Classic Country..DOES ANYBODY LIVE IN OR NEAR NASHVILLE AND PLAN ON GOING TO POR!
Question: I live in detroit and not going, but when i was down there two days ago, i did pick up a few newspapers for keepsake and a friend of mine who does live in nashville will be getting more newspapers to send to me from the day of the CELEBRATION.
Answers: I live in detroit and not going, but when i was down there two days ago, i did pick up a few newspapers for keepsake and a friend of mine who does live in nashville will be getting more newspapers to send to me from the day of the CELEBRATION.
No but I imagine that it is going to be a tremndous turnout. I received this article from a friend from one of the local newspapers, thought you or anyone else might enjoy reading it. It is rather bittersweet I thought.
neighbor remembers Wagoner's genuineness
By GAIL KERR
Jeanette Rudy would look out her kitchen window every day and wave as she saw Porter Wagoner pulling out of his front gate.
The gate was locked Monday. A large, elegant funeral spray of white flowers was hanging there. Looking across the street, it made Mrs. Rudy tear up.
"I won't have anybody to wave to me any more," she said, pulling her blue sweater in close. "He was my friend."
Wagoner, 80, died Sunday night. Mrs. Rudy turned 80 last week.
For more decades than she can remember, Porter (nobody in Donelson called him Mr. Wagoner) lived right across Pennington Bend Road in a modest, one-story brick ranch house. It's a quiet neighborhood, tucked in the bend of the Cumberland River about a mile from the Grand Ole Opry House.
Folks refer to Porter as a musical icon, the Thin Man from West Plains, or the Rhinestone Troubadour. In 37214, he's just called neighbor.
The man who would flash the bright red "Hi" sewn inside his sparkling jackets at Opry audiences was the same plain old fellow seen greeting tourists inside the gates of Opryland USA, or pulling into the Donelson Kroger.
People would spot him at homey meat n' threes, like Hap Townes and Vittles. He loved, in equal measure, a day on the golf course or out on the lake fishing.
Porter wrote song for her
Mrs. Rudy's late husband was part of the Rudy's Farm family. They sold most of the land in the late 1960s, early 1970s to what would become Opryland, with a giant hotel and new Opry house. Sausage was once made where hotel guests now sleep.
The Rudys kept a fair amount of land across Briley Parkway on Pennington Bend for the house where she lives now. Her neighbor was a constant friend.
"We've been living over here a long time," Mrs. Rudy said. "He was my neighbor. I didn't see him as an Opry star. I saw him real often. We'd wave back and forth. He'd come over here and have coffee, or I'd go over there and have coffee. He was a very gentle man.
"He came over one time. I had a bunch of guitars. He sat right down and played the 'Carroll County Accident.' "
Porter wrote a song for her, too, called "My Neighbor," and sang it on the stage of the Opry. He gave her a few hats and some memorabilia. But her biggest Porter treasure is a framed and autographed picture of the star in full stage sequins hugging her. He wrote that she was "part of our family."
"I wouldn't take a thing for it," she said.
Mrs. Rudy went to see him a week ago in the hospital, after he was diagnosed with lung cancer.
"He said, 'I'm going home tomorrow,' " she said.
And he did.
Just not to the home on Pennington Bend Road.
The Americana Music Association had a "salute to Porter Wagoner" planned before his hospitalization, to be hosted by Marty Stuart and Jim Lauderdale. I'm going to that. The AP said his funeral will be Thursday at the Opry House. I'll have to play it by ear to see if I can go to it.
Not going, but I did read the Tennessean newspaper online to get some news and read the tributes. WSM is having a tribute from 7 to midnight on Wednesday I believe.
www.wsmonline.com
I'm glad I was at the Opry for his 50th anniversary night. It was great.