So once more, I have survived the holidays, a no small feat these days. Just before Christmas and just before New Year’s, the Louisville Courier-Journal obituary pages really grew in number; it was nearly astonishing to see it. So the holidays can be lethal.

During that same period, I also had a very peculiar, mind-stretching experience: in a single night, I attended a post-funeral event, Sitting Shiva, for the mother of a Jewish friend, the first time I experienced that rite. my spouse and I left there and drove out Preston Highway to W. Indian Trail, where we caught the second half of the “Louisville Opry,” an old-style, old country music show, presided over by the pastor of the church in which it was held. Some friends of mine had been invited to perform and we went to support them.

When we got there, it was as though we had caught the Wayback Machine to 1954, East Texas, for a combo camp meeting and community sing, except with wireless mikes and far better sound than was around then. The preacher and his wife, who played four or five instruments, were the show-off act, but other folks got up and performed, including a ‘country comedian’ who seems to have borrowed his shtick from Uncle Dave Macon. Altogether, it made ‘Hee Haw’ seem urbane.

Thursdays Links will be posted a little later.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 4th, 2007 at 10:40 am and is filed under LMNEditor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.