Loretta Lynn_ Coal Miner's Daughter - Loretta Lynn [5]
Well, Doo leaned back in his chair and thought about it for a minute. Then he said, “Hell’s fire, Loretta, just tell the story the way it happened. I’ve always said you should never try to cover up things. Look, we’re not perfect. Let’s not pretend we are.”
I agree with that. Nobody’s perfect. The only one that ever was, was crucified. And sometimes I think our problems are made worse by the kind of business we’re in.
Doo don’t really like to be cooped up. He’d rather be out on the ranch, training his bird dogs, and I don’t blame him. Heck, I don’t like being cooped up either, only it seems that’s what my life has become.
It’s a strange deal. I’m supposed to be a country singer, writing songs about marriage and family and the way normal folks live. But mostly I’m living in motel rooms and traveling on my special bus with my private bedroom in the back. I don’t even open the shades in my bus anymore. I’ve seen every highway in the United States by now, and they all look alike to me.
Playing these road shows is a weird experience. One minute I’m out on that stage, usually dressed in my long-sleeved, floor-length gowns, with my hair hanging down to my shoulders, smiling at my fans. There’s such a feeling of love between me and those people. I know it shows on my face. Being on stage is the best part of my career. I just say whatever comes into my head, and I joke with my band, and we all have a good time. It’s the only time when I really feel grown-up and in control of things.
As soon as that show is over, I sign autographs, if I’m not feeling sick, and then we pull away into the darkness and the fans just melt away. Then it’s just me and Doolittle and the boys in my band rolling down the highway.
It’s kind of lonely on the road. My first four kids are kind of grown-up now, but I still miss them and my eleven-year-old twins, who mostly stay home with the housekeeper. I’ve been trying to cut back on my road dates, but we still need the money because of some of the things we’d like to do. When you’ve got around fifty people on your payroll—heck, it used to be sixty-eight—the account books tell you to keep working.
It’s getting so bad I don’t even feel comfortable in my own house anymore. I get home for a day or two, and by the time I unpack my bags and see what’s changed since I left, it’s time to get moving again. Then all my family and fans come to visit, and I start getting so nervous in my own house that I sometimes even check into a motel in Nashville.
I was fighting with Doolittle one day about what kind of wallpaper we should put in our bedroom. We do the papering ourselves. When you’re poor folks from eastern Kentucky, you don’t lose the habit of doing things for yourself. Anyway, I wanted one color and Doo wanted another. Finally he said, “Hey, I spend more time in this house than you do.” That hurt me, but it was the truth.
Being alone so much, I often get to thinking about my younger days. Things I’d like to tell somebody, if I had somebody to talk to. I can remember how poor we were—waiting to get new shoes in the fall, walking across the first frost in my bare feet, sometimes sharing shoes until your feet got bunions on ’em.
It’s funny how most of the things I remember are about being poor. When I first started making money in Nashville, I was convinced I was gonna be poor again. Now I’ve sold millions of records, and my company tells me I’ve got a million dollars just sitting in the bank. But I could survive if we got poor again. In some ways, that was the best part of my life, learning how to survive.
Somebody said I should write all these memories down. But it ain’t like writing a song. I mean, when I get a title for a song, I scribble it down on a napkin or an old paper bag, anything that’s handy. Then when I get back to my room, I just start singing those words until I’ve got me a song.
People say I can’t read or write because I’ve only got about a fourth-grade education. But I can read and write some. I’m not pretending I know how to write a book—not even a book about me. I’m too nervous