One of the few records we had when I was growing up was titled A Night at the Grand Old Opry. The liner on back of the cover of the Harmony label album reads in part:
The Grand Old Opry is probably the most popular showcase for country music. Originated in 1925 by radio station WSM in Nashville, Tennessee, the Opry still packs people into Ryman Auditorium by the thousands every Saturday
night . . .
You’ll hear Billy Walker’s great . . . “Funny How Time Slips Away” . . .

If you are familiar with country music history, you will realize that this album was produced by Don Law and Frank Jones prior to 1974. A quick Google search will indicate that the Grand ‘Old’ Opry’s last performance at the famous Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville was held on March 15, 1974. The Opry then moved to its current home, The Grand Ole Opry House, at the now defunct theme park Opryland, USA. Furthermore, in 2004 the Opry House reached the point at which it housed the Grand ‘Ole’ Opry longer than had the Ryman. The Ryman is still referred to as the mother church of country music.
According to ryman.com (Retrieved January 21, 2024), the original opry was conducted from the fifth floor of the National Life building at 7th and Union downtown where the WSM studios were located. As the opry enlarged, National Life built an auditorium with a capacity of 500. In October 1934 the Opry relocated to the Hillsboro (Belcourt) Theatre. Another move ensued in 1936 to the Dixie Tabernacle which could seat 3,500. This site, at 4120 Fatherland Street in East Nashville, had wooden benches and sawdust floors, but no dressing rooms. Another relocation followed in 1939 to the 2,200 seat War Memorial, where the first admission of one quarter per person was charged, due to reduced capacity of approximately 700. It was on June 5, 1943 that the Opry moved to the now famous Ryman, where it would remain for thirty-one years.
It was at the Ryman that Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, featuring legendary Earl Scruggs, debuted. Hank Williams, Sr. made his first appearance in 1949 at age 25. Elvis Presley was featured in 1954. Johnny Cash first appeared in 1956, and Patsy Cline became an Opry member in 1960.
Wikipedia informs that “Funny How Time Slips Away” was written by renowned songwriter and singer Willie Nelson. Billy Walker, now practically forgotten, recorded the song in 1961. It has since been recorded several times by many different artists as a vocal and instrumental, including Willie Nelson, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Ray Price, Rick Nelson, Tom Jones, Jim Ed Brown, Elvis Presley, Jim Nabors, Tina Turner, Faron Young, George Jones, and Boots Randolph, among several others. The song has also been adapted and parodied in both English and other languages (secondhandsongs.com, Retrieved January 21, 2024).
The lyrics of the song revolve around a man running into his former lover and having a conversation with her. Different portions of the words point to the timelessness of love, bittersweet memory, and possible retribution.

Well, hello there.
My, it’s been a long, long time.
How am I doing?
Oh, I guess that I’m doing fine.

It’s been so long now,
But it seems now, that it was only yesterday.
Gee, ain’t it funny, how time slips away?

How’s your new love?
I hope that he’s doing fine.

I heard you told him
That you’d love him ‘til the end of time.

Now, that’s the same thing that you told me
Seems like just the other day.
Gee, ain’t it funny, how time slips away?

I gotta go now.
I guess I’ll see you around.

Don’t know when though.
Never know when I’ll be back in town.

But remember, what I tell you—
In time you’re gonna pay,
And it’s surprising, how time slips away.

Running into former loves can be awkward. I once ran into a former love. It was very unexpected, and she’ll never know how close I came to hyperventilating. I had fond memories of her, and I hope her memories of me were fond ones also.
At least parting spared us the possibility of not becoming like another song Billy Walker recorded on the A Night at the Grand Old Opry album, “I’m So Miserable Without You (It’s Like Having You Around)”!!!!
There are those lovers, however, who do not part. They sometimes marry and later wish they had parted. Another song that George Jones and Tammy Wynette recorded, “Two Story House”, comes to mind. In the story told by that song, a couple achieves their materialistic goals but lose their love in the process, as related in the refrain:

Now we live (yes we live) in a two-story house.
Oh, what splendor!
But there’s no love about.

I’ve got my story.
And I’ve got mine, too.
How sad it is, we now live in a two-story house.

Dear Reader, I hope you and yours survived the winter storm of January 2024 and are looking forward to a return to normalcy (whatever that is). I leave you with some thoughts from email until the printed words brings us together again.

I relabeled all of the jars in my wife's spice rack.
I'm not in trouble yet,
but the “thyme” is “cumin”.

I just read a book about marriage that says
treat your wife like you treated her on your first date.
So tonight after dinner I'm dropping her off at her parent's house.

My wife says I keep pushing her buttons.
However, if that were even remotely true,
I would have found “mute” by now.

A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once.
-- Phyllis Diller

After a week of being snowed in,
I'm either going out for ice cream
or to commit a felony.
I'll decide in the car.

Said a South Carolina Trooper:
“Yeah, we have a quota.
Two more tickets and
My wife gets a toaster oven.”

One day, you’ll be able to tell your grandkids,
“I survived the Tennessee Winter Storm of January 2024.”

Walking into the bar, Mike said to Charlie the bartender,
"Pour me a stiff one - just had another fight with the little woman."
"Oh yeah?" said Charlie, "And how did this one end?"
"When it was over," Mike replied, "She came to me on her hands and knees."
"Really," said Charles, "Now that's a switch! What did she say?"
She said, "Come out from under the bed, you little chicken."