Crystal Palace on the eve of Buck Owens' viewing - By N.L. Belardes

He's a pop culture icon for rocking country with a sound all Bakersfield. He's pop culture for Hee Haw hillbilly. He's a jammin' legend at the heart of Nashville West where you can get biscuits as good as grandma's and see guitars more American than apple pie. And now he will be viewed in that very restaurant tomorrow...

I was curious on such an eve. I headed out to the Crystal Palace to take a walk around... I wondered what the morning would hold. Would it rain all over again?


The sign glowed high above Buck Owens' Boulevard.


The building itself stood like a big mansion on a creepy hill.


Mannequins behind a black fence: poised sentinels for the ghost of Buck to join them.


The green glowing letters like dark hands over the Crystal Palace...


I took this photo as a van parked.


People got out of the van and placed flowers in the darkness of the people's memorial to Buck Owens...

It all reminded me of what the drummer said of the darkness and the explosion above the Crystal Palace the night Buck Owens died.

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Friday, March 31, 2006. You can leave your response.