Travelling has taught me that I’m a foreign object jammed in between the rocks of a rushing stream; that is to say, I am interrupting the otherwise smooth ebb and flow of things. I buoy and bob my awkwardly gerrymandered position, trying to soak up as much water as I can so I can take a memory or so with me in my brief contra current blink of an existence… if I succeed, someone will remember I came, maybe even appreciate my visit, and that’s the art of friendship and the # 2 reason I travel (for #1 read last blog). So here I am, jammed up in the Tennessee current after stealing away from Dallas what memories I could.
On a weeklong trip to Scotland in July of 2009, I stayed in a house that had been turned into a hostel by a guy named Steve. Steve, a guy in his mid 30s? early 40s?, of grander proportions, and a tad horse race obsessed, is for another blog, but his hostel and its human bonding mantra (not bondage) led me to meet 5 crazy worldly cats, one of which lives just outside of Nashville and the reason “I’m ‘jammed up’ in the ‘Tennessee current.’”
This one ‘Stella Cat’ that lives out in ‘God’s Country’ Tennessee offered to stable my travels for a bit and, 11+ hours and 700+ miles from of Dallas, I am much obliged she did.
Highlighting my day of rest was a tick-infested grave search (photo) on an old plantation and a Tennessee-accented ‘grunt’ who was just a 'piddlin' bout. (see video, pardon the poor footage).
It was then, in Lebanon, Tennessee, that I met the Legend.
If you judge the Legend by looks then you got three hipster/mods ‘retro’ing’ up Nashville’s guitar twang country roots and confusing the hell out of the Lebanon’s local folkal with tunes ‘too-good-to-be-played’ by ‘three hipster/mod’ poster rockers. So not only looking their parts, they could better be defined as ‘three brilliant young musicians with good ol’ rocker souls transplanted to Nashville from out west somewhere, and Ringo, John, Pauling it up with enough heart and talent to see the future in expressing what they love, music.’ I’ll be damned if I wasn’t sold by Milwaukee’s best and 3 egg McMuffins to become their future tour bus driver, someone’s gotta get them to Red Rocks and if not music, then maps and navigation I do know (“Going East from Lebanon doing 75mph for 15 minutes down the I-40 you’ll come to exit 25B, turn right off the exit and left into the 1st gas station, there you’ll find beer 24-7”).
Legendbound into wee’morn hours, for sleep I hanker, but thru languid eyes I diverge the delta road hypnotically traipsing her pale line guides under my impetuous stare. ‘Oh feed me to the southern current, where I will divert the smooth flow of my next jam-up, Ocean Springs, Mississippi.’
Host: unknown, couch surfing for the 1st time on this trip.
(Alabama #30, Mississippi #31).
.s.
