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Takin A Walk Nashville with the Inspirational Story of Resilience of Singer Songwriter Mary Gauthier · Takin’ A Walk Nashville

0:01
Speaker 1: Taking a Walk Nashville.
0:02
Speaker 2: Hi, this is Sarah Harrelson, your host of Taking a
0:05
Speaker 2: Walk Nashville, and I want to give a special shout
0:09
Speaker 2: out to Sennheiser today. I am using their profile USB
0:15
Speaker 2: podcast Mike, and I'm loving how versatile it is, how
0:20
Speaker 2: it's sounding, and how it is on the go. So
0:22
Speaker 2: thank you Senheiser. Today with me, I have a very
0:26
Speaker 2: special guest, Mary go Shay. She is a Grammy nominated
0:32
Speaker 2: American folk singer, songwriter and author. Her songs have been
0:37
Speaker 2: covered by performers such as Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, Kathy
0:42
Speaker 2: Mattea Boy, George, Jimmy Buffett, Betty Levette, Candy Stayton, and
0:47
Speaker 2: Amy Helm to name a few. Her Grammy nominated twenty
0:52
Speaker 2: eighteen album Rifles and Rosary Beats was co written with
0:56
Speaker 2: military veterans in their families. Join me as we dive
1:01
Speaker 2: into her story today.
1:08
Speaker 1: Welcome to Taking a Walk Nashville with your hosts singer
1:11
Speaker 1: songwriter Sarah Harrelson.
1:13
Speaker 2: Mary, thank you so much for being on Taking a
1:16
Speaker 2: Walk Nashville today. So your roots run from Louisiana to Boston,
1:23
Speaker 2: and you attended culinary school in Boston. Were you already
1:28
Speaker 2: writing music at this time when you were in culinary
1:31
Speaker 2: school or was Dixie Kitchen the name of the restaurant,
1:36
Speaker 2: and also your first album, Was that kind of the
1:38
Speaker 2: turning point for you to start your career in music.
1:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know. I have a really unusual story in
1:47
Speaker 3: terms of music business. Anyway, I was in the restaurant
1:51
Speaker 3: business in Boston. I'm from Louisiana, and I made a
1:55
Speaker 3: decision to go to chef school in the Boston area
1:58
Speaker 3: to to get trained. I'd always worked in restaurants, but
2:02
Speaker 3: I didn't have the culinary expertise I needed to be
2:05
Speaker 3: a chef. I was more of a manager. So I
2:08
Speaker 3: went to chef school and the lead chef and the
2:11
Speaker 3: chef school told me that what I had to do
2:15
Speaker 3: was follow my heart. And what I had in my heart,
2:18
Speaker 3: he said, was Louisiana. So we found investors and ended
2:23
Speaker 3: up with a Cajun style restaurant in Boston. And that
2:26
Speaker 3: was nineteen ninety and so the Cajun style restaurant we
2:32
Speaker 3: called Dixie Kitchen after the Little Feet song Dixie Chicken.
2:37
Speaker 3: Loel George was a hero of mine and I loved
2:40
Speaker 3: the Little Feet and that song came on when I
2:42
Speaker 3: was trying to name the restaurant, and it's like, oh,
2:44
Speaker 3: Dixie Chicken, Dixie Kitchen, And so we had a ten
2:49
Speaker 3: year run with the Dixie Kitchen. After I graduated chef school,
2:54
Speaker 3: well somewhere in there, I got sober. And after I
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Speaker 3: got sober, I started writing songs, and so I had
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Speaker 3: the restaurant before I ever became a songwriter. Uh. And
3:04
Speaker 3: in the process of running and cooking at the restaurant,
3:09
Speaker 3: I started going to open mics. I had a lot
3:10
Speaker 3: of time on my hands having gotten sober, and I
3:14
Speaker 3: fell passionately in love with music and songwriting. And I
3:18
Speaker 3: mean I already was, but until I got sober, I
3:20
Speaker 3: wasn't capable of writing songs. Writing songs for me takes
3:25
Speaker 3: a quite a bit of focus, attention, and commitment, and
3:31
Speaker 3: I was just a I could run a restaurant, but
3:33
Speaker 3: I couldn't write a song. It's a if you ever
3:37
Speaker 3: watched Anthony Bourdain, you could see how drunks and addicts
3:40
Speaker 3: can run restaurants, but men, look, it's harder to focus
3:44
Speaker 3: for long periods of time on on on mental work
3:48
Speaker 3: like restaurants become physical work pretty quickly. Anyway, long story, short,
3:53
Speaker 3: I became more in love with music and song than
3:56
Speaker 3: then Jambalai and gumbo U. And so in two thousand
4:00
Speaker 3: and one, I came to Nashville and I decided to
4:05
Speaker 3: take a leap. I was forty years old, and that's
4:08
Speaker 3: what makes my story unusual. Who starts at forty in music? Well,
4:12
Speaker 3: I did, and you know what, I'm sixty four now.
4:15
Speaker 3: I've been in Nashville since two thousand and one. I've
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Speaker 3: made a living making music since the day I got here.
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Speaker 3: I continue to and it's just been a real good
4:25
Speaker 3: decision for me to commit full time, full on to
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Speaker 3: being a songwriter.
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Speaker 2: Well, and it takes so much time to run a
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Speaker 2: restaurant that it would be hard to focus on music
4:35
Speaker 2: at the same time. I do still do a lot
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Speaker 2: of cooking today, or is it just something you do
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Speaker 2: for fun?
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Speaker 3: Nope, I don't really mess with it. I sort of
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Speaker 3: put it down and left it down. I mean, I
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Speaker 3: can do a dinner party, I can do basic stuff
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Speaker 3: around that kitchen, but I don't really have the passion
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Speaker 3: for it like I once did. And so I'm a
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Speaker 3: competent cook. I'm able to pull something together successfully, but
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Speaker 3: I don't really love it. And so I have my
5:11
Speaker 3: favorite places I go to around town. We go out
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Speaker 3: to eat all the time, like we're spoiled in that way.
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Speaker 2: What are your favorite restaurants in Nashville?
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Speaker 3: Well, I, first of all like not to have to
5:21
Speaker 3: fight parking, So let's start with Nashville has become a
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Speaker 3: major metropolitan area, and parking has become a major headache
5:30
Speaker 3: like every other major metropolitan area. If the parking costs
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Speaker 3: more than the dinner, what are we doing? So I
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Speaker 3: like places that it's on the outskirts able to park
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Speaker 3: that tend to be I fancy restaurants that are owner operated,
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Speaker 3: where there's someone in the kitchen or in the dining
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Speaker 3: room that has their eyes on all things that owns
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Speaker 3: the place, and that those places tend to obviously not
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Speaker 3: be corporate, and they have something that I am drawn
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Speaker 3: to as a a former restaurant tour which is someone
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Speaker 3: who really loves their attachment to what they their hands
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Speaker 3: and their heart and the work is reflected in the restaurant.
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Speaker 3: So the places I tend to go to are like that.
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Speaker 3: My favorite of favorites is Margo's on the East Side.
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Speaker 3: There's a Gilly wasn't Dave Rowlins on a studio right
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Speaker 3: next to Margo's, a woodland studio, and in the studio
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Speaker 3: parking lot you spend like eight ten bucks and you
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Speaker 3: can get a parking spot easily. Just walk to Margos,
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Speaker 3: have a long, full meal. And she's always been an
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Speaker 3: extraordinary chef, and she's announced her retirement this summer. I
6:42
Speaker 3: don't know. I don't know what's Nashville about Margo's for me,
6:44
Speaker 3: I'm not sure.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so many good restaurants and Nashtau including that one.
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Speaker 2: A lot of good casiun style restaurants here too. There's
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Speaker 2: voodoo gumbo I love over here in Belleville. But going
6:57
Speaker 2: back to music, you know, you've received many awards for
7:00
Speaker 2: your own music, have had many other artists cut your songs.
7:04
Speaker 2: But did you ever think your music would take you
7:08
Speaker 2: down this path or was music for you merely saving
7:13
Speaker 2: you on your journey with sobriety.
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Speaker 3: Well it's interesting because I started later. I had no
7:22
Speaker 3: idea if I could pull this off, when this would
7:25
Speaker 3: be one one hell of a hat trick, If I
7:27
Speaker 3: could start at forty, come to Nashville openly gay back
7:31
Speaker 3: then was not exactly a career move in Nashville. When
7:36
Speaker 3: I came here, they called this town the buckle of
7:38
Speaker 3: the Bible Belt, and so I knew I had some
7:42
Speaker 3: obstacles age and and and also being openly gay my
7:47
Speaker 3: whole life. There was no closet big enough for this,
7:50
Speaker 3: So I had to I had to overcome what I
7:53
Speaker 3: think were obstacles, which which which turned out to not
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Speaker 3: be such a big deal. What I learned quickly about Nashville. Nashville,
8:02
Speaker 3: if you have the songs, they let you in. So unfortunately,
8:06
Speaker 3: I had some songs that opened doors and that allowed
8:10
Speaker 3: me an opportunity to be invited in. And once I
8:15
Speaker 3: got in, I was able to make the most of
8:17
Speaker 3: the connections I made. And I think that's because of
8:20
Speaker 3: my age and business experience that worked to my advant
8:24
Speaker 3: My age worked to my advantage. And I think my
8:27
Speaker 3: sexuality has very little or nothing to do with my music.
8:33
Speaker 3: You know, I don't make music about sex. I make
8:35
Speaker 3: music about the human heart, and it jumps over all
8:39
Speaker 3: those things that we think divide us, they actually are
8:43
Speaker 3: false constructs. Nobody has ever, I think, blocked me because
8:48
Speaker 3: of who I am in Nashville. I think I've been
8:51
Speaker 3: given opportunities based on my work and that that feels
8:54
Speaker 3: fair to me. And so yeah, I came here with
8:57
Speaker 3: some songs that that that helped me get in.
9:03
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure it's been so healing too, just being
9:06
Speaker 2: able to write about your experiences with getting sober, being
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Speaker 2: openly gay, even just being maybe a female in the
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Speaker 2: music industry.
9:17
Speaker 3: I always tell people that if I were pressed to
9:22
Speaker 3: ask the real mountain to climb, it's not being gay,
9:28
Speaker 3: it's being a woman. It's a very male oriented business,
9:32
Speaker 3: and it's a very male dominated business, especially in Nashville.
9:37
Speaker 3: But for me, music and song, as you have referenced
9:39
Speaker 3: a couple of times now, have been more about healing,
9:43
Speaker 3: about truth and beauty, about creating art over hits and commerce.
9:48
Speaker 3: And because I'm focused on the art of song, I
9:52
Speaker 3: have a different career than what you would think of
9:54
Speaker 3: as a Nashville type career. I'm a troubadour. I traveled
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Speaker 3: the world with a guitar, a spotlight, and a bottle
10:01
Speaker 3: of water, and I have stories and I tell them
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Speaker 3: and people connect to those stories, not in large numbers,
10:07
Speaker 3: but in numbers large enough for me to not have
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Speaker 3: to do anything but that I've I've found music and
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Speaker 3: song to be very healing from me personally. But then
10:18
Speaker 3: when you put it in the world with that as
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Speaker 3: your mission statement, it does things that other people appreciate
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Speaker 3: other than just entertainment. And so that's been my mission
10:29
Speaker 3: and it's I think it's been a great source of
10:32
Speaker 3: my success is that I'm not aiming for a marketplace
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Speaker 3: that's hit strict, that's hit driven. I'm a storyteller, and
10:40
Speaker 3: if you can write and tell a good story, people
10:42
Speaker 3: love stories. You know. We're just in the desert in
10:46
Speaker 3: West Texas, in a old silver mining town and it's
10:49
Speaker 3: just a bunch of cowboys and you know, mice and
10:52
Speaker 3: rattlesnakes and we saw it tarantula and a lot of dust,
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Speaker 3: and you know, this is a remote, remote place to Linguo, Texas.
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Speaker 3: And I'm in this old theater that used to not
11:05
Speaker 3: have a roof, called the Starlight Theater. It's half restaurant,
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Speaker 3: half bar. We're playing in the bar, and I watch
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Speaker 3: these cowboys like tough guys, these guys living out in
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Speaker 3: the elements. Once the stories I start telling the stories,
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Speaker 3: you can just see people almost become children listening to stories.
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Speaker 3: Stories captivate people. A story well, toad acrosses all boundaries
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Speaker 3: and I just know and believe in the magic of
11:31
Speaker 3: good stories.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely agree with that, and I think that's
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Speaker 2: the key is to write songs that are not only
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Speaker 2: about your own experiences, but ones that other people can
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Speaker 2: relate to. And you definitely do that with blending genres
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Speaker 2: like country, Americana and folk.
11:51
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
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Speaker 1: Walk Nashville Podcast. Welcome back to Take in a Walk Nashville.
12:02
Speaker 2: Your twenty eighteen Grammy nominated album Rifles and Rosary Beads
12:07
Speaker 2: that was co written with US veterans and their families,
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Speaker 2: arising out of your involvement with the organization Songwriting with Soldiers,
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Speaker 2: And you noted that every day, on average, twenty two
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Speaker 2: veterans commits suicide and a portion from this album benefits
12:24
Speaker 2: this wonderful organization and how to be healing for the
12:28
Speaker 2: veterans to be able to put their experiences and their
12:32
Speaker 2: trauma into music. So how did you get involved with
12:36
Speaker 2: Songwriting with Soldiers.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's a nonprofit that was started by
12:42
Speaker 3: a dear friend of mine named Darden Smith. He stumbled
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Speaker 3: on this opportunity to co write a song with someone
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Speaker 3: who was in the military, and he realized, Wow, there's
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Speaker 3: something here that feels powerful, these things that we find
12:59
Speaker 3: each other connecting on. He thought he had nothing in
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Speaker 3: common with the soldier, with someone in the military, and
13:07
Speaker 3: he found he had everything in common. And so that
13:10
Speaker 3: was an illuminating moment for the songwriter. And so the
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Speaker 3: songs that we write with the veterans help us as
13:19
Speaker 3: much as them. Really, we just find each other there.
13:22
Speaker 3: And yeah, the the process is one of really truly
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Speaker 3: listening and connecting. And I would like to just sort
13:31
Speaker 3: of put a fine point on the word healing. It
13:34
Speaker 3: gets tossed around a lot, to the point of almost meaninglessness.
13:39
Speaker 3: So I try not to say healing because it sounds slippery,
13:45
Speaker 3: and I think of the process more as alchemy. A
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Speaker 3: song can take your darkest moment, the hardest thing you've
13:54
Speaker 3: ever gone through, and turn it into something beautiful and
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Speaker 3: useful in the world. And that type of transformation is magic.
14:05
Speaker 3: I mean, everybody knows that when you listen to the blues,
14:08
Speaker 3: you feel better. That is a paradox. Why listening into sad,
14:13
Speaker 3: slow songs about misery, why would that make me feel better? Well,
14:17
Speaker 3: let's start with one. You know you're not alone. Two,
14:22
Speaker 3: there is something about being seen, heard, and known in
14:25
Speaker 3: a song that is a relief. So alchemy is a
14:31
Speaker 3: magic that the arts can bring to people who are
14:35
Speaker 3: dealing with heavy loads and trauma. And I love the
14:40
Speaker 3: alchemy of songwriting. I teach a lot of songwriting now,
14:45
Speaker 3: and what I find is that if we write about
14:49
Speaker 3: personal stuff, we're only gonna have so far over reach.
14:54
Speaker 3: If we write about deeply personal stuff, we hit what
14:58
Speaker 3: is I think of the human experience that transcends the personal,
15:04
Speaker 3: and this is where we find each other in the
15:06
Speaker 3: stuff that's deeply personal that we tend to keep a
15:11
Speaker 3: lid on because we don't know if it's something we
15:16
Speaker 3: should even talk about. It's awkward, it's not something you
15:20
Speaker 3: bring up at a dinner party or a barroom conversation.
15:25
Speaker 3: But in a song, this is the appropriate place to
15:28
Speaker 3: do it. And it transcends the self. It hits the
15:31
Speaker 3: human condition, and that's where we meet and find each other,
15:34
Speaker 3: and that's where we start to alchemize things and transformation
15:38
Speaker 3: is possible.
15:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I love that you bring that up. And
15:42
Speaker 2: you know, when you're co writing with professional songwriters, you
15:45
Speaker 2: get into a habit of opening up to each other.
15:48
Speaker 2: But when you're co writing with veterans who maybe have
15:51
Speaker 2: never written a song before, maybe it's hard with their
15:55
Speaker 2: past experience to deeply open up. So did you find
16:00
Speaker 2: that maybe it was hard to dig deep with them?
16:03
Speaker 2: And what was your experience like putting their story into
16:08
Speaker 2: lyrics and music.
16:10
Speaker 3: It wasn't hard at all. And here's here's why the
16:13
Speaker 3: songwriter in that scenario shows up as a midwife. We're
16:19
Speaker 3: there to bear witness and and to patiently sit and listen.
16:25
Speaker 3: And if you've ever really been listened to, I mean
16:29
Speaker 3: people pay therapist two hundred dollars an hour to listen intensely,
16:34
Speaker 3: if you've ever really truly deeply been listened to by
16:38
Speaker 3: someone who's in non judgment of whatever they say is okay.
16:43
Speaker 3: There there is no morality clause in songwriting. We're there
16:47
Speaker 3: to listen, bear witness, and take what we hear and
16:51
Speaker 3: turn it into melody and poetry and song. So so
16:57
Speaker 3: they open up because the song opens them up. We
17:03
Speaker 3: play start to play back what we hear them saying.
17:06
Speaker 3: It's a mirror and the songwriter's job is to not
17:09
Speaker 3: insert self. We know nothing, absolutely nothing about them or
17:15
Speaker 3: about military service. So We're not gonna apply our own
17:18
Speaker 3: experience to that. We're gonna take their experience and just
17:22
Speaker 3: ask gentle questions so that we can better understand them
17:26
Speaker 3: and write a better song. When you're truly witnessed and
17:29
Speaker 3: heard and you know you're not judged, you'll talk maybe
17:32
Speaker 3: not about feelings, but about experience, and the feelings will
17:36
Speaker 3: come from the story of the experience. We don't need
17:38
Speaker 3: to talk about feelings. We need to show and tell
17:42
Speaker 3: the story. The feelings are a result of this story.
17:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure so beautiful being for them to be
17:50
Speaker 2: able to hear their story come into life and something
17:54
Speaker 2: they can listen to and have forever.
17:57
Speaker 3: And it absolutely and it is a universal experience. That's
18:03
Speaker 3: where the alchemy comes when they realize that their story
18:07
Speaker 3: is not just theirs, it is a universal experience of
18:12
Speaker 3: human beings who have been through what they've been through.
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Speaker 3: This is what happens, and this is how people feel
18:17
Speaker 3: in that situation. That it de personalizes it, it universalizes it.
18:23
Speaker 3: And they realize really quickly that telling their story in
18:26
Speaker 3: their song helps other veterans, which is huge for them,
18:31
Speaker 3: because our veterans here in this country are volunteers, they're
18:35
Speaker 3: not drafted, and these people are fundamentally and intrinsically built
18:39
Speaker 3: to serve. They want to serve, and if telling their
18:42
Speaker 3: story is serving other veterans, they become much more willing
18:45
Speaker 3: to do so. And it is serving other veterans. They
18:49
Speaker 3: see themselves in these songs, and they know they're not alone.
18:51
Speaker 3: This is the power of music and song.
18:54
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's so beautiful and such an important cause. In
18:59
Speaker 2: addition to being an artist and songwriter, you are also
19:02
Speaker 2: an author publishing your book Saved by a Song the
19:06
Speaker 2: art and healing power of songwriting. I think this book
19:10
Speaker 2: is for anyone who loves music or maybe they're going
19:13
Speaker 2: through recovery themselves. So was it cathartic for you to
19:17
Speaker 2: write about your story and book form and share it
19:20
Speaker 2: with the world.
19:22
Speaker 3: Maybe? I think more it was an organizing principle. After
19:28
Speaker 3: teaching for decades and working with veterans for for ten
19:32
Speaker 3: twelve years, I had a lot of experiences that taught
19:40
Speaker 3: me things. So I learned a lot and maintaining sobriety
19:46
Speaker 3: and recovery now for many, many decades, I've learned a lot.
19:51
Speaker 3: And so the book is an organ you organize your
19:55
Speaker 3: your understandings when you write a book, and so it
19:59
Speaker 3: allowed me to to sort of go, oh, I see
20:02
Speaker 3: this happened, led to this, led to this, which is
20:05
Speaker 3: how I ended up here, which is where I wanted
20:07
Speaker 3: to be all along. But I wouldn't have gotten here
20:09
Speaker 3: without this and this. Writing your story helps you understand
20:13
Speaker 3: your story, and I think it helps you to make
20:15
Speaker 3: sense of who you are. So Catharsis is not exactly
20:22
Speaker 3: the experience. Catharsis is more more from songs. I think
20:25
Speaker 3: a book is an organizing principle in him, and I
20:28
Speaker 3: think it's also an ambassador. My book is an ambassador
20:32
Speaker 3: for me. It comes in before me, introduces me to people,
20:35
Speaker 3: so they feel they already know me if they've read
20:37
Speaker 3: the book, because they know what I know about me,
20:41
Speaker 3: and also my understanding. The book is really about my
20:43
Speaker 3: understanding of art ands and particularly song is a transformative
20:48
Speaker 3: medium that's wonderful.
20:50
Speaker 2: Where can people find this book?
20:52
Speaker 3: Everywhere? You can get it anywhere you just Google saved
20:57
Speaker 3: by a song. I have them on my way site
21:01
Speaker 3: there Amazon, It's on Audible. Uh. The the book I
21:05
Speaker 3: think is included if you have a Spotify account, you
21:08
Speaker 3: can listen to it through Audible. These uh, you know
21:13
Speaker 3: there there is a hundred ways to get the book,
21:18
Speaker 3: or there are one hundred ways to get the book
21:19
Speaker 3: if you just google it. It's everywhere.
21:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I hope people will go check it out.
21:23
Speaker 2: And this year you have a busy tour schedule with
21:27
Speaker 2: your partner Jamie Harris, who is also going to be
21:30
Speaker 2: on Taking a Walk Nashville. Are you excited to keep
21:34
Speaker 2: performing together this year?
21:35
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I can't wait to get it going again.
21:39
Speaker 3: We've taken about five weeks off over the holidays. I'm
21:41
Speaker 3: ready to. I'm ready to. We played in the Desert,
21:45
Speaker 3: but that was one of I'm ready to be on
21:47
Speaker 3: the road again. I like. I like my job a lot.
21:50
Speaker 3: I like having Jamie with me. We we play and
21:54
Speaker 3: sing together, and she'd also starts the shows with with
21:57
Speaker 3: her own songs. It's it's a real privilege and blessing
22:01
Speaker 3: to have a partner to travel with. UH. And we
22:05
Speaker 3: do great out there, and we have a lot of fun.
22:08
Speaker 3: We meet a lot of people and we see the world.
22:10
Speaker 3: It's it's a it's such a I don't know, it's
22:15
Speaker 3: a it's a dream come true. And and I couldn't
22:18
Speaker 3: have imagined how good. Uh, this this would be. You know,
22:23
Speaker 3: when I started all those years ago, I was just
22:25
Speaker 3: hoping against hope that I could could pull this off
22:29
Speaker 3: in a way that I didn't have to get another job.
22:31
Speaker 3: I didn't I didn't have big, huge, massive dreams of
22:38
Speaker 3: of of giant you know, success, and and and it's
22:43
Speaker 3: gotten much bigger than I ever imagined it could. And
22:45
Speaker 3: and I'm just deeply grateful that we get to keep going.
22:49
Speaker 2: That's wonderful. Yeah, people can find all of your upcoming
22:52
Speaker 2: show and tour dates on your website to see if
22:55
Speaker 2: they're if you're playing in their area. Mary. My last
23:00
Speaker 2: question I always love to ask my guests this, since
23:03
Speaker 2: we're on taking a walk Nashville, do you have a
23:06
Speaker 2: favorite place that you love to take a walk in Nashville.
23:11
Speaker 3: Well, I tend to go to Warner Park. That is
23:17
Speaker 3: a series of parks that were donated to the city
23:21
Speaker 3: a century ago, I guess. And there's a Red Trail
23:25
Speaker 3: which is four and a half miles deep into the woods,
23:28
Speaker 3: quite hilly, always hard, and never an easy hike, but wow,
23:32
Speaker 3: after you do it, you've done some aerobic hiking in
23:37
Speaker 3: the deep woods. And it's twenty minutes from my house.
23:40
Speaker 3: Maybe less with traffic, maybe fifteen with no traffic, I mean.
23:44
Speaker 3: And then there's the White Trail at Warner Park that
23:47
Speaker 3: you can get at the end of Bellemead Boulevard. You
23:49
Speaker 3: just go on down. You see a flag pole of
23:51
Speaker 3: American Flag Park and that's the White Trail. And the
23:54
Speaker 3: White Trail is two and a half miles much less challenging,
23:58
Speaker 3: but it's also hilly and uh, you know, might even
24:01
Speaker 3: go there today. Uh, it's a beautiful walk in the
24:05
Speaker 3: woods and it's very removed from development. So there's owls
24:10
Speaker 3: and I'm stepping over snakes and there's just beautiful. Every
24:15
Speaker 3: single day the forest changes and so there's there's a
24:19
Speaker 3: nature that is untouched very close to the city. We're
24:23
Speaker 3: very lucky to have Warner part that's my favorite hikes.
24:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are absolutely two of my favorite trails. And
24:29
Speaker 2: like you said, when the seasons changed, the trail even
24:32
Speaker 2: looks different even if you've done it a few times.
24:35
Speaker 2: But yeah, that that Red Trail. Once you get to
24:38
Speaker 2: the end, you're tired of the hill. So it's great exercise, it's.
24:42
Speaker 3: A real hike, and and it's got it it's got
24:47
Speaker 3: such changing scenery as you go it's anything but boring.
24:51
Speaker 3: I love it, but you do have to watch out,
24:53
Speaker 3: especially in the spring. There are timber rattlesnakes out there.
24:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.
24:56
Speaker 3: I've come up on one once, what that was rattling.
25:00
Speaker 3: And I've come up on one that was on the
25:03
Speaker 3: trail as well, So you've got to keep it's smart
25:07
Speaker 3: not to wear earbuds because the snake's when they rattle,
25:10
Speaker 3: say hey, I don't want to hurt you, right the
25:14
Speaker 3: hell away from me. You've got to be able to
25:16
Speaker 3: hear them, especially in the spring as they're coming out
25:18
Speaker 3: of their sleep. But you know, if you're aware, it's
25:22
Speaker 3: a beautiful, beautiful place.
25:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. You always one of my favorites and
25:27
Speaker 2: the popular answer here on the podcast. Well, Mary, thank
25:30
Speaker 2: you so much for being on Taking a Walk Nashville today.
25:34
Speaker 2: I hope everyone will check out your music and books,
25:37
Speaker 2: and I've appreciated having you on today.
25:40
Speaker 3: It's nice speaking with you, Sarah, but thanks for having me.
25:44
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Taking a Walk Nashville with Sarah Harrelson.
25:48
Speaker 1: Please check out our other shows produced by Buzznight Media Productions,
25:52
Speaker 1: Comedy Save Me and Music Saved Me hosted by Lynn Hoffman,
25:57
Speaker 1: and Take it a Walk hosted by you Truly Buzznight.
26:02
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