After a good night’s sleep in the huge bed in the huge room in the huge, echoing mansion, I was ready to head to Nashville, where my old friend Ann had graciously offered to put me up for a night or two.
Much as I missed my sweetie Joanna, I was enjoying traveling alone. I loved waking up and heading out at whatever odd hour I wished without explaining myself to anyone. I loved the feeling of wandering aimlessly through an unfamiliar place, and I loved the ability to change my itinerary on impulse. But something rankled. I enjoy traveling, but I don’t like being a tourist. Business travel was ideal for me. Traveling for work meant that I got to meet new people, talk with them about their lives, their hometowns (even the most boring places were foreign and exotic to me) and their work, and share my own stories with them. Tourism is different. Since I left Minnesota a few days ago I’ve interacted with people who checked me in to a hotel, people who served me dinner, people who described the history, wildlife, or geography of a place to me, and people who advised me on which trails to hike, which road to take, or which sites to see. That was their job. Some genuinely loved dong this stuff, others grudgingly showed up in exchange for a meager paycheck. At best they genuinely enjoyed meeting people from far away and swapping stories. But even the most pleasant of these encounters was starting to feel shallow, scripted, and superficial. I won’t say that I was feeling lonely, but I was feeling a bit worn down, and I was looking forward to some time with an old friend.
The drive to Nashville reminded me of childhood trips around New Jersey, and not in a good way: Narrow four lane highways with dubious paving and lots of aggressive trucks. But it was a short drive, and I arrived in Nashville to a friendly greeting and a spacious and comfy room at Anne’s house.
We headed into Downtown to visit the brand-new Museum of African-American Music. The museum has a broad subject to curate; pretty much all American popular music was either performed by, derived or outright appropriated from African American culture. I loved the way the museum used technology to let me explore the links between different artists and styles.
We were given wristbands that contained an RFID chip at the entrance. We leaned over large touchscreens that let us follow the connections between different Black musical genres and their offshoots. As I moved my fingers around the screen I traced the path from field songs of enslaved workers to Elvis and Springsteen, from 19th century music circles in New Orleans’ “Congo Square” to contemporary jazz, from church praise songs to contemporary hip-hop. The wristband held a playlist of my favorites that I could access online for later listening.
COVID protocols had put something of a damper on things – One exhibit allowed us to make a video where we joined a church choir. We sang in front of a green screen as we watched a TV showing us surrounded by the other choir members. Sadly, fear of infection meant we weren’t allowed to wear the choir robes that hung on pegs nearby, so it wasn’t just my awkward, stilted swaying and the whiteness of my skin that made me stand out from the other singers.
The museum is around the corner from lower Broadway, known as “Honky-Tonk Highway,” a four block stretch crammed with a few dozen bars pushing beer, whiskey and every variety of country and western music. Music blared out of open doorways and from rooftop stages. It was early on a Saturday afternoon, but the bars were filled to capacity with lines at the door waiting to be allowed in. I’m not much of a fan of contemporary Country music, but this looked like my kind of fun. On the other hand, we were living through a deadly pandemic, and the disease vectors packed like sardines into the honky tonks, mask-less, shouting, and inebriated, didn’t look safe. We considered visiting a rooftop for some lunch and music, but after a few minutes even the crowded sidewalk felt too risky, so we decided against it.
Heading back towards Anne’s home she suggested we detour to Centennial Park. The day was sunny and warm, and we wandered through the beautiful green space in the center of Nashville, built in 1897 as part of an international exposition celebrating the 100th anniversary of Tennessee’s entry into the union.
The centerpiece of the park is a faithful full-size recreation of Greece’s Parthenon. Nashville styles itself “The Athens of the South” and it appears they take this very seriously. Like the original Parthenon, the building holds an imposing statue of Athena herself, Goddess of wisdom and war and protector of the city. The gold and white sculpture (at 42 feet it’s the tallest indoor statue in America) is imposing. Maybe “terrifying” is a better word. Her right hand holds a golden spear and a shield carved with the scenes of Athens’ battle against the Amazons. Her left hand holds Nike, Goddess of victory (and I believe footwear as well). Her facial expression reads “Don’t F— With Me!” We humble tourists enter the vast hall, wander around in hushed silence, step closer to gaze at the details, then move back to see her whole form. From our lowly human perspective, Nike, standing calmly in Athena’s palm, looks like a toy or a doll. But she’s is over six feet tall.
Outside the Parthenon we visited a newer sculpture, a moment to the city’s suffragist activists. It was dedicated in 2020, a hundred years after the US finally granted women the right to vote. The sculpture portrays five women who were at the Capitol in 1920, marching with banners that read “Votes for Women.”
Tennessee is proud that it was the state whose ratification of the 19th amendment gave it the ¾ approval that allowed it to become part of the Constitution. It was a close vote, with State representatives evenly split between the pro and anti suffrage factions. Tennesseans called it “the war of the roses.” Pro-suffrage representatives wore a yellow rose in their lapel, the “antis” sported a red one.
Representative Harry Burns was wearing a red rose. He had voted for a motion to table the measure, effectively killing it. That vote was a tie – 48 to 48. The anti-suffrage boys saw their chance and called for a vote on the amendment itself, the final death blow to female voting. That’s when Burns shocked everyone by voting in favor. Later he told reporters that the deciding factor was a letter from his mother. Carried in his pocket, the letter urged him to “…be a good boy..” and vote for suffrage. He listened to his mom, and our nation was changed forever.
What a lovely story about Harry’s mom making all the difference to women across the nation.