Decades ago, when my children were with their dad every other weekend, I and my also divorced girlfriend, Betty, would sometimes go to a country bar with live music called the Buckboard in Marietta.
We always had so much fun!
We never drank too much to drive and always left the same way we arrived. And, by the way, it wasn’t necessary to verbalize an agreement about always leaving alone together since we didn’t go for hookups or any other reason than to have a fun break from single momhood. we always had a blast! (Another reason we went was I had gotten enough nerve to sing in public.)
I was dating a man who was a club owner and a professional musician and singer. I met him because someone recommended him for piano and voice lessons.
Just for the record, my piano skills were not the reason the band kept me. It was because I was a decent backup singer. (I actually am eternally grateful to The Country Sounds principals, Mike, Earl, Joyce and Marvin, for not letting my lack of piano skills keep me from joining them.)
The band only played for private parties. The majority of our gigs were playing for city sponsored street dances and the social events hosted by the late Honorable Tom Murphy (Speaker of the House 1973-2002, Legislator 1961-2002)).
We played for street dances in places like Buchanan, Villa Rica, Bremen, and Tallapoosa. Other venues where we played included things like Tom Murphy’s Annual Barbecue and New Year’s Eve at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Carrollton (where Susan Hayward is buried).
One time events included:
• opening night dinner at the annual Governors Convention when Georgia hosted it in Savannah.
• the opening night dinner for the 1988 Democratic National Convention posted by Tom Murphy.*
* Once, during a break the band was given between sets, a guy came up to me and pointed to a man and said, “He wants to meet you.” I never had this happen at our gigs, so I was pretty surprised, but I smiled and said, “Thank you, but no thank you.” He pulled on my arm when I started to walk away and said, “You don’t understand. He wants to meet you.” I smiled again and said “Thank you, but no!” My mom had babysat the kids for me to be able to go to this event, and when I got home, I told her all about the evening including the man who tried to introduce me to someone who wanted to meet me. While we were chatting, the News came on that was all about that event. The camera shifted to a man at a podium who was welcoming everyone. I pointed to him and practically yelled, “That’s him! That’s the one who sent somebody over telling me he wanted to meet me.” I had heard stories about politicians doing this, but I couldn’t believe they would actually do that. Evidently they did.
The only other thing that happened to me similar to this was at a political dinner during a set with the band playing, Mr. Murphy came up to me and smiled like we were sharing a joke which we were I found out. He whispered in my ear and pointed to a gentleman on the front row and asked me to go ask him to dance. I want you to imagine this country girl getting up and walking over to a gentleman who was presiding over the events. I asked him to dance, and we walked together onto the dance floor. It was a slow dance, and I was shaking so hard, I’m sure he realized I was too naive for “grown up” stuff when the song ended, we both nodded politely and said thank you and went back to our places.
