Miss Me When I'm Gone

chapter 54



“Forever Yours”

Red Bay Museum

Red Bay, Alabama

The Red Bay Museum in Red Bay, Alabama, isn’t just about Tammy Wynette. While about half of the creaky upstairs is devoted to the First Lady of Country Music, the rest of the museum is about the town of Red Bay itself. Downstairs you can look at the original cashier’s desk from the Bank of Red Bay, the neon sign and re-created lobby from the historic Red Bay Hotel, or a hospital bed from the town’s favorite doctor, who delivered most of the Red Bay babies in recent decades.

The museum is funded, in part, by the profits from the consignment store next door.

The tour guide lets me walk around by myself for about twenty minutes (she has to man the consignment store, which gets far more visitors), then comes to check on me in the Tammy section.

I’ve looked at several of Tammy’s blouses and jackets, several sequined dresses, and her makeup case. I scowl at the donation letter accompanying it, from her last husband, George Richey, explaining that the contents of the case show that Tammy was “in many ways . . . an ordinary woman like many of you.” There is also endless Tammy “fan” paraphernalia: concert posters, ticket stubs, baseball caps with her name on them, Tammy figurines.

When the guide finds me staring at a pair of Tammy Wynette playing cards, she asks me quietly if I’ve ever heard of Tammy Wynette before.

I’m surprised by the question—uncertain what she thought would bring me into this museum and keep me here for longer than five minutes if I hadn’t heard of her. I say that I am a fan, and that’s why I came.

She seems surprised and delighted. Maybe no one of my age and accent ever comes in here claiming to be a Tammy fan.

After I confess that I am one, she opens up. She tells me sheepishly that her husband is one of Tammy’s cousins, and that many of the items here were collected by her family members and old friends. (The bulk of Tammy’s estate is now in the hands of the young widow of Tammy’s final husband, who, sadly, inherited everything of Tammy’s.) She points to a red blouse with fringe in one of the cases, and tells me that it’s her own contribution. It was a hand-me-down from Tammy.

“But I hardly ever wore it,” she confesses. “The neck was too wide for me.”

Gazing into one of the other cases, she says, “It’s kind of sad . . . but . . . anyway. We do the best we can.”

She doesn’t say exactly what’s sad. The collection? Or Tammy’s life?

Either way, it is kind of sad. Up here in this attic room, Tammy’s life seems to have happened so long ago. But there is something so sincere about how her memory is preserved.

As we go down the stairs together, the guide asks me where I’m from. I go ahead and tell her Massachusetts. There is an earnestness to this place that makes me want to tell the truth.

Whatever fame Tammy gained or lost, however tragically her life ended, it’s clear here that she was loved, and still is. Maybe that’s all that any of us can ask for after we’ve gone—whatever we’ve accomplished, wherever we’ve failed, whether we’ve achieved success or fame—that there are a few people left behind who wish to honor us in strange and humble ways.

I linger there in the museum for as long as I can. I ask the guide what she thought of the latest Tammy biography. She thought it was decent, but maybe contained a little “too much information.” I think I know what she means. Tammy doesn’t come across so well in parts of it—in the same way none of us likely would under such intense scrutiny.

I hope she’ll tell me a story about Tammy—something that would never appear in any book. Of course she doesn’t. Like family, like a true friend, she knows better than to give a stranger something like that. When she is clearly tired of me, I put several dollars in the donation jar and step out onto the hot sidewalk of downtown Red Bay.

As I start my car, Tammy’s “Forever Yours” comes on. I’d been listening to her album Stand by Your Man on my way here, and despite my ambivalence toward the title song, this is a pretty stellar album for Tammy. She’s clearly in top form here, well before everything went to shit. I love this simple song, in which one can appreciate the crystalline power of Tammy’s voice, without the distraction of her cheesier lyrics.

I open my window and blast Tammy on my way out of town. It’s three and a half hours of driving back to my Nashville hotel. The heaviness that accompanies me is not for Tammy. It’s not even for the eerie feeling one gets at leaving a place to which you know you will never return. It’s for the odd look Tammy’s cousin’s wife couldn’t help but give me as I left—and for my own obvious distance from home.



—Tammyland