honky cracker: Kenny Rogers Memories When I was young - like, rill young -- like, 6 or 7 years old young, I LOVED Kenny Rogers. Loved Kenny. I would run around the house singing The Gambler, Lady, and especially Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town for some reason.
I think my love affair with Kenny began when I saw him perform The Gambler on The Muppet Show. Remember that one, where Kenny was sittin' with the big tall hobo-lookin' Gambler muppet on the train, and then the Gambler died and his ghost would float around the screen? LOVED that bit. It freaked me out - I was a kid and terribly afraid of ghosts - but it also made me very, very sad.
Anyways, loved the Kenny. Loved him for years.
Then one weekend my parents took me to some BBQ and some friend of theirs' house. I met a young woman there. She was probably about 24 or 25, and she too loved The Kenny. She fed me blueberries. I vaguely remember wanting to suckle her teat.
Everything was going swimmingly. I was rockin' my 7-year old mojo. She was rockin' teats.
Then she destroyed my world.
"Are you going to see him when he plays the Civic Center?" she asked.
"Kenny Rogers is coming HERE?!!?" I shrieked. "To Connecticut".
"Yeah. Next week."
Oh shit. Kenny Rogers was going to be in MY area. Near MY house. Near MY stereo! (Okay, so it was my dad's stereo. But still.)
Oh my god. Crap. What if...What if Kenny heard me listening to his music? Surely, he wouldn't like that. No, not at all.
I was deathly afraid that Kenny Rogers would catch me listening to his music and get very, very angry with me for doing so.
I had visions of Kenny driving around my block in his Cadillac shouting "That's MY music! You CAN'T listen to it! It's MINE!" He would throw things - shoes, bullhorns, steering wheels (I remember this very clearly) - through the window.
Then it would get ugly. "Dammit! Ruby's MY woman! Don't take her love to town! You can't have her! She's mine!" He'd come to the door and storm in.
"This your son?" he'd ask my dad.
"Why yes," my dad would say.
"WELL THEN TELL HIM TO STOP LISTENING TO MY MUSIC! IT HURTS ME!"
Then Kenny would sit down and ask for a beverage. My mother would get him a glass of brandy. (At the time, I figured all old men that came into our house wanted a brandy. This is because my grandfather - who was also my mailman - would stop in on his route, sit down, and have a glass of brandy. On the job. Cheers, Pop, wherever you are. You knew how to do it up right.)
Finally, Kenny would leave. House broken, windows smashed, my heart cracked to pieces on the floor.
