Nashville Changes

So, a little more on Nashville. Yesterday, after I left my hotel to go meet Mark and jb for what has become our traditional meeting at Cancun in Bellevue, I drove down 17th Avenue South (the western portion of Nashville's famous Music Row), heading for 21st and a meandering route toward my friends. Almost nothing was as it had been when I lived there in the 1980s. New construction has been squeezed into lots on both sides of the street. Old places have been torn down and new ones erected, often housing the same company. Places have been remodeled to the extent that they're no longer recognizable. My first Nashville abode--1025 17th Avenue S.--still stands, but it's mostly recognizable only by its number. I called a friend who now lives in downtown Knoxville but who used to run around Nashville with me more than anybody else. I was in the midst of leaving on his answering machine a cryptic message about nothing being the same as we used to know it when I was stopped by the red light at the corner of 21st Avenue South (Hillsborough Road) and Blair Blvd. I looked to my right and there sat Brown's Diner, looking exactly like its old self, and I told my friend so in the message. If I hadn't been on my way to eat lunch with old friends, I might have parked and gone in for a cheeseburger and a beer. Maybe I will the next time I'm in town.

P.S. Synchronicity? In a few minutes my Knoxville friend called back, saying that he'd just been somewhere talking with somebody else about the changes in Nashville over the last couple of decades, and he wondered if he'd recognize anything there were he to go back. Then he came home and found my message about Nashville and Brown's Diner on his machine. Since 1983, our friendship has been like that . . . like my friendship with Mark and jb . . . like Brown's Diner.