I can't remember the exact year, but I think it must have been July of 1980 or 1981. I was working as a Games supervisor at Lakeside Amusement Park in Salem, VA.
Loretta Lynn was scheduled to appear and the concert was expected to draw a HUGE crowd. Back in those days, Lakeside drew the biggest country acts. Each year, Conway Twitty would flood the park and Salem with 14,000 Twitty Birds. They would swarm and games business was amazing. Loretta Lynn's upcoming concert was altogether different and would no-doubt draw equal or greater crowds. She was a living legend.
I can't remember if the concert was just before or just after the release of "Coal Miner's Daughter" starring Sissy Spacek (a person with whom I also have an oblique connection). As a supervisor, I was relatively unattached to a specific game, so I was free to ramble around the park. That evening, my fellow supervisor and I found ourselves doing some subtle 145-pound security around Loretta Lynn's tour bus behind the concert pavilion stage.
Fans were trying to crush the bus just to get a glimpse or touch of Ms. Lynn and my buddy and I were flanking her tour bus door just on the other side of the chain link fence to keep people from reaching through the fence to touch her.
When Loretta descended the bus stairs to take the stage, I was right there, inches away from her...on the other side of the fence. She nodded, smiled, and waved to the crowd and ME. I smelled her perfumed big hair and felt her swish past me to the pavilion stage.
While the encounter only lasted mere seconds, I remember my buddy and I being completely starstruck. I felt like I had just been in the presence of royalty.
Here it is 40-some years later, and I still remember that moment. Rest In Peace Loretta Lynn.
