DAY 11: SOUTHERN APOGEEPrinter Friendly View

Linc and Doug shortly before being ejected by Tootsies, Nashville

DAY 11: SOUTHERN APOGEE

We awoke in sunny Nashville with the realization that perhaps we’d better replenish our financial coffers, and fast. We were briefly stumped on how best to accomplish this…until I remembered that this was Music City, after all, and that perhaps my musical talents could be put to gainful employment. So we made our way down to Broad, only to learn there was little call for such entertainment as I had to offer. The Ryman Auditorium—unaccountably having received no notification of my arrival—was locked. None of the other local venues offered to open their doors. I was at last forced to throw myself on the kindness of strangers.

This put us out of sorts. The final insult came when we were ejected from Tootsies, the famous honky-tonk, after Doug bitterly complained when his Lung Ching Dragonwell green tea was not on the menu, and when the Lipton equivalent was served in a highball glass at an objectionably tepid temperature.

After this rude awakening, we made our way to the Nashville branch of the Davis-Kidd bookstore, which went a very long way toward raising our spirits. The crowd was animated and our bookstore contact, Ashley, extremely helpful. This was followed by a delightful lunch of “meat ‘n’ three” at the Pie Wagon, presided over by the tireless and irrepressible Carol. After finishing his pan-fried catfish and helping himself to a second jalapeno cornbread muffin, Doug pronounced his equanimity to be entirely restored.

Next we made our way down to Birmingham, the southernmost stop on the tour. At Books-A-Million we met up with another great group of people and a gratifying dose of Southern hospitality. This has been our first stop in either Tennessee or Alabama, and—the morning’s events aside—the people (fans or otherwise) simply couldn’t have been nicer to us.


LBC


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