Minnie Pearl, The Tennessee Girl

Last night, I went on a random trip to Kmart to buy some house shoes I'd seen in a sale ad. I did actually need house shoes, but perhaps not 2 pair like I wound up with. One pair is indoor only, good for traveling, and a very Golden Girls meets Uggs combination. The other pair is hot pink with white pom-poms, a furry lining, and an outdoor sole that makes them my new dog-walking shoes.

On my 2nd or 3rd trip to take the dog out in my new dog-walking shoes, I noticed that I hadn't taken the tag off yet, and that I didn't mind. I thought to myself "I must still be Minnie Pearl after all."

You see, when I was a kid, I didn't take the tag off of anything. Especially nothing I was proud of. This meant that most of my stuffed animals still had their tags. Along with my music lesson book-bag, my tape case (and my cd case later in life), and anything else I had received for Christmas or my birthday that was not an item of clothing.

At that time, we were living in Tennessee and would frequently visit The Grand Ole Opry. My grandparents were in Alabama, but we would visit them as much as possible. The mix of living in TN and keeping the tag on everything led my nick-naming grandfather to call me "Minnie Pearl, The Tennessee Girl" much more often than he called me by my given name. This was quite alright with me, since I thought Minnie Pearl was the funniest and coolest person at The Opry.

Quite unintentionally, I wound up going to Belmont University - the same college as Minnie Pearl, otherwise known as Sarah Ophelia Cannon, where they have a scholarship in her honor. She was actually quite intelligent with a extensive theatre training. Minnie Pearl, the boy-crazy-tag-loving country bumpkin from Grinders Switch became her most famous character. Later on, during a very intense and rapid-fire phone interview for a fellowship in the U.S. Senate, I listed her as one of three famous people through history I'd want to have dinner with. This is the only time my interviewer stopped to take a breath, as my answer completely caught him off guard. He said he'd never gotten that one before. So, Minnie Pearl just might have gotten me a job that changed my life.

As of now, the tag is still on my house shoes. I'll probably take it off in a week or so, after I've gotten the shoes worn in good. Or, maybe I won't.

(I lost the link to the picture - but it's from The Country Music Hall of Fame)