Luck or Something Like It by Kenny Rogers Page A

smallest details. If I had to guess, most of the arguments we had at that point in my life were about money, which was pretty typical of people of that age. It doesn’t make them less attractive or less explosive, but it does make it typical. I don’t ever like to blame someone else, but in this case, they were all her fault. The good news is, I didn’t have to remember my shortcomings because she did and didn’t hesitate to remind me. Other than that, our marriage was damn near perfect! I guarantee that if I walked up to her today, she would find something we could argue about.
    Now I know I’ve been kind of hard on Margo, and in some instances she probably didn’t deserve it. And for that I apologize. However, some of our “misunderstandings” were, at the very least, comical. Sometime near the end of our marriage, which I might add this story had nothing to do with, I was working in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in the dead of winter. Snow was everywhere and all the roads were frozen solid. I had absolutely no experience driving under these conditions.
    So as we reached the top of the hill on a very narrow and icy road, I noticed I had no control over stopping the car. We were at the mercy of gravity and sliding sideways. Fortunately we were barely moving, but I could not stop. I don’t know about Margo, but I knew the outcome was not going to be good.
    Aside from the slide, the road dropped off some twenty to thirty feet on my side of the road, and we were headed for the edge. I knew we had to do something. I said to her, “Get out, you can make it,” and I knew she could. At times she could be very athletic, and this needed to be one of those times.
    Margo opened her door, jumped out, and started running alongside the car as I slowly headed for the inevitable. I was so impressed with her concern for my safety, and it really touched me. Could I have been wrong all this time?
    I watched this little 110-pound woman hold on to the car door, dig her heels into the ice, and struggle to keep the car upright at the same time yelling to me: “Throw me my mink!” I guess she felt she needed that coat so she could live and go tell someone what had happened to me.
    I didn’t throw it . . . she would have to freeze to death and I would have to die anonymously.
    I have to admit we had some great times. We dated about six months and then we got married. It was in early 1964. Our son, Kenny Jr., was born on May 24, 1964. Do the math.
     
    Getting to know and work with Kirby Stone during this period turned out to be so important on so many levels. For example, Kirby was the first person to encourage me to take a serious interest in photography, something I have developed a deep passion for over the years. The Bobby Doyle Three—Bobby, Don, and I—were staying at Kirby’s house with him and his wife, Julie, in New Jersey sometime in the early 1960s while doing some performances in the area. It was fall and the landscape was beautiful. I don’t know that I had ever seen a fall day in that part of the country before. For a boy from Texas, it was really something.
    Kirby’s backyard was full of colorful fall foliage and I really wanted to photograph it. I was using an old camera that I’d had for I don’t know how long, a Brownie Hawkeye, nothing fancy, but it worked.
    “Why don’t you use my Argus C3?” Kirby asked. “It’ll give you a sharper image.”
    So we spent a little time going over it, and he showed me how simple it was to use. I tried it, and I must admit, those were some of the best color photographs I’ve ever taken. To this day I can remember the thrill of seeing those pictures, even though at the time I had to wait seventy-two hours for the film to be developed. It just felt good knowing I had taken them.
    This was the starting point of my lifelong love of photography. Kirby believed that most musicians did themselves a disservice by getting so far into the music that they had no outside interests. Because of