Questions

Due to the overwhelming volume of emails, The Homesick Texan regrets to announce the closure of her mailbox. Please check the Frequently Asked Questions page, as most questions I've received about Patsy have been answered there.

Thank you for your interest!

Website info

This site was launched on March 5, 1998, the 35th anniversary of Patsy's death.  The reason I picked such a sad day was to emphasize how Patsy's legacy and joy continues beyond anything that happens in the physical world.  The original site was at imaginethat.tierranet.com.  When it grew to 159mb in size, it was getting mighty costly, unmanageable and time-consuming.  I had no children when I started the site in 1998, but after my son was born in 1999, my priorities had to change.

I decided to slim it down (to about 97mb) and bring it to a new server, under its very own dot-com, just in time for Patsy's 70th birthday on September 8, 2002.  (The work on this project was breathtaking.)  Sure, some things had to be left behind, but that meant that there was lots of room to grow again... and it did!

Bill Cox kindly agreed to merge my PatsyNews with his Cline Chronicle. If you've been in PatsyLand for any length of time, you already know how valued Bill is for his keen insight on music affairs and all things Patsy.  We call him our PatsyPedia... Dr. Cox!

I hope you like this new site design.  I look back at the old site, all of that white-on-red... what was I thinking??  Still, Patsy loved white and red, so I couldn't leave it behind entirely.  The old rose wallpaper has faded to a nice pink, so now the site looks more like a Valentine to our beloved Patsy, and that's rather fitting.

People frequently ask me where the name Patsified! came from.  Well, back in February 1998 when I was putting this site together, I couldn't think of a good title.  It was driving me nuts.  As the launch date drew nearer, I was becoming more and more frantic:  what would I call my labor of love for Patsy Cline?  Then one day, just 5 days before the site launch, I was exiting the interstate and nearly ran my car off the road when a voice yelled "Patsified!" in my head just as loud as can be.

And thus has it been ever since.

Here is what I wrote at the Notes page the day I launched this site, March 5, 1998:

I will never understand how something as seemingly normal as a spring thunderstorm could take her away from us.  Next time it rains, look up in the sky and perhaps you, too, will find yourself wondering, "This?  THIS? How??"  Spring rains are supposed to nurture life, not take it away.  The very idea that something as simple as a sunny day would have made a difference...!  It is incomprehensible to me.

The loss we incurred on this date 35 years ago today, while painful, was merely a physical one, because the spirit of Patsy Cline can never be stilled.  She is found in her music, her family, her friends, and her fans, carried forever in our hearts.  Her presence, though unseen, continues to have a tremendous impact ~ oh, yeah!  (Say those last words a la Eddy Arnold....)

So, on this somber date, "Patsified!" officially launches.  Why the title?  Because I myself was Patsified, in spite of all of my resistance over the years. It is my hope that this site will cause some Patsification to occur in those lost souls out there who are in need of it.  All I have to do is look at a picture of her, and she seems to just smile out at us as if to say she knows we're all a buncha damn fools, but she loves us anyway.  She'll be smilin like that long after we're all dead and in our graves.  I just wanna make sure that there will be folks around to absorb that smile, to bask in its rays, to smile back at it, to enjoy it when I cannot.  I'm jealous of em already!

Some people see things as they are and ask "why?"  I prefer to dream of things that might have been, or have yet to be, and ask "why not?"  I invite you to join with me in imagining a different outcome of this date 35 years ago.  I've never visited Camden, or Patsy's gravesite in Winchester.  And while both places have deep meaning for any fan, and I'm sure I'll visit someday, I kinda feel like as long as I don't visit them, then March 5th, 1963 never happened.

God gave us memories so that we can have roses in winter.  Even so, we miss you, darlin, more and more every day, as heaven would miss the stars above....

Click

Personal info

People usually want to know how I became Patsified more than anything else.  Here's the story:

Growing up in Texas, you can't help but hear Patsy played in the background here and there and everywhere. I had never paid much attention, although if cornered, I would've admitted that I really liked "Crazy." One of my best pals in high school my freshman year was a huge Patsifan, but she was *such* a roper (as we non-ropers called the "goat ropers") that I blew it off as Roper Weirdness. We'd lay out in the sun by her pool and she'd put on Patsy and I'd yell, "Turn that damned hick stuff off!"

Then after high school, I never thought about Patsy Cline again.

******************************

In October 1996, a month before my 36th birthday, I had a dental appointment. But it was too early to leave for the dentist, so I sat on the sofa and switched on HBO. They were showing "Sweet Dreams." It was the scene at Sylvia's party with Patsy in the kitchen with Hilda. I vaguely remembered that the movie was about Patsy Cline. My hubby walked through the room and asked what it was, and I said, "Oh, one of those country singers with the soap opera lives, you know how THEY are."

The more I watched, the more I became interested. I checked the TV schedule and saw it would be on again that night, so I watched it that night from beginning to end. Every time they played a Patsy song, I was FORCED to pay attention to it as I had never had to do before in my life. And I was instantly hooked, entranced.

I fought it, of course. I did not WANT to be hooked on anyone or anything; I'm very much a free spirit! But the song "Sweet Dreams" froze me in my seat, especially the phrase "the whole night through." It was the way the word "whole" echoes that made a shiver go down my spine (and still does to this day). When the credits rolled, I found myself anticipating hearing "the whole night through" again. Then when HBO repeated the film again, I HAD to watch it again so I could hear "the whole night through." I thought I was losing my mind ~ what is this with me NEEDING to hear this woman's voice??

So I secretly bought a "12 Greatest Hits" tape. I didn't want to spend money on a CD, because I expected to listen to the tape, then by the time the tape broke, I wouldn't have that NEED to hear her voice anymore; it would, hopefully, be out of my system.

Then I bought another tape.

Then I bought a CD.

And another CD.

Then the 4CD boxed set.

By that time it was too late: I was PATSIFIED! Against my will, against my better sense, against all logic. At that time I was 36 years old and felt like a damned fool teenager. It was so embarrassing, I wouldn't talk about it to anyone.

The thing is, I have waited and waited and waited to "get over" Patsy Cline. I kept thinking it was just a phase, or maybe I would simply get sick of listening to her. And to this very day, I still feel the same excitement and anticipation with each song.

And by the way, none of this has ANYTHING to do with Patsy being dead. I don't understand why death should matter in order to appreciate someone's music. I love Tchaikovsky, who has long since been dead, so big deal??? Everyone dies. But not everyone can leave behind treasures that can mesmerize the soul.  It truly is magic!

Patsified! housekeeper
a.k.a. The Homesick Texan

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