October 24, 2008: Nashville and the Hermitage

Today we had a great time touring Nashville with Bob and Sue. Since they had a car, they treated us to a guided tour of the area. Our first stop was the Parthenon standing proudly as the centerpiece of Centennial Park. It was drizzling rain as we when inside to experience the ancient scene and saw a video describing how the early builders created such precision in the columns and the overall structure. This Nashville version, as well as the Athena statue inside (40 feet tall and covered in gold leaf), are both full-scale replicas designed to exactly mirror the originals in Athens, Greece. This majestic building was built in 1897 for Tennessee's Centennial Exposition, and is now open to the public including Nashville Art Museum. We saw the gallery of their permanent collection, paintings by 19th and 20th century American artists as well as an exhibit of photography on the Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Tom and I really identified with the photography exhibit having worked in Metarie, LA after the flood helping families clean out their houses.

Next, we made a trip to the Hermitage, the plantation of Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the US which is on the outskirts of Nashville. We visited Jackson’s two story brick mansion with the huge Greek revival white columns which was built in 1829 and still contains the furniture, wallpaper and furnishings it did when he returned to the plantation at the end of his Presidency. We walked the grounds which included the log cabins used by the slaves that ran his cotton plantation. Such a man of contradictions. He was the President who moved the native Americans to reservations and yet he also adopted and raised an Indian child who was an orphan. He was a bright man who rose to the rank of General in the military even with no formal education. He led the successful campaign against the British in the Battle of New Orleans in 1812. He was a successful business man as well having been an orphan himself and . The grounds included Belted Galoway beef cattle – the oreo cows, black cows with a wide white band around the middle, as well as chickens and a donkey. There would have also been pigs in Jackson’s day as there was a smoke house where they would have cured their hams and bacon.

After dinner at the Macaroni Grill with Bob and Sue at Opryland Mall we went to Friday night at the Grand Ole Opry. The huge new Grand Ole Opry House seats 4400 people and was nearly full tonight. The performance was actually a live radio broadcast over channel 650 AM. The WSM station was started in 1925 before radio stations’ callsigns had to have 4 letters. The Grand Ole Opry is the longest running radio program in history. It was exciting to hear Jason Michael Carroll, who we discovered is from Raleigh, NC. The 29 year old had long blonde hair and a rich baritone voice and was the author of the top hits “Alyssa Lies and Living our Love Song”. He introduced his wonderful new song “That’s where I come from”. Rocky Top Express was also there tonight and played the old favorite “Rocky Top, Tennessee”. We also heard Emerson Drive (the group that sang “Moments” and “I Should Be Sleeping”) sing a new single; it was great. It was really a memorable country music evening in the music capital of the world.