Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 31, 1994 TAG: 9406010038
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LYNN COYLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Since he got sick in January, Hodges hasn't been able to attend the unique monthly event that was his brainchild - a Saturday night hoedown featuring bluegrass, country and gospel music at the Hardee's restaurant on Plantation Road in Roanoke.
Yes, Hardee's.
Hodges said the idea was born in 1991, when he was hanging out at the restaurant and saw three busloads of school kids descend on the place for a St. Patrick's Day party.
He promptly asked a group of employees if they'd do something like that for the senior citizens. ``If you know where we can get a little music, we'll have a little shindig,'' one of them told him.
That night, Hodges picked up the mandolin he hadn't played in 30 years, rounded up a couple more musicians, and the first senior citizens party was held.
The show has grown into a ``musical extravaganza,'' as it's billed on signs hanging in the restaurant, with three bands playing from 6 to 11 p.m. There have been as many as 200 people in the restaurant for the event, said Sherman Powell, Hodges' 50-year-old nephew who has taken over running the show.
And, though Hodges can't be there in person, he's there in the hearts and prayers of those who attend the gatherings and hope that next month he'll join them. Perhaps he will. Two days after the latest party, doctors told him the tumor on his lung had shrunk by three-quarters. ``And that's from prayer,'' Hodges said.
In May the event had to be bumped back from the second to the third Saturday so it wouldn't conflict with Virginia Tech's graduation. But that didn't deter the regulars, who know to come early to get a seat and a parking place.
The show opens at 6 p.m. with a prayer, followed by an hour of music by Jimmy Millsaps & the Good Time Gang.
On this evening, Eva Johnson, the restaurant's 75-year-old hostess, circulates through the crowd, passing out after-dinner mints and grabbing drinks for customers who don't want to risk losing their seats.
Outside, two guitar players are jammin' under the orange and brown awning of a picnic table. Another musician retrieves his instrument from a car, then stops traffic in the drive-through lane to drum up business on his way back. Not that he needs to. There's hardly a vacant seat in the place.
``I just love comin' down here,'' says Mary Lile, 74. She used to walk the few blocks from her home before having a double hip replacement. Now she catches a ride with neighbors.
Maxine Kirk, 63, picks up her door prize - an insulated lunch bag - and returns to her table. ``I wish they could rent this place across the street,'' she says, gazing longingly at a store and parking lot that sit empty, save for a handful of cars that got squeezed out of the back lot at Hardee's.
This is not the place to go to celebrate your birthday discreetly. They'll blab it to the whole crowd, get everybody to sing, then wheel out a cart with a 22-pound birthday cake, slice it and pass it around.
The cake is baked and donated every month by Brenda Trent, a Hardee's employee who transferred to the Ninth Street location but often returns for the parties to sing gospel with the house band.
On this night, the featured band from 7 to 9:30 is The No Grass String Band. Hardee's Original Bluegrass Band is playing in Riner at a booking made before the schedule change.
Guitar player Randel Crouch, 67, is the youngest member of No Grass, which hails from Bedford County. Bob Miller, the 83-year-old fiddle player, is the oldest. Mary Adams, 82, who plays keyboard, said when she tells people she's playing at Hardee's, they say, ``You're crazy. They don't have music at Hardee's.''
Crouch recalls Hodges, his brother-in-law, being told that ``he could start it and they could keep it up unless people started to carrying on and drinking.''
The only carrying on was dancing in the aisles, visiting and calling between tables. It's like old home week for senior citizens. But newcomers and young people are welcomed into the fold like family.
Though word of mouth and signs hung in the restaurant are the only advertising, people have come from as far away as Clifton Forge and Eagle Rock. ``We run into Sherman and Ed over at the Happy's [flea market],'' says Wanda Deane, explaining how she first learned of an event so far from her home in Clifton Forge.
Deane and her husband, Cecil, attend ``every chance we get,'' she said.
Do they have anything like this in Clifton Forge?
``We've got a Hardee's, but we don't have any music,'' she replies.
The musicians volunteer their time, but a collection is taken to help the featured act with travel expenses. Getting bands hasn't been a problem, said Powell, who has acts booked through October.
In fact, Maynard Palmer says he wishes his group, The Gospel Messengers, had longer than its 9:30-11 p.m. wrap-up slot so he could get into some of the impersonations he's known for.
Patty Krause, the manager on duty, said the customers love the show so much that a lot of them stay after it's over to help clean up.
Tracey Hall, the restaurant's general manager, said that when the second Saturday of the month approaches, she gets about 100 phone calls asking about it.
``They always want to know who's playing, and I never know,'' Hall said. That's because it's the customers who really run the show. Hardee's simply provides the space, a free meal for the musicians and some door prizes.
``I don't make a lot of money off of it that night, but it sort of cements my month,'' Hall said.
by CNB