...or, the Half Century Love Affair Between Fly-over America and a Renown Homosexual.
James Thurston Nabors was performing in Las Vegas long, long ago when casino magnate and racing and historical car buff Bill Harrah befriended him and invited him to attend the Indianapolis 500 with him. Virtually everyone in America by then knew Nabors from his iconic roles on both The Andy Griffith Show and then his own spinoff from it, Gomer Pyle, USMC. He'd had a couple year run with his own TV variety show, and most everyone knew was was a h3llofa singer, too.
Most of America also was aware he was gay, especially after the rumors of a marriage to Rock Hudson spewed forth. Nevertheless, America still loved Gomer.
Now, there's probably not too many institutes in traditional America that're more "privileged"and "conservative" than the Indianapolis 500. Even on this Board in the last week there's been a poster lamenting the fact of how conservative Morgan County, Indiana is (Morgan County is the county immediately south of Indianapolis' Marion County; it's also the past Indiana County home of the KKK and John Dillinger). The lazy, progressive thinker (I'm here thru Thursday, folks) may automatically assume that such a homestead of Republican, conservative America would be the very last place a famous homosexual would find a home...
...but an old, conservative, mucho-opinionated, stubborn white guy of rich German extraction named Tony Hulman owned the Indianapolis Motor Speedway when Gomer showed-up for the first time, and he was a fan, too. Mr. Hulman invited Mr. Nabors to sing, and Nabors was happy to do so.
The story goes that shortly before the race, he was directed to coordinate with the director of the Purdue University Marching Band (they play all the tunes during pre-race ceremonies). Nabors supposedly asked the director something about the Star Spangled Banner (assuming that was what he was to sing), but the director told him no, he was supposed to sing Back Home Again. Gomer was stunned: he knew the tune but not the words. So, with 5 minutes to go, Pyle wrote the words to the song on his hand, from which he would crib his very first performance among 300,000+ fans.
That was 42 years ago.
In between then and yesterday, the 98th running of the Indy 500, and after a liver transplant, a knee replacement, a pacemaker and a heart valve inserted, and a much-publicized same-sex marriage, Nabors managed to perform his last iconic role for 34 years - or more than a third of the history of the great race itself.
You can witness the last public act of that 42-year love affair between fly-over America and almost-84 year-old Jim Nabors as he performs for the last time at the Speedway yesterday in the video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FShIfw0s7KA
And, if you watch him perform The Impossible Dream from almost 50 years ago in the video below, you can hear the man has lost hardly any authority:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5KeGccP9Jk
Sunday, May 29, 2016 (weather and Allah permitting), will host the 100th anniversary running of the Indianapolis 500; it's going to be a magical occasion for the 300,000+ in attendance at the Brickyard, and a whole bunch of those hundreds of thousands will no doubt be the stereotypical rednecks and wingtards GB progressives love to so lazily generalize here just to demean...
...but the fact is, when whomever sings Back Home Again in Indiana just before the start of The Greatest Spectacle in Racing that memorable day, the vast majority of Indianapolis 500 fans will still be missing Jim Nabors most of all.
Godspeed, Gomer.
James Thurston Nabors was performing in Las Vegas long, long ago when casino magnate and racing and historical car buff Bill Harrah befriended him and invited him to attend the Indianapolis 500 with him. Virtually everyone in America by then knew Nabors from his iconic roles on both The Andy Griffith Show and then his own spinoff from it, Gomer Pyle, USMC. He'd had a couple year run with his own TV variety show, and most everyone knew was was a h3llofa singer, too.
Most of America also was aware he was gay, especially after the rumors of a marriage to Rock Hudson spewed forth. Nevertheless, America still loved Gomer.
Now, there's probably not too many institutes in traditional America that're more "privileged"and "conservative" than the Indianapolis 500. Even on this Board in the last week there's been a poster lamenting the fact of how conservative Morgan County, Indiana is (Morgan County is the county immediately south of Indianapolis' Marion County; it's also the past Indiana County home of the KKK and John Dillinger). The lazy, progressive thinker (I'm here thru Thursday, folks) may automatically assume that such a homestead of Republican, conservative America would be the very last place a famous homosexual would find a home...
...but an old, conservative, mucho-opinionated, stubborn white guy of rich German extraction named Tony Hulman owned the Indianapolis Motor Speedway when Gomer showed-up for the first time, and he was a fan, too. Mr. Hulman invited Mr. Nabors to sing, and Nabors was happy to do so.
The story goes that shortly before the race, he was directed to coordinate with the director of the Purdue University Marching Band (they play all the tunes during pre-race ceremonies). Nabors supposedly asked the director something about the Star Spangled Banner (assuming that was what he was to sing), but the director told him no, he was supposed to sing Back Home Again. Gomer was stunned: he knew the tune but not the words. So, with 5 minutes to go, Pyle wrote the words to the song on his hand, from which he would crib his very first performance among 300,000+ fans.
That was 42 years ago.
In between then and yesterday, the 98th running of the Indy 500, and after a liver transplant, a knee replacement, a pacemaker and a heart valve inserted, and a much-publicized same-sex marriage, Nabors managed to perform his last iconic role for 34 years - or more than a third of the history of the great race itself.
You can witness the last public act of that 42-year love affair between fly-over America and almost-84 year-old Jim Nabors as he performs for the last time at the Speedway yesterday in the video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FShIfw0s7KA
And, if you watch him perform The Impossible Dream from almost 50 years ago in the video below, you can hear the man has lost hardly any authority:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5KeGccP9Jk
Sunday, May 29, 2016 (weather and Allah permitting), will host the 100th anniversary running of the Indianapolis 500; it's going to be a magical occasion for the 300,000+ in attendance at the Brickyard, and a whole bunch of those hundreds of thousands will no doubt be the stereotypical rednecks and wingtards GB progressives love to so lazily generalize here just to demean...
...but the fact is, when whomever sings Back Home Again in Indiana just before the start of The Greatest Spectacle in Racing that memorable day, the vast majority of Indianapolis 500 fans will still be missing Jim Nabors most of all.
Godspeed, Gomer.
