Stint

"And these towns all look the same.
We just pass the time in the hotel rooms
And wander around backstage
Til those lights come up
And we hear that crowd
And we remember why we came."

-- Jackson Browne, "Stay"

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Just finished a four-day stint in KY and TN, rambling through Appalachia in our big white van. Crowded in the backseat are flats, drops, pipes, props, benches, fake trees, boxes, and a sound system with amps. They shake, rattle and roll.

Yesterday morning we played the South Jackson Civic Center in Tullahoma, TN, a great dinosaur of a theatre: dusty, rusty, cluttered. The dressing rooms might have asbestos. The couch in the green room is almost a floor, giving under your weight until your knees meet your chest. The stage floor creaks wonderfully, the seats in the auditorium recline, squeaking. The master electrician, a rootsy black man named Michael, calls it his second home, says that's why he doesn't bother wearing shoes when he comes to work. We told him there were splinters and screws on the floor. He said he knew.

We took back roads to get to Tennessee, sloping, curving, twisting roads. Trees hooded the trip. The Smokeys brought the fog down upon us as we left the state last night, the rain twinkling on the windshield, the sun falling behind hills, the smoke of the earth blinding us. It was magnificent.

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There's a Country Inn & Suites near Berea, KY, that is all by itself at the top of a huge hill, not unlike Rohan's golden hall. There's a long driveway behind a sort of stone gate. The hill slopes are covered in wild grass, and it is windy there. Driving up that path to the hotel felt like entering a Jane Austen novel.

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Also ate at a Shoney's for the first time in years.