By David Kav
For those who follow me on Twitter personally (www.twitter.com/davidkav) you know that I Tweet A LOT. Today, however, not so much. Many reasons for that.
Day 6 was the Final Day/Event for the Inaugural Writing The Rails. Theresa and I had a very pleasant late breakfast with our gracious hosts and friends, Rich and Suzanne Varnon. CK’s Coffee Shop. As I told them, it felt like the scene from “My Cousin Vinny” where Vinny and his wife was “deciding on the ‘Breakfast’…What’s a grit?” scene. After I brought that up, that conjured up a GREAT order of grits (I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there was some GREAT Soul Music playing in the background during our food and conversation.) Turns out that this fueling up would be necessary in more than just the physical sense. We came back to the house, showered up and headed out to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
Took us a bit of time to find Jessica Overton, the Special Events Coordinator. No problem. A friendly intro and set-up…went over the Federal Regulations/Hospital Rules…and the Private Concert was underway.
An amazing experience. Started out slowly. However, Jessica had me walking around in the style of the old troubadour. It really challenged me to use my “inside voice.” I got over the challenge quite quickly. I was playing a lot of Christmas Carols (some I had to remember “on-the-spot.” Lots of help from the volunteer staff and from the In-Patients.) A new song was sparked out of the event.
After the show and the presentation of the check, Theresa and I left with very few words. Jessica told us that we couldn’t take any photos or videos inside the hospital (although we got her to admit that “I WISH we could” and we totally understood why we couldn’t.) However, we were allowed to take photos outside of the hospital. In a matter of seconds, Theresa and I silently agreed that it would be “disrespectful” to do so. Can’t explain it better than that. I will say this - many tears were shed between both of us from the moment we left the hospital until we shot the video recap at the Riverfront.
Theresa and I walked with arms around each other as we left the Riverfront after vid shoot (vids to be posted soon.) Theresa said it best,
“We are bound forever.”
Indeed.
This has been an amazing experience. It has been a privilege and an honor to be the One Man with the One Guitar for this Debut Tour. There will be MANY more tours to come. And, on behalf of both The Local Tourist and I: We WILL be back, Memphis! You will be missed.
