Image by Kyle Jones - http://www.twitter.com/justkyle

Nashville, Tennessee…

I was born there. I lived there for 21 years. (I’m 31 now.) I remember growing up thinking it was the greatest city on earth. I remember listening to Coyote McCloud, Rhett Walker and the Y107 Zoo Crew radio show, and thinking that no one else on earth could do things on the radio or make me laugh like that. I remember the KDF neon on top of their building back when Carl P. Mayfield and Bubba Skynyrd were ruling the rock airwaves of 103 KDF. I’ve had my share of Rotier’s burgers and Vandyland shakes and well, probably everything at Pancake Pantry…and I remember watching them change the banner out in front of Tower Records on West End every month and thinking it was cool as hell that they went through all that trouble just to look cool and sell records. I remember getting really excited going to Stone Mountain and buying stupid band t-shirts, some of which I still have to this day. I remember going with my friends to see the Fun Girls from Mt. Pilot at Lucy’s Record Shop, or to see the Melvins at 328 Performance Hall. I remember the construction of the SBC/Batman building and how cool it was that we had a Batman building, even though it wasn’t “technically” a Batman buidling. I could still explain to people how to get from one obscure place to another just by closing my eyes and visualizing it.

I’ve over-made my point. I remember Nashville how it was when I lived there, way back up until September 2001, when I moved to the West Coast, right around September 11th.

Which makes what I’ve seen the last week so hard to choke down. Yes, there is an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and yeah, a guy tried to blow up some sort of jerry-rigged bomb in Times Square, but my thoughts, and my heart are in the 615 area code, trying to figure out what’s going to happen next…because my city is under ten feet of murky Cumberland River water. Twelve feet above flood levels. That’s insane. That’s once every 1000 years kind of stuff. That’s 0001% chance of happening kind of stuff.

The Flood - i-24 by Riker Photography

Yeah, we just had a tornado here in Arkansas, and that’s what we’re dealing with on the day-to-day basis, but to go through the shock of that and hear the following day that my hometown, where my parents still live, was being covered in flood water. Killing people. Sweeping them away. Burying and destroying institutions, places, things that I’d grown up around and in. Well, it’s made me sick all week.

I’m five or six hours away, and I’m not sure that I could even do anything if I *was* down there, hell, I’d probably make it worse,or drown, or something…but I’m definitely thinking about it.

I’ve been away for almost a decade. Done a lot of living and traveling since then. Have settled down, gotten married, the works. Have a great job at an excellent company doing remarkable things. The last time I was in Nashville was December of 2008. I drove there in my new car and went from the slow, methodical pace of drivers in Arkansas back into the frenetic frenzied lane swapping craziness of downtown Nashville traffic. It overwhelmed me. I hated driving there the last time I visited. It freaked me out and made me feel like I’d grown weak and unaccustomed to my city. Like I was a tourist in my own hometown now. It pissed me off. To say I’d gotten used to Arkansas traffic would be an understatement. I remember when I first got to Little Rock screaming curse words and flipping people off because they were going FIFTY MILES AN HOUR. Hell, let’s be transparent, I’d yell at people who were going seventy on the interstate. Because Nashville is just fast. People drive fast, they talk fast, they say “Ten” like “Ten-ee-unn” and we deal with things even faster.

Which is probably why we’re not getting as much press as some of the other things going on right now. Nashvillians have an innate ability to get things done and keep on moving no matter what happens. No one seems to be looting. Everyone is just doing what needs to be done and trying to get past it. Everyone is not-so-secretly happy that the stupid “Ghost Ballet” statue/sculpture fell apart. Nashvillians are kind of dicks. We know that. We’re fine with it.

I haven’t been a live-in Nashvillian in years. But I always feel that it’s my home and I always think in the back of my head that someday I will end up there again, for good. But who knows.

I just hope that the Grand Ol’ Opry, and Hatch Show Print, and Tootsie’s, and Jack’s and Robert’s Western Wear, and Adelphia Coliseum (sorry it’ll never be LP Field to me) and all the things I know and love about Nashville will bounce back.

I know they’ll bounce back.

It’s what Nashville does.

WE GOT THIS. WE ARE NASHVILLE. WE ARE MUSIC CITY.

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Here are some other awesome blogs about the Nashville situation:

Nashville Scene: http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/the-flood/Content?oid=1526360

Section303: http://www.section303.com/we-are-nashville-4366

and a big list I stole from the mighty mighty Nashvillest.com

• Stephen Yeargin: “Not landlocked anymore” and “Sandbags”
• Goldni: “I Don’t Get It”
• East Nashville Blog: “The Great Nashville Flood of 2010?
• Kristine Neeley: “This Is Our Home”
• Annie Blogs: “Stories of Rain”
• South Nashville Life: “Nashville Life”
• I [Heart] Nashville: “Nashville Needs Your Help” (pictured above)
• Shakesville: “The Situation In Nashville”
• Tiny Cat Pants: Ah, heck, just read everything.
• Holly Wynne: “Down in the flood” and “More about our flood”
• Lori Lenz: “Nashville Flood, part 2?
• Southern Beale: “Devastating” and “After the Deluge”
• Avalon Acres Farm: Perspective on cleanup
• Looking For Like: “Rebuild This City On Rock and Roll”
• Nate News: “Nashville, Breathe”
• Huffington Post: “They Are Nashville: Standing By Music City”

You can help, if you want to, by donating to http://www.hon.org (Hands over Nashville) or by going to http://www.NashvilleRedCross.com (which has been getting so much traffic it has been crashing, so please be patient and keep trying.)

Thanks!

Tags: Middle TN Flood, Nashville, Nashville Flood