After the Flood...

Friday, one week before. We were all jammed into Red Tree Coffee in Kingston Springs at a benefit for musician Jack Kapanka, seriously injured in an auto accident. Kids were stopping by on their way to the prom and we all cheered as they walked in displaying their finery. Several musicians took their turns sharing songs and, as often happens there at Red Tree, the spirit was a special bonding between artists and audience.

Who knew...

Saturday morning. The rain came pouring down. Not being a big fan of driving in rain so hard I can't see well, I nonetheless steeled myself to make my way to my radio show on Radio Free Nashville that afternoon via Old Harding Road to Highway 100. It was getting pretty wet then, I observed. By the time I was on my way to join T.J. and Rene for an after-show bite at Borders, a stretch of Old Harding Road was completely flooded and I had to reroute back to Temple Road and Highway 100.

Who knew...that 24 hours later the road I traveled and the cities of Kingston Springs and Pegram that I'd become so fond of would become the sites of many rescues by boat of people from their flooded homes and unbelieveable devastation. I soon knew how lucky I was...to be able to have gotten back and forth to my destinations on Saturday and that my Bellevue subdivision would be spared the damage of the flood waters.

I tell this story here because it is in these times that music speaks and brings us together. Telethons and benefit concerts and tip jars abound to raise money for flood relief. And indeed, one of the very sites of the calm before the storm, Red Tree Coffee, is a command post for volunteers and was a place of healing last night with the music of the beloved Calico Trail...as always, closing the distance between artist and audience, bringing us all together.

We are Nashville...and Kingston Springs, and Pegram and all the other hard hit places. We'll make it through this together.