Gang aft aglae
The Possumblogger returns, having survived yet another fun-packed weekend. As you recall from Thursday, the Possumclan sallied forth to the wilds of Middle Tennessee to attend a big convention-type, church-related, youth-oriented extravaganza up in the Music City. Our congregation took about 70 folks, and our kids did very well—my oldest was a finalist in girls song leading and got a nice trophy. She and all my other kids also got “platinum” medals for their Good Samaritan group, which was nice.

We wound up attending three different award ceremonies—one right after we got there Friday, another one that night, then another Saturday night. The five-year-old showed her true showbiz colors Friday, happily waving to everyone as she went across the stage to get her award. What a ham! At the one Saturday night, all the little kids in kindergarten through Second Grade got to line up and go across the stage, more or less just to show off—no awards or anything. Having gotten an award previously, the Tiny Terror was in rare form again, waving her arm off at the crowd. She stood in the middle of the stage for a while, waving and apparently wondering when she was going to get another award. Reba finally got her to start going again, but the Littlest Possum was royally p.o.ed when she got to the end and didn’t have anything to show for it. Not only does she do comedy well, she also has a flair for the dramatic, so with great disdain she pooched her bottom lip out so far I thought she would trip on it, and disgustedly slammed her arms akimbo across her chest and stomped back to her chair. Boy got to go across the stage, too, but was much more concerned about his perception that he was the only second-grader up there and all the rest were “little kids.” Luckily, he thought better of throwing a fit.

The convention was held at the Opryland Hotel, which was very nice if all you needed to do was sit and people watch. Our rooms were supposed to be ready by 3:00 p.m. Friday, but we didn’t actually get in until after 6. The Gaylord Entertainment “hospitality” behemoth apparently has a very advanced computer system operated by monkeys who are able to move cursors with brain power. But you know how them derned monkeys are, always running off to fornicate or throw poop. I have a new slogan for the hotel though—“Inconvenience With A Smile.”

When we finally got our rooms, the key to my in-laws’ room would not work. The keys are a computer swipe card. Those wacky monkeys! My father-in-law used the house phone and was told someone would be right up. Twenty minutes later, he called again and was told he needed to come to the lobby. Each section of this huge place has its own lobby with a counter and computers. And no clerks. The only place that is staffed is the main lobby, which was alllll the way across the hotel from where our rooms were. Get down there and meet all sorts of other folks who have been locked out by the naughty monkeys, including one lady who had been staying at the hotel since Wednesday, and suddenly was locked out. The smiling and helpful desk attendant said that she had checked out. No, she was staying until Sunday. “But the computer says….” Finally, she was able to convince him to reactivate the cards, which was done in about two seconds. My father-in-law told him his key woes, and with a friendly smile the clerk said everything was fixed now. Why this could not have been done over the phone is a mystery, but I suspect the telephone system is handled by a different species of monkey, or maybe even non-primates.

Now that we all had rooms and could get into them, Pops and I went back to the self-parking lot to get the van. Luckily, it wasn’t raining very hard. It’s a shame we didn’t think to have umbrellas.

As with everything else, it seemed like the lot was a mile away. Finally got there and stuffed all of his and Grandmama’s stuff from their car into our van (to keep from making two trips) and headed back. The hotel has some very nice covered porticos with driveways that go right through them. Of course, these driveways are blocked off by bollards, so that no one can actually pull under the cover and stay out of the rain. I tried, but was promptly informed by a smiling bellhop that I shouldn’t be under there. I pulled back out into the drizzling rain and he and one of his buddies came over and started unloading luggage. “Hey, you know it sure would be nice if they let you guys unload under the cover over there. Why don’t they let folks pull under there?” “Uh, well, I dun’t know. It is a law I believe, which says you cannot. It is okay though—we get you inside.” Smile. Well, I know we’ll get inside, but it sure would be nice not to start out all damp and sprouting mushrooms.

Managed to get everything out and inside and I went back and parked in the next county. Remembered to get the umbrella this time and walked back. Which would have been nice had there been things like sidewalks which ran in a contiguous fashion from Point A to Point B. Especially since I was going from Point A to Point UU.

The inside of the hotel is nice and has all sorts of interesting stuff. We only had to make it to one competition on Saturday, so a lot of the time was spent wandering around. As I said, the people-watching event is always my favorite. I could (and did) sit and watch folks for hours. A couple of observations—Big Hair appears to have receded to a statistically insignificant level, but has been replaced by Breast Implants. I haven’t seen so many high, hard ones since Nolan Ryan was pitching. All the ladies seem to be about Nolan’s age, too, which is just a bit disconcerting. And it seems the Tanning Bed Tan is the new black.

I am grateful that most of the congregations were a bit more sedate than the normal resort goers. It’s hard to know how 8,200 different folks are going to act, but I was right proud of everyone. The kids from all of the churches were great this year—we have gone to some of these conventions in the past and it was like Spring Break in Daytona. The two evening award ceremonies are always supposed to be “dress-up in Sunday clothes” events, and again, in years past some of the kids have taken this to mean “dress like Christina Aguilera going to a rave” (or for boys, dress like your favorite gang member.) This year it was just a bunch of nice, well-mannered folks, which made up for the computerized flying monkeys.

As promised, we brung our own groceries and managed not to go into hock just to eat. Since we got there around lunch Friday, and since we still had no rooms (hence, no where to put our food) we did have to succumb to the wonders of captive market, food court price-gougery, in which I spent $50 on four hamburgers, two hot dogs, six orders of fries and six drinks. Which had no ice. But the refills were free, so I made the kids drink absolutely as much as they could hold, trying my darnedest to consume my money’s worth of something. I sure was grateful when I could open up my little can of chicken and squirt some mayo on my brought-from-home bread. I thought we might have been playing the rednecks-on-vacation theme a bit hard until we were checking out and a fellow was bringing down a microwave and a mini-refrigerator on a hand-truck. I’m sure this was for one of the church’s hospitality rooms, but it still made me think for a minute “Hey, this feller’s thinking right!” (As if we don’t travel heavy enough as it is, and here I am thinking about bringing a kitchen setup next year!)

The trip up and back was pretty good. The little TV worked great as a child tranquilizer and remover-of-thoughts-of-having-to-pee-at-every-Stuckey’s. We were able to make Nashville with only one stop. Back was equally uneventful, except for the driving rain which lasted until about 60 miles north of Birmingham. Saw a couple of wrecks, including one that had just occurred as we passed by in which an older Bronco had rolled into the median.

Thankfully, we made it home safe and sound, and the kids were happy to see the Easter Bunny had come to our house while we were gone. “Look, the Easter Bunny got these baskets from Wal-Mart! See?!” Low-class Easter Bunny went and left the silly price tags on. “Huh…well whaddya know. I guess he shops there, too!” “YEAH! Just like us, right Dad?” “Uh-huh.”

Oh so be that young again, when the Easter Bunny shopping at Wal-Mart makes perfect sense.

Anyway, I’m glad to have had a short little vacation, and I’m glad to be home.
posted by Terry at 10:34:00 AM