The Circle Will Be Unbroken, by and by Lord by and by

Cousin in the Country Music Hall of Fame

Me and Chick were talking this morning about his cousin Joe Allison (whom I have never met), and Chick asked me to pull up some articles about him on the web. Here is one we read this morning, though there are several. http://www.nashvillesongwritersfoundation.com/fame/allison.html Chick does not have any glasses he can see out of right now so I read it to him and a gush of memories came at me when I read about Tommy Sands and his golden record, Teenage Crush.

I remember that night so clearly. Tammy Minette, (I think that is how her name was spelled) was one of my good friends in 1957, 1958 and 1959 in Evansville, Indiana. They lived in a big old house across the street from our other friend, Pam Baird. We were in the era of slumber parties and such. I was 13, 14 and 15 during those years. Anyway, we also had a friend named Patsy Ward who lived in that same neighborhood. Tammy’s mom surprised us all with tickets to the local Amphitheatre to see Tommy Sands.

We got ready that night and put on our best clothes. I had on a blue dress with a large cumber bund and some pearlized heels and little pearl earrings, sprayed a little Blue Waltz (remember that) behind each ear and waited on my friends to pick me up. They dressed in their best as well. We were in hopes of seeing Tommy Sands up close and personal. We screamed, we squealed, our hearts palpitated out of our chests.

After his performance, we went down to the back of the Amphitheatre to use the ladies room. There were security guards posted so that we could not go around to the door where the stars entered and exited. We came out of the bathroom and the guard was busy talking to someone and walked away from his post. We took off running in our high heels and sheath dresses to the door where the stars entered. We tried the door – gasp! It opened! We were in luck! We went in.

We could hear the other acts on stage performing. We sneaked down the hallway and there was the sign in front of us Tommy Sands with a star on the sign. We went in. It was empty. We opened the suitcase (OH NO, we were becoming JUVENILE Delinquents) I took a shirt and stuffed it up my dress between my knees to hide it in the event someone saw us. Tammy yelled, “Someone is coming, let’s go, we’ll get in trouble”.

Her mom was involved with the Amphitheatre (I think, my memory is dim as far as how she got the tickets, etc. I know that her dad was a clarinet or horn player of some sort). We didn’t want to go to jail for breaking in and entering so we ran. Pam said, “Throw the shirt down”. I couldn’t run well with the shirt between my knees and fell down the steep stairs and scraped my ankle enough for it to bleed. We ran to the back and hollered, “Tommy, Tommy we have your shirt”.

Three guys looked out the window (no Tommy). They were back-up singers with Tommy Sands. They came out and talked to us and I gave them the shirt back. They promised to tell Tommy we loved him. We went back to our seats. My ankle was bleeding onto my hose. I was happy. Ever so often, even now, I catch a glimpse of the scar (now faded) on my ankle and I remember my youth. The next day a fat girl was on the front page of the paper that she broke into Tommy Sands dressing room and met him. Tammy, Patsy, Pam and I sat around and talked about that until I moved to Texas. Now I find out Chick is kin to the guy who wrote the song. I guess that is the next best thing to being with Tommy who later married Frank’s daughter, Nancy Sinatra (these boots are made for walking and that is what I'll do one of these days these boots are going to walk all over you). Nothing lasts forever I guess! She was married to him about as long as we were behind the Amphitheatre.