march 28, 2015

“The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.” ~ Vince Lombardi

Today felt like Old Home Day. I ran into friends I haven’t seen and spoken with, in some cases, for close to twenty years. Meanwhile, I met and made new friends, too. As you can see from Errol’s smile above, we survived our presentations. They were sort of in the middle of my exciting day. Lots of great things happened before and after that. Here’s a brief list of what happened.

It started when I met up with Jeanne Marie (JM) Hibbard at lunch, but first, we cornered old pal and writer Robert Gipe (below in green) to say hello and have him sign my copy of his latest book titled Trampoline. I’ve known this sweet, sweet man for decades, and it was so good to reconnect. JM and I had a good, long talk over lunch during which she introduced me to her colleague, Brett Ratliff, who, as it turns out, knows all my favorite people like Pam and Jim Bob Meade. I ran into Brett a little later as I was talking to distant cousin and all around great guy Rich Kirby. Incidentally, both Rich and Brett are fantastic musicians. Then, I was off to see Jim Webb (below in hat) who regaled me with stories galore as only Jim can do. I also had him sign his book, Get In Jesus. He threw in a plastic cup and coozie (sp?) from Wiley’s Last Resort. I told him it was my lucky day and I was going to buy a lottery ticket! My night ended with new friends and colleagues Stewart Plein and Lori Hostuttler at the Ricky Skaggs show. I skipped out at the first encore to make the last three minutes of the UK/Notre Dame game. That last 30 seconds was enough to do me in. Thank goodness they won. I’m telling you, this was a most excellent day start to finish. And how lucky am I to have all these completely awesome people in my life? Pretty daggone lucky!

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