Memory Lane

After my parents divorced sometime around 1978, my mother was a single mother raising me with no formal education. My mother was a hustler, she could make chicken salad out of chicken shit. She was ahead of her time in many innovative ways. She put an ad in our local Hendersonville TN paper that said “Christian woman desires housekeeping job.” That ad landed her a job with many public figure families but one in particular that I will never forget because of the impact they had on my life.

That family was the Jarretts, Jerry Jarrett his wife, Deborah, and their children, Jennifer and Jason. Jerry was a professional wrestler promoter and had married the daughter of a professional wrestler and promoter, Eddie Marlin.

They had bought a home on Old Hickory lake. The home had been previously owned by George Jones and Tammy Wynette. I will never forget walking into that home and seeing every room on the backside of the house with sliding glass doors that viewed the lake. It also had a small half bath off the carport entry that had black and red shag carpet from the floor to the ceiling. There was also a winding staircase going downstairs.

I have so many fond memories of their home. I vividly remember the Jarrett’s introducing me to a world I’d never been exposed to and wouldn’t have been if it wasn’t for them. I remember their nanny MaMaude making sausage gravy for us. When the movie Grease came out Jennifer and I played Grease and acted and sang as if we were going to Broadway. One year Jennifer and her other brother Jeff received Corvette go-carts for Christmas. I remember us riding them and it was so much fun. One Christmas Deborah took her children Jennifer and Jason and me to eat breakfast with Santa at Cain Sloan. Jerry was always kind to me and so were his friends. His friends aka his wrestling partners. One, in particular, gave me a necklace for my birthday or Christmas, his name was Jerry Lawler.

That family took me and my mother in as if we were one of them and I’ll always be grateful for that. Our relationship with them lasted about 6 years. My mother remarried and stopped working for them as well as Deborah’s parents, Eddie and Norma Marlin.

Today I go down memory lane and hold these sweet memories of this family close to my heart as I learned of the passing of the man who gave my mother an opportunity. Jerry Jarrett passed February 14, 2023. He will always be remembered to me as a man that impacted and changed my world. Go rest high on that mountain Jerry.