First Activation: Flooding in Christiana

This past Thursday morning, at about ten minutes to eleven, I was working at my desk when I noticed a new email from Greg King, the CEO of the Heart of Tennessee Chapter of the American Red Cross. "We have some flooding in South Rutherford County. Please head to Murfreesboro to assist."

I quickly packed up my laptop, grabbed a bottle of water and a can of Sun Drop from the fridge, and left the office. After stopping at home to change trousers and put on some boots, and a quick stop at the gas station to fill up, I headed north on I-24, directly to the Murfreesboro office. Forty five minutes flat. Greg was waiting with Lee Doherty, a DAT Captain (Disaster Action Team). I was immediately loaded up with food and water, and dispatched to a local school, where I was told we would be setting up a shelter.

Arriving at Christiana Elementary, I met Kiel Hargrove (emergency services director) who told me we'd be setting up shelter at a church down the road - Crossway Baptist. We hadn't yet signed agreement with Crossway, so as others were handling certain preparations, I was tasked with drawing up the shelter agreement papers, getting them signed, and then performing a walk-through to note any existing damages to the building before we put it into use as a shelter.

The sanctuary had at least two hundred seats that needed to be unlocked from each other and stacked against the wall. And then, before I knew it, it was time to head to McDonalds to pick up a hundred and fifty double cheeseburgers and fries. After dropping some off at the church for the staff and evacuees to eat, I headed to Christiana Middle school to give the rest to the first responders.

Pulling up in a Red Cross van, I was looked at with some puzzlement. But when I got out and said "You guys want some food?" the smiles and shouts began. Firefighters, river rescuers and others came out of the woodwork and surrounded the Rubbermaid chest that contained the food, and the stack of bottled water cases next to it.

"We sure are hungry. Food ain't passed these lips all day." It was five o'clock in the evening.

At 9 pm, the shelter still hadn't taken in any evacuees that would stay the night. I was sent home, and I drove back to Tullahoma.

I arrived the next day (Friday) to learn that a homeless man had been sleeping on the pavement in front of the church when their doors had opened that morning. The man was let into the shelter, where he slept for several hours.

No one else had made use of the shelter. Our job was now to await more expected rain to see if the floods would recur. While waiting, volunteers went out into the area in teams of two and three to perform damage assessments, as a precursor to determining how much financial assistance, if any, they would receive from the red cross.

At noon, I drove to Subway and picked up 40 subs, also stopping at Kroger's groceries for a few bags of ice and some soda. I returned to the shelter with the food. Our sleeping "client" was awake and he ate as well.

It wasn't long before I drove up to Nashville to collect 35 "cleanup kits." These are boxes with brooms, mops, buckets, bleach, etc. On the drive back, I was stopped in traffic due to a "blasting incident" on I-24. The gridlock was miles long. Friday afternoon rush hour. Perfect time to be "blasting" along side the interstate. Don't you think? The on-and-off showers weren't making for much safer road conditions, either.

After some creative re-routing, I made it back to the shelter. The Red Cross staff was there still, though the shelter was officially closed. The cleanup kits remained in the back of the van, which stayed parked in the church lot until the next morning, when more volunteers would come back to drive around and distribute the kits to families whose homes had been damaged in the flood.

At 6 pm, I and five others were the last of the Red Cross personnel to leave the Crossway Baptist Church and head home.

Thank God we weren't much needed. But thank God we were ready anyway.

Remarks on 9-11

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psalms 30:5)

Times are clearly grave when an entire Nation asks itself for days and weeks on end “When can we smile again? When will it be okay to laugh? When will we stop crying?”

There isn’t one among us who doesn’t remember where we were and what we were doing on the morning of September 11th, 2001, when we learned our Country was under attack. When, after the initial shock and disbelief, we rushed to the nearest radio or television set, we bore witness to true horror. In the immediate aftermath, all Americans, and people the world over, from all walks of life felt uncertainty, anger, fear, and sadness for the murder of innocent Americans. For the bravery and sacrifice of the first responders, who gave their lives so that their countrymen might live - the tragedy of their loss is surpassed only by the measure of their heroism. As we remember and honor them today, we remember that verse from America the Beautiful:

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life.

“United we stand” was the phrase that became the antidote to our sadness – the bittersweet medicine of unity in the face of adversity, and the realization that all of our previous differences were small when compared to the pride in knowing that we are all Americans; knowing that, in order to make it through, we had to stay together, and we would help one another. The examples are innumerable:

Firemen, policemen, and paramedics who always look after each other in the face of danger, and whose families stayed together and prayed together for the safe return of their loved ones, continued to support and comfort each other throughout all uncertainty. Volunteer grief counselors, some of whom had lost loved ones years before in the Oklahoma City bombing, came to console the families of all those who had lost their lives. Blood donors, financial contributors, doctors, soldiers, all responded to the Nation’s needs. Throughout the entire United States, the richest and poorest among us stood in line and stayed on hold in our eagerness to help.

We didn’t do this because we were following somebody’s orders. And we didn’t do it out of some sense of guilt. Rather we did it out of selfless instinct – for the sake of humanity - knowing “I am my brother’s keeper.”

We have not forgotten. And we will never forget. Today, on this solemn occasion, we pay tribute to those who lost their lives, and who made the ultimate sacrifice to save their fellow man. And while we mourn their loss, let us also remember the ways in which we helped each other to heal. Let us celebrate our own resilience, our common humanity and compassion, and our pride as Americans in knowing that, though the towers fell, though the walls crumbled, and though many souls perished, still, united we stand.

Eight years have now passed since that fateful morning and, as a matter of course, much has changed around us. But we, nevertheless, hold fast to the principle that we are one Nation under God, and we are indivisible. Today, despite all the pain and anger that has marked the road we’ve traveled, we are stronger for it. There is more in life that we hold dear and there is less that we take for granted. Our faith is renewed, and the burning light within us - the spirit of the American ideal - has not been, and never will be extinguished.

As the song says:

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.

Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away

It's been almost a month since my last post. Sorry it's been so long, but I've been keeping myself busy. Here's a few highlights of what I've been up to:

• Renewed two shelter agreements with the Moore County School System.
• Got bit by a tick and started a two-week cycle of antibiotics.
• Started eating better and getting more exercise. More on this in a minute.
• Renewed strategic partnership with Duck River Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Organization. (Unfortunately for us, an obvious and convenient acronym has yet to be designated.)
• Got a story published in the Tullahoma News about Red Cross' need for more volunteers.
• Bought ads in four local papers repeating need for upcoming courses and advertising upcoming training classes. n the south will tell you that the common diet down here isn't exactly healthy. They'r

About the diet and exercise... Anybody who's lived here been introduced to the idea of the "meat and threes." (A diner where any dish is a meat and choice of three sides.) They're big on desserts. And a lot of foods down here are fried. Now it is all perfectly delicious. (Especially fried alligator tail. It's a delicious white meat - like turkey. Add some hot sauce and you got yourself a real tasty treat.) But it got to the point where I started noticing my face getting wider and my shorts getting tighter, and my gut starting to get in the way of tying my shoes. So a few weeks ago, I put myself on a regiment of fruit or salad for lunch. About three pounds of mixed fruit, melon, and berries at Krogers (local grocer) runs about eight dollars and lasts around three meals. Also drinking more milk and less soda pop.

I've also been hiking more often. My favorite spot is called Old Stone Fort.I've been hiking the rivers and the wood trails a lot. The route I've been taking most often is about three and a half miles. For those of you who don't know what it is, I've copied this from the TN State Parks Site:

The Old Stone Fort is a 2000 year-old American Indian ceremonial site. It consists of mounds and walls that combine with cliffs and rivers to form an enclosure measuring 1-1/4 miles around. The 50-acre hilltop enclosure mound site is believed to have served as a central ceremonial gathering place for some 500 years. It has been identified as, perhaps, the most spectacularly sited sacred area of its period in the United States and the largest and most complex hilltop enclosure in the south. Settlers tended to name such enclosures “forts.”

The spectacular setting occurs where two rivers drop off the plateau of the Highland Rim in Middle Tennessee and plunge to the level of the Central Basin of Tennessee. As the forks of the Duck River cut down from the plateau level they isolate a promontory between them before they join. This promontory was further set apart by the construction of long, wall-like mounds during the Woodland prehistoric period.

At the narrow neck of land between the two rivers there is a set of parallel mound walls oriented to within one degree of the summer solstice sunrise. It was typical of ancient societies to recognize this significant farthest north sunrise and to hold reenactments of creation myths at such times. Mound sites such as the 50-acre Old Stone Fort provided modified landscapes for ceremonies that may have represented in some way the culture’s concept of their place in the cosmos and a separation of the sacred and mundane or pure and impure. (End Copied Text.)

I, Brian Burke Toll of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania have made another magnificent discovery about Old Stone Fort and the origins and reasons for its importance.

Maybe Things Are Looking Up

I have a severe shortage of volunteers. We generally don't need many at all - only very rarely do we need to put out calls. But I recently learned that Tullahoma will be taking in around three hundred evacuees in the event of another Gulf Coast hurricane. The Coffee County Emergency Management Agency will be running the shelter and relief operations. Red Cross will be staffing it. That's me.

I sat down the other day with John Riley, former Emergency Management Director for the City of Tullahoma. My main concern was recruitment. After yet another scolding for the state of affairs and the, shall we say "distance" between the Tri-County area and the Heart of Tennessee Chapter in Murphreesboro, he agreed to help me. Basically, he said that many local organizations had already abandoned the Red Cross and had begun disaster aide organizations and partnerships on their own terms. A few Baptist churches in Franklin County, for example, had organized themselves. "We don't like the way we've been treated by your people in Murphreesboro. And now a lot of people here don't feel they need the Red Cross. We can do it ourselves. So why should we help you?"

I had several counters but began with this: "I know there's a tradition of pride and self-reliance around here, and I think people taking initiatives like this are good. Taking steps to help people is good. But people know the Red Cross. All over the world, we're the first organization they think of when they need help. We're not going to turn them away and say 'Sorry, you need to go down to Winchester to the Baptist Church'. That's the first thing."

"Secondly," I said "it's not about helping me. I have a roof over my head. It's about helping your neighbors, here in middle Tennessee, and elsewhere. If there's another Katrina, this town will be taking in two to three hundred evacuees from the Gulf States. They're coming to Tullahoma, John. Should they be denied our help? Because FEMA won't agree to house them at the First Baptist Church of Winchester. They'll be housed at the National Guard Armory and the only people allowed through that gate will be Red Cross staff. Why? Because we've been doing this for a long time and they know who we are. It's not so much that we need your help, John. The people we're trying to help need your help."

John scratched his head. "I'll help you. I'll set-up some meetings," he said. This was a pledge he had made before but had yet to pay off. "What you need most is publicity. You need to draw the people in on a large scale." Really? I hadn't thought of that. "But you need to give the papers a reason to print your story."

Two hours after John left, Alan Lendley - the Coffee County Emergency Management Director - came to the office to pay a call. The topic of discussion was local shelter operations for a Gulf State evacuation. I told Alan that we would do our best to get the people he needed to staff shelters, but that the Red Cross needed his public support. He gave me permission to give our story to the press and to provide his name as a contact for an interview. Before the day was out, we had an appointment to perform a shelter survey of the barracks at the National Guard base on East Carroll Street in Tullahoma.

That was two days ago. Yesterday, Alan, myself, and Kiel Hargrove (our Emergency Response Director from Murphreesboro) toured the barracks and performed a shelter survey. The Emergency Management Agency of Coffee County will be in charge in the event that the shelter is activated, and it seems all is ready to go. Except my end, the Red Cross end: supplying the people to staff the shelter.

When I got back to my office, after lunch, I called Brian Justice of the Tullahoma News and pitched him the story. He said it looks good and that he'd be following up with me, Kiel, and Alan, and that he'd like a photo. Hopefully, this story can be a rallying point, a helpful tool in recruiting.

If we don't get the volunteers we need, chances are that the town may not even care. But it will make all the difference to to those who need their help, who will have lost so much through a horrific act of God. To give assistance to those who need it most is a good deed - it is honorable. To help provide some sense of security to those who have lost their home is something that one can be very proud of.

I hope the story gets published and that it inspires the reaction that I intend from the public.

The Outsider

When I first decided to head south, to the small town of Tullahoma, TN, people warned me that I shouldn't expect too much in the way of "southern hospitality." Southerners are self-reliant, self-sufficient, and they don't like yankees coming down here to help them as if there's something that they can't do for themselves. Of course, the accent (or lack thereof, depending) is a dead give-away.

The uncertainty that local of this small southern town have about me as a northerner is compounded by the somewhat shakey history of this local Red Cross office. Most of the details are inconsequential, but the long and short of it is this: Until last year, this office, serving Moore, Franklin, and Coffee Counties was self-contained as its own chapter of the American Red Cross - the Treis County Chapter. Last year, the board of directors of the Treis County Chapter voluntarily relinquished their charter because they had spent themselves into debt. The Treis County Chapter was subsequently merged into the Heart of Tennessee Chapter, operated out of Murphreesboro - a town about a forty five minute drive north of Tullahoma. The assets were absorbed, the debt was paid down, and the staff and board of the Treis chapter were dissolved.

I can imagine that this experience must have been painful for many in this community. It is a magnificent office, rich in history, and has been very well maintained. To be essentially stripped of it must have been more than just a black eye. And so, particularly with respect to the Red Cross office in Tullahoma, Tennessee, many seem to have an uneasiness if not a downright intolerance for outsiders.

For some reason, I thought that this "outsider" syndrome might not apply to me. I thought that I needed only be respectful to be welcomed - if not only tolerated. But, in the words of Sister Aloicious "I have doubts."

I form agreements with local organizations for shelter facilities, meals, and other supplies for disaster victims - which we, in the Red Cross refer to as "clients." Instead of relying on large supplies such as Wal Mart, I wanted to focus on local companies especially. So, two to three weeks ago, I arranged a meeting with the president of a wholesale grocery company based here, in Tullahoma. I showed up at the appointed time. The company president did not. I was amicable in offering my understanding. I know from experience that schedule mix-ups are a fact of life. I gladly offered to reschedule. I left some paperwork and my card with his staff.

This past Monday, I still hadn't heard back, so I called again and left a message. As of right now, I still haven't heard back. Now it is the middle of summer, after all, and just after Independence Day weekend. So I haven't surrendered hope. But doubt has begun to creep in about the will of some to cooperate.

I hope that my reasons for doubt in this particular case turn out to be nothing more than the result of some kind of neurosis. However, while some things may be mistaken for an unwillingness to help, in other cases there is no mistaking plain hostility.

I have formed a relationship with a very wealthy, powerful, well-connected, well-reputed local man. I'll call him Hank. Hank keeps me informed about many of the dealings that happen in local business, politics, etc. He has many friends, one of whom is a woman who, let's say, was very active in the operations of the former Treis County Chapter of the Red Cross - I'll call her Jan. Hank offered to arrange a meeting between us. Thinking that this was a wonderful opportunity to learn from those who have gone before, I told him I gratefully accepted.

The day of the meeting arrived. Everybody seemed in good spirits. When we finally sat down, Jan brought out a big axe and began to grind away with me as her proverbial stone. "I have little to no respect for the Heart of Tennessee Chapter," she began. Something inside me told me to get up and walk out right then. For the next ninety minutes, she kept grinding away at every incident and occurrence that had happened in the past, before the Treis Chapter began to have its problems.

I was disrespected. My friends were disrespected. We never got the credit and recognition we deserved. They treated us like trash. Several times I tried to guide the discussion a la Mark McGuire in Congress. "I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to talk about how to best move forward." Inevitably, it kept drifting back to people and things I knew nothing about, in times when I had never heard of Tullahoma. And of course, it was all about her - Jan - not about the Red Cross and how the local organization might be rebuilt.

Finally, after an hour and a half of wasted time, having given up on progress entirely, I began to rise, smiling, looking at my watch. I excused myself with "I have a conference call back at the office and I need to grab lunch still." It was all a big waste of time. You can bet that, even after the initial urge to get up and leave, I had that impulse several more times throughout the meeting. But Hank had gone out of his way to try to help me. Couple that with the fact that he is not the kind of guy I want to piss off anyway. My ass was planted in that chair, my eyes were wide, my hands were folded for the whole meeting.

Hank, however, was pleasant enough to call me up a couple of days ago to follow up. "Did you get any help at all out of the meeting?"

I knew he would respect candor. "No, actually. Not really." I think he had anticipated that answer. After all, he had sat in that meeting, too. I told him that I had walked in thinking I would be offered guidance and advice, but instead I sat and listened as bodies were dug up and axes were guided. I told him that I had no intention of pursuing the relationship with Jan any further.

Hank was very gracious. We met that afternoon at the pub and he bought me a drink.

Obstacles are rising slowly and solidly, like boulders through the surface of a melting glacier. Course correction will be required as initial signs of progress seem to hold little hope for achievement. Who knows how things will turn out? I don't. But time will tell.

Just To Answer The Phone

Aside from my stated, appointed goals of disaster preparedness, I've been told that perhaps the greatest benefit to the Red Cross of my being in this office was exactly that: Somebody being in this office on a steady basis; somebody to be there if and when needed.

Some may not know this, but one of the many ways in which the Red Cross aides our clients, is that we are the only organization outside of the Department of Defense which is authorized to send and receive messages for the military. Last week, a man called my office asking how he could get a message to his son who was serving overseas, to let him know that a member of the family had passed away. After consulting with Chuck - a trusted, experienced volunteer who knows more about the Red Cross than I could ever forget - I was able to put this caller in touch with a military caseworker, through our main chapter office in Murphreesboro. The man thanked me for my speedy response, and I gave him my condolences for his loss.

Yesterday, just before five o'clock in the evening, as I was packing up to leave for the day, the phone rang. The man on the other end of the line identified himself as an officer with the police department in Estill Springs, a town just south of Tullahoma, about a fifteen minute drive. The officer had a great deal of concern in his voice.

"Sir, does your Red Cross office do any work with the mentally ill?"

"Not as a generality, officer," I replied. "We do take measures to help provide some care for the mentally ill, but that's only if the client has been the victim of a disaster of some sort."

"I see," he said, dispiritedly.

"Maybe if you tell me a bit more about the situation, I might be able to find some way to get you some help."

The officer told me that the Estill Police had just found / recovered a man who had been missing for five days. He was known throughout the community as being mentally ill. They had contacted a few different mental health organizations and hospitals, but to no avail. The man's treatments and medications had been changed recently. As a result, he lost his patience, became frustrated, and simply walked off one day.

"My big concern," the officer continued "is that this needs to get solved, and finally. This situation has gone on and off for years, and I'm afraid that if this man doesn't get some serious help, he could run off again, only next time will be the last time because he won't be found."

I took down the officer's information and told him that he would hear back soon, one way or the other. I would make a couple of phone calls and see what I could do. Of course, my first call was to Chuck. He recommended they contact Centerstone, a mental health organization in the area. When I explained to Chuck that Centerstone had been contacted and seemed that they could be of no help, Chuck said that he didn't know who else we could call. I hung up, ready to call back the Estill Police with disappointing news.

But then I looked to the coffee mug on my desk, containing business cards. I flipped through and immediately found that of Jimi Kelley, a friend I had made at VISTA orientation in Atlanta. Jimi is a VP on the board of directors of NAMI Tennessee (National Association for the Mentally Ill), out of Nashville. I immediately called him up. Fortunately, he answered. I briefly explained the situation I had been brought into. Jimi turned his head to one of his colleagues who was in the room with him. The colleague, who never introduced herself, immediately started asking questions of me, for almost none of which did I have answers. The colleague was quite obviously frustrated with the situation and the way that it had been handled thus far. But she asked for the officer's contact information and said "Brian, I got this from here."

I heard back from Jimi today. They were able to talk to the man and convince him that the best thing would be for him to come up to Nashville to check in to a facility. The Estill Springs Police drove him up around midnight. The man and his family are now in the process of receiving the medical, mental, and social services that they need.

I was the only one here. All I did was answer the phone. What if nobody had?

PS: In the three minutes after first publishing this post, it happened again. A hospice worker in Tullahoma had a resident patient pass away in her care. She needed to get a message to the stepson of the deceased, who was serving in the Army overseas.

I think of the problems to which I am tangentially connected. And I thank God I am only thusly involved. It won't stay like this forever. Sooner or later the day will come where somebody in desperate need of help will be standing right in front of me, and there will be nobody else to help, nobody to whom I can refer them.

I've rarely been one to depend on strength and aide from the Divine, let alone from the roots of my Catholic half. But times like these recall to mind a prayer from that heritage: "May the Lord put the love of the Blessed Virgin in my heart, and the steel of the Holy Spirit in my spine. Amen."

Shotguns, Roadkill, Jumper Cables -- Three Things Missing From A Tennessee Saturday Night

This past Saturday night, my friend Haley and I had a bit more of an adventure than either of us had intended. "We're going out to Mike's friend's campsite over in Lynchburg. We have a couple beers, hang out, and then we come back to town." That's how it was pitched to me. Sounds simple enough, right? I've blogged about a visit to Lynchburg before. There isn't a whole lot there, so it couldn't possibly be that complicated. After all, it's just a straight shot west on State Route 55.

We hadn't yet turned onto 55 when Mike called with directions. I should have known right then. "Now there ain't but one single traffic light in Lynchburg. You go through it, then at the third street after it on the left, you'll see a mechanic's garage. You turn left and stay straight for about six, seven miles. After you go over a bridge, you take your first left then you stay on that road for about seven, eight miles. Then, it's gonna fork off to the right-"

"Hey Mike, why don't I just call you when I get to the area. I gotta drive," I said. "There's no way I'm gonna remember this."

About five miles down 55, the sun had gone down completely and the sky was dark. We rolled into Lynchburg. We rolled out of Lynchburg. We turned left at the garage. We went over the bridge and turned left again. This is when I called out Haley on her representation that our destination was in Lynchburg proper. "We're about fourteen miles into the hills on the far side of Lynchburg. The roads are dark and we're just going to drink and hangout? I'm thinking it's best to leave before midnight."

She seemed to agree. "I'm really sorry. I had no idea it was this far out." Haley got Mike back on the phone, giving her directions. Mike soon realized from our landmark descriptions that we had missed our turn. He told us to take the next right. "Dick McGee Road." I couldn't help but laugh.

Two hundred yards up the hill on "Dick McGee Road" the street narrowed to the point of looking like a paved driveway. Of course, no lights. Driving through a patch of woods, we came out on the other side... Houses! Lights! Yes! Wait... Dogs? What the f**k? Two golden retrievers and a big--ass, black German Shepherd were in front of a house which had no front yard. There was a porch and then the street. For all intensive purposes, the street was the yard. And when these dogs saw me coming, they ran into the street, barking at the top of their lungs, blocking my path. I stopped. They just stood there -- about fifteen feet from my headlights. I flashed my high beams and tapped my horn and they yielded to me. As I eased forward at 5-10 mph, they started to re-approach my car, then they started to run along the drivers side, led by the big-ass, black German Shepherd. I don't know if they just stopped and gave up or not. I don't think I ran them over. Suffice it to say, we lost them. Well that was interesting.

"Just keep on that road until you get to the top of the hill, then you turn left."

"Just go up the hill," I replied with a broad stroke of smart ass in my tone. "You mean that big dark thing in front of me that's blacking out half the sky?" Haley had heard the rest of the directions beyond that and insisted she could manage us in from here. But not thirty seconds after leaving the first three dogs, I drove around another bend, swerving to barely miss a yellow lab, lying nonchalantly, cooling herself on the black pavement - square in the middle of Dick McGee Road! (Again, most likely because the road was her front yard.) The bitch barely even lifted her head to acknowledge me!

Finally we got to the top of the hill and turned left, as per the directions. I celebrated upon seeing a double yellow line again. Two lanes! Sweet! Surely enough, along came two more dogs, trotting down the opposite lane, eyeing and sniffing the treeline. What the f**k is with this place? Do they have leashes and fences down here? Or is that just a northern thing? This is when Haley let me know that we were almost there. I'll believe that when I'm sipping a cold one.

"We just keep heading up the hill and turn left at the trailer." I clenched the steering wheel and bit my lip in disbelieve before replying in as calm a tone as possible.

"Let me get this straight," I said. "We're somewhere outside of South Bumblef**ck, Tennessee, and you want me to turn left at the trailer? Am I supposed to believe that we're only going to see one trailer out here?"

Lo and behold, we soon came upon a trailer. "Turn left," she said. "It's only a couple hundred yards in.

We drove through an open cattle gate and over a threshold of some in-laid piping. The gravel soon became parallel dirt tracks, separated by a column of tall grass. A few feet away, on each side of the car, was barbed wire fencing. It couldn't be clearer. We are now on private property. The question was - whose property was it? Did we turn at the right trailer? We drove a few hundred more yards until I noticed that we were all out of barbed wire fence. We were no longer on a private road, but on a trail in the middle of a field.

"It should just be up over this next hill," Haley said unconvincingly. She could see I was growing impatient. "I'm really sorry. I'm so sorry," she pleaded. "If I knew it was all the way out here, we wouldn't have done this." We drove to the top of the next hill. What I saw in my high beams was not a bonfire surrounded by a few pickup trucks... What I did see was about fifty head of cattle crowded on the road, many of them lying down. They quickly got up and moved. I guess they had never seen a big bull that said Nissan on it.

"So now where do we go," about twenty yards later, still no party in sight. The path became gravel again as it went downhill and into the wood.

"Let's just stop for a second. Let me call Mike and see where we are." I stopped the car and was dead silent.

So here I am. A yankee in rebel country. The local with the directions is lost. We're stopped, which means we're a sitting duck. Lost. In the dark. On private property. Unarmed. What could possibly go wrong? Well, the most obvious possibility is that a farmer might pop up out of nowhere in a pair of overalls with a shotgun and fill my ass with lead for trespassing. Then again, we could really have bad luck and accidentally stumble upon a rally of the Ku Klux Klan. What's that noise? Do I smell smoke? Who the f**k knows what kind of sh*t happens way the hell out here?

All of this passed through my mind while we waited for Mike to answer his phone. "I guess there's no signal." We went down the hill further and arrived in front of a driveway by a house. Of course, there was a dog, leashless, barking at my headlights. In rural areas, dogs are much more than pets. They are fanged, ferocious, well trained body guards and really loud alarm systems. Suddenly the possibility of the shotgun-wielding farmer in overalls seemed much more real.

After a few more forwards and reverses of two to three hundred yards each, Mike called us back and said somebody in a Jeep was coming up the trail for us. A young man whose father was the land owner arrived and directed us down the trail, past the house. He warned us that we'd have to open and close a couple of cattle gates before proceeding. We did as we were told, proceeding down the trail, through the woods, through the gates, and into a meadow the size of Wrigley field. The fire roared, the drinks were flowing. The sky was dark and the stars were bright. Mike played soft 80s rock out of his truck's sound system and poured me a drink.

It was after 10 o'clock. I was tightly wound. But soon, after a glass of Sun Drop punch, I was relaxed and in my own element again, listening to good music and the quiet hush of the Elk River only yards away.

Now I told y'all that so I could tell y'all this.

There were two couples there who, shortly after our arrival, hit the proverbial sack, bunking out in the tents behind their pickup trucks. And just around midnight, having had only two cups of punch, it was time to leave. We packed up and got ready to go.

Mike turned the key on his truck. GRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIND. CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK. This happened a few more times. "I'll give you a jump," I said "if you got cables."

"I ain't got cables. Maybe Clive and them got a set. I'll go wake 'em up."

Tina, Haley and I waited by our cars. Mike returned one minute later on a quick-paced tip-toe. His eyes wide. His jaw gaping. And he stopped. He looked like he had just seen an alien.

"Michael, you didn't interrupt something over there, did you," Tina asked.

He replied, exclaiming in a half-whispered Tennessee accent "Man, I ain't never heard f**kin' like that in my entire life!" As we all dubbed over and wheezed in laughter, clutching our ribs with watering eyes, Mike proceeded to offer his impression of the slaps, screams, grunts, and all other sounds he had heard in the ten seconds he stood silently by the tent before sneaking away. "I got a semi just listenin' to 'em!"

Regaining our composure, we decided we would forgo the jumper cables and instead, I would give Mike and Tina a lift home. Home, this time, actually was in Lynchburg. We hopped in, rolled down the windows, and cranked the John Denver. Reaching the cattle gate, Mike hopped out, opened the first, and closed it behind us. And this put the cap on the evening. Mike, in a pair of khaki shorts, golf shirt, and leather docksiders, with a cigarette in his mouth, insisted on running the fifty yards up hill to the next gate. The first thing that came to my mind was to yell after him like the football coach from Dazed & Confused:

"Randy Floyd, before next fall, you're in need of a serious attitude adjustment boy! You better get your priorities straight! And watch out with that other crowd you're runnin' with! Don't think I haven't noticed! -- Come on, now! My grandmother runs faster than that! 'Course she's six five, two hundred eighty pound gorilla, runs the forty in five flat and drives a Mack truck! -- Pick those legs, up boy! Jesus Christ, son, you're wearin' rebel grey!"