Book Review - This Life I Live

This Life I Live by Rory Feek.   One man's extraordinary, ordinary life and the woman who changed it forever.

Meet Rory Feek - A soft spoken man with a shy smile and twinkling eyes who favors farmer style overalls over a suit and tie or faded blue jeans.  Rory spent his childhood seeking love and affection from an absentee father, a mother who did the best she could, and an uncle who saw a spark, enough of something, to help him secure a much coveted guitar.  Rory bounced from woman to woman, eventually ending up with a failed marriage that left him determined to raise 2 daughters on his own.  Convinced his future was based in music, he relocated to Nashville and eventually met Joey, the woman who helped to change his life.  Along the way he found faith in God, and peace within himself....

Rory has an honest writing style that invites you to come sit on the porch with a glass of sweet tea and rock awhile.  His words spread smooth across the pages like maple syrup upon a stack of pancakes.  In order to see how far he's come, he starts at the beginning and pours his heart onto the pages.  He bares his soul and the truths rush out - booze, sex, forgiveness and redemption, guilt and shame.  Sometimes you have to live through the worse in order to find and truly appreciate the good...

• he grew up poor, moving from town to town, his family often fleeing in the middle of the night and the one small town that left a lasting impression
• how he spent a lifetime searching for the good that he remembers from his childhood 
• the uncle who served as a surrogate father, who saw a need in him and helped to fill it by purchasing one of Rory's drawings.  This same amazing man handed him a typewritten note that Rory carries with him to this day
• how stealing a case of Froot Loops almost prevented him from joining the marines
• when his first marriage fails he navigates the murky waters of fatherhood and chooses to raise his 2 girls alone, finally landing in Nashville so he can chase his dream of writing songs.

Sometimes God builds things that you don't see or even dream about.  And other times when a door closes, a window opens.  When Rory finally meets Joey, a vet assistant with aspirations of becoming a singer, they are both in relationships with other people.  A series of chance encounters eventually brings them together and soon they are married and living in Rory's remodeled farmhouse.   Life isn't easy for the couple at first and they quickly discover that they each have very different ideas of what their marriage roles should be.  And almost as soon as Joey secures a recording contract, her dreams are dashed.  Through their strong faith in God they discover that it's never too late to start over.  Rory continues writing hit songs, Joey opens a cafe with her sister in law, and a meeting with another song writer leads them to a 3rd place finish on the CMT competition Can you Duet.  This inspires them to start a recording career together, something they hadn't considered before.  God does work in mysterious ways, doesn't He?

But life doesn't always travel the road you think it should.  In 2014 the couple decided to take a break from their music careers and concentrate on living at home with Rory's daughters and raising their new daughter, Indiana, who was born in February of that year.  Within days they discovered that Indiana was born with Down Syndrome and by May Joey had been diagnosed with cervical cancer.  After surgery and treatment she was declared cancer free, only to have it come back a year later.   Unfortunately this time the prognosis was devastating and by October of 2015 they found out she was terminal.  It will hit you in the gut when you realize that Joey was not going to survive and that Rory would be left to raise another daughter alone.  

Circumstances like these are enough to break a person.  And yet Rory Feek is a man who took all that life threw at him and made a life worth something.  This is not a book about death.  It's a book about life and how to see what's important.  It is Rory's story of faith, love and hope.  It's his message of believing in something bigger than yourself.

Last year, just before Joey's death, the couple released their final album - Hymns That are Important to Us.  This album was a labor of love and faith for the couple.  As Joey was undergoing cancer treatments she recorded her vocals in hotel rooms whenever she felt up to it.  At the 2017 Grammy awards a few weeks ago their album won for Best Roots Gospel Album.  Do you think Joey knew?  I do.

I listen to country music so I was familiar with Joey & Rory since their first hit song, Cheater, Cheater  and therefore I knew who Rory was when I ran across his blog This Life I Live.   It chronicled their journey as Joey navigated her last few months and continues today as Rory's life takes on a new direction.  

In an ironic twist of fate, Joey & Rory recorded "When I'm Gone" in 2013, and made a music video depicting Rory living in their farmhouse where Joey is buried among the trees in a back field.  The video is beautiful and I guarantee you will have trouble holding back the tears.

Visit the Joey & Rory FB page.
For more excellent books by Thomas Nelson Publishing please visit their website.

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(I was given an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  All opinions are my own.  Photo images are the property of the publisher and cannot be reproduced without consent.) 

Country Music Hall of Fame

 

I've been talking about our recent day trip to Nashville and if you missed the posts you can catch up here and here.   Today I want to share our visit to The Country Music Hall of Fame.  If you're a fan of country music, and I am, then no trip to Nashville would be complete without a stop here.  The Hall of Fame is extensive and you will easily spend several hours there. 



 

Here we are walking up the staircase to the Circle Room.  Plaques line the walls honoring Country Music legends.

Some of my favorites are....

The Carter Family is regarded as the first stars of country music and their influence in the genre reaches far and wide. 

Large glass cases hold displays on country artists old and new.  Each display typically has a signature outfit, photos, awards and musical instruments pertaining to that particular artist.

They have several walls covered with gold records.....

One of my favorite displays is the artist guitar section....

Have you ever seen Elvis Presley's gold Cadillac?  Very cool!

The selection of signs and posters was awesome.  I saw several that I'd love to have myself.

They have a nice exhibit on Reba ....

 

Chablis and I are big fans of Miranda Lambert and her display was the main reason that Chablis constantly bugged me requested we make the trip to Nashville.  She had to see the Miranda exhibit.

 



Chablis was in 7th heaven.....

 

 

For a close up and personal view of all things country, the Country Music Hall of Fame is worth the trip.  It's open daily except for three major holidays.  You are welcome to roam the museum at your leisure or for an additional charge you can do the audio tour.  Pricing for the museum depends upon which package you choose.  They also have a huge gift shop where I purchased an excellent book on the history of country music, as well as 2 CD's of country classics.

 

 

My all time favorite country music star is Johnny Cash.  Who is your favorite?





Antique Archaeology - Nashville

We love to watch the television show Antique Archaeology and last year we drove to LeClaire, Iowa to see their original store and do a little geocaching along the way.  I did a blog post about it here.

 



They have a second store in Nashville, Tennessee and I added a visit there to my list of things to do on our recent trip to Nashville.  I did a blog post about some of that trip last week. 

 

The Nashville store is housed in the former Marathon Automobile plant.  The building itself is a gorgeous two and three story affair made of rustic red brick and galvanized gutters, with original logos and artwork on its face.  Marathon Motor Works was in existence for only a few short years, but during that time they were well known for their unusual practice of engineering and building every car and its components completely in house.  Along the way they developed a reputation for creating cars that were durable and of good quality.  Unfortunately, due to poor management and financial decisions, the company rapidly fell into decline and ceased to exist.  To read more about this short lived innovator, go here.

 

The building itself is a beautiful choice for Antique Archaeology's second location.  It's several blocks off the main drag and we actually drove thru a residential area to get there.  The street and parking lot were lined with cars and there was a steady flow of people going in and out of the store.

Inside was packed, floor to ceiling, with items of all kinds.  Since we are avid fans of the show, we saw several things in the store that we had seen purchased on the show.  Prices are a bit high and we saw more people browsing than actually buying.   There are also many Antique Archaeology souvenir items for sale, like books, tee shirts, mugs etc. 

For anyone who likes to browse antique shops and poke through signs and bikes, vintage clothing, Civil War memorabilia, lighters, lamps, and all things rusty, well then this is the place for you.

My favorite item was the vintage gas pump.  I liked the size, the red color and the rusted exterior of it.

 

We didn't buy anything, but it was great fun to go through the store and check everything out.  Afterwards we grabbed a geocache outside the building called Nashville Pickers.  It was a quick and easy geocache and now we've found a geocache at both locations.

Next up is a blog post about The Country Music Hall of Fame, so please come back.