This might very well be the best news story of the entire weekend. (And it is a long weekend, too.)
Little Jimmy Dickens, the 92-year-old Grand Ole Opry star, was back on the famed circle of wood Friday night after having radiation treatments for a pre-cancerous condition on his vocal chords.
Listeners to the longest-running radio show in America will know much of this year found the star missing each weekend when the big curtain lifted. Dickens has been a fixture on the Opry since he became a member in 1948.
There is something every special when hearing the legend performing again.
After a week when Miley Cyrus embarrassed herself on television it is good to know that a solid performer like Dickens who has weathered it all still stands strong.
There is a lesson here for Cyrus who seems unable to square her need for fame with her obvious need to grow up and mature. After strutting like a stripper without a pole in front of anyone who had nothing better to do than watch she now would be advised to take a lesson from Dickens.
Dickens came up in the music industry when singers went from one radio station to the next asking for their records to be played. They pulled their truck into a grocery store parking lot and sang a few songs from the bed of the vehicle, and once done climbed down and sold their own records to the crowd before moving on to the next town. There was no slick PR to make anyone more than what they were.
In the end the ones with real talent found their way to the tips of tongues of people all over the nation. There is something to be said for taking the slower route to the top, while learning to live life along the way.
At age 92 Dickens is loved at the Opry, by young and old alike. Watch the crowds, or listen to them to see the reaction when he walks out on the stage.
Meanwhile Miley Cyrus created a spectacle from her performance that made a week’s worth of headlines, but is viewed more and more as a troubled performer on the edge of what happens to so many like her. There is no one who thinks that Cyrus will be anywhere near a stage being greeted with applause in 70 years.
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