Have you ever had a day that was so good you hated to come home and know that it was over? I had that kind of day today. I went to my Monday Morning Bible Study and when it was over at 11:00am Kim came and picked me up. She had told me a week ago that we were going on a "field trip" and she wouldn't tell me any of the details. We headed toward the interstate to downtown Nashville. I asked her where we were going to eat but she said it was a surprise and just kept driving. We ended up on Hermitage Avenue at a restaurant named Copper Kettle. I had heard about the restaurant but had never been there. We had a great lunch and sat at a table facing a glass wall where we could see so much of lower Broad Street and some of the skyline of the tall buildings. Between the good food and view I was just having a grand time. After we finished our meal we got into the car and drove to Five Points in East Nashville. The shops and restaurants and all of the other things that have inhabited this area were so new to me that I couldn't quit saying "oh my, I didn't know that was there". In fact I said it so much Kim asked me how long it had been since I had been in the area. I couldn't even remember. We stopped at an ice cream parlor called "The Pied Piper" and they must have at least 40 different flavors of home made ice cream. I chose a flavor called Trailer Trash - vanilla with chocolate chips, and about 5 other pieces of fruit mixed in. We sat and talked to the lady that owns the shop and she, even though from South Nashville, loves the area so much that she moved there after graduating college. I told her how much I loved East Nashville so she and I revisited lots of places in our conversation. After finishing my wonderful confection, we started riding to see the places that were memorable to me from my childhood and young adulthood. We rode for quite a while and ended up on Riverside Drive. I have read that some company has planted hundreds of cherry trees on this street that stretches from McGavock to Shelby Park and my plan is to go see the trees when they are in bloom. We rode by the house where we lived for many years and tried to name the families that lived in the houses on that street. Unfortunately our memories failed us on some of them. Corinne would have been able to tell us every one if she had been with us. We finally made our way down Winding Way to Gallatin Road and then to Hendersoville to my apartment. For some reason, I was tired and I got into my lounge chair, went over the entire day in my mind and dropped off to sleep for an hour nap. What a day. What a gift from Kim. My thanks can never be expressed in words, but I hope she knows just how much I enjoyed my trip back in time.
Today is Billy's birthday. He would be 80 years old today. I have no idea what he would look like today if he was living, but in my mind I see him as he was when he was a young man. He had an infectious smile and if you told him something really funny he would laugh until you could hear him across the street. He loved to laugh. He loved to eat. He loved to watch HeeHaw on Saturday night. He loved his friends. He loved to cook his "famous pork chops" on the grill. He would marinate them all night and he was most proud of his secret marinade. Most of all he loved his family and he was always happiest when we had everybody together to celebrate an occasion. I wonder just what he would think about all of the great-grandchildren. I know he would be so proud of his grandchildren and their accomplishments. I wish he could see Chris as a lawyer, Drew as a basketball coach, Emily as a third grade teacher, Leslie as she orchestrates her home, children and serves as her husband's social partner. He would love seeing Patrick married and the father of two children. He would think Courtney to be the most beautiful and the smartest co-ed at U. T. I'm sure that he would not have missed a single baseball or football game that Carter was playing and would have cheered louder than any of us in the bleachers. He left us with a legacy and that is that family is most important and he knew, even his last days on earth that God is good - all the time.
Happy Birthday Billy Ramsey Cline we will meet again some day.
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