Ever since I was a little girl, I knew that singing at the Grand Ole Opry was my life's dream. Now I was driving myself from Alluvial, North Carolina, to Nashville, Tennessee, in my old yellow truck and I was planning to sing the whole way. I began with "The Unclouded Day" and from there ran through my favorite hymns before I started in on the mountain folk songs I was raised on and, finally, songs I'd written myself.
Yellow truck coming, bringing me home again. Yellow truck going, I'm on my way..
I'd decided that when I got to Nashville I was going to drive straight to the Opry before I went anywhere else, before I even found a room to rent or a place to work. I wanted to touch the building where Roy Acuff and the Smoky Mountain Boys had been discovered, and where I knew I would sing someday. I might even kiss the building, depending on how dirty it was.
On my way to tomorrow and dreams come true, leaving my yesterday . . .
The day was bright and blue, and the sun beamed down on the old yellow truck and on my arm hanging out the window. I’d kicked my shoes off long ago. I wanted to feel the pedals under my feet.
I’m driving this truck to Nashville, home of dreams come true . . .
I was writing a new song as I drove with one eye on the road, the other on the rearview mirror. The mountains—my mountains, the ones where I was born, where I was raised, the one named for my mama’s people, the one where I’d lived with Harley Bright after we got married, the ones I’d just up and left hours before—were slipping away.
where I’ll wear a suit of rhinestones and play a guitar made of jewels . . .
Just east of Sylva, I turned off the Scenic and onto Route 23, and I saw the first sign for the Balsam Mountain Springs Hotel a mile or so later. I tried not to remember my honeymoon, back when I was sixteen and had never been anywhere and had to rely on Harley Bright to take me places. I tried not to think about an orchestra under the moonlight, about the night Harley made me a woman, and the morning after when I looked at myself in the mirror and decided I really didn’t look any different after all.
I tried not to think about Harley coming home tonight from the Little White Church, expecting his supper, expecting me. I tried not to picture him walking in the door and not finding me—that first moment when he realized I was gone really and truly, and not just to my sister’s or to Granny’s. I tried not to think about what might happen if he found out where I was and decided to come looking for me.
It was August 22, and the air was still heavy with summer. In my rearview mirror, the mountains were full and green. I sang till I almost couldn’t see them anymore, till I was surrounded by new mountains, strange mountains, ones I didn’t recognize.