Remembered

There were a bunch of awesome things about today…I’m on vacation, you see!! However, the best thing was totally unexpected. I might as well just tell you now, that from now until October there will be more than one post about baseball, specifically Texas Ranger baseball. I LOVE it. I grew up the child of a sports-crazed mother and I have always watched and enjoyed sports. My husband is a long time Ranger fan and so I, not surprisingly, became a fan, too. Every spring we take this trip to Arizona to visit Jim’s dad and step-mom (HI, DAD, my most faithful reader!!) but it just so happens that the Rangers have their spring training here as well. So, we spend almost a week hanging out with Dad and Mary, and watching the Rangers. It is totally fun and relaxing. Today we went to practice and it was great. I got my picture taken with CJ Wilson and Josh Hamilton…very cool…but not the best thing. The best thing was at the beginning of the game when the announcer said, “Please rise and remove your hats for the National Anthem sung today by Charlie Pride”. Woohoo!! Seriously, I love Charlie Pride. You know, “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” Charlie Pride?! He did a great job. It was nice and easy and he sang the right pitches. It didn’t sound like a “dude who thinks he can sing” performance like most of the national anthem performances at sporting events. Kinda like reading my blog vs. reading the blog of an actual writer…it just isn’t really the same thing. I know, I know, you’re thinking Charlie Pride…and I know there are many of my musician friends who will read what I’ve just written and cringe. Here’s the deal. When I was a little girl I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. I adored them and every second I spent with them. In the summers, I would stay with them and every morning my grandmother turned on the country station in the kitchen while she made breakfast. In the afternoons while she was sewing she would put on a stack of OLD country records on the stereo (one of those old console things that was big enough to have Thanksgiving dinner on) and they would play and drop one at a time, then I would get to turn them over and we’d listen to the other side of the records. I grew up listening to Charlie Pride, along with many much older and much “twangier” country crooners. Listening to Charlie Pride sing the National Anthem today made me think of my grandmother, the best woman I have ever known, and her saying “good morning sunshine” to me every morning of every summer I spent with my grandparents. Music is about making you feel, no matter who sings it, plays it, or its genre. Thanks, Charlie, for making me feel happy today.