You might not be able to imagine the type of week I had. With a collection of Weblogs published in my (first?) book, "Observations at the Speed of Life," and a quick trip to Nashville, I enjoyed it.

The purpose of leading off with this subject is to say thanks again to all who commented on, rated, purchased, or told their friends, about my new book. Thanks for two things, actually. Thanks for your kind words and the number of times the word ‘proud’ was used, and thanks for providing fodder for a future Weblog.

If you haven't done so already, providing a 5-Star Rating on Amazon helps keep the book relevant. The more ratings, the longer it is visible. You've already read the book if you've been a subscriber for several years.

This June my son and I will attend our 26^th Country Music Festival in Nashville, Tennessee. 

As a family, the three of us started attending when we lived in Cincinnati and it was only a five- or six-hour drive, depending on whether we stopped at the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky. 

When we moved to Massachusetts we flipped it from a family trip to a guys trip.

The four-day festival, like Nashville, has radically changed over the years.

In the beginning, it was held at the run-down fairgrounds. Stages were set up in the middle of the race-track oval, premier seating was on the track in folding chairs, and the rest of us sat in the track’s grandstand seating.

Shows went on from 11 am to 11 pm non-stop, and I mean non-stop. There were two stages and when one band or artist finished playing, the lights on that stage went dim, and the lights on the adjacent stage were fired up and the next band started playing. Non-stop.

For a 12-year-old kid who loved country music it couldn’t get much better, until it did. The old stables and buildings at the fairgrounds were used as exhibit halls for probably a hundred artists. They each had a decorated booth and appeared several times during the four days for ‘meet and greets’ with fans.  

In fact, in those days it was called, appropriately “Fan Fair,” because that’s what it was. A fair for fans. We’d go all four days and see live acts, meet stars, eat fair food, and have a great time. Well worth the five- or six-hour drive.

In 2006 when we moved to Boston (moved back to Boston for my wife and I), we had to decide what we were going to do about our Fan Fair experience. We were obviously too far away to drive to Nashville, my gosh it would be a 2500 mile round trip. We were too far away until we weren’t.

In 2008, after missing a year, we decided to drive to Tennessee. That in itself would be noteworthy, except we did it again the next year, and the next year, and the next year and have not stopped driving to Nashville every June since 2008.

We make stops on the drives there and on the way back. For example, we've stopped in Cincinnati, the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, Washington, DC, a museum here, a museum there, and connecting with remote friends are all the kinds of places and things we do on the way.

For almost 50 years, as a member of every hotel loyalty program on earth, I have been racking up points, and my travel during the year gets converted into free hotel stays for this trip.

The event moved to booming downtown Nashville in 2003 and the concerts are held at the Tennessee Titans stadium. We continued to go for a few years, but it really wasn't worth it. It seemed like we were only in the audience for the filming of the TV special. One stage, long breaks, high ticket prices.

The music artists exhibits moved to the new convention center with about ten times the space and only 10% of the acts affording a booth. We still do that part, although less and less as the years go by. These days it is all about the honky tonks on Broadway, and we've been in 'em all.

So, since I knew we were going to the CMA Fest in June, while perusing social media one night, I ran across an offer too good to be true and jumped at it with the idea that I could use it on this year's trip.

The promotion was four nights in Nashville at a hotel chain we’ve stayed at in the past, for the ridiculously low rate of $197.95. I snapped it up. That would be the nightly rack rate if we paid full price. I was excited (blinded) because it would enable me to preserve my 176,000 points with a major hotel company. Incredible. 

All I had to do was call a number and reserve the dates.

Well, it seemed simple. Upon further review, it was not. I’ll share the ‘catch’ in a few paragraphs.

In early January, I’m sitting there holding enough points to stay free on our Nashville trip and a certificate for a four-night stay in my back pocket.

But we learn that Deana Carter, a family favorite from the 90’s country era star who is still touring was going to be at City Winery in Nashville in February. Because of her ‘most favored artist’ status, we constantly track her appearances in the event that she comes close enough to us to attend a show.

(See Weblog Some Things are Hard to Forget about a Deana Carter show in South Carolina, and Obstacles and Pleasant Surprises about a Deana Carter show last year in New York City.)

I booked the flights to Nashville for the show, knowing that the hotel was paid for and a great deal, and made sure I could connect with contacts there about business so that part of our flight expenses would be consulting-related.

What I didn’t realize until the dates were reserved, the tickets were purchased for the flights and the Deana Carter show at City Winery was that 'the deal' was part of a timeshare marketing plan, and we’d need to attend a two-hour presentation on a resort in Nashville on Friday of our stay. Oops.

On Thursday, however, we attended the Deana Carter concert, my son got a shout out from the stage during the show, he video-taped every song, so he could watch the show again and again. 

And again, her road manager, a great guy nicknamed ‘Cowboy’ arranged to get us backstage after the show.

We took the photo of Deana and my son Joe together, 27 years after their first photo together. She signed a t-shirt he was wearing the first time they met and she signed it for the 23rd time. 

We joked about 'this and that' with Deana and her husband Jim for about ten minutes.

Joe gave her a collage with a photo of every time they’d met. 

There were hugs all around, and handshakes too, and as we left, for the first time in my life, I was glad I hadn’t read the fine print about the hotel and timeshare pitch. Because if I had, this meeting wouldn’t have happened.

It may sound strange, but we had a lot to talk about and share. With 27 years of being an appreciated fan, the conversation was more like you'd have with an old friend you hadn't seen in a while.

Come to think of it, that's exactly what it was. Jim and Deana were appreciative that we'd traveled so far to see them perform, and repeated those words several times, and stressed that we were welcome at any show at any time.

As we were hanging around, I knew that my son was thrilled to be there, but I soon realized that Deana and her husband were also thrilled to have that kind of...friend.

Postscript 1:

No timeshare was purchased.

Postscript 2:

Living in Massachusetts, which is NOT the country music capital of the world, the very best way to enjoy country music, if that is your thing, is to ‘follow’ artists and attend their live gigs, whether that is at an entertainment venue, a small club, a summer festival, or a town park. 

My son follows the artists listed below and in 2023 he attended 130 live shows in Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire and Tennessee. You are welcome to join us, I’ll buy the popcorn.

People ask me why we go to so many shows and my answer is always the same: if you can make your kid happy, do it.

Annie Brobst

Lizzy Marquis

Whitney Doucet

Samantha Rae

Martin & Kelly

Krista Angelucci