🎢1972-1997 Opryland Theme Park

Opryland Theme Parked opened June 30,1972 and the park closed December 31,1997 

Our family would visit Opryland Theme Park at least once or even twice a year, until the park closed in 1997.

When we first started going to Opryland the boys were too small to ride the big roller coasters.

We would ride the Flume Zoom a log ride that would seat up to six people in Hill Country. No one wanted to sit up front because they would get wet.

In Big Hill Country we would hop aboard the Thunder Switch train and ride to El Paso Station to the American west. 

Sometimes we would take the New Orleans Sky ride which travel from one side of the park to the other.

We spent the majority of the time at Opryland Theme park watching Country Music Shows

As the kids got older they would ride the timber topper coaster. In 1979 the coaster was renamed the Rock n’ Roller coaster. This coaster shot out of the station into a single loop, climbing into a double loop and back to the station with a quick stop. There was always long lines for this ride.

The boys always enjoyed driving the antique cars called the tin Lizzies. The car would hold up to four people and the boys always wanted to be the driver so sometime we would ride in separate cars or ride over and over so each could get a chance to be the driver. The tin Lizzie was on a track so no matter what kind of driver you were you were always coming back to the station safely. 

The kids also enjoyed the little deuce cope it was an enclosed float ride. The lakeside area was home to the kiddy rides and the old millstream where we would get into a boat that took us around the lake it was on a track. 

The barnstormer was a Bio Airplane sky ride and it was next to the old millstream. 

In the state fair was the petting zoo where the kids could pet and feed the animals. 

We also enjoyed The Tennessee Waltz swing, which was my favorite. 

The kids love the bumper cars where they could run into each other. 

There were endless carnival games for the kids to play and I always tried to steer them away from this area because it cost more money. 

The Wall-Bash cannon ball was one of the kid’s favorite coasters. 

It flipped over twice. 

We would always get soaking wet on the Grizzly River Country.

This ride was a large raft that seated up to twenty people. It went down the raging river passing several waterfalls twisting and turning.

Water was coming at you from all sides as you were carried down the raging river. 

In 1984 the Scream n’ Delta Demon Coaster was added in the New Orleans area. It was an intamin wheeled bobsled coaster. 

In 1989, the Chaos was added in the Grizzly River area and it was a Vekoma Steel coaster. 

In 1995, the hangman was added in the American west. 

We rode every roller coaster repeatedly, screaming, holding up our hands, in delight with every ride.

There was a building called the Angle Inn that was builds on a slant and as we walked through it, we felt like we were going to tip over.

Throughout the park there were people performing country music shows.

Along the lake we would visit Country Music USA where various country singers would sing and dance for one hour. 

Rocking around the clock was the 50’s area where songs were performed from the 50’s era.  

We would visit the Roy Acuff’s museum that housed many of his musical instruments. There was a museum for Minnie Pearl, Roy Acuff’s theater, Nashville Network Studio, WSM Radio Broadcasting booth, and the Grand Old Opry house.

There was a large boat ride called General Jackson. There was a kennel for your pets, restrooms, and telephones throughout the park.

There were gift shops: Jewels and Gems, The music Box, Ragin Cajun Shirt Shop. 

There was Professors Bloodgood’s photography, Emporiums, Hill Country Arts and Crafts Shop. 

There were many food places throughout the park: Chubby’s drive-in, Julio Pizza, Zack’s frozen yogurt, Mrs. Winery Chicken and biscuits, Grizzly kitchen, Chos Concessions, Seafood Wharf, Café Mardi Gras, La Fudgeries, Country Kettles, Ruby’s Country Kitchen, Funnel Cakes and old fashion ice cream. 

Opryland USA 

2802 Opryland Drive

Nashville, Tennessee 37214

615-889-6611

1989 the cost to get into Opryland theme park was $18.95, for children younger than three was no cost.

One trip to Opryland was with two of my sisters, and my sisters friend, in my sisters Mustang.

It was a wild and crazy ride; I was slung from one side of the car to the other side.

It felt like we were in a Race Car or riding up and down a roller coaster. 

We went to Opryland Theme Park with our church group many times.

We took my dad’s blue van several times because it would hold several people. 

One year we went with Nina, Billy Michelle, Shana, OL, Ann, Chris, and Craig Wallace.

We were all going to Opryland Theme Park and the Nashville Speedway. 

We all stayed in a Nashville Motel that had an outdoor swimming  pool.

Before the Nashville Speedway race we all enjoyed riding the large roller coaster that was in the park near the speedway

Before Opryland closed it had a Christmas theme with ice-skating, and it was beautifully decorated for the Christmas Holidays.

1974 ~ Summer Savannah, Georgia

One of our family trips was a trip to Savannah Georgia. My sister’s husband was stationed at Fort Stewart.

The trip took a little over nine hours. We only stopped to eat and to use the restroom.

The boys played with their toy soldiers and hot wheel cars on the ride.

After the long ride the kids were ready to get out and visit their cousins.

When we arrived my sister had dinner ready. We ate and sat back to watch some TV, while the kids enjoyed playing outside.

We spent the next day on a public beach that faced the Daufuskie Island Resort in South Carolina. 

It was a beautiful day, a bit windy, over cast and hot.

The kids enjoyed building sand castles and darting in and out of the Atlantic Ocean.

The kids stopped long enough to grab a bite of the picnic lunch that we had brought.

The sun was hiding his face behind the clouds but sending out those hot rays.

We forgot to use sunscreen and we all got blistered.

That night we rubbed everyone down with white vinegar. The white vinegar was soothing to the sunburn and at least we could get a good night sleep.

The next day we rode to the Military Base and to Historic Down Savannah. 

We saw hundreds of old houses nestled under giant like oaks hanging with live Spanish moss. The Spanish moss is known as “ The Hostess City of the South.”  

We went to the one level Oglethorpe Mall,built in 1969, with 1,000,000 square feet. 

It housed Belk, JC Penny, Sears, and Maas Brothers (Now Macy's). In 1974, this was a huge mall.

Regency Square Mall back home opened in 1978, so to see a mall was a new adventure for us.

Savannah was a beautiful historic city and the weather while we were there was very accommodating. 

We spent the next few days inside playing Rook, Harts, & Spades.

The kids played inside and watched TV.

We had a great visit connecting with relatives. We enjoyed the beach, and visiting historic Savannah.

We said good-by to our relatives and began our trip home. 

🍀🍀🍀We were lucky growing up!!!

We were very lucky growing up when it came to visiting grandparents because both our grandparents' maternal and paternal grandparents lived within blocks of each other. 

Neither were rich in material things but both were loaded in love. 

Our maternal grandmother was a great cook and one of my favorite sweets was her Sweet Potato Kisses.

Years later, when I had a home of my own, I ask her for the Sweet Potato receipt.

You take a small potato boil it with the jacket on and cook until done.

Peel the potato mash it up and roll it out. 

Add powder sugar and peanut butter to the center. 

Take all ingredients and roll them into a ball and slice them into pieces.

Our maternal grandmother was also handy with a needle and thread.

Money was always tight at my maternal grandparents so, she made do with what she had.

She made everything she gave us for Christmas and birthdays. I remember one Christmas she made us sock monkeys and rag dolls.  

My memories of the tree she decorated at Christmas still bring a smile to my face. 

Her Christmas tree would light up any room with her bubbling lights, angel hair, icicles, stringed popcorn, and tiny trinkets.

Our maternal grandfather loved to smoke Prince Albert Tobacco.

We would watch as he took out those white papers and pour Prince Albert Tobacco inside and then he would roll them tightly, licking to seal the tobacco inside.

We would gladly walk to the store to buy him a can of  Prince Albert Tobacco because he always gave us a nickel for candy. 

On a hot day, we might use that nickel to buy a coke, a popsicle, or even a candy bar. 

Our maternal grandparent's yard was covered with white clover, weeds, and buttercups(in the spring).

We very seldom wore shoes when we were out of school. 

I remember one summer stomping around in the grass and having a good time when I stomped right onto a bee. 

I started to cry holding my foot when my grandfather came outside to see what was wrong.

He went back inside grabbed his tobacco, and a glass of water, and came back outside.

He placed me in his lap and began to make a cake with his Prince Albert tobacco which he placed on my foot. 

One of our maternal grandfather's pet peeves was the grandkids climbing up in his trees. 

He kept the limbs trimmed so, we could not reach them. 

Our maternal grandfather loves to tell scary stories about Bloody Bones. 

He would have you set on the edge of your seat, and all of a sudden he would say, "GOT YOU"!!

Our maternal grandfather grew a variety of fruit trees which we enjoyed eating. 

He would say, if you swallow any seeds, you would grow into a tree. 

We spit out every seed. 

Our maternal grandparents never had any indoor plumbing. There was an outhouse and the water came from an outside faucet. 
They never owned an automobile so they never learned to drive. 

My Maternal Grandmother rode to church with Mr. Ulman and I attended church with her many times. 

At Church, we sang old hymns while someone played the piano and someone else played an accord.

In our Sunday School Class we learned about Daniel being put in the Lion's Den for praying, Noah’s Ark, Jonah, the whale, and Jonah's disobedience to God. 

One Sunday night after services as we were riding home, the passenger door flew open, and out onto the pavement flew my cousin. 

We both had fallen asleep on the ride home and were leaning on the door. 

Our Aunt Willie lived on Penny Lane in Huntsville. 

She worked at Red Stone Arsenal.

Our dad would take the entire family to spend the day at Willies. 

Our maternal great-grandparents lived in Town Creek. 

Our maternal grandparents would take the train from Sheffield to Town Creek to visit her family.

Our dad took them several times.

Our great grandparents lived in an Old Military Dining Car.

On one end of the trailer was a large round table, encircled with bench seating. Many soldiers had dined at this table. 

A sofa, fold-out bed, a chair, and a coal heater stood in the middle of the trailer. 

Food was cooked in the kitchen area which was located at the opposite end of the trailer. 
They got their water from a well and they use an outhouse.

Since their home was so small we were sent outside to play, sometime grand-paw would come outside to play with us.

He said I can show you how to catch a worm that he called a Chicken Choker. 

He said, get a straw, poke the straw into a small hole, and wiggle the straw into a worm the worm will catch hold and you can pull him out of the ground.

It Worked!!!

I looked up the meaning of Chicken Choker. 

It is a long yellowish color worm with humps on it back 6 legs a hard head, brown with two-inch pinchers that would catch hold of the straw.

Chicken Chokers are larvae of tiger beetles that ambush predators of other insects, lying in wait in their burrows with their heads flush with the surface of the soil.  

It is said that chickens do more harm to the larvae(Chicken Chokers) than the grubs.

Living in the Big Woods

My parents were still in the process of building the house we lived in when we moved in 1961.

The house had three bedrooms, each bedroom had a large bed with a cotton mattress and metal springs. 

The large living-room, had a sofa, a television with rabbit ears and in the winter a wood heater. 

In the kitchen was a large sink, refrigerator, stove, and a large bar for storage.

In the dining room was a table large enough to seat ten people. 

All the floors were wooden no flooring of any kind, most of the walls had unfinished sheet rock. 

We had a set of step that lead to the basement that was located between the kitchen and the hallway.

We had a very high wooden back porch with railing and wooden steps. 

Our front porch was level with the ground and we had a wooden swing that hang from the rafters.

Dads car was always parked in the gravel drive.

Our house sat on the side of a hill, the front side was level with the ground and the backside of the house was several feet from the ground. 

The house had a flat top roof, the outside of our house was covered with black tar paper.

The house had no inside bathroom.

We had water pumped from our outside well to our kitchen sink. 

I remember watching the large machine dig deep into the ground until it found water and then a well was placed above it.

My parents would put a large tube shaped bucket into the hole in the ground, that was attached with a long rope, to get water from the well. 

The tube of water would then be pulled back to the top of the well where the water was emptied into a pail that  could be carried inside. 

Bath time consisted of a large washtub, shared by all the children. 

I remember one time when I was taking my bath that I put my bride doll in the tub with me.

All my dolls hair fell out and I was sad.

My bride doll was a beautiful doll, she was wearing a long white wedding dress with a white veil.

We could make alot of noise at night even though our bedroom was on the opposite side of the house as our parents.. 

I love to make up stories to make my siblings laugh.

Sometimes we would get into trouble, because we made so much noise laughing.

We had two very large beds in our room where all the children slept and every night it was a struggle for bed covers.

There was no need for curtains to be put on our windows because no one lived behind us and our bedroom was very high off the ground.

On a clear night the moonlight would shine into our bedroom. 

At night it was hard for us kids to be quite for outside we could hear the hoot from owls. 

Oh my gosh! At the frogs & crickets, there were many, many frogs that we heard crocking and thousands of crickets rubbing their legs.

Ever now and then we would hear a mountain lion it sounded like a woman screaming.

Actually the noise relaxed us and we would drift off into a deep slumber.

Our neighbors owned a saw mill with mounds of sawdust piles we loved to climb into. 

Almost everyone grew a garden and we would buy fruit and vegetables from them. 

I remember one time my sister and I went to our neighbors to buy a watermelon we paid twenty-five cents.

We could choose any watermelon we wanted. We chose a big one but we had to carry it all the way home. 

We had to stop several time before we reach home. 

The sweet watermelon was worth the trouble to see the look on the faces of our siblings as they eat every slice of the melon.

Another time my sister and I had to walk to the store which was about two miles round trip.

Our family was like the old woman in the shoe she had so many children she did not know what to do. 

Our cabinets was bare and mom could not make the trip because she had too many children. She would look like a mother duck with all her duckling following her. 

So my sister who was a couple years younger than me, and I made the trip. 

We took the gravel road with all its curves, up and down hills to the country story for bologna and bread that we charged to my dads account. 

My grandfather had started building a house next to ours house. The outside of the house was complete. The roof on his house was arched not flat like our house. 

The inside was framed up and the rooms was divided with walls.

It had wood floors and a basement full of lumber.

My grandfather never finished the house but we made it our play house and we spent many hours in this house. 

Most kids have a small playhouse but our playhouse was a real unfinished house.

I remember once my dad brought home a trunk from Helen Keller home and it was filled with books.

I picked out two of the books one was a blue book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the other a book about a boy and his hoop.

The fairy tale book contained many different short stories such as Rapunzel, The Frog Prince, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Rumplestiltskin, Snow White and Rose Red.

Lynn and Glenn Kimbrough were  our playmates. 

One year Lynn got a bicycle for Christmas, we never owned a bicycle. So when Lynn offered to let us ride her bicycle we said yes. 

Both my sister  and I climbed on the bicycle with Lynn. My sister was on the handlebars, Lynn was on the seat paddling and I was on the back fender.

Away we went speeding down the gravel road.  Lynn lost control of the bicycle wrecked spilling us on the gravel road. 

Luckily no one was badly hurt, only a few scraps on the knees and elbows.

In the spring we would pick Polk Salad take it into town and sale it. 

Growing up in the big woods

School Days

When I was two and a half years old we moved to Hawk Pride Mountain,

When I was old enough to attend school I went to New Bethel Elementary School.

I went to New Bethel for six years. 

My second sister next to me went to New Bethel from the first to the fourth grade.

My third sister attended New Bethel from the first to second grade.

We would ride the school bus eleven miles to school.

On the school bus we would sing song to pass the time.

Some of the song we sang on the big yellow school bus were Sugar Shack, Hang down Your Head Tom Doodle, Found a Peanut, and Honeycomb.

Bertha Hester taught me in the first and second grades. 

She would start the day by reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag and we would say a prayer. 

We learned how to read from the Dick and Jane books.

Mrs Hester had large cardboard wheel that had beginning to read words on it and we would practice everyday from this wheel.

Recess lasted thirty minutes and most of the time we were outside.

Some of the games we played outside were ring around the roses, drop the handkerchief, and hopscotch.

We also like to swing, turn flips, jump on a jump board, play baseball, and kickball.

I remember one hot day our class came running into the school building from recess and we all lined up at the water fountain and then disbursed to the restrooms.

On this peculiar  day my best friend and I was lagging behind.

So to catch up with the other students we started running down the hall.

I was running down the hall pretty fast when someone opened the lunchroom door.

 Wham! I ran smack into it. 

I did not have time to stop and the lock on the door hit my forehead.

I was knocked to the floor, blood pouring down my face.

I was taken to first aid room where a bandage was placed on my forehead.

I spent the rest of the day laying on a day cot that was in our classroom.

Each classroom had its own cot for when students were sick or hurt.

Some of our school actives included cakewalks, donkey basketball games, and special assembled programs in the gym. 

I played the witness against the Litterbug in The Litterbug Play.

I played the part of an Indian girl in the Indian War Dance program.

Everybody's dresses were homemade from a feed sack. 

Having fun with friends and family 

My favorite television show was Bonanza which aired between 1959 and 1973.

The show was about a rancher named Ben Cartwright and his three sons, Dan, Adam and Little Joe. 

We were pre-teens, so we still like to ride stick horses and we were married to the Cartwright men.  

My neighbor friend Juanita and I liked to play dress-up.

Juanita’s aunt had given her many of her old discarded dress and we loved to dress-up in them.

She had a rainbow of dresses that varied in length, some were pleated while others had straight skirts.

Some of the dresses were covered in pearls, beads, and buttons. 

Some of the dresses zipped up the back while others buttoned up the front or even laced up both front and back.

There were red high hills, black flats, brown loafers, beaded ballerina slippers to put on our feet that matched the dresses.

There were hats of all shapes and sized, some with feathers, some with nets and always one that matched the dress we were wearing. 

There were hats and well as handbags that matched the dresses. 

Most of the dresses that we played in were way too long, we didn’t mind because we were dressed up to paint the town.

One of my favorite shows that aired on television was Adventures in Paradise.

The star of the show was Garner McKay, he was the captain of a large schooner that sailed in the Pacific Ocean. 

Juanita and I would pretend that we were riding on Gardner McKay’s large schooner.

We would place large boards over logs and rock them back and forth. 

Once, I wrote a letter to Garner McKay’s fan club asking for a picture and they sent me one.

I placed his picture in my scrapbook and I still have that scrapbook and his picture. 

Dad made us a swing using a long cable rope that he threw over a huge limb of the oak next to our house. 

Next the took a old wooden plank, which he notched on either side and slid it between the rope for us to sit in.

We lived on the side of a hill and when we swung we thought our feet could reach the big blue sky.

My handy-man dad built us a go-cart. He used on old wagon frame, built a wooden platform atop the frame.

He attached a lawn mower motor onto the back side of the wagon.

The go-cart had to be cranked like cranking a push lawnmower.

Our steering wheel was made of rope.

There was no stop button, we either had to pull out a spark plug or run out of gas. 

It was a lot of fun. 

Sitting in our front yard under the hickory nut tree sat an old car without a motor, it was just a shell of a car. 

But to us kids it was a toy. 

We discovered when we put our legs inside the steering wheel, that we could make it rock back and forth. When we would get out of the car our bodies could still feel the swaying of the steering wheel. 

It the fall of the year we would go looking for hickory nuts. 

We would get the largest paper sack we could find and head to the woods. 

We would fill the paper sack full of a variety of hickory nuts. 

When we had enough we would head back home. 

We would then look for something to crack the nuts open with most of the time it was two fairly large rocks. 

We would have to be careful cracking those nuts between two rocks because some times we would mash our fingers. Boy did that hurt!

We would fill a plastic bowl full of the cracked nuts but still we could not get the goodies out without a pick and our pick was a bobby pin.

This was an all day process. 

Where we lived were just a few houses and woods all around us.

We had to walk quite a ways but behind our home was a creek that winded down the mountain. There were all sorts of rock formation. There was this one rock that we climbed upon that was as large as most peoples living rooms and once on top of it, we could see for miles.

Above the creek was this cascading waterfall, I think about twenty feet tall.

There was a creek above the fall that was filled with moss and it could be very slippery when you got close to the edge. 

The water flowed constantly it never dried up even during the dry seasons.

Below the fall was a pool deep enough for us to swim in and we did on many a hot day.

We even went into the woods when the woods were freezing cold, just to get a icicle from the frozen falls. 

Behind my neighbor’s Juanita’s house was a bluff about fifty feet high that was called Horseshoe Bluff. (Cherokee Indians once lived in this area)

Juanita’s grandmother was a full blooded Cherokee Indian, she lived next door to Juanita.

We were told not to go near the bluff. 

There were many rock formations around the bluff top.

We had  to walk several miles to reach the bottom. 

We found that by climbing down from the top of a very strong tree we could reach the bottom.

People have fallen off that bluff,  I guess they were not familiar with the area.

2006 October 28, Saturday, Renaissance Faire, Rogersville Festival, Nevada soccer game and Awards picnic

We parked at the Florence Library and walked to Wilson Park to attend the Renaissance Faire.
Sierra was wearing blue jeans with yellow tee shirt, black leather jacked lined with white fur dotted with dalmatians spots.
She was wearing my jeweled scarf headdress.

Purple haired, big nose creature 

Hubby was wearing a black leather jacket and Nevada was wearing tan jeans, black sweatshirt trimmed with yellow and white stripes.
He was wearing a brown leather jacket lined with tan fur and was wearing a ball cap with skeleton face on the front.
It was a beautiful fall day, still had a chill in the air early that morning.
We walked along the sidewalk to Wilson Park where we all enjoyed watching sword fighting, the sword walker,  being blessed by the  Enchanted Statue, Bubbles the Dragon, many people dressed in Medival costumes and we watched the belly dancers. 
We bought Nevada a sword, and Sierra a fan. 

Walking to Wilson  park

Sword fighting 

The sword walker 

The Enchanted Statue 

Alien creatures

A sword and fan 

Stopping for a picture

Bubbles the Dragon 

Next we took the kids to Rogersville Festival, where we walked around and the kids played on the bouncing inflatables.
We did not stay long because we had to be at Nevada's soccer game later that day.

Stopping for a quick picture

Bouncing inflatables

We completed the day by attending Nevada's Soccer Game and Awards picnic.
Nevada played his best game, running, kicking the ball with his team-mates.
It was a beautiful fall day with the sun shining the ground dry, not getting all muddy playing soccer.
After the game the kids enjoyed treats, cupcakes, chips and cokes.
After the kids finished eating each was given an award.

 Soccer Game

Nevada eating treats

Nevada with his soccer coach. 

Nevada and his Soccer team

We spent the day with two of our grandchildren at the Renaissance Fair, the Rogersville Festival and Nevada playing his last soccer game. It was time to take the kids home and us home for a relaxing evening watching the TV.