With Buck Owens’s death this past Saturday morning, I feel I must share my own Buck Owens anecdote:

Three years ago, on the eve of my 23rd birthday, which I was celebrating in Bakersfield, California, at the Buck Owens Crystal Palace*, I slow-danced with Buck, up onstage, while his band played his hit “In the Palm of Your Hand.” Yes, it was dreamy.

* The Buck Owens Crystal Palace is not actually made of crystal. It is a large wooden building made to look something like a block in an old-west town. Inside there’s a restaurant with a stage and dance floor, where Buck played most every weekend night, and there’s a country-western museum featuring, among many other things, a suit jacket covered entirely in rhinestones.

(Posted at 10:27 a.m.)