When It Rains...

After a wonderful weekend in which my wife, parents, sister, and mother- and father-in-law visited for my white coat ceremony, I've been getting ready for this week's exams. Last night, however, I came down with what I presume is the flu. Today, I stayed home and huddled, shivering under the covers most of the day while I tried to sleep and, in the process, get every bit of sweat out of my body. As night has fallen, I've been increasingly stressed out about class and exams and sad about missing Winning Run's building opening.

My plight was quickly put into the proper perspective when, a short time ago, I found out that a buddy of mine from my old neighborhood softball team, the East Atlanta Pillage, died either yesterday or today from a fall while hiking Lava Rock Falls in the Grand Canyon. Needless to say, my heart goes out to his family and everyone who was touched by his endless cheer and wonderfully unique outlook.

Pour a Little Out for the Snowman

R.I.P. - Jerry Reed

On my drive home from the grocery a short while ago, I received a call from Dr. James Three Thousand.

"You got your black armband on?," he asked.

"What? Who died?," I asked.

"Jerry Reed," he confessed.

"Damn."

"Yeah. Guess the chances of him appearing in our remake of 'Smokey and the Bandit' are pretty slim."

"Guess so," I said.

"Pour some out for The Snowman," the good doctor advised.

"I will," I promised. "Why the hell couldn't it have been Winehouse?"

"Don't know, brother," he consoled.

As I sit here, banging this out on my laptop, listening to a compilation of Jerry Reed tunes, I'm reminded of the time a bunch of us saw him in concert a few years ago at the Georgia Mountain Festival. The concert was mediocre. Actually, it might've been okay but there was no way in hell that it would live up to our expectations; the only way we would've been satisfied was if it had been performed from a black '77 Trans-Am by a 1977 Jerry Reed AND Burt Reynolds. To his credit, Jerry didn't seem to be mailing it in; he gave it his all.

Unfortunately, during the show, a buddy thought it was a good idea to come out of the closet to Dr. J3K. (Really? In the middle of a Jerry Reed concert at a country fair in the north Georgia mountains? That's like 3/4 of the way toward a hate-crime.) Being that this buddy was married at the time, J3K thought it was a big, ill-timed joke. When he learned that it was, in fact, the truth, J3K's face had the most confused, stunned look that I've seen. Shortly thereafter, we all left and drank many beers.

And that, readers, is my favorite Jerry Reed concert story.