We Didn’t Need Tickets to Enjoy the Show

I'm in the middle between Bonnie and Rita.

“I’ll take you to the Grand Ole Opry,” he said. 

“You’ll enjoy it,” he said.

“We’ll have a ball,” he said.

“You’ll be glad you went,” he said.

In 1971, my brother Grady and his wife, Bonnie, their daughter Rita, my husband Dean, and I piled into Grady’s 1955 Chevrolet and took off for Nashville, Tenn. There were six of us in the car and we rode for over five hours without stopping for anything. No bathroom breaks, no snacks or drinks, and no stretching our legs, just being crammed in his Chevy with no extra space anywhere.

When we got to Nashville, we walked around trying to see all we could. This picture shows Bonnie, Rita and me (in the middle) walking along a street in downtown Nashville.

When the time came for the Opry ticket office to open, we got in line. Having stood in line for over 20 minutes, you can imagine how disappointed we were to find out the tickets were all sold out! Well, we were not going to give up easily. Even though it started sprinkling rain, we picked out a window that was low enough for us to see into the building and that’s how we spent the next two and half hours. The sprinkling turned into a downpour of rain, but we didn’t budge from our positions where we took turns peering into the window of the old Ryman Auditorium trying to see as much of the show as we could. Every now and then we’d look at each other and laugh as hard as we could. We did look funny standing there with rain running down our faces and our clothes soaked through and through.

You know, Grady was right. He did take us to the Grand Ole Opry. Never mind that we didn’t get in, saw little of the show and were soaked to the skin from the rain. We did enjoy it, in fact, I don’t know of another trip that was more fun than this one. We did have a ball and I’ve been glad we went ever since. Today we still laugh about the trip and realize that any time spent with my brother Grady is a good time to remember.

Carol Winebarger, Traphill, a member of Surry-Yadkin Electric