TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST: THE LAST TIME I SAW WAYLON

By Grant McGee

    “Was it really years ago, seems like only yesterday.”

                So goes the opening line of the Waylon Jennings song “Old Friend.”  Yeah, it’s like it was only yesterday that I drove to see Waylon in concert. 

                It was a hot spring day about 17 years ago that I grabbed my lawn chair, tossed it in my two-door sedan and trundled out of New Mexico on down to Lubbock, Texas to see Waylon at an outdoor concert.

                It was a pretty good little package show…Marty Stuart opened things up and kicked ass on stage.  If you haven’t listened to any Marty Stuart you ought to.  He kicks ass.

                Then Connie Smith took to the stage.  She with her big booming country voice was on the Country “Hit Parade” back in the 1960’s then she took time off for family stuff, raising kids and all that.  Then she married Marty Stuart.  I reckon that’s why they were on the tour together.  You want to hear a good Connie Smith song check out “Cincinnati, Ohio” or “Once a Day” from about 1964 or so.

                Then they wheeled Waylon out on stage.

                He was in a wheelchair, his signature guitar in his lap.  Two folks wheeled him out to the front of the stage.

                The crowd went wild.

                “You have to pardon me folks,” said Waylon.  “I had an operation a couple of weeks ago in Phoenix.”

                He paused.  He looked to the left then to the right.

                “Yep,” he said, “Couple of them Arizona nurses got to see ‘The Twins.’”

                The crowd went wild.

                Waylon picked up his guitar and strummed it a bit.

                “Well here I am in Lubbock,” he said. 

                He paused, he looked to the left and to the right.

    “I used to live here.”

                He paused again.

                “I still owe people money here.”

                He paused.

                “Tough shit,” he said.

                The crowd went wild.

                Then it was time for The Man, The Legend, The Outlaw Waylon Jennings to play his songs…and he did not disappoint.

    The sun was blasting us in that open field.  I sat in my lawn chair pondering the sunburn I was going to have unless I found some shade. 

                There in the center of the field was the sound man’s tall stand.  It was casting a nice shadow.  I picked up my lawn chair, moseyed on over and planted myself in the shade.

                Soon I was joined by a few other concert-goers.  Then there was a face I recognized from New Mexico.  We smiled, shook hands, chatted a bit.

                “Are you from New Mexico?” asked another person in the shade.  “Because I am too.”

                “Me too,” said yet another concert-goer.

                Soon we came to realize that all of us in the shade were from eastern New Mexico.

                It was a good concert.  I’m glad I went.  It wasn’t long after that that Waylon left this earthly plane and went "on to Glory."

                Like Tom T. Hall wrote in the song "The Year Clayton Delaney Died," "...it could be that the Good Lord likes a little pickin' too..."

                But I remember us New Mexicans taking advantage of the shade and all those Texans in the sun.

                I don’t know what that says about New Mexicans and Texans, but then maybe there’s nothing to say.

                I like to keep my writing friendly-like.