Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 9, 1990 TAG: 9003091738
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"I'd like to walk around town or the mall with him," Valentine said. "I'd say to my friends, `Hey, this is Hank.' And everybody would be like yeah, sure."
Meeting the bad boy of country music isn't exactly a last wish for the 15-year-old Cave Spring High School sophomore. Despite the tumor, Valentine hopes to live a long healthy life.
And if all goes well, he probably will.
His head is healing better than expected after brain surgery last November. The cyst that covered a large portion of his brain has been drained and no longer causes blackouts. He even expects to play football again in the fall.
But he still wants to meet Williams, who will perform Sunday night at the Roanoke Civic Center coliseum. Opening the bill will be the Kentucky Headhunters and Susi Beatty.
Williams' publicity people, however, say getting to meet Hank isn't a likely possibility. He's simply too busy, they say. When not performing, he's either recording, hunting or partying. That's it.
"He's been hesitant in the past to do this sort of thing," said Kent Arwood, Williams' publicity agent at Kathy Gangwisch & Associates Inc. in Nashville.
Arwood said that his client doesn't like to agree to meet fans, and get their hopes up, only to cancel at the last minute and disappoint them. He said that can happen easily because Williams keeps such a tight schedule.
Normally, Williams arrives by limousine shortly before show time, goes straight to his bus and changes clothes. Then, he performs and returns to the bus immediately afterwards.
He doesn't allow time for autographs or idle chitchat with fans. The bus rolls out of the parking lot usually before the reverb of the amplifiers fades completely.
"Well, I'm disappointed," Valentine said earlier this week. "But I'm not real disappointed. I can still listen to his music and I might get to meet him some other time."
Valentine first became serious about meeting the country music star while recovering from a brain operation at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.
His brother Frederick and nurses at the hospital told him that Hank occasionally stopped by to visit with some of the younger people being treated there. Valentine didn't get his hopes up too high, but he hoped nonetheless.
Officials at the Medical Center said, however, that Hank has not been known to visit the hospital's patients, other than his own family members.
Valentine spent three weeks in the Nashville hospital last November. He has a glioma tumor rooted deep in his brain that has been growing slowly for years. It went undetected until last fall during football season.
During games, he experienced minor seizures that went unnoticed by his coaches and teammates, but caused brief blackouts and periods of temporary memory loss on the field.
The situation was especially bad because Valentine was Cave Spring's junior varsity quarterback. Coaches would send in plays and he wasn't able to remember them, the names of his teammates or the correct signals to call at the line of scrimmage.
"Sometimes I'd remember when I got up to the line, sometimes I wouldn't," he said. "But it didn't matter much because most of the time I got sacked anyway. We didn't have the greatest offensive line . . ."
He had been experiencing the seizures for several years, but they got worse as the season went on last fall. Still, he kept them to himself until after the team's next to last game. He finally told his family.
He missed the game and Cave Spring's varsity squad dedicated its last game to him. They won 41-13 and gave Valentine the game ball signed by the team.
Tests and brain scans showed that a large cyst had formed on Valentine's brain. Doctors said the cyst was a side-effect of the tumor and that fluid building up in the cyst had been causing the blackouts.
The fluid was drained from the cyst and Valentine has been given medication to help control the blackouts. But the tumor was too deep within the brain for surgeons to remove and will continue to grow in his head.
However, Dr. George Allen, head of neurosurgery at Vanderbilt, said that despite the tumor, Valentine still very well may be able to lead a normal life.
"That's one end of the spectrum," Allen said. "This type of tumor is very difficult to predict and every patient is different."
Still, he said the possibility exists that the tumor could begin growing faster than anticipated or the cyst could begin filling with fluid again.
Meanwhile, Valentine remains optimistic.
"By the way it's healing, I should be fine unless something goes wrong. I guess there's always that chance," he said.
But he's preparing otherwise. He's back in school after spending some 10 weeks at home. His hair has grown back, but not as long as he would like. He's also been slowly getting back into shape and now runs four miles a day.
And he's looking for another band. Besides sports, Valentine's other big interest is music. He plays the drums, but had to set aside the sticks for a while. His former band has since split up.
He'd like to play in a band that plays some heavy metal, some rock and, of course, some Hank.
Valentine has been a fan of Hank Williams Jr. ever since he can remember. Growing up, his older brothers and sisters often listened to Williams and other country music around the house.
"I listened to all of them and Hank turned out to be my favorite," said Valentine, who is one of 10 children in the Valentine family.
He has owned most of Williams' albums at one time or another, although many of them have been borrowed by friends and never returned. He has seen him in concert once and has tickets for Sunday's show.
It's a combination of Hank's music and his hell-raising outlaw attitude that seems to appeal to Valentine.
"He doesn't care what people think," he said. "He just does what ever he wants to do and says whatever he wants to say and doesn't seem to care. That takes a lot of guts."
From his snake-head cowboy hat down to his kangaroo skin boots and his reluctance to smile for photographs, Valentine prides himself on maintaining a rough and tough image of his own.
But he isn't so sure how tough he'd be if he actually got the chance to meet his musical hero.
"I'd probably be so freaked out I wouldn't know what to say," he admitted.
There aren't any pressing questions about his music, career or his life Valentine would like to ask Hank anyway. He'd just like to hang out.
"I've heard his music and I've heard him talk, but I'd like to meet him in person and see what he's really like when his guard is down," he said.
Williams' music appeals to Valentine more than other country artists Randy Travis, Alabama and Ricky Van Shelton, because Hank incorporates more rock 'n' roll into his act.
"His voice is country, but his band is rock," he explained. "Sometimes he'll play a country song and sometimes he'll just go off. It's great."
He often performs country standards like "Hey Good Looking" and "Your Cheatin' Heart" made famous by his legendary father Hank Williams Sr. or his own "Family Tradition" side-by-side with covers from Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Bob Seger and other rockers.
"It's definitely not a typical country concert," Valentine said.
Hank Williams Jr. will appear at the Roanoke Civic Center on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. The Kentucky Headhunters and Susi Beatty will open the show. Tickets are $18.50 reserved. 981-1201.
by CNB