Loretta Lynn_ Coal Miner's Daughter - Loretta Lynn [99]
We were in the middle of a long tour. We try to make the dates as close as possible, in a straight line, but it’s not always possible. When you get a good offer in Toronto on a Thursday night, you take it. That’s why we have the bus, so we don’t have to depend on airplanes. We can go a thousand miles between shows if we have to. On this trip, we’d gone from West Virginia to Toronto and back into Ohio again. I had this migraine headache, and my doctor had just told me my blood pressure was up. So I was a little scared and got to thinking about giving up this business, and I was missing my twins, like I do, as this weekend started.
Friday, May 5, Cincinnati, Ohio: It’s four o’clock in the afternoon and I’m trying to take a nap in my hotel room. We’ve been driving all night from Toronto and I’m exhausted. I just took a nice, long bath and I’d love to sleep some more, but my fans are running up and down the hallways, giggling and banging on doors. We try to keep our hotel a secret, but it’s not hard to spot our big bus with my name on the side. The hotel’s not supposed to give out our room numbers, but the fans find out somehow. Bless ’em, I love ’em all, but I wish they wouldn’t disturb me and my boys when we’re trying to sleep.
At times like this, I really feel sorry for Jim Webb. He’s been with me a couple of years now. He used to drive for Continental Trailways, but he never had a schedule like this. He’s expected to drive all night, though Dave Thornhill, my lead guitar man, takes over on long hauls like last night. Jim is trying to sleep in the next room, and they’re banging on his door.
There’s no sense trying to sleep. I look out the window, at the interstate highway over the river into Kentucky. The bridge is jammed with mountain people heading home for the weekend. I start thinking about the hollers in May, how they’re just bursting with green leaves. Then I remember the old Depression days, and I decide I ain’t so homesick after all.
Jim Webb gives up sleeping, too. He bangs on my door and wanders in—he’s a big boy, around six-foot-four, from Laurel, Mississippi. His hair is styled just like Elvis Presley’s. Jim is a very important part of my tour. In addition to driving the bus, he takes all the telephone calls and makes travel arrangements. I depend on him, particularly when Doo’s not around, like now.
“Did you eat yet?” Jim says. That’s one of his jobs—to make sure I remember to eat. We’re always worried about keeping my weight up, so he orders me a steak and baked potato with string beans and salad and pie and ice cream. He watches over me until I finish eating. Then it’s time to leave for the show. I just wear my regular travel slacks and go down to the bus.
That bus is important to us. We sleep in it and I do all my dressing in it. We found it was better to have a bus with a dressing room, instead of counting on using whatever they give us at the auditoriums. Sometimes they’ve got good rooms, and sometimes just a bathroom without even a mirror. But we’ve always got the bus.
We got our first bus in 1967, after my babies were born. It was better than traveling by car with Doolittle or Jay Lee driving. Now it’s like a second home. Truck drivers see my name on the bus and wave as they go past. Last year when there were gasoline shortages and the truckers went on strike, people were shooting out windows on trucks. But we didn’t have any trouble. In fact, that crazy Tom T. Hall had bought my old bus with the sign “Loretta Lynn” still on the front, and he didn’t have no trouble either.
Our bus cost around $147,000 to fix up. I designed it myself. It’s regulation length. The front is for the driver and has couches for sitting. The upholstery is purple velvet, and there’s a violet-patterned carpet and a ceiling of white leatherette. There are some little gold tassels and stuff to give it a fancy feeling. The boys say it looks like a hearse. Up front we’ve got a little refrigerator, a television