Dead Saints in Silence

I bivouacked in Nashville for a week or so once, back in the day. It was a pleasant waystation. I was traipsing over the entire map from the top right corner pocket, and kept going until I got to the beach on the wrong side of the ocean. I wandered into Ernie Tubb’s and Gruhn’s and Irma’s Dusty Roads and any other damn place with neon bent into a beer sign, too.

Someone offered tickets to the Grand Ole Opry. Turned them down flat. It had moved to the suburbs. The music itself had long since moved to the suburbs of country and western, so the new auditorium couldn’t harm it more. We walked up the hill from the big strip, and the door to the Ryman Auditorium was unlocked, and we went in and sat in that church and worshiped the dead saints in silence instead.