[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -Welcome, I'm Rose Martin, and we are Write Around The Corner in Staunton, Virginia, with musical icon, multiple award winner, Statler Brothers legend and lead singer - who am I talking about?

Of course, it's Don Reid.

He has a new fiction novel called Piano Days .

You are in for a treat.

Having songwriting and script writing under his belt, of course a fiction novel had to be next.

How about this line - "We were young and imperfect, but we had fun."

Hi, Don.

Welcome to Write Around the Corner .

-Rose, I'm so glad to see you again.

Glad to have you.

-And thank you for inviting us here into your home.

It's great to see you and your family again.

-Absolutely.

Glad to see you.

And yes, you're always welcome at our home.

And we just love what you did the last time that we got together, and I'm looking forward to it.

-Oh, well, thank you.

And I hope for all of our viewers, they go ahead, and they look and watch that musical anthology of the Statler Brothers; so many songs and so much background about the music.

That and the bonus interview, we want to make sure everyone has a chance to watch it again.

-Absolutely.

Hopefully, they'll enjoy it.

We certainly enjoyed doing it.

And certainly, enjoyed doing that book.

Golly, that book started off as a simple little idea that I thought might be, you know, 12 or 15 pages, and it grew into this thing that I wasn't expecting.

I had more memories than I knew I had.

-Well, and you know what, if I remember something about some journals that you always kept handy.

So, we'll talk about that when we get to your process.

But I have to ask you, okay, Don, you put a new definition to the word retirement, because 11 books post-retirement, and you are just consistently busy.

So, what is it about the word retirement and your new definition of it?

-It was something that I don't quite understand, I reckon.

I thought I was retiring.

I think I was just changing hats is what it amounted to.

But I've certainly had a good time doing it because I can do it at home, and I can write in my own comfort level, and I don't have to travel as I did for, you know, 40 years of my life.

So, it's been, yes, it's a retirement from one thing but into another, and I love being busy with it.

It's nice.

-Well, and each of the books are so different, and I can't wait to find out about that.

I think the string that holds everything together for you and from what I've known about you and read about you, it's family and faith.

-Yes.

-And those are the constants in your life, and it always have been, right?

-Exactly.

I think I grew up with that.

I think that was instilled in me and my siblings as kids, and we carry that into our adulthood.

It's a part of our lives, and it's a part of our makeup as who we are and who we want to be.

-Well, and I love the closeness of the family.

So, your two, you know, with Langdon and Debo and with Debbie, and of course, your adorable poodle Lucy - do you still kiss her on the head every morning?

[Don] I do.

Absolutely.

Yes, I wouldn't start a day without it.

And the dog, too.

-There you go.

And the dog, too.

That's right, Debbie, so you're going to be included in this.

So, as far as family traditions go, I know that you love traditions, and I was reading something about the holiday traditions in your family and Christmas Eve is a really special day.

-You know, I have found out as our kids, our grandkids have gotten bigger, and now, you know, they're teenagers now.

As they got bigger, I found out this meant more to them than I realized because we used to do-- when they were just little, we would have-- we would start on Christmas Eve morning, and we go to breakfast.

And then when we would come back, and we would have gifts just like Christmas Day so that all the families could go to their individual homes on Christmas morning.

And this started to be a tradition, and I find out that they say, "Oh, Christmas Eve is as big to us now as Christmas Day."

And that just makes me feel good because it is to me, too.

That's when we used to-- we make two days of it.

It's a fun time.

-I think I'm going to start that with my family.

Let's spread it out into two days and really enjoy it.

-It really is.

Just take your time and enjoy it and you'll love it.

You'll love it.

-Is it true that the one thing that you've never done is been in a Christmas parade?

-You know, that's-- when I was a teenager, I marched in a Christmas parade in the high school band.

And I did that.

Now as far as being, you know, as far as the Statler Brothers, you know, riding in a Christmas parade, I don't recall that we did.

-Well, I don't know after this show airs, you might be asked to be Grand Marshal of every Christmas parade of everybody who sees it.

-There's a whole chapter there about Christmas parade, yes.

-Right, and that's what made me think about it.

-It was fun.

-So, another day that holds special traditions is New Year's Eve?

-New Year's Eve, we do that too.

We get together about dinnertime, you know, six o'clock or whatever, and we may order out.

Usually we do that, order in.

But then everybody comes over here, and we have-- everybody wears their pajamas.

And we eat and then we play games until midnight when the ball falls, and then we go to bed.

-I think that is so fun.

And I read that, and I'm like, do they really come in their pajamas?

-They do.

-They do.

-Everybody shows up in their pajamas.

-Oh, I think that's so special.

-And in their winter coats, because it's cold outside.

But they got their coats on, but then they're ready to just relax and have fun.

-And I was reading at one holiday in particular that when you were a little boy, that someone had to work, so you had to write a very special letter to Santa.

-Wow, you have been doing some research, haven't you, Rose?

Yes, my mother worked a night shift at a hospital, and there was something happened that we weren't going to be able to have Christmas morning at the time where we were going to do it.

So, I was about five years old, and they had me write out some kind of letter to Santa.

Whatever I could write that, and to say, could you come and do this on Christmas Eve because we can't get together?

So, we had Christmas on Christmas Eve that year, and all because I wrote that letter to Santa.

-And isn't that kind of special that now it's come full circle and Christmas Eve is such a special day in your family?

-It is.

Maybe it was meant to be.

-I think it was meant to be.

-Maybe it had been planned all along.

I just didn't know it.

-Right.

You're right.

So, you were the impetus to start all that.

And special times with family seems to be something that you still continue with your sons.

You have weekly lunches.

-Oh, we do.

We used to have it every Wednesday.

Now it comes-- sometimes, it's more than once a week, and it's not always because schedules get in the way, but we always find a day sometime or another during the week that we go have lunch together.

-And I'm thinking that probably they enjoy that as much as you do.

-Oh, they do.

They haven't said they didn't.

-Well, I think-- one thing I read, you had said something about "we become our parents as we grow."

Do you feel like that's been something that not only are you showing traits from your parents, and is that true for them too, that you see them growing into certain things that, you know, you have believed in and tried so hard to instill in them?

-Sometimes, I do.

I see them becoming maybe whatever I've tried to pass on, and that makes you feel good when you see yourself in your sons.

That certainly does.

And I see my daddy in myself, too, as I get older in a lot of different ways.

So, yes, it's passed on.

It's in your genes.

It's in your blood.

It's in your habits.

And if they're good habits, I think it's wonderful.

-You said you see a couple of things in them.

What are they that you see in your sons?

-I see that they've the same love of family that I have, because I see how they treat their kids and their wife, and I see how they love the get-togethers.

And that's as important.

And it's already I see it instilled in the grandkids, because they do.

Because, you know, as kids get older-- now we got a couple of college age.

And I'll say, you know, I know we can't do things the way we used to.

We're going on vacation together and all, and then they'll say, oh, yes, we're ready.

We'll go.

You all got other things to do?

No, no, we're ready.

Let's go to the beach for a week.

Well, I'm just so thrilled that they still like to do that because they loved it when they were little.

So, I see that family kind of thing instilled right on down the generations.

-Because they're choosing, right?

And so, when they were little, you had to go and you instill that in them, but now they're like choosing family.

So, that is wonderful.

-Oh, that makes us feel just so sweet inside, yes.

-So, I was reading that you had a favorite author, John O'Hara, and that one time you had a chance to meet someone.

You met someone, and you thought, what am I going to ask him about?

And it was John O'Hara.

What's that story?

-We were doing an all-star thing in L.A., a charity thing.

And we were on the side of the stage we were to come in, and they put us, the Statlers, and Frank Sinatra to come in together.

So, we're standing backstage with Frank Sinatra, waiting for our cues, and doing rehearsal and all that.

And I'm thinking that I hadn't met the man, you know, and I thought everybody's got-- he's heard every line there is to hear.

He is everybody's kind of musical hero.

So, I thought, what can I say to him that he's never heard.

So, I went to him, and we shook hands and, you know, talk, and I opened up with with-- I said I know that you did Pal Joey , which was a musical, and he did that as a movie.

I said, did you know John O'Hara because he was a favorite writer of mine?

Do you know him?

And is-- do you have an O'Hara story you can tell me?

And he kind of threw back his head and laughed.

He said, oh, yeah, I can tell you about O'Hara.

So, he stood there and started telling me some John O'Hara stories that I just loved, and I think he appreciated the freshness of somebody not coming up and saying, "Hey, I like you.

I got all your records and I like you."

So, we had a common ground there without even talking about each other, and it was nice.

It was a nice memory.

-Well, and I think that's fun because just as you being a musical legend, having people come up to you all the time, it's got to be refreshing if it's-- and you're so gracious for all of it, and it has to be refreshing sometimes if you get an off-the-wall kind of question, or someone who comes up with something like, oh, yes, we haven't thought about that in a while.

Or that's interesting that they read that about me.

-Exactly.

It is.

It gives you a new conversation base is what it does.

-[Rose] Yes.

Well, and when we talk about your process, I mean, I know with over 250 songs that you recorded-- and there's many, many more, I'm sure, in your library that never saw the light of day.

But now with the writing of the books, you have possibility papers and possibility ideas all around that you got ideas still working in your head?

-Yes, I'm working on something now, as a matter of fact.

I keep notes.

Whenever I've got ideas, I've always kept a notebook with me throughout my whole life, and I'll jot down little ideas.

And sometimes I go back to them a month later, and I can't make out, what did I mean by this?

Why did I think that was good?

But a lot of them, through the years I've kept, and you just never know when they're going to trigger a bigger idea, something that you can, you know, flesh out and make a story, a short story, a song, a book, you just never know.

-Well, and I love that someone had asked you one time, what piece of advice that you would give to either a struggling writer, either songs or stories, and if they were feeling a little dejected and didn't quite know where to go?

And you said, "if you write from your heart, then your story or song will have heart."

-I believe that.

Yes, I remember saying that.

-And that's so profound because in just that one sentence, it encapsulates how beautiful you put words together.

But you're like, wow, yes.

-Well, what that meant to me when I said that, you can write-- here's a good song or here's a pretty good story.

But if it doesn't mean something to you, if you just haven't put a piece of yourself in it, then you haven't put your heart in it.

And people can tell that when they hear the song or read the story or whatever the case may be.

They can tell it lacks sincerity, it lacks substance, it lacks heart.

-Well, and Piano Days has all of that.

It has substance, it has heart, and beautifully written, and characters that are rich and fun, and it took me back to thinking about a time that was simple and a time that was fun.

But then I was reading, I know this isn't a, you know, a combination of people that he's put up as these characters, but they were so real, and I fell in love with them.

And so, tell me - Piano Days .

-That does my heart good, first off, for you to say that, that they seem that real to you because they became real to me.

And I'm just glad that transferred to the paper.

-And so, from songwriting, screenwriting, script writing, a novel was born.

And so, tell me about the process of thinking, you know, it's time for me to write something fiction and just have fun with it.

-Well, that came from some of that weekly lunch that Debo and Langdon and I always have.

And we knock around ideas a lot of the time.

They'll throw ideas at me, hey, maybe you thought about this, and I like that or I don't like that, and we're very honest with each other.

And that came from the fact that, said, maybe it's time for a novel.

I think one of the boys said that to me.

I think it was Debo or Langdon.

But okay, maybe it is time for a novel, so let me think on that.

And that's how I write.

I don't sit down and start making notes when I want to write something.

I live with it maybe for a month, and I'm riding down the road, I'm thinking about it.

I'm sitting, watching television, I'm thinking about it.

And this idea just starts growing in your mind, and it gets to the point to where it has to be put on paper then.

This is when I started making notes.

-Oh, so that's what happens inside of you in your head.

It's all gelling and then the characters are coming up.

-Yes, I can't write immediately.

I kind of just let it grow and see if it's any good, and see if it becomes real to me.

-Okay.

Well, it's good, and it's real to us now.

So, set in the late '50s and early '60s, and kids are kind of growing up and experiencing things.

And then of course, when I read the cover, I'm like, oh, he had Mr. Fifties even do the blurb.

So, you tie it into that.

-[Don] Exactly.

We talked about a blurb.

The publisher said, you know, get whoever you want, or we'll get, whatever.

And again, the boys and I knock this around, and Mr. Fifties, it was the one that came up, and Pat Boone, and why not?

And Pat, we'd worked with Pat, you know, through the years on television.

He was on our TV show a number of times.

And so, I got in touch with Pat, and I said, you know, I got the book.

And the next thing I knew, he sent me a blurb, and a beautiful blurb it was.

-Yes, it sure was.

-He said some really nice things.

And yes, I was so honored and tickled that he did that.

-One of the things that I really loved was the idea of how hard it is to go back home when you are living in a place or you grew up in a place, and then you leave for a while, and then you're reminiscing about things that have happened to you in your life.

And then you think about how hard it might be to go back home and revisit those things.

And this book is full of so many little profound messages coming through the story that I found myself pausing, I'm like, oh, so that's the way he decided to deal with his mom, or, oh, that's another little tidbit that he wants to give me about life advice.

So, introduce everyone to the characters.

-To the individual characters?

-To the characters of the book.

-Oh, my golly.

Well, there is the narrator, and we'll just call him the narrator.

And he tells the story, and he tells a story about himself growing up in the late '50s and the early '60s.

And his friends, he has his good friend, Billy, that they're very close.

And Billy has a little brother named Jayo.

And then they also have another good friend, Toby.

And the three of them, this sort of is what the story is about and centered around, and their life together as kids and their lives together as teenagers, and they discover girls and they learn how to drive and they go from riding their bicycles to having a car, and all the experiences that they get into and things that they want to see and do and not sure whether it's right or wrong sometimes, but they do it as teenage boys and teenage girls will do.

Then there's another couple of friends, the Spinner twins, and they have a personality all their own.

So, now we got five boys that go into school together and their girlfriends and what have you.

And from that, I just spun out some-- use pieces of memories.

I use pieces of-- oh, that would be funny if that... You sit down and write your memories.

Well, now you haven't written fiction.

So, you take a little chip of memory, and you think now, how would that have been if that hadn't actually happened that way?

What if this had happened to it?

And so, now all of a sudden, you've created a story and you've created fiction.

And that's how I work.

-Well, and I love that because you have Lannie Mae and the first kiss.

You've got them at the ball diamond.

You've got going to the hop, not to be confused with a sock hop, right?

And then you've got the fair and the carnival and the Holy Roller church service, and the fortune teller and, you know, learning how to drive.

But what was really clever was a dual narration.

So, Uncle BeBop comes in, and I pause myself for a minute, I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so amazing to be telling the story and then how you wove in this other character, so.

-You come up to modern times, and you wove in another narrator.

Yes, that helped me tell the story from two different perspectives, from two different angles, and it helped broaden the character.

It's, like where he had, now this character has nephews and he's got a sister and all of this sort of thing that you didn't see as he grew up.

And then if none of this is making sense as you're hearing it, it will make sense, I hope, when you read it, because it comes together.

It's, you know, a few chapters before you're introduced to all of that, but.

-Right, so it's about the third chapter, and it does make sense because you have the boys going through growing up, and they might be visiting the knoll or whatever.

And then you have Uncle BeBop, and you realize that they have this relationship, and the story is being told from a perspective.

And then you also have, of course, it wouldn't be a Don Reid story if there wasn't music written through with a sheet music and the proficiency of getting sheet music instead of vinyl to be able to play music, but then you take us through a time that there's also struggle.

So, you've built in that struggle with Uncle BeBop telling the story that gives the reader, for me, a perspective that I didn't see coming, but was so integral to tell the richness of their lives and how that all came together.

So, I think it comes together beautifully.

-Well, that's so sweet.

And I'm glad that it did.

And that took-- that takes a lot of hours and weeks and months of sitting in a dark room in front of a computer, trying to think, what is the best way to get this point across?

Who should say this?

Who should have that line?

And how that sort of... And then, when it all does come together, it makes you feel good and you're thankful that oh, right, I think that worked out good.

-And I think a few of the things that I wrote down, I love this part of an intro to your chapter.

"Memories are like old clothes.

"You go through them and save the ones you like, "the ones that can make you feel good, "the ones that look the best on you, "the ones that still have color and give essence "to what you want to be at the time.

"Then you discard what's left, the drab ones, the ones that have lost their usefulness."

And it goes on, again, telling that story about how not only do we grow and experience these things, but part of life is the fact that we grow out and we shed some of those things as we learn new lessons.

-We do.

And in that what-- that's how we live.

And that's how we take care of bad memories.

Well, we discard that.

So, now you say you had a wonderful childhood.

I did have a wonderful childhood, maybe not as wonderful as I may display it because I may cover up some of the bad ones and promote some of the good ones.

But yet, there are also writers that do the very opposite.

They cover up the good times but give you that-- and that makes for a different story and a different book.

And that's not what this book is.

This book is about not always wonderful memories, but sweet memories.

-It'll be a treat for us.

Would you share something from Piano Days ?

Or read something?

-Certainly.

I would love to.

To read something from it?

-[Rose] Yes.

-Okay.

One of the chapters-- as you said, you pointed a lot of things.

One of the chapters was the Twilight Drive-In Theater and some things that happened there.

And I'm going to go to the end of that chapter because after all the experiences they had there as teenagers, then the narrator goes back and kind of sums up years later as he goes back to visit.

And he says, "I drove by the old Twilight "many years later when I was home "and saw its empty marquee hanging in shambles.

"I turned around in the middle of the road "and went back and drove in the old entrance.

"I had never done this in broad daylight.

"It all looks so different in the sun.

"I stopped at the box office, "sitting out there in the middle of cracked concrete, "and got out of the car.

"I tried the door, and it was surprisingly open.

"I stepped into the little six-by-six cubicle "and looked from a vantage point I'd never experienced.

"All the families and lovers that have been looked at "through these windows, "all the tickets pushed through this little slot.

"I walked out and read a sign hanging on the side "where the show times used to hang.

"It said Flea Market, every Sunday 1 PM, "no movies ever again.

"I drove through the open gate and was weakened by the sight.

"There was the old concession stand "that housed the restrooms and projection room, "boarded up and still standing among weeds knee high.

"The speaker poles minus the speakers "still stood in perfect rows "like headstones in a military graveyard.

"Little monuments saluting the past "that had drifted off somewhere in time.

"I turn to the screen, a giant with torn limbs, "weak with age, and out of style.

"Huge squares ripped and hanging from its front, "ignored and neglected "after all the joy it brought to so many.

"What used to be a lively Saturday night meeting place, "full of teenagers, car hopping "or making what they thought was love, "was now still and silent.

"Not a whisper of a voice or a blast of a Hollywood gunshot.

"They were all gone.

"Martin and Lewis, Sandra Dee, Elvis, the Bowery Boys - "there was so much to remember and so little to do about.

"Memories raced through my mind "as I stood there among the dead and gone.

"I thought about Sue Jane and Billy and Toby.

"I thought about Dagwood.

I thought about Daddy.

"And of course, I thought about Lannie Mae "and how much I had loved her, and how miserable I was "that night, sitting right back there, "watching a double feature with Toby.

"But old Toby, I loved him too.

"Maybe this is the place to say it.

"We were young and imperfect, worse than some, "not as bad as others.

"And looking back on those wonderful and tender years, "I can see some things we did were crude, even rude.

"And yes, we bent some rules but never broke any laws.

"We walked up to the line more than once, "but we seldom crossed it.

"We were boys, red-blooded and green, "adventurous and curious.

"We liked girls, and girls liked us.

"Some decisions we had to make on the spur of the moment, "some we fretted over for days.

"But everything we finally did, "we lived with for a lifetime to come.

"And to be honest, we had more good times "than we had regrets.

"I don't know of any surviving adult "who will admit to everything "that has gone through their minds "or will confess to all the things they did and said "when they were teenagers, or will own without reservation "everything they wish they'd never done.

"Would I not change a thing?

Oh, I won't go that far.

"But reflecting on all those sweet and youthful memories, "there are some I wish I'd never done, "but a few, I wish I'd done more.

"To intentionally repeat myself, we were young and imperfect, but we had fun."

-It's wonderful.

And we've had fun being here with you today.

Thank you so much for inviting us back.

-You have a way of bringing out such things that I wasn't even thinking about.

And I appreciate you so much, Rose.

-Oh, thank you.

-You just have-- you're just wonderful.

I appreciate it.

Thank you for reading the book.

Thank you for talking about it.

-Thank you.

And special thanks to Don Reid and his family for inviting us here to his home in Staunton, Virginia, his beautiful wife, Debbie, sons Langdon and Debo, and of course their adorable poodle, Lucy.

It's been a wonderful time learning about Don, him sharing stories about his music, his life, and of course Piano Days with us.

And like I said earlier, I don't know about you, but this living legend gives a new definition to the word retirement.

Stick with us.

Please tell your friends about us.

We're going to have more conversation online.

And until next time, I'm Rose Martin, and I will see you Write Around The Corner .

-♪ Every day every day Ev ery day every day every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ ♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ ♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪