado.

          When I got to the Station, the jam session was in full swing: not an amplifier or drummer in sight.  But I can now say I have finally come across a very young virtuoso bano player, although, disappointingly, he didn't look the least bit inbred.

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(That photo number gave me a start.  I don't know what I'd have done if it had come up 666: left town in a hurry, I suppose.)

Monday 25th January 2010 - This is Also the State Capital

          The hotel provides a splendid breakfast, so I can slob about in my track suit and make as slow a start as I want.  It's practically lunchtime before I'm ready to go out.

 

          Today, I'm heading off for another set of quiet, book-lined rooms.  I've located the Historical Society, the State Archives, and the City Library.  It's turned very cold again, so I'm well wrapped up.  It being lunchtime, I have to choose my route carefully, so as to avoid waysides by which I might fall.

          But, it turns out, although there is live music all the time,  there are no libraries or archives, or even historical societies on Mondays.  The city Library takes up a whole block, and I work my way all round it, finding only enormous bronze doors firmly closed.  I even wander into the car park, and up to where you park for the library, then down the escalators to an inside door before I see a sign saying closed on Mondays.

          So peace-and-quiet will have to wait till tomorrow.

 

          Later that night, it's off up the Gultch.  This is a part of downtown being smartened up and made residential.  It contains one of the famous traditional country venues, the Station Inn.  Inside it looks a bit like a church hall (and of a pretty poor church at that).  There is a cover charge here, and the audience is substantially preservation society types (you know, ladies who don't dye their hair, and gentlemen with grey beards and hardly a cowboy hat between them).

          But the music is very traditional ( they do have a drummer, but he only has a side drum). and very enoyable.  And the beer is domestic, and comes by the pitcher.  So, all-in-all, a very traditional evening.  I failed to find out who the band was, but I don't suppose it matters very much.

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Sunday 24th January 2010 - A Day of Rest

          After the frantic delights of the previous night, I wake up to find myself more-or-less in one piece.  Although the better beers here are usually just a bit too strong, nonetheless my 'beer only' rule sees me through.  The damage doesn't seem permanent.  Anyway, after last week's seeing-to by the Mexicans, what can the cowboys do (even pro lady shuffleboard players).  A good slow breakfast, an even slower hot bath, and the hair of seventy-two dogs should see me alright.

 

          Today is the day they play the games which decide which teams go to the superbowl.  So it's down to the no-music bar to watch a bit.  All the screens except one are showing the big game.  The exception is showing soccer, Real Madrid v Malaga.  The soccer provides a bit of interest while the football is stopped, which is nearly all the time.  Malaga advertise a British Bookmaker on their shirts, which seems a bit odd in downtown Nashville.

           I had let it be known that I favoured the Jets and the Vikings this year, so, of course, it was the Colts and Saints who were successful.  It's a good job I don't have any dealings with bookmakers, British or otherwise.

 

           Later that night, I felt it unwise to upset the delicate balance of recovery.