Rocky Top Fight Song

Marie Wilson's Life Is Like a Country Song

Marie Wilson lives alone in a small apartment in a quiet cul-de-sac in Powell. Some days are better than others, but she gets around pretty well for a lady going on 86. She spends some mornings out sunning herself on her concrete stoop. If you sit down and talk with her for a while, she’s likely to stand up more often than you do. You might gather she still has a restless streak.

She doesn’t think of herself as presentable these days. She wears clashing colors just because she can. She’ll pour you a cup of coffee and make you a sandwich, but she prefers not to be photographed because she’s lost most of her hair. Still, some women half a century younger might envy her luminescent blue eyes. They might also envy her memories of certain old pals like Elvis Presley and Hank Williams. Her photo albums are like none others in the world.

Her home decor features a few artifacts that might bewilder a curious burglar. A private detective’s badge, for example. She was once a shamus. On her wall is a plaque that says, “To Miss Wilson, World’s Greatest Bus Driver.”

There’s her security clearance to work for the Atomic Energy Commission. “I worked on the atom bomb,” she says in the same tone you might expect a lady to say she’d strung a mess of beans. That was after she did some welding for Navy battleships.

There’s a twinkle in her eye, and you might think she’s an old lady pulling your leg. Nobody’s done all the things she says she has. “I wouldn’t believe it, myself,” she says. But her apartment is a museum of evidence. The most startling bit of it, hanging on her wall near her efficiency kitchen, not far from the Greatest Bus Driver plaque, is a gold record.

The Country-Music Pantheon: See if you can find Willie Nelson at this 1959 awards gala, held at Nashville’s Belle Meade Country Club, which drew many of the songwriters and performers who dominated country music from the 1940s through the 1970s. A selective sample includes Bill Anderson (upper left), who was later a familiar TV figure; Harlan Howard (smiling, at top); Mel Tillis (just above center, looking to left); Buck Owens (to the right of Mel Tillis); Pee Wee King, composer of the “Tennessee Waltz,” among other things (at left, looking up at camera); Cindy Walker, former Hollywood professional who became perhaps Nashville’s first female country songwriter (“You Don’t Know Me,” “Dream Baby”) (in foreground in white); Jim Reeves, (to the right of Walker, in white jacket with black lapel), the popular singer/songwriter killed in a 1964 plane crash; Skeeter Davis (excited-looking woman standing right behind Reeves), who had hits with several of Marie Wilson’s songs; Boudleaux Bryant (in glasses, looking toward Reeves), with his wife Felice (not pictured), wrote most of the Everly Brothers hits, and later a song called “Rocky Top”; 23-year-old Roger Miller (just behind Bryant, with prominent forehead); and Lorene Mann (woman standing by the sofa). Marie Wilson is in lower center, looking directly at the camera. The 26-year-old Willie Nelson is at top, right of center, looking grim and nervous. He was then known and respected by other songwriters, but would not be famous as a performer until about 15 years later, after reinventing himself as an “outlaw.” He and Harlan Howard, standing near him, wrote Patsy Cline’s two biggest hits, “Crazy” and “I Fall to Pieces,” respectively.

Tennessee Has College Football's Best Pregame Rituals | Sports ...

Every school has tailgate parties, pre-game rituals and traditions. It’s part of what makes college football, well, college football.

At Ohio State, a lucky dignitary gets to ‘dot the i’ in the Ohio script.

At Texas, the band marches into the stadium, after which the cheerleaders in those cowgirl uniforms hang around to pose for photos and chat with family members and friends.

At Clemson – or Clempson, as the fans call it – the crowd gets fired up when the team runs down a hill and players rub “the rock.”

USC’s band – led by the unbeatable Song Girls – marches through campus and stops at Tommy Trojan to encourage the students and alumni to pack up the tailgate party and head to the Coliseum.

At Florida they have the Gator Walk and at Alabama they have the Elephant Stomp.

But none put them all together like good ‘ol Rocky Top, the University of Tennessee, which has the Best Pregame Celebration in College Football.

First of all, there’s the Volunteer Navy, or Vol Navy for short. This is a fleet of boats, mostly houseboats of rich alumni, tied up along the Tennessee River; Neyland Stadium is one of only two college facilities located on a river, U-Dub being the other. And they welcome all travelers. The Navy arrives on Thursday, parties on Friday and goes big on Saturday. Show up and they will give you a drink and a Volunteer Navy coozie to use for the weekend. Tip: Start at the outdoor deck of Calhoun’s , the rib restaurant, on Friday evening and then walk down to meet the members of the Vol Navy.

Then there’s the campus. It’s sprawling and contains many pockets of people partying among the grass and trees. The eventual destination is the main tailgate area at the parking lot next to Neyland Stadium. This area is known as “G10.”

But don’t get too comfortable, because the real pregame festivities have yet to take place. This starts with the “Vol Walk,” which involves the players and coaches walking from Gibbs Hall (the athletic dorm) into the stadium. Frankly, this is mainly for kids who want to see the players before they are in those bright orange uniforms, but it’s cool to witness for a first-timer to Knoxville. Plus, it’s between G10 and the next pregame stop.

And that would be one of college football’s great pregame traditions, known as the “Salute to the Hill.” This sends chills up the spines of anyone in orange. It’s when the Pride of the Southland Band. UT’s band, marches from its music building through campus and comes down by the student center to the “T” on the street in front of the stadium. There, the band stops marching, turns toward Cumberland Ave., and pays tribute to “the Hill.” the big climb that is the original part of campus. (Climbing the hill to class is why UT girls are said to have the best legs of any coeds in the South.

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