It's All About Him (3 page)

During the Civil War, when my great grandfather was a Confederate soldier, the Southern cavalry defeated the Union Army in the nearby Battle of Brown's Mill. When I was young, it wasn't uncommon to see Confederate flags in the back windows of pickup trucks around town. In fact, there weren't a whole lot of people in town from north of the Mason-Dixon Line when I was young. And if people did move in from up north, it was immediately obvious by the strange way they talked.

Given those Confederate roots, it's redeeming that Newnan was also the site of the trial of the first white man in the South to be condemned to death for murder by the testimony of African Americans, two men who had witnessed the crime. Newnan's famous 1948 trial provided the story for the old movie
Murder in Coweta County
, starring Johnny Cash, June Carter, and Andy Griffith.

Andy Griffith would have fit right into Newnan. It was a bit like Mayberry. The courthouse was in the center of the town square, with shops and small businesses surrounding it. Pillared antebellum homes sat comfortably on the dogwood-lined streets. We never locked our doors during the day, and in the summer we only latched the screen doors at night. Most people there were interconnected; even if you didn't know someone personally, you had heard of him or her. And if your mama didn't know what you were up to, you could be sure she'd find out pretty quickly from any number of sources around town.

So even though I didn't really meet Alan Jackson until that summer night at the Dairy Queen, I'd known about him for years. My twin brother had ridden motorcycles with Alan, and they had played on a youth basketball team together for a season. But I hadn't paid much attention. Maybe I thought that somewhere way far back in our tangled Southern roots we were related, since my maiden name was Jackson, too, and our fathers had both grown up in western Georgia. (Recently one of Alan's fans researched both our fathers' genealogies back to the 1100s; he found that we come from opposite branches on the Jackson family tree and in fact are
not
related. For the sake of future generations, let's just say we were relieved.)

Big Fish, Small Pond

Alan had made a big splash in our high school when he was the male lead in his senior play, but I didn't see the performance. And even though I could tell he was a persistent guy with a good amount of self-confidence, I wasn't particularly drawn to him. He called me a couple of times after that night at the Dairy Queen, but I just wasn't interested in going out. Maybe it was his hair. It was short, as his daddy insisted, parted on the side, and kind of awkwardly unstyled and wavy. (You can tell that at age sixteen I wasn't evaluating male relationships by particularly deep qualifications.)

Back then I
was one of those “golden girls” that high school girls love to hate. Cheerleading captain, homecoming queen, #1 position on the tennis team, straight-A student, you name it. I'd always had a boyfriend by my side since about the fourth grade, and at Newnan High School, I was a big fish in a small pond.

You would think with all those accomplishments, I would have been a pretty confident person. But like a lot of teenage girls, I might have looked good on the outside, but I was a little lost on the inside.

In some ways life was very secure. I had a brother, Ron, who was twenty-one years older. As a toddler, my older sister had called him Bubba, her version of “brother,” because she couldn't say Ronald. We all called him that forever after, although I looked up to him almost as a father figure. My sister, Jane, was seven years older than me. My twin brother, Danny, and I were a late surprise and focal point from the time we were born to my middle-aged parents, who had thought that their family was complete.

[ALAN] CALLED ME A COUPLE OF TIMES AFTER THAT NIGHT AT THE DAIRY QUEEN, BUT I WASN'T PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN GOING OUT.

MAYBE IT WAS HIS HAIR. IT WAS SHORT, AS HIS DADDY INSISTED, PARTED ON THE SIDE, AND KIND OF AWKWARDLY UNSTYLED AND WAVY.

Church was the center of our social life. We were there Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, and Wednesday nights for prayer meeting. I went to the same old brick high school as my older brother and sister, and it was assumed I'd go to nearby West Georgia College as well. Almost everyone I knew dated and married people from Newnan, and raised their children there too. Life seemed to follow an expected pattern, never discussed, but known by all.

Family Matters

My parents grew up during the Great Depression. They were both hard workers and wanted to give us more than they had had. I never doubted their love . . . but they came from a generation that didn't necessarily communicate big dreams to their kids. Life was a matter of working hard and doing the next right thing. There wasn't much discussion about new ideas or personal feelings. Brainstorming at the dinner table about our life goals and ambitions was not something that I remember. We just took each day as it came, not really focusing on the future. Their focus was on getting through the work week and having money left on Friday to buy groceries. Because of that, I often felt like I didn't have the direction I so desperately wanted.

As a teenager, I interpreted this lack of specific guidance as a lack of love. It wasn't, of course, but I didn't understand that not having heartfelt conversations with my mother had more to do with
her
childhood than with how she felt about me. Born in 1920, she probably didn't get the depth of emotional nurturing that she needed, even though her parents loved her and did the best they could. For my mother, the growing-up years were more a matter of survival; her parents simply did not have time to focus on communicative, creative parenting with each of their thirteen children.

Even though I always knew that they loved each other, I rarely saw my parents demonstrate that love in front of us. I often wished that they'd express their love and affection in words and gestures more than they did.

I was a daddy's girl, a pleaser. My father was one of seven brothers. When their father died young, the two oldest and two youngest boys stayed in school, while the three boys in the middle had to go to work to support the family. So my daddy had to quit school in the eighth grade. He got his GED later on, but he never had the education to pursue his big dreams.

Instead, he worked hard to provide for us. He was a postal carrier and left the house very early each morning to deliver mail on rural roads in Coweta County. He'd come home in the afternoons, change clothes, and leave to work on the spec houses that he built and put on the market for extra income. By the time he came home at eight or nine in the evening, he was exhausted.

Though my father was interested in hearing about my day, I longed for a deeper kind of communication. I wanted my accomplishments— good grades, honors, special recognitions—to catch his attention. Perhaps I felt that if I was remarkable enough, I would get confirmation—and the “I love yous” that I craved— from both of my parents.

Like many teenaged golden girls, I was a mixed-up combination of outer confidence and inner turmoil. I had a smile for everyone, and I turned handsprings and led cheers on the football field. I was elected student body president. I felt good when other people thought I led a charmed life. But at home, sitting at the dinner table with my own family, I longed for real communication and an emotional connection I could not define.

Anything but Typical

It wasn't surprising that I always had a boy by my side. Even at the tender age of sixteen, I was defining my worth by how I looked, what I did, and who I was with. So I dated boys who did well and looked good, like the football quarterback. I wasn't impressed with a guy like Alan Jackson, who didn't play school sports and only cared about getting to a job so that he could earn money to buy and renovate cars.

But then, a few months after we first met, I happened to see Alan at a friend's house. He was with a date, and so was I, but he asked if I'd like to go for a quick ride in his little 1955 Thunderbird convertible. It was gleaming white, a vintage sports car he and his daddy had painstakingly restored, and Alan looked like he'd been reconditioned too. His blond hair was now parted in the middle, blown back with wings in the Farrah Fawcett style of the day, and he gave me a confident grin.

“Sure,” I said, and we took off on a drive that lasted much longer than was polite. Then Alan went off with his date, and I went off with mine . . . but that little ride changed my mind about him, and the next time he called to ask me out, I was quick to say yes.

When he arrived to pick me up, he was in a big four-door Thunderbird sedan. I asked him if it was his mother's, and he laughed. Here he was, seventeen years old, and he had two cars, not because they had been given to him but because he had earned the money to buy them. We went to a movie in Atlanta, since Newnan had only one movie theater, with one screen— and then to the Steak 'n Shake for burgers, fries, and milkshakes. It was a typical small-town teenaged romance, with a twist . . . because anything with Alan Jackson is far from typical.

Chapter 3
WHERE HE CAME FROM

Where I come from it's cornbread and chicken
Where I come from a lotta back porch pickin'
Where I come from tryin' to make a livin'
Workin' hard to get to heaven
Where I come from, Yeah where I come from
A lotta front porch sitting
Starin' up at heaven where I come from

Alan Jackson, “Where I Come From”

A
lan was the youngest of five kids, the only boy.His daddy was a Ford mechanic, a man of very few words, who lived right, worked hard, and cared for his family. He also did untold acts of kindness for others that we didn't discover until his funeral in 2000, when dozens of people recounted his quiet impact on their lives.

Alan's parents had married when his mother was sixteen. She quit school to marry, and Alan's grandfather gave the teenaged couple his new twelve-by-twelve tool shed as their first home. They rolled it onto their property on big logs. As the kids started arriving, they were a bit crowded for space, so rooms were added to accommodate the growing family. There was one small bathroom for seven people, and for years Alan's bedroom was the hallway, with everyone passing through all the time. For Alan, it was like
The Waltons
—both of his grandmothers lived within one hundred feet of his home, his cousins were right down the road, and the Jacksons set a tone of hard work, temperance, and security, with everyone around, all the time.

In the beginning of our relationship, I'd go to Alan's for Sunday dinner, and his four older sisters, their husbands, and all their kids would be there. From the beginning, Alan's mother was always sweet and talkative; she made me feel right at home. I knew his daddy liked me too, but Daddy Gene was a very quiet man. After Alan and I had been dating for about a year, I commented to Alan that his father had never said my name, nor ever really talked to me.

Alan told his mother what I'd said. The next time I arrived for Sunday dinner, Alan's dad looked straight at me, nodded his head, and said, “Denise.” That was it. Not “Hello, Denise,” or “How are you?” Just my name. And for him, that was a stretch.

Seeds of Dreams

Alan inherited some of his dad's shy nature, but more of Daddy Gene's love for cars, his ability to make things run, his care for others, and his diligence. By the time Alan was twelve, he had his first job, working at a shoe store on Saturdays. He saved every dollar he earned, picking up other odd jobs along the way, rolling the coins he earned from his tips at the locally famous Sprayberry's Barbeque Restaurant. Later he worked as a furniture store delivery boy. And when he was fifteen, he had saved enough to buy his first car, that snowshoe white 1955 Thunderbird convertible. He had an unusual work ethic for a teenager.

He also had an unusual gift, his uncanny ability to duplicate sounds. If he was riding in the backseat of a car, he might cup his hands over his mouth and imitate a police siren, and whoever was driving would pull right over, or at least look in the rearview mirror.He scared his coworkers when he delivered furniture with them by making loud train sounds just as they were crossing the tracks. His animal imitations were pretty amazing as well.

ONE NIGHT ALAN'S FATHER WAS SITTING, SILENT AS USUAL, WATCHING
H EE H AW
WITH THE REST OF THE FAMILY. BUCK OWENS WAS SINGING A COUNTRY BALLAD, AND DADDY GENE TURNED TO ALAN. “YOU COULD DO THAT,” HE SAID.

More on point, he had a keen ear. He and his sisters had grown up singing in youth choirs, and his mother—whose maiden name was Musick—sang beautifully as she went about her work in the house. And though Alan's daddy never sang, he always put gospel music on their stereo on Sunday mornings as everyone was getting ready for church.

This was back when the variety show
Hee Haw
was popular on national network television. Each broadcast featured skits and appearances by major country singers. One night Alan's father was sitting, silent as usual, watching
Hee Haw
with the rest of the family. Buck Owens was singing a country ballad, and Daddy Gene turned to Alan. “You could do that,” he said.