The Dancers: TC and Janice
The Song: "My Way"
The Dance: Lasted over 11 years
Here's the story:
New single MSW graduate is finally leaving her tiny apartment to move into a duplex . . .
She gets to have a washer and dryer for the first time in six years . . .
A friend recommends "Meadowthorpe Appliance Center". . .
Upon entering the owner is sitting behind a desk that has a recliner sitting next to it . . .
He gets up, quickly sells her a washer and dryer, but made her go get cash because it was a Saturday!
He tells her to sit in the recliner and AFTER he completes the sale he starts talking about Harlan . . .
The uncle who raised him and her father worked in the Crummies Creek, KY coal mine in 1940 . . .
She has a picture of the miners . . . he does not . . .
Oh, did I mention that they were 50 and 60 years old?
A major change in the steps of this dance took place in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg in the fall when we were married in a small chapel in the mountains - no friends or family present, he wore his pink shirt, jeans, and hat - yes, his hat - which he forgot to take off. A little nervous? We both were and it was a huge leap of faith to continue the dance. The laughter we shared was the best part of our dance. I could tell when he was losing his cool, so I would dress up in a WWII hard hat, carry the small baseball bat, and walk toward him. Trust me, he laughed!
When I was feeling discouraged or stressed, he would take me to ... a cemetery. Yes, really. We visited the graves of everyone he had ever known who had died (I think). We even went to Harlan to visit graves. Frankfort cemetery was my favorite, just saying. He loved it and I loved watching him love it! Oh, and James Dean's grave ( felt like he and James were quite a bit alike).
I didn't always do what he wanted and when I was "stubborn" he would sing. A favorite line of his was "if you don't want me to be cold as ice, treat me nice." Or he would sing "How Great Thou Art" one of my favorite songs . . . or "My Way" to remind me that things were supposed to be going his way not mine. He wasn't Elvis, but he was the next best thing and he knew he could get my cooperation any time he sang.
We visited dinosaur land and the Ohio River in numerous locations. We drove and drove and drove and he told stories about his life and he sang and we stopped and talked to strangers that he actually knew 30, 40, years ago. They always remembered him. During the Sunday afternoons spent in Louisville on the river or at Clays Ferry by the Kentucky River it sometimes felt as if time stood still as we enjoyed the peace and quiet, the companionship, finding things to laugh about. It was hard to go back home those Sunday evenings.
One Sunday I came home from church to find four couches in our house: two in the living room and two squeezed in the kitchen. He had gone to an auction and couldn't resist... the eternal optimist when it came to buying and selling anything.
Against his better judgment we got a dog and named her Bridgett Rae. She was a great addition to this dance of ours. As you can see from the pictures - they became best friends very quickly.
TC loved, loved, loved his family. He was so proud of all of them even the ones who sometimes chose to do things he didn't understand - or things he understood too well but knew these choices would bring only sorrow to the family member. I do believe the highlight of those years for him happened on his 70th birthday. It was a surprise (he was a tough guy to surprise). He danced with everyone, laughed, cried, asked for their forgiveness, listened to their stories about him, and had a night never to be forgotten. Any chance he got he would get with his family and loved it when it was all about the music. He would always smile when one of kids would say "we like to get together like this and have fun - we learned this from Daddy."
One of his most touching qualities was his willingness to accept my family members as if they were his own. He would hug, tease, dance, lecture, teach any of them if they let him. He changed the steps of the dance that my family danced as he ignored the shy, the scared, the anxious, the sick and just accepted them for who they were. When my mother visited, we had a huge TV in our small living room. She refused to watch it because "the people on there are bigger than me." He teased her and pretty soon they were watching TV together.
He loved vehicles - trucks, cars, vans, RV's, motor cycles. We dated in his big yellow truck from his store. A few months later he encouraged me to trade in my old college car and buy a Neon which we drove to Gatlinburg about a week or two later.
In 2007 he said that he had found the car for me because "it looks just like you". When I saw this square box toaster of a car, I was highly insulted. I still have that car and love it. If I have to trade it in I will get another Scion Xb. So I followed his lead and the dance continued. In the last picture he was parked at Jacobson Park on the way out of the park. He had just put his hat back on after standing by the car, holding hat in hand, and accepting change from strangers as they drove out - - and of course I took it from him and gave it back! How could I not enjoy the dance with such a guy??
And then with very little warning, in the pre-dawn hours, our dance together ended. Everything changed that day. It was a living nightmare for a period of time. But then I remembered our visits to cemeteries where he would say he wanted to die in his recliner, bed, or at the store in the night after a long day of work. Apparently God heard his plan and decided it was okay because that's exactly what happened. Thanks to Garth Brooks who wrote and sang these words:
Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared 'neath the stars above
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known that you'd ever say goodbye?
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain,
Just Beautiful!!
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