Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash and Our Year in Missouri

The song Crazy, performed by Patsy Cline is one of my favorites.  I never knew that it was composed by Willie Nelson.  I saw the movie Sweet Dreams which starred Jessica Lange and just fell in love with Patsy's songs and the movie too.

Here is the real Patsy singing the song Crazy.

Another singer I like is Johnny Cash.  The movie Walk the Line, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, brought to light for me the songs Folsom Prison Blues and Walk the Line...I also like the comical Boy Named Sue.



I really got to liking Country and Western music when we lived in Missouri. The kids were little back then.  Although we only spent a year there, we got to experience so many new things....snow, dry lightning, defrosting the car, gas shortages, tornado scares and long drives down to Arkansas going through the Ozarks to visit grandma and grandpa Boyle. 

They lived on a farm that stretched as far as the eye could see and we saw bales of hay (they were round not squared).  Grandpa Boyle would come out with a flashlight when we arrived at night...to scare the snakes away.  He warned us to wear long pants...preferably jeans.  Oh....we got to see a family of skunks cross the road one night too. 

The nearest neighbors lived miles away.  Grandma Boyle would "put up" fruits and veggies from her garden and when she would cook...YUM....we had freshly made tofu (not store bought).  The taste was unbelievable!  She was from Korea and while we were there....one day she made KoChooJung (fermented bean paste)...YIKES the whole house stunk something fierce for days!

The tornado scares were the worst.  There is a really eerie low pitched whirring sound.  We had to evacuate to the basement laundry area and stayed there awhile. 

We got to meet some very nice people at the Southern Baptist church we attended.  We got to watch them making ice cream (so delicious) and we attended roller skating parties in the gym.  There was always something to do there.  Oh, I forgot....homemade chili (we missed the rice and mac salad...not typical for us from Hawaii).  We even got to go on a hayride. That was a first for us.

We did the typical touristy things like standing in 2 states at the same time....because we lived close to the border, with one foot in Kansas City (Missouri) and the other in Kansas City (Kansas). 

We toured the Fantastic Caverns, America's only ride-through caves.  The Ku Klux Klan used to hold meetings there...nowadays they have parties and weddings.  Some of the caves still have bats hanging from the ceiling. 

I had a job and worked downtown as a secretary for the owner of a chain of home improvement stores and one day my co-workers took me to Little Italy where I had the best Spumoni ice cream ever!  I don't know if they were "pulling my leg," but they told me not to catch any one's eyes or draw attention to myself...because Little Italy was a mob hangout.

Looking back, I must have been a cutie back then....I had a man sending me love letters from Hawaii every day telling me how much he missed me, my ex-husband wanted to reconcile with me, I received a marriage proposal from a man that I met in Arkansas and I was dating a guy named Jim (???) from church...but when I found out he worked at a mortuary....that ended that....I was too spooked! (Sorry no offense meant!)...I was so young and foolish because he was actually handsome!  How does the saying go?  You win some...you lose some?  No....You snooze you lose.....nah....it is:  C'est La Vie?