Sadie Was A Lady - And My Best Friend

Sadie was a looker. As a young girl she wore her thick brown hair falling around her shoulders, her eyes were soulful and yearning in a bed of natural tan skin. She was a gypsy. Picture Sofia Vergarsa (of Modern Family). Men were mesmerized. It took her a long time to distinguish the difference between love and adoration. She married many times, and they were short lived. Finally, she became aware of the pattern, and made the decision to be an independent woman.

I met her at a musician’s house. I was a young aspiring song writer, and she was introduced to me as a lady who had just written a song for Eddie Arnold. “Enclosed, One Broken Heart.” I was 20 years younger than her and I was simply awed out of my mind. She dressed the part, and represented all I wanted to be. Her clothes were flamboyant. She wore a wooden cross around her neck mixed with other chains and hanging bangles that dazzled my eyes. She spoke southern. Honey was a strong word in her vocabulary. I liked her. Events that brought us together forged an eventual friendship.

I don’t suppose there is one single moment when a friendship is formed. For some it is instant and for others it is a series of kindnesses. In our case, it was music and a mutual desire to skirt around the edges of the rich and famous. She worked as a switchboard operator for a local TV station and she liked nothing better than dropping names and showing pictures she had taken with famous people coming through town to promote their movies. Consequently, her own son became a celebrity. Jimmy Hart was one of the beginning rock groups, The Gentrys. He then became a spokesman for World Wide Wrestling, and managed Hulk Hogan. He was known as The Mouth Of The South.

Over a period of 40 years, we sang in churches, wrote songs, learned to shoot a gun, picked blackberries, canned fruit, rode horses and a long list of unusual things. For sure, Sadie was not a bore, but a generous loving sassy lady. She carried a big velvet purse, played the piano, strummed a hand saw with a fiddle bow. She was a movie extra, and performed in puppet shows. Lover of life.

I am so lucky to have had such a funny, talented friend. She was killed in a car wreck a few years ago, and I really miss her. But I’m not sad, because I know she’s probably in the musicians section standing in the wings (pun intended) waiting to perform with Eddie Arnold.

Cheers to friendship!