Music City Memories

If you read my last post, you know that my husband and I are in Nashville, visiting our youngest son and his wife.  On Friday night, we went out on the town.  After walking around the bustling and noisy (music- filled!) downtown streets, we stopped at a local distillery and enjoyed a few fancy cocktails.  With live country music playing in the building, of course.

Then we went to Nashville’s Assembly Food Hall, which is basically a giant multi-level food court with over 30 eateries and bars and pretty much every kind of fare imaginable.  And while we ate, there was a live country music performer nearby, giving us an awesome free concert.  I mean, of course there was. Because, you know...it’s Nashville.  They call it "Music City" for a reason.

I had to.  He was the King, after all.

Again...we had to.  This vignette seemed tailor-made
to be a backdrop for a Pearl fam photo op.  ;)

Last night, we had tickets for the Grand Ole Opry.  It was the first time for my husband and me, not surprisingly; but it was also the first time for our son and his wife, who've lived in the area for less than a year and just hadn't had the opportunity to check it out yet.  That made it extra-special.

The show was absolutely spectacular.  The house was packed, and everyone in the audience was pretty jazzed to be there.  On stage that night the talent ran the gamut from stars who'd been in the business for more than 50 years to young singers making their Opry debuts.  One of my favorite performers was an actor/comedian/singer named Charles ("Chip")  Enes, who actually starred in a show called Nashville, but whom we remember enjoying years ago with our boys on the Drew Carey show Whose Line Is It Anyway?  He was so entertaining!

The Opry was so much fun, and I feel like Opry-goers are my kind of people!  Getting to see a live show there was something we never thought we'd do, and I suppose if we never had, we wouldn't have missed it.  But boy, oh boy, y'all, I sure am right happy that we got a chance to experience that!

Let's see, what else is there to report...oh yes, I tried grits.  Yesterday morning our son was helping a classmate with a film project, so our daughter-in-law took us to brunch at the coolest little place called the Nashville Jam Cafe.  I've never had grits; but they had smoked Gouda grits as a choice for a side on the menu, so I decided to be daring for a change and give them a go.  Dang, those cheesy grits were delicious!  I may become a true Southerner yet, my friends.  (And after walking around Nashville last night, I'm finding myself thinking that I might need to get me a pair of cowboy boots!)

Today we went to Mass, with Confession beforehand and our son and his wife singing in the church choir; then we watched our daughter-in-law's adult league soccer game; in a little while, we'll enjoy a nice steak and potatoes dinner at home...and then tomorrow morning, we'll be heading back to VA as early as we can get the car packed up. This has been such a wonderful visit, I hate to see it end.  But although this is our first rodeo (that is, trip to Nashville!), I'm quite sure it won't be our last.  And I'm hoping that next time, I'll be wearing new boots.

Red Carpet Affair

Our youngest son is just about to finish up his first year of studying for his MFA in Film and Creative Media.  After he graduated from Notre Dame in 2015 with a degree in finance, he spent six years in the Army (three of them stationed in Germany), fulfilling his ROTC obligation and then some.  It's quite a career change for him, from field artillery officer to aspiring movie maker; but for his dad and me, it feels exactly right.  This is the boy who would watch a video called The Making of Jurassic Park over and over, on a loop, utterly fascinated by all the behind-the-scenes work involved in creating the magic of his favorite boyhood movie; this is the boy who dressed up as a movie director for career day in third grade, and made a short stop-motion animation film using his Jurassic Park action figures and dinosaur toys--with me playing the part of his rather inept cinematographer.  (He won't like it that I'm telling you this, but his third grade magnus opus was called T-Rex T-rouble.  I thought that was an extremely clever title for a little guy to come up with!)  He has always been a movie buff, and even had a movie review blog for a few years (but his day job in the Army kept him too busy to post as often as he would have liked).

My husband and I took a two-day road trip, from our home in VA to Nashville, to visit our baby and his wife, stopping in Knoxville for the night and arriving in the early afternoon yesterday.  And last night, there was a huge event for the film department at his university called "5 Min Film Fest," where the five-minute live action and animated films and scripts of students were up for awards.  It was really something!  Everyone was dressed to the nines.  The whole affair began with a delicious buffet dinner.  Once we got seated in the venue and the awards ceremony began, there were entertaining presenters (one being Mike Nawrocki, the co-creator of the popular VeggieTales series and the voice of Larry the Cucumber), showings of all the nominated cartoons and films on giant screens, and a live band adding snippets of music throughout.  It was absolutely awesome, and so much more elaborate than I was expecting.

Our son had both a script and a film nominated for awards.  His works didn't win the big prizes; but with the size of this program at this school, it truly does appear to be an honor just to be nominated.  (We got to sit at one of the special tables reserved for nominees.)

The university at which our son is studying is Christian, and the films created by the students there are intended to be family-friendly.  (In fact, no vulgar language was allowed.  And one of the professors who spoke attested to the fact that the aim of this school's film department was to create content that would ultimately give glory to God.  How great is that?!?! It was so refreshing to see the winners go up to receive their prizes and mention their gratitude to God in their little acceptance speeches.)

When I told her I wasn't sure what dress to pack, my baby sister suggested the dress that I had worn to my youngest son's wedding in 2019.  Genius idea!  So I got to wear it again--and on the red carpet no less--for another important event in his life.

When some people found out that our son was planning to study film, their initial reaction was the old, "Oh no, he can't go to Hollywood!  He'll lose his soul!"  And I get that worry, I do.  But TV and movies are popular, and their power to affect the culture is huge and all-pervasive.  They are very much with us.  So I think the more young people we can get involved in creating entertainment that combats the atheistic, secularized fare that makes up the bulk of those genres, the better.  (Think Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ; or Bella, a 2006 pro-life movie; or the 2012 film about the Christeros war, For Greater Glory--to name a few powerful counter-cultural movies from recent years.)  And Hollywood isn't the only place to work in this field.  Nashville, in fact, might be a place for our son to find work after graduation.

Anyway, I am quite confident that if anyone can be an agent for change in our fallen world while also doing the thing he loves, it is my boy.  (Oh, and one last thing: I am also quite confident that when it comes to those two awards he was nominated for, he was robbed!)