Along with many colleagues, I attended our company’s mini-tradeshow: the Red Hat Summit in Nashville, TN.

The flights in GXRP were lovely, the Gaylord Opryland hotel was huge, my talk went all right, the food was great … but I want to comment a bit about the music. Particularly, the variety show at the famous “Grand Ole Opry”.

I haven’t been much of a fan of country music, but there are plenty of them out there, and I’m starting to see why. Where else can one hear crooning earnestly about subjects like:

• the changing relationship between father and daughter as she finds a boyfriend
• ivory-grip Colt ’45
• one’s favorite pickup truck
• a collection of virtues: honesty, simplicity, family love
• unabashed patriotism (“Stand up for the USA”)

• joy of baseball

All sorts of sappy stuff, if one comes in with the grey-tinted glasses of modern cynicism. It might even twitch pretension sensors like my own reservations about 1960s anti-war folk music, or its icons. And yet, the values being sung about tend to be so positive and gentle and human.