When I worked at the employee's cafe at Opryland amusement park, Roy Acuff routinely pulled me off the hot food line and insisted I have lunch with him. He knew LBJ.
The father of one of my best friends, a graphic artist, has a dad who served on the White House Police force. Not the secret service; he worked an automobile gate into the grounds during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations. Agnew, Jackie O/K, Howard Baker and G Gordon Liddy all referred to him by first name, although his nametag only said "Officer Williamson."
One of my current friends, and the dad of perhaps AfK's best friend was city law director under Mayor Victor Ashe here in Knoxville. Victor was drinking buddies with W at Yale.
Dolly Parton once hit me with a trailer door, looked me in the eye, and said "Get out of the way, you little shit." The trailer was her dressing room, in 1977, for a Porter Wagoner TV taping; she had mounted herself into her 40 pound dress as instructed, and then was told that there could be up to a 2 hour delay until her part was shot due to some sort of lighting rig problem, so she was already mad. She disappeared into her trailer to mope, and hit me the next time she came out to whine some more about the injustice that was being done to her. Why was I there? I was one of the area sweepers, keeping the place clean. Dolly Parton, as you know, is a trashy-mouthed beloved national treasure, for reasons only God himself knows. But it's undeniable that she personally knows almost everybody in the music industry of a certain ilk.
