Tonight I was watching a YouTube video of Johnny Paycheck singing, and my mind took me back to the mid-90s, I was working at the TV station when Johnny Paycheck came through Hopkinsville to play at the fair. He wasn’t the main attraction that year—he was tucked away in the big tent with the free acts—but to me, it was still Johnny Paycheck, a country music legend.
I was on stage with my camera, moving around, filming him from different angles, catching shots of his drummer and guitar players. Johnny, of course, had on his trademark cowboy hat. But about halfway through the show, that tent was heating up like an oven, and he finally pulled the hat off and tossed it behind him.
I crouched down, locked in on a tight shot of the guitar player’s strings, when I felt something under my boot. I shifted, thinking it was just a cord. Then I felt it again. And again. I must’ve stepped on it half a dozen times, crunching away while I was trying to look professional behind the camera. Finally, I glanced down—and there it was. Johnny Paycheck’s hat.
I hadn’t just stepped on it once. I’d stomped, slid, and mashed that poor cowboy hat until it was about as flat as a pancake. That hat never stood a chance once my boots found it.
Quick as the song ended, I slithered off the back of the stage, hoping Johnny wouldn’t notice. The last thing I wanted was to be remembered as “the guy who flattened Johnny Paycheck’s hat” and get a good old-fashioned cussing to go along with it.