Chapter 6
“Well, how do you like being able to mark the number one thing off your bucket list, Nita?” Sharlene asked Nita when they had boarded the VW bus and were leaving Nashville.
“I’m not marking it off. I’m adding it to the bottom of the list, so when we start all over again, we can come back. I loved all of it. The Ryman, and getting to sing on the stage, and visiting the Grand Ole Opry House, but what I liked most was wandering up and down the strip and listening to these new and upcoming artists sing,” Nita answered. “It gives me hope for the future of country music.”
Hope for the futurestuck in Ford’s mind as he followed the GPS and was soon back on the highway headed south toward Montgomery, Alabama. Nita’s bucket-list trip also included going to the Hank Williams Museum and to his gravesite.
“Are we camping out tonight, or are we staying in a hotel?” Billy Joe asked.
“I couldn’t find a place I liked in that area, so we’re staying in a hotel,” Nita answered.
“Who made all these arrangements?” Ford asked.
“I made the ones for the dude ranch and picked out the cabin for us. Nita’s job has been to take care of the hotels and routes from Colorado to Tennessee and then to Montgomery since this is her part of the trip,” Billy Joe replied.
“After tonight, it’s my turn for the rest of the trip,” Sharlene said. “We’ll be at the beach tomorrow and staying in a couple of condos, then we’ll take three days to get home. We won’t be getting the tents out anymore.”
“Thank goodness,” Joelle muttered.
“Amen,” Ford said out the side of his mouth.
“I loved camping out.” Billy Joe’s wistful tone sounded pitiful.
“It did remind me of times when we were kids and took a tent to the creek at the back of your ranch,” Sharlene said.
“Want to tell us more about that?” Ford asked.
Nita laughed out loud, and the other two joined her.
“We don’t kiss and tell,” Sharlene said.
Ford glanced up into the rearview mirror to see them all grinning like three Cheshire cats who had just cornered a fat mouse. “Which of you kissed my grandpa?”
“Oh, honey!” Sharlene shook her head. “Neither of us were ever that brave or that stupid. His wife, Mae Ruth, would have done bodily harm to any woman who ever looked sideways at her Billy Joe. She tagged him as her feller when we were in the third grade, andthere wasn’t a girl in school who dared to even blink toward him.”
“That’s my granny,” Ford said with a smile as the memories flooded through his mind. The one that he remembered most was hearing her say, “What your mama says is right, but what I say is the law, and no means no, and it will never mean maybe or yes.”
Billy Joe swiped a tear away from his eye. “Yep, that was my Mae Ruth. I sure do miss her and wish that she could be on this trip with us.”
“So do we,” Sharlene and Nita said at the same time.
“She would want us to be happy, not sad. Joelle, start us some music. I want to hear something by George Jones and maybe Vince Gill or Travis Tritt. I like those guys a lot,” Sharlene said.
Joelle pulled up her own playlist on her phone. The top song on the list was the Travis Tritt song “Where Corn Don’t Grow.”
The back seat folks started talking about ranching and their own crops, but Ford caught Joelle’s eye and gave her a sly wink. “You ever feel like you just wanted to go somewhere where corn didn’t grow or maybe, in our instance, where hay don’t grow and there are no cows?”
“Not really.” Joelle shook her head. “But Ihavewanted both worlds. I wanted a job where I had free time throughout the year, and yet I go back to the ranch and help Aunt Sharlene every weekend and holiday through the year, and in the summer, too. How about you?”
“I guess I’m in the same boat as you are,” Ford answered. “My dad hated the ranch and said that long-distance truck driving was a thousand percent better than worrying with cows all day. When I was little, I wanted to be a soldier. I played with those little green plastic army men for hours and hours, but unlike my dad, I loved spending time on the ranch with Grandpa.”
“And then you grew up to be a soldier, didn’t you?” Joelle said with a smile.
“Yes, I did,” Ford answered with a nod, “but now I’m at the crossroads that we’ve talked about already. I wish my granny was here to give me some advice.”
“She is,” Joelle told him. “She will always be in your heart. Just listen to it, and you won’t have regrets about your decision. If it’s got doubts, then give it some more time. If you make up your mind to be a rancher and you feel peace, then you made the right choice.”
Ford put on the blinker to make a right-hand turn at the exit. “That sounds just like something Granny would say. We’re stopping to fill up the gas tank, folks. Anyone need a bathroom or something to drink?”
