Soap Box

I am a person who enjoys living in rural surroundings and although I spend a lot of time in big cities, when I head for home, I want some seclusion and elbow room.

Once when we visited some of Hazel’s relatives who lived in one of the most populous areas of the nation I asked the question, “How do you live in the middle of all these people” and I will paraphrase the answer I got.

“You don’t, you just take your part of it and make it your world” In other words, pay attention to your own business, pursue your own interests and let everybody else do the same, a kind of coexistence type of thing, which made perfect sense to me. Live and let live, carve out your niche, surround yourself with the things and the people you care for and let the rest of the world roll by.

Wittingly and sometimes unwittingly I have headed more and more in that direction in the last many years and have gotten to the point that if I don’t set foot off Twin Pines Ranch for several days it doesn’t bother me at all, it’s almost as if, with the obvious exception of my business and the welfare of my family, friends and nation, that I don’t really care what goes on outside the gate.

My interests are simple and I can pursue most of them right where I am. Slowly, over the years we have managed to acquire most of the things that represent an outside interest for me, a shooting range, a putting green, trails for riding horses and four wheelers, fishing ponds and just about any type of terrain you’d care to traverse, gentle hills, severe hills and flat ground, all depending on the degree of exercise you’re interested in on any given day.

I have reached the point that I sometimes surprise myself at how removed from the mainstream world I have become.

This past week there were two major music festivals going on in the area, one country and one pop, and while perusing the list of talent appearing at the events I realized that I only recognized maybe 20% of the artist's names.

There is very little on television that interests me, I do try to keep up with major domestic and international events and I enjoy the sports broadcasts, but, with the exception of a couple of shows, I’d just as soon watch snails crawl as the monotonic clabber that populates prime time.

And unless there is some industry related event I need to attend we seldom go into the city.

It’s ironic, sometimes people will ask me to recommend a good restaurant in Nashville and my knowledge is extremely limited. I usually say something like, “I can tell you a good restaurant in Fort Worth or De Moines or New York City or Sydney Australia for that matter, but I just don’t frequent our fair city’s culinary establishments enough to be of much help”.

I’m sure that my "at home" life would bore many people to death, but for me, plinking off a couple of hundred rounds of .22 ammunition or watching a sizable largemouth bass break the water or picking my way through the woods on a four-wheeler or a good horse is about as much excitement as I need on the domestic scene.

I have not been bored in so long, that I cannot even remember the last time, as I always have something to do that really interests me like writing another song or another book, practicing my instruments, or just sitting in our easy chairs carrying on a conversation with my wife.

I enjoy getting up early and if I’m not on the road there’s not very much going on after ten o’clock at night to keep me up.

Of course, the other half of my life is a lot different, schedules to keep, interviews to do, miles to travel and shows to play and I love every minute of it, but when I turn off the little two-lane blacktop that runs past the entrance to Twin Pines and go through the gate, I revert to the old guy who is thankful to God for letting me live on the exact square feet of ground I prefer above all others on the planet.

When I leave Twin Pines for good, I want to go to heaven.

That’s the only other place I’d rather live.

Ain’t it good to be alive and be in Tennessee!!!

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

— Charlie Daniels

PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU POST

Feel free to comment on Charlie's soapboxes, but please refrain from profanity and anonymous posts are not allowed, we need a name and you MUST provide a valid email address. If you provide an email address, but leave the name as "Anonymous" we will pick a name for you based on your email address. No one other than website administrators will see your email address, not other posters. If you post without a valid email address, your comment (whether positive or negative) will be deleted. — TeamCDB