From Sunday's Times and News-Star
Me and Matt and Jaybo were installing aluminum seating in
the McCall High School football stadium in Tallulah that blistering summer day
in Tallulah in 1982 – not a lot of shade in the outside seating installation
business – when somebody drove by and yelled that George Jones was drinking tea
at the Tallulah Truck Stop.
No way.
We threw down ratchet wrenches and nuts and bolts and
grabbed our
shirts and hustled into the truck and, a couple of
fishtail miles
later, into the truck stop.
George? GEORGE?!
A waitress told us he’d come and gone and that yes, it
had been THAT
George Jones, the one who could sing a country song so
sad it’d bring
tears to a needle’s eye.
George. Gone. They call him Done Gone Jones.
We got our big sweet teas and left, sadder but wiser,
knowing even as
we went back to our dreary and sweaty lives installing
football
seating, nearly falling out of stadiums on a daily basis,
that we were
destined to be one step behind The Big Boys all of our
loser lives.
It’s probably best we didn’t see him. We would not have
been
emotionally ready to handle a Possum sighting in a truck
stop, his
Silver Eagle or El Dorado in the parking lot idling. It
was better to
know that He’d Been There, like you know in your den on
Christmas
morning. It doesn’t make you like Santa less; you like
him more.
If would be hard for anyone to like George more than
either me or my
dad, who accepted many condolences from nephews and
nieces who phoned
Friday a week ago when George died at age 81, which is
about 212 in
George Jones Years. (Whoever had the “over” on the George
Death Date
won with decades to spare.) I’m afraid that if Merle
Haggard ever
dies, we can tinkle on the fire because country music as
we once knew
it will be over and out.
We will attempt a quick Top 10 According To Me here, a
way to remember
and say thanks because, well, the boy sure could sing. If
I owned a
riding mower, I’d make a lap today in his honor.
10. “Southern California” with Tammy Wynette, or Tammy
WhyNot, as we
endearingly call her.
9. “He Stopped Loving Her Today”
8. “Grand Tour”
7. “Something To Brag About” with Tammy WhyNot.
6. “White Lightning”: I turn my radio way up when it
comes on.
5. “Bartender’s Blues” or “Her Name Is…”: I couldn’t
decide. This is a
lot of pressure.
4. “Golden Ring” with Tammy WhyNot, co-written by Rafe
VanHoy, who’s a
beautiful human being.
3. “A Good Year For The Roses”: His life went to the
outhouse but the
flowers that year turned out purty, at least.
2. “The Race is On”: Merle does a good rendition too,
which brings us to…
1. “Born With The Blues,” a duet with Haggard. “Born with
the
blues/trouble in mind/smoking and drinking/by the time I
was 9./In
debt from the start/still paying my dues/crazy and
lonely/and born
with the blues…” Whoa. The thing is, he’d sing it wearing
a $1000
rhinestone suit and you’d want to loan him a quarter.
Left it all on
the field.
There you go. Something to brag or argue about,
especially since it
doesn’t include “If I Don’t Love You, Grits Ain’t
Groceries,” “If You
Loved a Liar, You’d Hug My Neck,” “I Still Hold Her Body
But I Think
I’ve Lost Her Mind” and “No Blues is Good News.”
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