STAR*TECH Joumol
November 1992
CHEAP TOURIST CONVENTIONEERS DEPARTMENT
THEJOHNSTONSGOCOUNTRY
AMOA'92
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Bill Johnston
Johnston's General Store
Buffalo, New York
With two of the four United Air-
lines bump coupons we earned
this spring at the ACME San
Antonio convention (see April
1992, S*TJ page 12), Vendress
Sharon and I got our $260 per
person airfares down to ten bucks
each, so we decided to make a
longer six-night stay in the home
of country music with a Monday
arrival.
Nashville's till 3 ... Rather than
spring for the big-bucks rooms at
Opryland in the usual $100+
nightly range, we grabbed an
early booking at Econo-Lodge
Opryland for a $45.95 weeknight/
$59.95 weekend rate,just a half-
mileuptheroadfrom the conven-
tion site. Clean, comfortable,
quiet, and friendly folks at the
desk.
Either we're getting more sensi-
tive to noise or it's time to move
the seating plan farther forward
in the plane, but two of the four
flight legs from Buffalo via Chi-
cago to Nash ville were on the
noisy side ... are we getting older
or are the planes getting older? ...
I moved my seat assignments for-
ward on the aircraft for the next
convention as soon as I got back to
my office ...
Where Domino's delivers till mid-
night ( weekends till 2AM) we
found ourselves looking forward
to a pizza delivery, but they can't
top our Bob & John's back home
with a national chain that's too
light on sauce and toppings ...
Cabbed from the airport via a
liquor store and found Everclear
grain alcohol (190 proof) on the
shelf-can't buy it in NY liquor
stores... We saw ourselves on
closed-circuit tv along with a su-
perimposed cash register receipt
with time/day stamping on-
screen ... It's now standard secu-
rity for that store where a clerk
recently lost his head to a shot-
gun-slinging holdup man ...
Buffalo bars are open to 4AM,
The Waffle House can crank out
some great late-night breakfast
on the spot or to go while your cab
waits (but don't get the steak ... if
you serve a steak with gristle,
won't you serve it with a Ginsu
knife ... hey wait a minute, do we
have the chorus line of another
country hit?) ... We enjoyed play-
ing the jukebox and discovered
that there's even more to country
music than the NBC TV Garth
Brooks Special we enjoyed last
season ... our local #1 station hap-
pens to be WYRK-FM 106.5
Country, but they have too broad
a playlist for me ... too bad they
don't play top 40 country and the
AMOA top 30 jukebox hitlist-
now there's a winning format!... I
wonder how many jukebox opera-
tors are uneasy about buying the
"Hubba Shot the Jukebox" hit
single ...
Breakfast food discovery (and
then lunch and dinners too) was
the Cracker Barrel restaurant
chain, with broiled catfish fillet
on homemade sourdough
bread- just excellent!... Bob~
Evans needs to pick up some
menu tips, crowd management
ideas, and silverware hints
here ... his cheap cafeteria cutlery
is flimsy but his gravy is the best
in his chain restaurant, although
his staff had just been over-
whelmed by a tourbusload of cus-
tomers... Cracker Barrel has a
row of rockingchairs out front for
crowds or loiterers or cabwaiters
like us ...
Andjust when we thought we had
put politics and the news behind
us for the trade show week of fall,
who but President Bush shows
up at Opryland for some politick-
ing, and both the inner Opryland
road and the outer expressway
get closed down for security just
as we drive up by cab at 6:10PM
to go to the delicious prime rib
General Jackson dinner/show
cruise 300-foot multi-level party
ship departing the dock at
7:15PM Tuesday ... TV news had
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