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2000 Soap Box Archives An Observation On Turning Sixty-Four By the time you good people read this I will be sixty-four years old. It happens on the 28th of October and I will be doing a concert in Winona, Mississippi that night. When you say it out loud it really sounds old, after all sixty-four years is a long time, but I really don’t know what a sixty-four year old person is supposed to feel like. Myself, I feel creative, industrious and excited about all the things that I'm involved in or will be involved in in the future. It’s been a great sixty-four years, an exciting time to be alive. I have seen the advent of television, the jet airplane, computers, space travel and a thousand other wondrous things. When I look back to my humble beginnings in North Carolina all those decades ago I marvel at how much God has blessed me. I have had things happen to me which I didn’t even have the imagination to dream about when I was just starting out in life. I have a lot of mementos to remind me of how I've spent the major part of my life. A mantle full of awards and a wall with many gold and platinum albums hanging on it. I have a wonderful home, a barn full of horses and my pastures are dotted with fat cattle. I have a beautiful view from my front porch and the most outstanding sunsets. I have a four wheel drive in the garage and white tail deer jump across my fences on a regular basis. There are huge catfish in my pond and on a summer night you can hear a whipporwhill in the distance, and when the moon is full it hangs over our valley like an old friend. My son, Charlie and his wife, Lora live just down the road from us and we share the evening meal quite often. My neighbors are good people and I've got the greatest bunch of employees you could ever imagine. Some of them have been with me for over a quarter of a century. I live with the love of my life, my wonderful wife Hazel and we’re fastly approaching four decades of marriage. I get to walk on stage and entertain people all over this and other nations, something which I dearly love. I get to live in my beloved Tennessee and my football team is winning. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm quite content as I approach my sixty-fourth birthday. I am a man who has truly been blessed by Almighty God. I have spent my life in pursuit of the only profession I really care about being involved in. I have friends from coast to coast and I get to wake up in over a hundred different towns every year. I've got a good saddle, a gentle horse, plenty of firewood and my family loves me. But above all, I have Jesus Christ and without him everything else would mean very little. I sincerely thank all you wonderful people for buying our records and attending our shows and allowing me to live my dream. I thank you for standing by the C.D.B. all these years. We truly do care about each and every one of you The first sixty-four years have been a blast. I'm ready now to start the next sixty-four. God
Bless America
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