Fundies at Opryland

[Rider]

A few years ago, end of May/first part of June 2007, my wife and I were staying at the Opryland hotel in Nashville. This was before I knew of this whole Fundamentalist sub-culture. I was mildly amused of all these women and girls walking around with long denim skirts. If there weren't so many of them, I would have chalked it up to being in the South. I even saw a few in Amish clothing. Since there were so many of them, I am assuming there was some kind of Fundy or homeschool convention going on. I really wish now, I had the foresight

I know that there are former (and current) "Fundies" on this board. Does anyone know what Fundy convention/conference this was? After learning of the Fundy movement in the last couple of years, I am really interested as to who might have been at the Opryland that week.

My wife and I had some interesting encounters with Fundies that week. One night, we were waiting for the elevator and made some small talk with two teenaged fundies waiting as well. Their mom came over and put her body in between us and her kids, smirking at us. Her body language was letting us know that our interaction with them was NOT welcome. Very weird. I guess it's because my wife was wearing pants. The next night we were walking along by the river in the hotel (if you have been there, you know what this is) and stopped to watch a boat go by. I guess we stopped too close to a group of Fundy men. All of them turned so their backs were turned to us. Again, very weird.

The weirdest interaction was a pre-teen boy sitting with a bunch of teenage girls and young women eating ice cream. As we walked by the boy looked at the table and put is hand so that his eyes were shielded to us.

[Patsy]

I'm bumping this because I really want your curiousity to be satisfied.

[Rider]

Thanks Patsy. Maybe I was in the midst of Fundy royalty. There were a lot of them there.

Since I learned of this movement, I've been curious as to what organization was there.

[debrand]

Interesting. I wish that I could help you. Their behavior sounds rude, doesn't it?

[Rider]

Yes, it was rude, but it was so strange. We live in California and have always enjoyed the friendliness of the South on various vacations. We just laughed it off and enjoyed our trip, but we never forgot it.

To be fair, we did talk to one Fundy lady waiting in line for coffee one morning and she was very nice. She actually made eye contact and smiled.

[OddLittleBird]

Ugh...the preteen boy's reaction reminds me so much of my youngest teen BIL. :( I have a large (tasteful) nude painting on my wall and he was ALL kinds of flustered when he saw it, and turned around. Also angrily declined our offer to watch the first Harry Potter movie along with our kids (magic is evil). We were obviously covered in filth, as far as he knew, and he seemed so miserable around us. :?

TN *is* a big fundie hub, so it could have been just a church attending at the same time. Old school Church O' God is really big in the mountains there. I've been at the park before and noticed the same thing.

[EllieCee]

Hm, interesting.

They did seem a bit rude. The part about the preteen boy reminds me of "Nike". I wonder if something of the sort happened.

[blisterine]

i had the exact opposite experience in nashville, about september 1991 or so. being it was a spur-of-the-moment thing and it was just a 2-hour trip, we went to opryland without making a hotel reservation. there were no hotel rooms open ANYWHERE when we got there! we found one at the drury inn, but were turned away because we had a child with us- there was a swinger's convention in town and rooms had been booked for months! the clerk at the hotel did tell us about a hotel near the airport that catered to the pilots going in and out of the airport that always had a few rooms they kept back and wasn't advertised as a part of the swinger's convention. he made a call and got us a room! no nudes or freaks! and no fundies!

[contrary]

i'm kinda surprised that fundies would hold a convention at opryland!

[bernadette]

That sounds like the right time and place for one of the Gothard/IBLP regional conferences. It was switched from Knoxville to Nashville a handful of years back.

[marmalade]

But doesn't a lot of country music have that dreaded "back beat" of sin? I'm sure there's a lot of fundie bluegrass to be had, but I thought Opryland catered to the bigger names in Country.

But I've never set foot in Tennessee and don't really like Country much beyond the classics, so what do I know?

[OddLittleBird]

http://www.knoxville.com/news/2009/may/ ... ay-expand/

So, there ya go. Duggar-approved. :P

[deborahlynn1979]

Anybody know if any fundies were in Chattanooga this weekend? The hubs and I went down there Sunday and Labor Day. In the valet section of our hotel there was a huge van (white, with a small trailer being pulled behind) with those little cartoon images of all the family members. I think there must have been 10 child images on the back and I instantly thought they must have been Quiverfull or something. Didn't stick around to see, but I thought someone here may have known via a blog or something.