2003 Soap Box Archives

Is This A Great Country Or What? 04/18/03

I try to remember everyday to thank God for allowing me to make a
living in a business I love so very much.

We are just beginning our 2003 tour and just the sheer joy of traveling
around the country with a bunch of great guys and entertaining people
is nothing short of wonderful.

People are constantly asking me when I’m going to retire. What in the
world would I do if I was to retire? Probably sit around the living
room and play my guitar.

I’m addicted to performing music, to tell you the truth I just can’t
imagine my life without it.

Another great thing about my job is that I get to see so much of this
great nation. Last night I was in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Tonight I’m
in Marksville, Louisiana and tomorrow night I’ll be in New Braunfels,
Texas and on it goes. We have performed in all fifty states and most
all of the towns of any size at all in the last thirty years.

I just love waking up on my bus in the morning and pulling back the
curtain and seeing what motel parking lot I’m in.

We put in over one hundred thousand miles a year almost every year and
I love it all. If you’ve never traveled across this United States I
highly recommend it. There is no place like it on earth.

I know a lot of people like to go to New York or Los Angeles or some
beach towns like Miami for their vacation and they are all wonderful.
But there is a lot of country between the Atlantic and the Pacific that
a lot of people never see. And there’s a lot going on in some of the
small towns, down to earth folksy stuff like the Watermelon Festival in
Hope, Arkansas and the Black Eyed Pea Festival in Athens, Texas.

There’s the greatest rodeo in the world every July in Cheyenne, WY.
It’s called Cheyenne Frontier Days and known as The Daddy of ‘Em All”
and has been going on for over a hundred years.

There’s fly fishing and white water rafting in Montana and just to
watch the sun go down in Big Sky country is worth the price of the trip.

The deserts of Arizona are mysterious and vast and possess a unique
kind of beauty, changing colors as the sun works its way across a
flawless blue sky.
The high peaks of Colorado have snow on the top year round and the
sheer size and scope of the Rocky Mountains are enough to take your
breath away.

There’s a barbecue joint in Memphis that will make your tongue slap
your eyeballs out and a Mexican restaurant in Amarillo that will make
you want to speak Spanish.

The fishing boats sail the cold waters off the North Oregon coast
bringing home their catch just as day is done and if you’re lucky
you’ll see a herd of wild horses running flat out across the high
desert stretches of Nevada.
In the Big Bend country of Texas cowboys in full regalia still
ride and rope and sit around cook fires in the evening drinking coffee
and enjoying the solitude of an isolated cow camp.

Have you ever had a Georgia peach just off the tree or a fresh caught
lobster at some little seaside cafe in New England?

Have you ever seen the lights of El Paso from a winding road high up in
the Franklin Mountains or crossed the Bay at Galveston on a ferry boat?

All this and so much more. America the beautiful. America my home.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

 

©Copyright The Charlie Daniels Band