A Chocolate Soufflé in Nashville - Part I

Part I
I have come to love country western music. I grew up with parents who held a closet disgust for anything “hick-ish”, this included Bible-belt religion, country western music, NASCAR racing, etc. I settled in Decatur, Illinois where this kind of stuff is not only tolerated, but revered. My parents were, as I am, United Methodists. So that makes us the “Open Mind, Open Hearts, Open Door” people. My parents, God love them, COULD change their minds, and taught me that I could too.

In our office, one of the staff would talk about how they loved this or that country western song, and I would listen to it, and found, strangely that it moved me. Little by little, I found myself listening to country western music stations, and finally buying a CD or two.

Julie has been much more reluctant to embrace this genre of music. I would occasionally have a CD in the car and deftly start playing a song, such as Patty Loveless’, To Have You Back Again, Martina McBride’s, I’ll Still be Me, or Vince Gill’s, Pretty Little Adriana, to name a few, but sooner or later she would catch on that the CD was “country” and ask me to switch it. It was working, however, but Julie would be the last to admit that there was a little country in my girl. It just needed careful nurturing, and of course, time.