Weekend in Nashville

A few weeks ago, Mary Ann asked me if I'd be interested in going to Nashville to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at the Gaylord Opryhouse Theater.  This is something we had discussed in the past and not ever done.  I said I'd love to go.  So Mary Ann got on line and bought tickets for the 8:00 PM show on Saturday, November 17th.  We also decided we'd stay in the Opryland Hotel, something we'd never done before.  I can now report that it turned into a wonderful adventure.

We left home around noon and headed north.  I wanted to stop in Franlin briefly on the way to Nashville.  I was in the market for a replacement bandsaw for my shop, and the Woodcraft store in Franklin had the model I was interested in.  We stopped there, the price was right, we loaded up the saw, and we continued to the hotel without incident.

The Opryland Hotel is beyond belief.  It is the largest non-casino hotel in the Continental United States outside of Las Vegas.  A few statistics are in order:

• 2,881 Guest Rooms
• 109,465 square feet (10,170 m²) of ballroom space
• 319,000 square feet (30,000 m²) of exhibit space
• 6 full-service restaurants which include The Old Hickory Steakhouse, Cascades American Cafe, Solario, Ravello, and Findley's Irish Pub.
• 3 lounges including The Falls, The Jack Daniel's Saloon, and The Library at Old Hickory
• 8 eateries which include STAX Hamburgers, Paisano's Pizza, Häagen-Dazs, Christie Cookies, Conservatory Café, Wasabi's Sushi, and Coca Bean.
• 14 retail stores including Amelia's, Savannah's and Miss Scarlet's, the three of which are women's fashions stores, Alexzander Kalifano's, a jewelry shop, the Magnolia, and Delta Necessities Stores, Signature, Cowboys and Angels, Delta Gifts and Decor, Bushels and Baskets, The Opry Shop, Bookmark, Sunny G Children's Boutique, and Johnston & Murphy.
• Fuse Nashville Nightclub which specializes in an assortment of gourmet food and cocktails, including the signature "Cotton Candy Martini".
• Relâche Spa and Salon which offers a variety of massages and upscale services featuring a full-service salon, sauna, shopping boutique, as well as a fitness center which is open 24 hours. Relâche also houses the hotel's indoor pool and one of the outdoor pools.
• The Arcade which features many games and prizes.

We got to our room and cleaned up, then walked around the property for a while to figure out the lay of the land.  We also wanted to find out where the theater was in relationship to the hotel, and whether there was a shuttle bus to take us to it.

We dined at the Cascades American Cafe, and had some of the best prime rib we have ever enjoyed.  It was a terrific dining experience.  Then we went to our room to change into theater-going duds.  We were excited.  We found the bus stop with no trouble, loaded up immediately, and in about three minutes we were walking toward the entrance of the theater.  One surprise was that as we entered the theater, we were given a pair of 3-D glasses and told, "Now don't lose these, and put them on when Santa tells you to."  We entered the theater and found our seats.

The Opryland Theater evokes memories of the Ryman -- wide and shallow, with pews instead of theater seats, and having extensive balcony seating.  It is, however, much larger than the Ryman Auditorium.  In just a few ninutes, the show began.

Everything about this show was better than I could have imagined.  The lighting, sound, choreography, and costumes were all as good as one can ever see or hear.  The talent of the performers was terrific.  The level of energy and enthusiasm was superb.  I can't say enough.  Needless to say, we both really enjoyed the evening.  I highly recommend the experience.

After we returned to the hotel, we wandered around the vast interior, window shopping, people watching, and taking lots of pictures.  We got a good night's rest and had an uneventful trip home on Sunday.  It turned out to be a nice way to kick off the Christmas season.

Banjo Boys...

Some readers may remember my foray into the world of cigar box guitars.  That effort resulted in the instrument shown above.  Now, there's a new adventure in the works.  It all started one day when my friend Clint Rankin mentioned that his wife, Sarah, wanted to learn to play the banjo.  I said, "You ought to build her one."  That started the ball rolling.

Jenes Cottrell in the 1970s with
one of his turbine ring banjos

An internet search for various terms like "home built banjo" and "building a banjo" led us to a little-known character from the 1970s named Jenes Cottrell.  According to the West Virginia encyclopedia, "Traditional musician and craftsman Jenes Cottrell (September 14, 1901-December 7, 1980) was descended from the earliest settlers of Clay County. Known for their farming and trading, the Cottrells also worked with wood. During the arts and crafts revival beginning in the 1960s, Jenes Cottrell became one of the best-known practitioners of the old ways. He made toys, rolling pins, chairs, and canes, and he put in chair bottoms of woven wood splits. He had a fine foot-powered, spring-pole lathe which he used to demonstrate his skill at festivals throughout West Virginia and beyond. He drew people as flies swarm to sugar. Somewhere along the way Cottrell had begun to make banjo rims using aluminum torque converter rings from 1956 Buick transmissions. He quickly became known for making and playing banjos."  

The turbine ring

We then found a Website of a young man named Chris Dean who had researched Cottrell's banjos and built one of his own "Dynaflow banjos."  Then we ran across some YouTube videos of a fellow who had built such a banjo and had recorded the construction sequence and some of his playing.  Clint and I were intrigued.  If we could find the transmission part - the "turbine ring" from a 1953-1958 Buick Dynaflow (no easy task) - it might be fun to try building one of these instruments.  Then Monty Love joined the crowd.

Chris Dean's finished banjo

Clint is a Pit Bull in an internet quest.  Within a day, he located a junkyard in New Jersey that had a pile of Dynaflow transmissions.  Within a couple more days, there were three turbine rings on their way to Huntsville.  Watch for progress reports over the next few weeks.

We are officially the "Banjo Boys."

Thanksgiving Breakfast Treat

This morning, Mary Ann surprised me with a baked French Toast dish done somewhat like an upside down cake.  The glaze forms in the bottom of the baking pan as the toast is cooking.  Absolutely wonderful!!!

Ron Thomason's "Arithmetic"

Ron Thomason is a great performer.  He is the lead vocalist and mandolin player in a band called the "Dry Branch Fire Squad."  Periodically, Ron writes in a blog-like way on a Web page he calls "Installments."  And he is, in my humble opinion, a very, very good writer -- incisive and analytic but always eloquent.  He recently posted an article titled simply "Arithmetic."  Highly recommended reading...

Kentuck 2012



Recently, Mary Ann and I replaced the countertops in our kitchen.  We chose a light marbleized Corian material.  It dramatically changed the "feel" of the room, since the countertops had previously been a deep red formica.  You can probably anticipate where this is going -- obviously the room needs new wall colors, etc., etc., etc.

Mary Ann had rightly concluded that we probably needed to decide what might be hanging on the walls to help us decide what color might look best on those walls.  It's all about texture and harmony and complementary hues.  So the quest began to find just the right wall decoration.

Fortunately, we had run across a terrific juried art show many years ago that is held every year in October.  It's called the Kentuck Festival of the Arts, held in Northport, Alabama, and now in its 41st year.  We made plans to attend this past weekend to see if we might find something that would be just the thing for the corner that needed brightening up.

Mary Ann had done her homework.  She had started with the list of exhibitors on the Kentuck Web site and looked at the Web pages of as many artists as she could find listed.  So by the time we arrived on Saturday morning, she was well aware of several artists whose works interested her.  We began the quest.

Within the first half hour, we arrived at the display of an abstract painter from St. Louis named Sharon Spillar.  As soon as I saw Mary Ann's reaction to this lady's work, I felt we had found the right source.  Then began the challenge of selecting the "right" pieces that would all be complementary.  We ended up purchasing two panels 30" by 10" and six smaller accent panels, each about 8" square.  Here they are on one of Ms. Spillar's display panels at the show:

They are done in acrylic, over which the artist applies a glossy clear acrylic seal coat.  They should be absolutely impervious to any airborne contaminants that a kitchen can produce.  They look striking set in place in our kitchen.  Now, of course, we need to decide on wall coloring and do the painting.

Saturday evening, we proceeded to a restaurant in Tuscaloosa that had been recommended by Kay Brown, a colleague at Camber.  The Cypress Inn proved to be a marvelous choice.  Our table overlooked the Warrior River and the sun was setting during our meal, so the ever-changing scenery was just perfect.  What a treat!

We awoke Sunday morning to another beautiful day, and Mary Ann had planned even more surprises.  We got cleaned up and loaded the car and proceeded to Five Points South in Birmingham, a really quaint part of town.  We had a nice lunch at Fuego Cantina, then proceeded to walk along Eleventh Avenue, past the Highlands Bar and Grille, then through their parking lot toward a large mansion undergoing restoration.  This turned out to be the home of sculptor Ira Chaffin.  Mary Ann had located him through her search for a carousel horse carving school, something I had expressed an interest in for several years.

Mr. Chaffin opened his animal carving studio to us and took us on the grand tour.  We saw several projects being completed by his students.  These included a local surgeon now working on his fifth animal and a grandmother who started with zero experience and is now working on a most impressive lion, her second animal!  Here are some examples from his studio:

 

 

We spent an hour or so talking with Mr. Chaffin, after which we returned home, tired but pleased that we had found the decorative items we had hoped to find, done so much and learned so much.

Dr. George M. Sutton Remembered

A few weeks ago, I ran across a post in a forum of the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) in which an individual was trying to sell a couple of framed Stark Davis-painted "bird advertisements" for 1928 Lincoln Automobiles.  I didn't make an offer on these particular ads, but it turns out that I knew a little bit about their origins.

In the early 1970s I took a job as Superintendent of the Power and Chilled Water Plants at the University of Oklahoma.  I worked with another engineer by the name of Bob White.  Bob happened to be an artist and was at that time the president of the Norman Art League.  One day he came to me with an unusual request.  Bob had somehow discovered that I had learned and practiced decorative italic writing and had on occasion done presentation certificates.  The Norman Art League wanted to formally recognize the life's work of Dr. George Miksch Sutton, a world-renowned bird artist who was a Professor of Ornithology at the University.  Bob asked me if I would be willing to do a presentation parchment scroll for Dr. Sutton's recognition banquet.  I was honored and agreed to do it.

I received the parchment on which I would do the work along with the art league's text of the presentation scroll.  It was not brief.  It went on at length about Dr. Sutton's myriad achievements.  As I read it, I kept wondering how I could lay out that many words, along with some elaborately illuminated letters, in the limited real estate available.  I had three or four weeks to complete the assignment.

I don't know how other calligraphers work, but I know that after 15 or 20 minutes, I have to quit because my hand will start to tremble from the sustained tension.  Remember, you only get one chance at getting it right.  The ink sinks indelibly into the paper-thin leather.  There's no erasing.  As soon as I dip the pen into the ink, I am tense.  So, night after night, I labored through the wordy presentation.  I left room in a few locations, around the first letters of significant words at the beginnings of paragraphs, so I could come back later to embellish those letters with colored inks and gold leaf.  The final result was fortunately very impressive.  No misspelled words, no spilled ink, nothing left out.  Everything fit and the size of the italic font remained consistent throughout.  I was thrilled.

The presentation night came and went.  Bob informed me that Dr. Sutton had been deeply moved by the entire event and was particularly impressed by the beautiful certificate.  The art league sent me a lovely note expressing their gratitude for my services.

A few weeks later, I receved a phone call at the power plant.  It was Dr. Sutton.  He asked if I could meet him at the bird collection section of the museum.  He wanted to "meet the man who created that beautiful certificate."  I was very moved and agreed on a mutually convenient time to meet Dr. Sutton.  I had seen this world famous teacher on campus over the years but had never been formally introduced.  When I met him at the museum, he was warm and most gracious.  He gave me the "grand tour" of the bird collection that represented his life's work.

There were literally thousands of birds, carefully stuffed and mounted in hundreds of sample drawers.  Each tiny carcass was labeled, describing the identity of the example and the dates and locations where each was collected.  Dr. Sutton related stories about many of the examples.  Some he had collected on various expeditions.  Others were donated.  Many species were incredibly rare or extinct.  The collection was obviously a valuable and irreplaceable treasure.

He then shared some of his life story.  His interest in birds started at a very early age and he had joined the American Ornithologists' Union at age 12.  In 1916, as a teenager, he had sudied under the world famous bird artist, Louis Agassiz Fuertes.  After a rather stormy undergraduate career (He led a student revolt against mandatory ROTC and was temporarily expelled.), he graduated from West Virginia's Bethany College in 1923.  By age 27, he was the Pennsylvania State Ornithologist.  In 1929 he went to Ithaca, New York, to pursue his Ph.D. under Dr. Arthur Allen.  His long career had taken him all over the world, including a stint in the Army Air Corps during World War II, during which he tested arctic survival gear.  He had previously spent considerable time studying arctic birds.

Dr. Sutton had come to the University of Oklahoma in 1952 and had become an institution.  And everywhere he had gone during his long career, he had painted images of birds - hundreds and hundreds of birds.  He had published dozens of articles and books illustrated with his incredibly detailed bird paintings.  And on that day in 1972, he presented me with several artists proofs from his most recent book, "High Arctic."  He had personalized and signed each one.

Then, as the gracious Doctor showed me some more of the museum, he asked about my interests.  When I mentioned my interest in antique cars, he related a story about those Lincoln bird advertisements.  He was employed by the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh in the mid-1920's and had made some acquaintances at the Ford Motor Company,  In 1927, after Henry Ford had acquired the Lincoln Motorcar Company, his son Edsel had come up with the idea of producing some custom-bodied Lincolns colored to resemble the bright foliage of birds.  They had hired the famous commercial artist, Stark Davis, to paint the advertisements and the company had enlisted the services of George Sutton to help them decide on the colors and species of birds to use in this promotion!  And now, some 40 years after I met this remarkable gentleman, these ads crossed my path a second time...

John Weathersby Declares War on Imports!!!

In 1978, shortly after Margo Burge and I started dating, we attended an airshow in Long Beach, Mississippi.  We had noted on the advertising posters that hot air balloon rides would be available.  Both of us thought it would be fun to take a ride suspended below a balloon.  On the day of the show, it was too windy to launch balloons, but that didn't stop us from pursuing the quest.

As we approached the fields where the show was being held, we spotted a bus with an attached trailer that had the words "Weathersby Balloon Enterprises, Indianola, MS."  As we approached the bus, the door opened and out stepped a person dressed in a very furry (and warm-looking) gorilla costume.  Almost immediately upon my inquiring about a balloon flight, that gorilla-person invited us into the air conditioned bus and offered us a drink.  This was at about 11:00 AM and it was clear that the folks on the bus had been enjoying their adult beverages for a while.  It was definitely "party time."

We were to learn that the gorilla man was John Weathersby, the owner of a Chevrolet dealership in the central Mississippi city of Indianola.  He was married to Sally Sayle Weathersby.  It turned out that he was also a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity and had graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1962, the same year I graduated from Rochester.  We were soul brothers!

A few weeks later, Margo and I drove to Indianola, where John had offered to take us up in a balloon, but again, it was too windy.  I did eventually get a balloon ride, but that's a story for another time.

John invited my brother and me to come to Indianola one weekend to witness his "War on Imports."  Let it be noted that John is a man with big ideas who is not shy about expressing them.  Chevrolet had just introduced the Chevette the previous year, and that had inspired John to go after the imports.  And in his typical way, he would do it in a spectacular fashion.

As Willy and I arrived in Indianola early on a sunny Saturday morning we noticed a lot of activity in the open field adjacent to John's dealership.  A light plane circled overhead trailing a banner that read "WAR ON IMPORTS!!!  WEATHERSBY CHEVROLET."  You could smell barbecue cooking and bleachers had been set up, along with a speaker's platform.  At one end of the field, there was a large circle in which was located a Fiat sedan.  A sign declared that only kids 12 years old and younger could use the provided sledgehammers to destroy the Fiat.  (By the end of the day there wasn't much left.)

The hapless Fiat

At one point, during the morning's festivities (while John was welcoming all comers over a PA system and roiling up the crowd with disparaging commentary about imported cars) someone drove a Renault onto field, followed by a local Fire Department entourage,  They doused the car with a flammable liquid and incinerated it to the cheers of the crowd.

The flammable Renault

There was a band concert by the local high school band, skydivers arrived around noon, and then it was time for the main event.  A fairly nice Volkswagen beetle (It had the fabric fold-back sunroof) was driven onto the field.  The crowd was asked to take their seats in the stands.  I heard a rumbling sound and wondered what it was.  Soon enough, two US Army National Guard tanks came around the corner and proceeded to opposite ends of the field.  John then introduced an army officer who was clearly the commanding officer of the crews in those tanks.  He stepped up to the microphone and commanded them to attack.  The two tanks rumbled toward the center of the field.  The first one to reach the VW proceeded to run one of his treads over the driver's side of the car.  Glass popped out of its frame as the car collapsed under the weight of the massive attacker.  Then the second tank followed suit, running it's tread over the passenger's side.  More noise, more glass, less car.

The car was now perhaps 18" high.  The tanks proceeded to a point near where the commanding officer was standing at the podium.  He turned to one of the tank personnel, whose head was emerging from the tank's hatch.  "Jimmy, grind that son-of-a-bitch into the ground!"  ("Ground" was pronounced in such an intense southern drawl that it seemed to have at least three syllables!)

Different car; Same concept...

The tank then proceeded to straddle the VW and commenced a left and right rotation by using its treads moving in opposite directions.  It twisted back and forth several times as the car simply got squashed into the soft ground.  The crowd went crazy!  John had won his war (at least for the moment).

Over the years I lost contact with John Weathersby.  I noted the other day that his dealership is no longer in business.  We all know the long-term effect that imported cars had on GM.  Yet I'll always recall with pleasure that sunny Mississippi afternoon when John waged his slightly crazy personal war to the delight of so many.

8-1-2015 Today I ran across the following obituary dated September 2015 from the Jackson Clarion-Ledger:

John McDonald Weathersby

Indianola

Funeral services for John McDonald Weathersby, 76, of Indianola will be at 1:00 p.m., Wednesday, September 30 at First Presbyterian Church, Indianola. He died peacefully Sunday, September 27 at his home. Burial will be at 5:00 p.m. at Oddfellows Cemetery, Lexington under the direction of Boone-Card Funeral Home, Indianola.

Well, we've come to the end of a long and interesting road. Mr. Weathersby, known far and wide as Trader John, was the owner of Weathersby Chevrolet in Indianola from 1967 until he retired in 2002. Weathersby was considered a Delta Legend for his outgoing, colorful personality and as the creative force behind countless wild promotional events and festivals that he organized, hosted and inspired throughout the region. He was an avid pilot, a pioneer in hot air ballooning, enjoyed scuba diving, camping, but most of all, he loved people, and they loved him. It has been said that Trader John squeezed more life out of his 76 years than others could do in multiple life times.

He is survived his wife, Jane, of more than 20 years; his three adult children, John M. Weathersby, Jr., Sayle Weathersby Roberts, and Rials McWilliams and their families. He loved his God, his family, his friends with intense passion and total abandon. There will never be another one like him. God's speed Trader John. You'll be missed, but in no way forgotten.

The family received friends Tuesday evening at John and Jane Weathersby's home.

John Weatersby has apparently flown his last balloon in this earthly sphere...  Godspeed, John, my brother.