- "Under an old brass paperweight
- Is my list of things to do today
- Go to the bank and the hardware store
- Put a new lock on the cellar door.
- I cross 'em off as I get 'em done
- but when the sun is set
- there's still more than a few things left
- I haven't got to yet
- Like, go for a walk
- Say a little prayer
- Take a deep breath of mountain air
- Put on my glove and play some catch
- It's time that I make time for that
- Wade the shore, cast a line
- Look up an old lost friend of mine
- Sit on the porch and give my girl a kiss
- Start livin, that's the next thing on my list"
I began listening to country music around the end of 1991. That was the year everyone was talking about that new Billy Ray Cyrus song, "Achy Breaky Heart," and I just did not understand. What was so good about that song? Curiosity is what led me to the country station so I could hear it for myself. That's when I heard songs like Joe Diffie's "Ships That Don't Come In" and Reba's "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia"
"These songs are like little movies," I thought. So I stayed.
Back then there was no musical streaming. No googling lyrics. You tuned in to the country station and you bought CDs. Courtesy of a Columbia House membership (which was canceled after I got the introductory deal), I started buying them up: John Anderson, Clint Black, Lorrie Morgan and new-to-the-country-scene Toby Keith.
Since "Should've Been a Cowboy," (the most-played song of the '90s) I had all of Toby Keith's albums from the beginning. I blasted "Boom Town" while cleaning the house on the weekends. My kids grew up singing, "How Do You Like Me Now?" and "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue." We sang "Mockingbird" in parts around the fire at camp. As a new widow, I sobbed alone on the weekends to "We Were In Love."
Years later, when I began to date concert-enthusiast Chuck, he saw the thread of Toby songs (one hit song every year for two decades) in so many of my memories. He understood what they meant to the Tanner family. So, he made it a goal to get me to see him live.
Last June, we had tickets. Finally! But this concert was canceled last-minute because of the goddamn C-word. It was the same kind that took my Grandpa. It threatened to take my grandma, my mom, and me. Now it's after Toby, too.
Today, as I hear of the sad news of yet another celebrity death. I wonder at myself and these tears that won't stop falling. I didn't know Toby. He wasn't my family. I have suffered real and unimaginable loss. So what's the big deal about this one?
Maybe when you lose someone who made an impression on your life, whether it is by being in it or by writing songs to be the background of it, it just plain hurts.
Toby, if only you had been able to get to all of the things on your list.
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