To Middle Tennessee

Today I'm traveling with a group of honors students to Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, where we will attend annual conference of the Tennessee Collegiate Honors Council. It'll be a short trip, so even though I'll be just a few miles southeast of Nashville, I won't get to do any of the usual stuff I do when I travel to that area—no visit with Mark, Becky and jb, no trip to a restaurant or microbrewery.

Yet even without the usual company and experiences, I still feel that well of nostalgia and memory rising up inside me. For nearly 10 years—through most of the 1980s and most of my 20s and into my 30s—I lived in Nashville and worked on being a songwriter and a star. Those were both difficult and halcyon days, and they have done a great deal to color the character that I have now. I wonder about them—and at them—often.

I've told the story of the White Water Band here, but the story of the Nashville days remains, for the most part, untold. For now, let's just say that "Nashville Days" are coming soon.