I have sorta kinda come to terms with the fact that it’s been ten years since I’ve been to Opryland. Ten years since I rode the Wabash Cannonball, ten years since I’ve boarded the train at Grinder’s Switch…I’ve come to a level of acceptance that I will never again stand in line at the Flume Zoom and hear the sounds of Russ and Becky Jeffers warbling about that Fox on the Run across the way at the Martin Theater…The days are but a memory when I could see “Country Music USA” and “I Hear America Singing”…I will never zip around the Rockin’ Roller Coaster, go down the stairs and back up again for another spin with Chubby Checker blaring on a jukebox in the background…no more Tram rides at 10:00 at night when the park has closed…no more hearing the voice in the back of the tram say “Tram Stop B….alllllll klurrr.”
I’ll never again get on the Sky Ride and hold my breath til we get to the other side, anxious that the cable will stop midway across like it was known to do…splash my hands in the fountain with the blue water in the New Orleans area….get a really bad cariacature done of myself…stand in line for hours at the Grizzly River Rampage and close my eyes really tight in the cave, so as not to see the scary, stuffed bear (I did this even when I was grown and rode the ride with my own kids) and then get soaked on that last dip towards the end…I’ll never put my children on the Mini Rockin’ Roller Coaster, airplanes, mini ferris wheel and cars that I rode over and over myself when I was a kid.
Really, I’ve come to a level of acceptance of these things. Life is about change, blah blah. I’ll never forgive the buttheads who decided there had to be a mall right in the spot where Opryland was. No, we had to have a mall right there next to the Grand Ole Opry. I imagine Roy and Minnie have turned a few somersaults in their graves over this stuff.
Everytime I’m at Opry Mills and can smell the Opryland Smell that still lingers, I guess, from the Cumberland River, there’s a for real sadness and just plain pissed off-ness that I can’t pretend I don’t feel. I can deal with it though.
I thought I had dealt with my feelings about the whole Opryland is closed thing, ok, until yesterday when we went to the Mall to go to eat for Nephew Smiff’s birthday. (I’m not going to even go into how one should never go to Opry Mills during Tax Free weekend, even though we got some splendid bargains on clothes).
When I saw this right here, I thought I was going to throw 
up all over the flower bed where me and Patrick had our prom picture made. Somebody try to explain to me what the retards at Opryland were thinking when they decided to paint one of the few things that remains from our blessed theme park this horrendous, putred color?
August 5, 2007
sistasmiff
22 responses to “They Paved Paradise and Put Up A Parking Lot”
Short and Fat
August 6th, 2007 at 06:35
I don’t know anything about it, but if I had to guess, it looks like the building is going to be used as a Mexican restaurant.
Lesley
August 6th, 2007 at 06:58
Because the Gay Lords are retards.
Busy Mom
August 6th, 2007 at 08:20
I actually feel the same way about Opryland. Very sad that my kids will never go there.
Sarcastro
August 6th, 2007 at 10:17
Next spring will be the ten year anniversary of all those folks from places like Oklahoma and Wisconsin who drove 14 hours to find their vacation plans in ruins and local TV news people laughing at them on-air.
Paul
August 6th, 2007 at 10:27
…and could someone please explain why there are still “Opryland” signs on the interstate? Does ‘Grand Ole Uproar’ = Opryland? (say it ain’t so)
Cookie
August 6th, 2007 at 10:39
Oh…I miss Opryland! What a terrible, terrible shame that it is gone. The last time I went we were there on a school trip at the Halloween-fest. When we got home that night the closing announcement was on the 10 o’clock news. What a shame.
Thanks for the reminder post. My favorite was the “Old Mill Scream”…but the swings were awesome on a hot day, especially when you were wet from just getting off the “Scream”.
W
August 6th, 2007 at 11:08
Paul, I think the official position on why those signs still say ‘opryland’ is that it’s a bona fide part of town now. Like Bellevue or Germantown. Plus the hotel is still called Opryland and the mall has it in the name.
Goofy, but everyone I know who lived here back before it closed does call that area Opryland now.
katie
August 6th, 2007 at 11:35
That’s awful.
melissa
August 6th, 2007 at 11:39
I live and work in the opryland area and I still don’t know why they painted that building that way. I’m going to have to investigate.
Jim
August 6th, 2007 at 11:53
As much fun as it was to get season tickets and just go people watch at the park, it was truly doomed from day one. There wasn’t enough land for them to continue to expand and add rides. That lack of expandability kills theme parks. They couldn’t go up since the land’s too soggy, being right next to the river. There are a lot of reasons to hate Gaylord (their HR attitudes for starters), but Opryland was destined to sink sooner or later. What better to represent the new improved Nashville than Shopryland, complete with a Bass Pro outlet for us rednecks.
sista
August 6th, 2007 at 11:56
Remember when the park flooded in the 70′s?
grandefille
August 6th, 2007 at 12:56
I will never hear anyone talk about the Cumberland getting up without getting a menta;l picture of the aerial footage of those poor black Angus cattle and some of the bison standing out in the parking lot with the water up to their necks.
I remember when the “shoppertainment” story broke. They heard me laughing uproariously all the way back to the pressroom.
Baby Fishmouth refuses to go there anymore, by the way. She flat told her parents that she “don’t like too much noise! Too much people!” And this is from a child who just about has to be hospitalized from exhaustion every weekend because she has to visit with EVERYBODY when they go to town.
sista
August 6th, 2007 at 13:13
Cousin Buddy used to get lost at Opryland every single time we went. 10:00 at night and a panic would set in…”Where’s Buddy?” Usually riding the train making friends with the conductor. I remember one of the train guys flattening a quarter to amuse me oncet.
introverted one
August 6th, 2007 at 13:44
It’s painted pea soup colored for some sort of Grinch themed Christmas for Ice.
grandefille
August 6th, 2007 at 14:29
It’s painted pea soup colored for some sort of Grinch themed Christmas for Ice.
And you have to pay $5 to stand by it.
;0)
lcreekmo
August 6th, 2007 at 20:11
I’d just like to say, the most brilliant post title, ever. Just ever.
gavin
August 7th, 2007 at 00:07
funny, wife & friend today went to opryland hotel today and walked by the old rapids spot and spoke of the same rides they loved. me, i only went once as i grew up in the north and only came down here on youth group stop.
Vicki
August 7th, 2007 at 11:34
I loved Opryland when I was a teen. My family would visit often from our home in Kentucky. DH and I drove around there in May, and can still visualize where so much of the park was.
Marion
August 8th, 2007 at 20:49
Did you ever have your picture made with that freaky walkin’ guitar and banjo? I threw funnel cake on Wayne Baldwin from the Tennessee Waltz and got sent back to the Preacher’s Creatures bus early to wait with the parents seein’ as how I couldn’t behave n’ all.
sistasmiff
August 9th, 2007 at 07:17
I have a picture somewhere of me and Cousin Buddy and one of those guitars!
I have a funny funnel cake/Opryland story I need to tell sometime. Preachers Creatures…heh.
Marion, you should have you a blog.
Stephanie
September 12th, 2007 at 23:03
I grew up in Smyrna, moved to PA in 1981 when I was ten. Between Hot Wheels Roller Disco in Murfreesboro and Opryland, my summers rocked. I hated that bear in the Grizzly River Rampage as well. Always scared the crap out of me. I get a little choked up when I go back now and everything is so different.
Don
February 2nd, 2008 at 09:17
February 2,2008
my first visit to Opryland was in 1993 I’ll also never forget the skyride or the old mill scream or the grizzly river rampage I always wanted to go as a child but never got to but ceased the chance in July 1993 and again in July 1994 my younger brother and sister and I all saved coke cans because coca-cola had a special two dollar off admission promotion going on I will also never forget WSM radio’s live broadcast from the park it’s too sad to think about now how my kids will never experience such a wonderful and strikingly beautiful place as opryland was I only wish to hear that a new one will be built someday in the near future it was what Nashville was all about.
4 Trackbacks / Pingbacks
Music City Bloggers » Blog Archive » Hideous, Thy Name Is MillsCorp. August 6th, 2007 at 10:00
[...] Sista misses her some Opryland. I’ll never again get on the Sky Ride and hold my breath til we get to the other side, anxious that the cable will stop midway across like it was known to do…splash my hands in the fountain with the blue water in the New Orleans area….get a really bad cariacature done of myself…stand in line for hours at the Grizzly River Rampage… [...]
Lake Neuron » Dreaming of Chaos August 6th, 2007 at 11:12
[...] I just want to ditto everything Sista Smiff has to say about Opryland. [...]
Stink, Stank, Stunk « A Whiff of Smiff September 26th, 2007 at 08:10
[...] Stink, Stank, Stunk 26 09 2007 This is an explanation of this. [...]
If They Don’t Edit Me Out… « A Whiff of Smiff November 25th, 2008 at 00:10
[...] I kid, but, I am kinda excited to see the WNPT special Memories of Opryland this Sunday. Not just cause I’m in it (I dread seeing myself on tv…I bet I look and sound like a dork) but cause I loves me some Opryland and am STILL not over it not being there anymore. [...]