Feel the Same Way

Marla Jones and me, we went off to see The Marshall Tucker Band.

It was 1978, I think, and most of my friends were listening to the music of the Doobie Brothers and arguing whether Michael McDonald had saved or ruined them. I was buying vinyl copies of Where We All Belong and firin' up the Pioneer turntable and killer speakers I bought with money from selling livestock at the county 4-H Fair.

For many fans of The Marshall Tucker Band, mostly men, I reckon, it was Toy Caldwell singing Can't You See and it is a fine, fine song. But, I was flat in love with Twenty-Four Hours at a Time and lead singer, Doug Gray. He had long, hippie hair and could sing, sing, sing.

"You're always on my mind,
24 hours at a time.
Oh my woman, I'm hopin' you feel the same way."

I did, Doug, I sure did feel the same way.

I would be in attendance at a total of twelve concerts by the Tucker Boys from Carolin' in my misspent youth before I packed up and carried my musical taste to the Big City where I was stared at in disbelief.

Often.

My city friends got used to my cowboy boots and even came to define them as some kind of signature look when the truth was, and is, that I started wearing them at four years old and just feel better in them than strappy, little click-click shoes. They excepted my love of Southern story tellers because even New York is crazy gone over Eudora and Harper and Truman and therefore, my bookshelves were viewed as chic and, if they'd never heard of the author, cutting edge.

Me, the trend setter.

But, they never gave up trying to get me to abandon my music. That I listened to "other stuff" eased their embarrassment after all, I was, and am, the best back-up singer James Taylor ever had even if he does not know it. This knowledge is held only by those who have ridden shotgun on road trips lasting more than two hours, the longest I can go without singing along, and my total recall of any lyrics I have heard more than twice is legendary including but not limited to "As" by Stevie Wonder, the single most difficult song to memorize in the history of modern music.

Test me. I can prove it.

But, this country thing just wore them out. I was sitting in a swanky little bar with Chris Hinton, then a offensive tackle in the NFL and his pretty wife. Another football player, in need of an image boost, was meeting with me to see if I had any marketing magic that would turn a horse's ass into a commercial hit. I asked Chris to come along as a reference.
The deejay dropped a big screen from the ceiling to show a video while he played a little number by who he called, "A hip, newcomer."

That was the first time I saw him.

Scrawny, short, skin tight jeans three or four inches too long and frayed along the hem line with a cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes, Dwight Yoakam sang.

"When my money's all gone, I telephone
singin' "Hey, hey momma, can your daddy come home?"

Yes, Dwight. You sure can. You sure can come on home.

Chris had to yell to get my attention back at the table. I pointed to the screen and said, "I want to marry him." and Chris said, "Well, baby, if you are hoping to attract a husband that looks like that, you are sitting with the wrong crowd."

I suppose so.

Given my love of dogs and farm experience, a neighbor asked me to help her in the birthing of Yorkie puppies. Yorkies. Yes, my ability to stick my arm inside a cow and turn things around so to bring bovine life into this world would, for anyone, translate into the expert delivery of a pup roughly the size of a walnut. We were listening to the radio while we waited.

"and in entertainment news, Keith Whitley has died of apparent alcohol poisoning. Keith Whitley dead at the age of 34."

I sobbed. "Oh, oh my poor Keith Whitley. It's that Lori Morgan. She killed him. Oh, Keith..."

My neighbor said, "Who's Keith Whitley?"

It just goes to show, I can be as hypocritical and judgmental as the next know-it-all. In my heart, in my my well functioning, logical brain, I know that it was not Lori Morgan's fault Keith Whitley drank himself to an early death and detest folks who blame a man's bad behavior on the woman in his life. But, this was Keith Whitley. I loved him therefore, it must have been her fault.

"Who is Lori Morgan?"

I told my friend to deliver her own puppy and went home to mourn. The idiot I was dating, the one who got his PhD at a good school in West Virginia when one he found more prestigious wouldn't let him in, the one who made fun of coal miners and the way I said, "insurance" with the accent on the first syllable, asked me what was wrong and I told him.

"Who's Keith Whitley?", he asked.

That guy owned two CDs, both by Paula Abdul. Hard to believe they let him become a doctor.

Years later, still in the Big City, I was chosen to act as one of the guides for visiting foreign dignitaries, in town to decide if our fair city was cosmo enough to host a major sporting event. Cowboy boots and all, somebody thought I might be good at charm or arm twisting. I was paired up with my friend, Beth.

On the drive to the potential site for a new, fancy, or as my grandmother used to say, 'ritzy-titzy' hotel and conference center, I turned on the radio. Beth shot me a look. "No country", she mouthed so that our new Italian friends in the back seat wouldn't notice.

The deejay said, "and now a new song by Vince Gill, on the album that is coming out next Tuesday, Rest High on that Mountain."

"You weren't afraid to face the devil.
You were no Stranger To the Rain."

I sobbed.

"He is singing about Keith Whitley. That is about Keith Whitley. Lori Morgan killed him. This song is about him."

Beth said, "Who's Keith Whitley?"

I have sinced returned to a more rural way of life.

I have a t-shirt that says "Mama Tried" in honor of Merle and know that "He Stopped Loving Her Today" will never be matched as the greatest and saddest country song ever written or sung. I can still sing, word for word, with Aretha and Stevie and Luther and the good Reverend Al Green but, more times than not, reach for Miranda Lambert or Travis Tritt, especially since he gave up sporting the mullet and wearing spandex.

Lord, that boy can sing, sing, sing.

But, today, I rolled down the window and turned up those boys from Spartanburg, South Carolina. I listened to the announcer on that live album, now in disc form, introduce them and heard Toy lean into that guitar before Doug told me that he's been down around Houston, Texas where the sun shines most of the time.

"Woman, you're always on my mind
Twenty-four hours at a time.
Oh my, woman,
I'm hopin' you feel the same way, feel the same way, feel the same way."

I do, Doug. I surely do feel the same way, more than thirty years later.

I sure do.