In Which I Ask, “How Is Beating Someone With A Tire Iron Not A Criminal and Arrest-Worthy Act?” – More on the Henry Granju Case

So I woke up today to find this flood of online stuff just everywhere – so much I couldn’t really keep up with it fast enough, and I haven’t even made my way over to Facebook today yet – mostly stuff resulting from the KCSO’s most recent announcement regarding their stance on the investigation of teenager Henry Granju’s death and the preliminary autopsy results, which set off  another firestorm pretty much around the globe, and rightfully so.

Also this morning, which I didn’t read until after I woke up today, Henry’s mama – who has tried extremely hard throughout this entire ordeal to be as patient, polite and respectful towards law enforcement as possible – expressed her disappointment with KCSO’s most recent statement on the case:

I am disappointed that… the Knox County Sheriff’s Office chose to release a statement in response to media coverage of Henry’s death in which they stated that the “preliminary investigation shows no evidence of homicide as a result of an assault.”

As a mother who has lost a child, it is certainly tempting to get into a point by point refutation of KCSO’s statement; I won’t do this however, because I do not wish to sully or interfere with their ongoing investigation. Suffice it to say, however, that the “preliminary investigation” to which they refer has been extremely disappointing at this point despite my own active efforts in following leads, talking extensively with witnesses, and BEGGING authorities to follow leads I’ve provided. Let me also say that as I sit here next to my dead son’s medical records that refer to “assault,” “skull fracture,” closed head injury,” etc it’s hard for me to understand reasoning that assumes at this point that the assault he DID experience in the 24 hours preceding his ER admission has no relevance to their investigation.

I have been trying pretty hard as well, though not always wholly succeeding, to hold my temper in deference to the family – especially in dealing with the species of troll that is an entire species unto itself and tends to feed mainly off newspaper and TV station websites. Trolls are trolls and always have been, but that particular breed of troll is always astounding in their sheer fortitude and need to expound on every single thing and towards everybody no matter what the subject, and almost always negatively or insulting. It’s absolutely amazing sometimes what people will say from behind the protection of their anonymous usernames and their keyboard. (I can assure you there is nothing on this blog nor anything I’ve ever written anywhere else on the Internet that I have any qualms about saying to whoever’s face, and nickname aside, I’m pretty non-anonymous after 15+ years of relatively high-profile activity in online music sects as well as elsewhere.)

In any case, yeah, all that happened today, and frankly – and especially since Katie publicly expressed her disappointment with KCSO’s statement – I’m not going to bother trying much to hold my tongue in check about it anymore.

People (mostly trolls) are coming to Katie’s blog and asking does everybody expect law enforcement to just “drop everything” to investigate this?

Drop everything? How does waiting almost five weeks to make any major moves on this investigation constitute “dropping everything”?

Can someone explain to me how five weeks (going now on six weeks) constitutes expectations of “dropping everything” or asking for “immediate answers”?

And the only other thing I really have to say today is pretty much what I said this morning before I went to sleep, in a discussion in response to a mutual friend’s similar statement.

Granted, I’m no expert. But I don’t get where you get to just walk around free for over a month when you beat someone nearly to death with a tire iron – AND there are witnesses.

Henry’s drug overdose is totally a moot point. How is that tire iron beating NOT a criminal act?

How in the world is beating someone brutally and violently and nearly to death, and to the point where it causes a jaw fracture, a skull fracture, a closed head injury and other damage NOT a criminal act? And how is it not reason enough to pick someone(s) up off the street, when you already have their names?

The fact that Henry eventually did die notwithstanding – I am really, really having trouble wrapping my brain around why his three assailants weren’t picked up WEEKS ago and charged with attempted murder, assault, WHATEVER. At the very least. Something.

They’ve had their names for weeks. They’ve had witnesses’ names for weeks. The people who beat Henry with a tire iron are still walking around. Why is what they did not criminal enough to pick them up on reason of beating someone with a tire iron alone?

For that matter, it’s been going on six weeks since the assault. They could be in Timbuktu by now, this much later.

I’ve seen people picked up and hauled in for far, far lesser offenses – if not almost immediately, within days - and I just don’t understand.

If there were NO witnesses it might be a little different.

But this makes no sense to me. Henry’s drug overdose is totally beside the point. Violent criminal activity took place and there were witnesses, yet these people are still walking around going on five, almost six weeks later. And weeks after their names, and the names of witnesses, were given to KCSO.

By the family, no less. Perhaps KCSO needs to budget some of their 2010 salary budget to pay Henry’s family for doing an important part of the investigation for them.

Bottom line – a kid was beaten savagely with a tire iron.

The fact that he also overdosed on drugs is a moot point.

How is that savage beating NOT a criminal act?

And how is it not worthy of arresting someone(s) for committing it – whether someone’s dead or not?

All along, the family has been unbelievably patient. They never expected “immediate” answers or for KCSO to “drop everything” to investigate.

But five weeks later – going on six weeks – that is NOT “immediate”. Nor is it “dropping everything”.

Whatever the autopsy results show – and even if the medical examiner declares Henry’s death is not a result of the beating – as long as those people walk free for that brutal, savage and violent beating – the world is being told that it’s okay to come to Knox County and beat someone bloody until they’re nearly dead.

The young man’s drug overdose is beside the point here.

Until and unless someone(s) is/are held responsible and accountable for this beating, it must be okay to beat someone with a tire iron in Knox County. Or hey, if you do it – you’ll have several weeks to get away somewhere else, and therefore maybe get away with it.

That is the point. And it’s sickening.

I never really worried too much about my family, future in-laws, in Knoxville’s overall safety much, to be honest. Having lived down here in Crime Central as long as I have, Nashville and especially Knoxville always have seemed so much better in this regard. But this situation really, really gives me pause to be a whole lot more concerned about my people up there than I ever have. My family, my people, my many friends who are Knoxville and Knox County residents and tax-paying citizens.

In any case, that’s all I’ve got for right now. My head feels like it’s going to explode from all this stuff.

I just do NOT understand how and why that beating with a tire iron is not a criminal act.

Or not criminal act enough for someone to actually DO something about it.

I just don’t understand.

Aunt B. says some of my same and similar thoughts today much more eloquently than I ever do right here.

The inimitable Les Jones blogged about Henry’s case today here.

Michael Silence of the Knoxville News-Sentinel and Katie’s associate Shane Ryne have compiled fine lists of all the other blogs writing about Henry’s story and his case here. At last count I saw, Shane had compiled the list from 87 blogs, many with multiple entries.

Michael Silence also announced today that he will be writing about the avalanche and outpouring of support worldwide in blogs and social media networks regarding Henry’s story in his Sunday column for the KNS.

On another note, I know I mentioned the other day that I thought it was pretty downright not smart of KCSO sitting on this case for over a month as they did when they had a distraught mother on their hands who was not only well-known in Knoxville media overall, but a former employee/online producer (and not all that long ago for either) of the Knoxville News Sentinel and TV news station WBIR. I failed to mention at the time that Henry’s father is the director of a Knox County agency.

To their credit and as far as I’m aware, I don’t think either of them tried to use any of that to any advantage, and they have certainly been more patient with law enforcement through this ordeal than I probably would have been. But I do know a little bit about how violent crime investigations go and that information about the “alleged victim’s” (yes, I’m using that term loosely) parentage should have been turned up in any decent preliminary investigation almost right from the start – as well as the fact that it’s just plain common sense that someone down at KCSO most likely knew that info anyway, or someone who did know would likely have made someone aware of such a thing at some point. Come on, Knoxville is NOT that big of a town.

I guess that just goes to show you that obviously no preferential treatment is afforded anyone no matter who they are – nor am I saying there should be. But it does seem pretty ridiculous when you look at it (an acquaintance was not quite as kind, calling it “downright stupid”). If I’m Knox County law enforcement and I have a kid beaten nearly to death on my hands in the hospital with a severe head injury, and I find out not only is the kid’s mother a former KNS employee and WBIR producer, but that the kid’s dad is director of a county agency? Uh, yeah, I think I’m not going to be too lazy with that case, if it were me.

I’m sorry. I have dear, dear friends – especially two who are like little brothers to me, even though they are far from little anymore – who are police officers. I worked down at the record store many years ago with one of the finest Memphis PD officers I have ever known, who worked down there to make some part-time money. I know of other law enforcement officials who have been kind to people I know when their colleagues weren’t. I am not anti-law enforcement.

But much as Aunt B. said – things have become very strange in the case of Henry Granju. Something is obviously terribly wrong.

If I go beat somebody nearly to death with a tire iron tomorrow, and someone sees me do it and knows my name? I don’t expect to have more than a day or two – if even a whole day – to be free and out walking on the streets.

That makes sense.

What’s happened with Henry’s case doesn’t. Not at all.

I can’t do much. I am very sad that I can’t get to Knoxville for the memorial service on Saturday, but I’ll be there in spirit.

I can’t be there for hands-on support and can’t help cook meals and carry the other Granju and Hickman kids around to where they need to go, and get pianos tuned and arrange for musicians for Saturday, and all the other absolutely wonderful things so many others I know have been doing all along throughout this ordeal and doing now this week. All of these people are just absolute angels.

I can’t donate much money in Henry’s memory for the memorial scholarship fund, but I’ve sent what I could. And probably will continue to for a long time to come, and send much more when I am able to. I frankly cannot think of a more appropriate fund for PC and I to set aside any philanthropic funds we are able to for, for the rest of our lives – and the fact that it is in honor and in memory of Henry, even better. “There but for the grace of God” for us and all that, as PC was Henry at that age – we were just fortunate that he lived through it, and that his parents were able to afford treatment – which is what the Henry Louis Granju Memorial Scholarship Fund is for, for families that can’t afford to put their teenagers through drug and alcohol treatment. We also have another family member who’s been through the same terrible struggles. For us personally, it’s an entirely appropriate charity and we will support it indefinitely.

So I can’t do much. But I can blog, and use various other social media to keep Henry’s story out there, so hopefully other families won’t have to suffer this same tragedy. And to keep it out there until this case is fully, thoroughly, and finally brought to justice.

So that’s what I’ll do, because it’s all I can do.

It’s been five weeks. Going on six weeks. No one’s ever asked for anything “immediately” or to “drop everything”.

And even if they had, “immediately” and “now” has long since passed, these five – almost six – weeks later.

When the people responsible for savagely beating this young man with a tire iron until he was nearly dead – and who now has died – are off the streets, then maybe I’ll really sleep again instead of waking up every five or ten minutes.

How that brutal and violent beating was not a criminal act worthy of hauling someone’s butt into jail – as soon as their names and the names of witnesses were known – is something I am just not ever going to understand.

First, The Good Part

Somewhere in my WP drafts getting dusty and still unfinished, I have several posts – including the long-delayed Alex Chilton related one, one about the flooded and destroyed Opryland Hotel and the realization  (something I’ve known for a few years now, but haven’t written about) that I’ve been wrong all along about who my REAL “high school sweetheart” was, and a few other odds and ends and mostly goofy stuff.

But all that’s on hold right now because, honestly, I’m just too frustrated and aggravated – and yes, a little bit angry – over all that has transpired over the last couple of days in the wake of Henry’s death. And, naturally, so terribly sad and heartbroken for Henry, his family, all of their friends – many of whom are also my friends and acquaintances and people I’ve known for many years, whether just online or off. It is absolutely killing me and breaking my heart to see folks I’ve known for years, who’ve known the Granju-Hickman clan for years, preparing to go to his memorial service on Saturday. Or people like Henry’s former guitar teacher – who doesn’t know it, but he’s an old pal of my significant other – just now today finding out that Henry had passed, and horrified. It’s all been so heartbreaking to watch.

And I’ve seen a lot of angelic, wonderfully kind and generous and thoughtful acts among that same group of folks too, some that have just taken my breath away at how sweet and thoughtful they have been through this ordeal. This particular tribe of Knoxvillians and Knoxville-related folks, most of whom have been yakking with each other much of the last decade – we’re kind of like a dysfunctional family and there’s plenty of infighting just like most slightly dysfunctional families. But when someone’s been wronged or hurt, or something terrible has happened – man, to see the whole bunch come together as they have is just something amazing and life-affirming.

Watching “the blogosphere” come together as they have in such loud and vocal support of Katie and her family – and not just the Nashville-Knoxville-TN-etc blogosphere this time, but literally ALL over not only the country but the entire planet – again, amazing and life-affirming.

I just wanted to say that before I went on to the next subject on my mind, because my next thoughts related to this situation aren’t too terribly pretty and I didn’t want to spoil this with those. Out of something so horrible and so tragic, good things have sprung like that, and like the memorial scholarship fund Henry’s family has set up. Everything is awful right now, but out of such awfulness springs such kindness and hope that it’s just breathtaking.

In Lieu of Flowers for Henry

There’s probably not too very many that come by here these days who aren’t already fully aware of this situation, so feel free to skip the rest of this post if you’re a Nashville/etc/TN blogger or a KnoxBlabber. I’ve just been feeling somewhat frustrated and helpless for the past month, and especially now, that I couldn’t do more to help regarding this situation. There’s folks I know in Knoxville that have been up there busting their butts and hands-on helping – whether with food, helping get kids where they need to go, other stuff – and I wished several times the past month I hadn’t been on the complete other side of the state still, and could have maybe done at least something to help.

But now there’s something I can do, which is help spread the word about the scholarship fund being established in Henry Granju’s memory, and help spread Henry’s story so maybe it will help others not have to go through the horrors this family has gone through in the past five weeks or so.

Those of you who are parents (or even if you’re not) who aren’t already aware of this heartbreaking story… I’d like to introduce you to Knoxville blogger Katie Allison Granju & her wonderful son, Henry. I’ve watched Henry & his siblings grow up in photos & stories for about the last ten years in Knoxville-based forums that their mom and stepdad have been active in, as well as Katie’s blog. Their folks and I share several mutual friends in Knoxville; their stepfather (and father of the youngest sibling and one that’s due to be born in about a month), Jon, has been my “go-to” guy about various techy and WordPress questions on several occasions; and this family’s just plain good people.

So if you’re not already aware and haven’t been there before, I encourage you to visit Katie’s blog, and read a little. Or read a lot. If you go back to posts at the end of April and read forward, you’ll pretty much read Henry’s story in its entirety.

If Henry’s story saves even just one family & their child from a similar tragedy, that’s a blessing in the face of this terrible thing, and I encourage anyone to share it with others… especially your kids, if you have kids. If you read and think “Not MY kid”… I guarantee you his parents never thought something like this could happen to their kid, either. If you haven’t had “that talk” with your kids yet (or heck, even if you have), they’re probably really never too young or too old these days.

If you feel compelled to do more, the scholarship fund info is in the memorial service announcement in the June 1st entry on Katie’s blog.

I’m a pretty seasoned veteran when it comes to having witnessed firsthand how lives can be destroyed by stuff like this, but this has just been so terribly heartbreaking to watch happen, even for me. It’s just ripped my heart out these last several weeks and especially this weekend, when the worst news there could have been came. I don’t think I’ve ever been as shocked in my life as I was when the Facebook alert popped up with the news early Monday evening. The medical person that spent 25 years in healthcare knew this could happen… but I just never really once thought he wasn’t going to walk out of that hospital and go home, someday. Even when the long-term prognosis was looking pretty grim in itself, I just never thought at all it would turn for the worse like it did. Not when he’d made it as far as he had.

I’ve probably seen thousands of pictures of all of Katie’s kids in the past nine or ten years, and read millions of various anecdotes about them since 2000 or 2001 or whenever I first landed on the old forum the Knoxville weekly used to have. I’ve never met them – and now, sadly, will never meet Henry.

But I know one thing for sure about Henry – he was extremely, extremely well loved by virtually everyone ever that knew him. I bet I have heard and read a million times in the past decade what a sweet child, sweet boy, sweet young man he was, from hundreds of different people. And I know he fought so very hard to survive this horrific nightmare.

I’ve been so sad and heartbroken for Katie & Jon and their whole family, but my heart aches a bunch right now for the many friends of theirs up there in Knoxville that are in so much pain right now too, the ones that have been up there helping out and so many more, several of whom I’m acquainted with through the forums or elsewhere. I’ve seen people kicking themselves, right after Henry was hospitalized, who’d just seen him shortly before then and wished they’d talked to him about their own past problems, thinking maybe they could have made a difference. Things that have just been so very much even more heartbreaking. This has been such a terrible loss for so many.

I guess I would be remiss in not commenting on the fact that I’m pretty angry too, as the Knox County Sheriff’s Office basically sat on this investigation for over a month and only now – with Henry’s death, and a short article about the investigation hitting the local newspaper last night – does it seem to have suddenly have a fire lit under it. Katie wrote several days ago about having called to find out what was going on with the case, and basically being told nothing much had been done and there wasn’t a victim if Henry couldn’t be interviewed (which he couldn’t, due to his severe head injury).

Not only that, but the family had already provided them with names of witnesses AND the names of the assailants. And STILL they’d been more or less sitting on the case for over a month.

Pretty deplorable – and to me, not terribly smart, considering that the mother of the “non-victim” is not only well-known in Knoxville media, but a former employee of both the local daily newspaper AND one of the larger TV news stations. I can’t imagine that someone down there didn’t know that – or at least not been made aware of it by someone that did know. And I don’t think Katie ever tried to play that card – as far as I can tell, she didn’t want to bother them and hadn’t called KCSO until the recent call, when she was just incredulous to learn nothing much had been done.

But the whole “no victim because they can’t be interviewed” thing is definitely a significant misstep. (I’d have liked to have seen someone try to tell Gary Christian that his daughter wasn’t a victim, since she couldn’t be interviewed…? Come on.)

Anyway, whatever the case – whether you just read over at Katie’s place, whether you share Henry’s story with others and/or your kids, whether you decide you wanna do more, or even if you just hold on to some good thoughts for them all or say a prayer – thanks for keeping all these good folks in any thoughts & prayers (if you pray) that you have to spare. They could really use them right now.

(And if by chance Katie’s blog is down again – I think after the blog got linked by the New York Times reporter that wrote in May about Katie going public with Henry’s situation posted an update yesterday and after Heather (Dooce) Armstrong posted the link on Twitter, as well as some other links going everywhere on Tuesday, the bandwidth limit got overshot by a long shot and the site was suspended most of Tuesday, but the issues seem to have been resolved now – but anyway, in case it’s down again, here’s the memorial fund info from Katie’s blog, please feel free to pass it on):

Our family is starting what we hope will become a permanent, endowed fund that will provide scholarships for families who cannot afford to pay for needed drug and alcohol treatment programs for their children. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you remember our boy and his struggles by considering a donation to:

The Henry Louis Granju Memorial Scholarship Fund
c/o Administrator: James Anderson
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney
2000 Meridian Blvd.
Suite 290
Franklin, TN 37067

My City Was Gone, But Not For Long

I got in the car to run some errands and go to the bank a couple of weeks ago, and – knowing I might be waiting in line a little while – I’d taken my MP3 player with me, which I don’t usually do if I’m just running the usual errands. My MP3 player pretty much stays on shuffle.

I plugged it in and started the car, and The Inmates’ 1981 version of The Standells’ “Dirty Water” started up. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I’d go to check the weather online and type in my zip code and the next thing I’d see, on the pages with the weather forecast – ads for water damage restoration experts.

My auto insurance company has finally stopped sending me e-mails asking me if I need to get my car checked out since there has been severe flood damage in my area. No, thank you. I’m just fine.

I know there are people right here in Shelby County, and nearby, and up yonder a little ways, in just as desperate straits as people in Nashville and Middle Tennessee – and in some cases, maybe more. But still, overall – as a whole – we got off easy, here in Memphis, this time. The tornado warnings here that same weekend were pretty scary, but the last time we had a really bad storm like that, I saw debris on the street and trees pushed over dotting the landscape on my little route from here to Kroger. This time, the following Monday, I think I counted only one house that had some limbs on the curb. The north part of the county got slammed, and there were spots of bad flooding even here in the central city – but still, overall and as a whole, the majority of us, we were fine.

But you know, as far as the cities go – in a lot of ways, I’ll always be more connected to Nashville and Murfreesboro and Middle Tennessee than I ever have been to Memphis, even though I was born here and have a long history here and strong connections here, including having had strong family connections here. And probably more than I ever will be to Knoxville. Don’t really have any to Chattanooga, other than a family member living there for a while who no longer does.

But I spent some pretty crucial years in Nashville and Middle Tennessee, as well as a pretty significant number of days throughout childhood and my teen years.  My phone number started with 615 (back in ancient times before there were more than two area codes) for a good portion of the Eighties. It’s almost as much home to me as Northwest Tennessee is.

What a month it’s been. The week after the flood, I was kinda just feeling shellshocked, although I hadn’t actually DONE anything but sit here at the computer catching up on all the news in between periods of working. I kind of drifted off to Facebook for an evening on the following Monday, I think, and got into digging thru old high school photos various friends had posted, after having spent about 15 hours straight reading flood-related updates on Twitter and the Web. Feeling guilty the whole time, because I could get away from it all for a little bit while so many people I know couldn’t. Because they were right there in the middle of it.

Then I was committed to something work-wise from that Tuesday onward, and it was really the end of the week before I really had a chance at all to truly even attempt to catch up on what all had transpired since Monday and the big day of the flood. Couple being completely and totally swamped (no pun intended) with work with the fact that the fourth of the Christian-Newsom trials started that same Monday in Knoxville, which I would have liked to have been able to keep up with throughout the week but there just wasn’t enough time in the days to do so; checking on updates of online acquaintances who have been been dealing with a nightmarish tragedy of the non-flood type; and scrambling to put Band-Aid fixes on what I guess is just going to keep being an ongoing calamity of sorts here on the home front – even if I’d had four or five clones of myself, I’m not sure there would have been enough for me to go around.

So, the flood…

For the benefit of what few of you here reading don’t already read everyone else’s oft-more-updated and finer blogs in Nashville and in Tennessee, the Nashville flood finally got some national attention, though I’m not sure it really would have much if not for all the Tweeting and blogging there was about it. MSNBC was one of the first to give it decent air time, here and with another mention from Keith Olbermann that I think, in particular, was much appreciated by the community at large.

My buddy Travis Harmon – certainly the most successful of the bunch from that wide circle of friends from old ‘Boro and college days – and his comedy partner put out probably the best edition of Red State Update ever, and made me laugh (and laugh and laugh and laugh) and cry at the same time. Many of my personal friends and acquaintances up there have been volunteering their asses off all month, and continue to. I’m so proud to know all of them.

My mom – back in one of the few sectors of West Tennessee that mostly escaped both wind and flood damage almost completely last week – usually gets her faculty a little gift for Nurses Week every year. This year, she made donations in their names to one of the community relief organizations that WKRN had listed on their website instead of gifts. She said it just seemed like the right thing to do this year. I’m very proud of her too.

So many of my friends wrote great truly stuff that week. This was one of the very best, as was this post that led me to it. This was another one that particularly touched me. This angry one from one of our own forced to watch it all unfold from thousands of miles away clear across the country, expressing all the frustration pretty much all of us who still had power and Internet access were feeling that day. And pretty much everything over here all week long, but especially this one. I wish I could list more, and there are more I probably haven’t gotten around to seeing yet as I’m still (always) catching up. But they all outdid themselves on the writing thing that week, especially those many that were smack dab in the middle of it all.

Most everyone I know was okay and while many had flooded basements and such, overall everyone I know made it through and, most importantly, alive and uninjured. I’m thankful for that. I know everyone up there, though, has continued to be almost all exhausted beyond belief, though, mentally and physically.

I still have a little bit of a nagging worry – because I have known SO many people throughout my life from all over and have been fortunate to have made many friends throughout – that news has yet to turn up that won’t be as good. I think I’ve now accounted for most everyone I “need to know about” – if not directly, I’ve seen them Tweet or someone else mention them on Facebook or Twitter or on the phone – and have racked my brain all month long trying to figure out who hasn’t crossed my mind that should have by now.

One friend who didn’t get too lucky was an old college friend and ex-boyfriend who arrived home after a week in Chicago to find thousands of dollars’ worth of musical instruments, studio equipment and gear swimming in his basement. He was prepared for it, as his neighbor had been able to reach him by phone and warn him, and luckily the water damage was limited to the basement only – by about a half inch below the upstairs door. It was a too-close call for the rest of the house, but things could have certainly turned out much worse.

Unfortunately he got hit by a double whammy, though, as he still owns and rents out his mom’s old house in Bellevue, and it was nearly completely submerged. Last we spoke, which has been a while now, he still didn’t know where his renters had fled to, but presumably by now they’re probably some of the folks out there having to sift through and throw away most of the entire contents of the house. I know he sure wasn’t looking forward to the expected hassle forthcoming with his insurance company and was already preparing himself to be SOL.

Lots of teary moments that week, often over the oddest of photos, of all the many horrific ones that were hitting the Internet out of Nashville and Middle Tennessee. Lots of times just sitting there gaping, open-mouthed.

Highway 96 from Murfreesboro to Dickson was my usual route back and forth between college and home for me. Naturally, if I had five bucks for every time I was back and forth on I-24 between Murfreesboro and Nashville, whether going out downtown or going to work, I could have probably retired on that. I worked at Southern Hills, so you Middle Tennesseans know what my usual route to work was. To see that intersection in Franklin on 96, and those stretches of I-24, with cars and trucks nearly completely submerged – just surreal.

The (current) Opry House, which wasn’t very old when I attended a rock concert there in the garishly neon, New Wave, how-many-items-of-Esprit-clothing-do-you-have-in-your-closet days of 1983. My friends and I thought it would be a kick to get matching outfits made for the event, and – though they were each made of different colored material and design – we all showed up in matching camouflage miniskirts (with equally matching skinny ties) and just about every color of chunky neon jewelry you can imagine. I think we probably all looked like Catholic schoolgirls, except in camouflage instead of plaid – which I guess was unintentionally ironic, since we were from a small town in West Tennessee where dates on the weekend during duck and deer season ended at 8 pm, because your date had to go home and go to bed so they could get up at four in the morning and go shoot stuff.

So I was looking at the flood picture of the Opry stage that first week, and in my head seeing clearly what the stage looked like from the floor, standing in the third or fourth row in from the stage that night in 1983. Remembering that I was looking, basically, up – since I’m short anyway, but still, it was relatively high off the floor.

Realizing that that water I was looking at in the picture was quite a bit – a lot - higher than I am tall.

I wrote in a post that’s yet to be published that the Opryland Hotel’s what really did me in, sifting through pic after pic as I was early in the week. I know it’s silly, and I know they’ll repair it and build it back. It’s just seeing a place like that where you have a really strong, clear and special memory so devastated – that’s when it really hits home, when you’re having to watch like this from afar.

And speaking of home over here in West Tennessee… although I had heard and read about and seen some of the horrible devastation in Dyersburg, pictures that were forwarded to me of the flooding in Jackson struck it home even more.

Though things have progressed a great deal in many of the smaller towns, when you’re from Northwest Tennessee, Jackson’s a big hub – that’s where you go shopping for Christmas or your prom dress, that’s where you go to the orthodontist once a month, where people end up in the hospital when they have things more severe than the smaller ones can handle, where folks go to the doctor regularly – all those things. Many friends and old classmates live there. I lived there once briefly too, matter of fact.

The pictures from Jackson were as awful as the ones I’d been seeing out of Nashville and Middle Tennessee all week. A main stretch of road with vehicles as submerged as all those pics from I-24. A Sonic Drive-In with water up to the lighted menus, menus that are generally quite a bit higher than the bottom of your average car door’s window.

Virtually almost all of West Tennessee, as well as so much of Middle Tennessee, has now been declared a disaster area by the Federal government. Of my two little hometowns here in the West, one is in one of only maybe two or three counties in West Tennessee that were not. My other home county is.

I know a lot of people who were watching from other places on Twitter and Facebook and the like, and folks from other places reading Nashville and Tennessee bloggers’ blogs – and probably especially people who live in cities and areas that do experience such devastating flooding fairly often – maybe thought we’d all gone mad, overboard with it all.

But it just doesn’t happen here. Not like that.

Not but in a few pockets of the state (like up around Reelfoot Lake and off the Mississippi to the north), and certainly not like this. And absolutely not in this state’s largest cities.

Tornadoes – we know tornadoes, yep. We are all too familiar with tornadoes. Maybe not quite on the scale of, say, Kansas – but we know tornadoes.

Floods like the one earlier this month – they just don’t happen here. Not at all in Nashville since the 1970s – and bad though it was, that was really nothing compared to this one.

So yeah. Most of this state, except for those in the mountains in East Tennessee – we’re a little loopy right now, still. We’re better than we were, but things are still pretty bad for a lot of people down here. We’ll be okay, eventually.

But so much help is still needed, and will continue to be. It was heartbreaking a couple  of weeks or so ago to see one of my friends who’d gone out to volunteer and help Tweeting for more help, because apparently a lot of elderly people showed up at the location and she was only one of a few (if not the only) volunteer that showed up. I know a lot of major relief efforts went on all the following weekend after the flood, and I’m sure the larger ones have been more successful than that one was. I hope not too many of the smaller ones had problems like that one did.

It’ll be a long ongoing process for a long time, and daunting. In Nashville, the potential economic repercussions alone are a little bit terrifying. Not only are many of Nashville’s biggest landmarks and tourist attractions, and other large industries, going to be under repair for some time – some of the largest are out of commission for possibly the rest of the year at the very least, and literally thousands of people are about to be (or already are) without jobs.

And the same goes for other places in Tennessee, with varying degrees of what and how much those counties are going to be hit economically. In a state that has already been struggling with disastrous state budgetary issues, widespread unemployment, and general economic downturn statewide for some time now – it’s no wonder if everyone’s holding their breath to see where we go from here.

Some resources for those who want to help (many of these are also aggregating efforts for other Middle TN counties as well):

• The United Way of Metropolitan Nashville – you can also text RESTORE to UNITED (864833) to give $10 to help victims of the Nashville flood.
• Hands On Nashville – also in the process of major relief efforts for Nashville
• DonateNashville.org - a Craigslist-type resource recently put together by The United Way of Metro Nashville and Cool People Care to more efficiently organize directly what people need and what people have
• The Red Cross – you can also donate $10 to the Red Cross to help the flood victims by texting REDCROSS to 90999
• Cool People Care also has some great “We Are Nashville” t-shirts for sale with proceeds going to help flood victims

Speak to Power has put together some listings of resources for help, donations and more in several of the worst hit counties in West Tennessee also:

• Dyersburg – Dyer County Relief & Donation Resources
• Tipton County Relief & Donation Resources
• Shelby County – Millington Relief & Donation Resources
  

My hat’s truly off to Christy and Morgan (and anyone else helping behind the scenes that week) at The Nashvillest, who did an outstanding job of collecting, organizing and getting information out on the Web through this whole ordeal that week and just really became the central point of Internet communication regarding the Nashville flood and continue to be. I should point out, too, that the website is not their job – they have full-time jobs elsewhere – yet they still managed to kinda outshine the local print and television news media when it came to the WWW. The local media still did a good job and continues to, but in this situation, they kinda got pwned as far as getting critical information out on the Internet goes.

(Sadly The Tennesseean‘s website, though better than it was in the past, is kind of a great big cluttered mess and I really don’t know how anyone finds anything on there. Messy, messy, messy. I’m not a big fan of the Scripps template that The Commercial Appeal and the Knoxville News-Sentinel are using these days, but it’s 110% better than the garbled cluttered up mess I see every time I go to The Tennesseean looking for something. And while I know newspaper and television news sites pretty much MUST have ads on them these days, and that’s fine – it’d be nice if someone would come up with a solution for nearly all of the media sites nationwide where advertisements wouldn’t cause the page loading issues they do. There’s nothing more annoying than going to your local TV news station’s site when the tornado siren’s going off outdoors… only to see the page hanging FOREVER when it’s trying to load via some ad supplier’s domain.)

Anyway, so there. I would say that’s all, but yesterday the floods came back and a little too close to home for me – way too close to home for many of my friends.

Summer hasn’t even really begun in Tennessee and, this year, I don’t think winter can come too soon.

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On a final note – I’m going to make a valiant attempt to start posting again at least a few times a week, if not more. Even if it’s stupid. I’ve been so busy for so many months now and it really has been almost impossible to get here and post most of the time. But I feel better when I do, so I’m going to make an effort again and guess we’ll just see what happens. I’ve decided it wasn’t just because the week of the flood was so grim and critical – it just felt better, being on Twitter more, being here more. So there you go. It might get really dumb around here, but I guess that’s okay too.

Looking for a Yummy Investment? Get a Piece of Nashville’s Finest BBQ Joint

As mentioned in the previous post, Nashville blogger fave Mothership BBQ is on the verge of closing its doors.

Location has always been an issue, being on a side street in Berry Hill that just doesn’t get much drive-by traffic at all. Here in Memphis, where BBQ is the only other King besides Elvis, I don’t think our major BBQ places could survive without being in a good location for driving weekday business lunch traffic (or within walking distance downtown for the lunchtime crowd), plus most are in fairly high traffic areas anyway, day or night. I’m sure most do well in the evenings too, but the lunch crowds are probably the meat (pun intended) of the business for many.

Other factors include zoning laws that disallow beer being sold at the establishment. In Memphis, no cold brew with your ‘cue would be flatly unheard of and probably result in a riot.

Jim has found a location in Nashville that is available, where he can sell beer, and that is in a high-traffic area where folks are lined up out the door at lunchtime at other restaurants in the area, among many other improvements. The faithful regular crowd of bloggers and their families, as well as other regulars, will most certainly follow him to his new location as well. There are people in the Nashville area who eat there every single week and some, multiple times a week. This great place, which has gotten consistently excellent reviews and publicity since it opened, has a definite and loyal following, but a move to the new location would likely increase that regular crowd immensely, and bring in new customers constantly.

I’ll let him tell you the rest about the situation and the fine details, just click here.

And here’s a brand new update to the above from Jim with some more specific details. Be sure and read both for a look at the big picture.

In any case, if you’re always looking for potential investments or know someone who might be interested, I urge you to get in touch with Jim ASAP and find out more. Fondly known among the Nashville blogging community as Knuck, Jim’s a good, straight up, and honest guy who always just tells it like it is, which he did on the Mothership’s blog this week. And if you’re interested in possibly investing in Nashville’s best BBQ, he’s got lots more information to share and can answer any questions you may have.

The details are on the Mothership BBQ blog or you can contact Jim directly at (615) 269-7150.

I can guarantee you that if you are interested and can help save the Mothership, you can count on having not only the constant and consistent business, but also undying gratitude, of a bunch of Nashville and other Tennessee bloggers – a group in number that is already large and consistently growing, and reaches across the entire state – their families and friends, and some other regulars (like a top news dude in Nashville who I hear eats there constantly) – as well as many other new regular customers, I’m sure, that just haven’t found the place yet due to its location issues.

Thanks for reading!

Someone That Could Use a Hand

If you’re able and so inclined… I know it will be much appreciated.

She Talks to Angels

Late last night (early this morning actually) I asked for extra thoughts/wishes/prayers towards East Tennessee for the Oak Ridge family of GAC/BJ, AT, & their two little boys at Atomic Tumor, as things had taken a turn for much worse overnight.

Very saddened to report that this morning, she is gone.

Even though I never knew BJ personally, I am honored to have been able to get to know her thru AT’s words. As well as so many wonderful things I heard about her, and them both, from others that knew them, some of whom are my own friends, acquaintances. I am grateful to have had this all too brief opportunity to learn about her and her – again, all too brief – life. 29 years old is too soon to have to leave, especially with two young children.

This tragedy has touched so many hearts all over the country, all over the world now. BJ will live on through AT’s love for her and through their sons, most definitely; and through the memories of their good friends and family. But she will also live on through the hearts of all the hundreds, thousands of people who have been witnessing this electronically over there the last few weeks as well, all those with whom AT shared her in his grief and pain. I think it changed the world a little bit and has made it a little bit better place today.

I think it would have anyway, even if it had had a happier ending, if she was awake and with her husband and her boys today instead. I wish that’s how it had turned out. I wish there were more I could do.

AT, their sons, and all their many family & friends could use your prayers, thoughts, wishes, whatever it is you do, more than ever now and in the coming weeks, especially with the holidays afoot. I thank you for whatever it is you choose to do, if you do so.

Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire

So, last night I was shopping at one of our fine local grocery establishments (rhymes with giggly ziggly), when a small electrical fire broke out in the vicinity of the store where your Intrepid Blonde Blogger was perusing potential edibles for the evening’s dinner.

I was just a few feet away from it but didn’t actually see it, as it was around the corner from the aisle where I was standing – which was actually the corner I was next intending to round on my way to the frozen vegetables. But the rising smoke from around the corner and stocker dude standing at the foot of the aisle looking at me frantically with one hand up, going “Ma’am, back up please. PLEASE back up, ma’am” – probably would have tipped me off soon enough. And if not that, the store manager with the fire extinguisher arriving on the scene, certainly.

I wasn’t in the general area but a couple more minutes, grabbing what else I needed to and getting the hell out of there pretty quick. Even within just a few minutes, the smoke was getting pretty icky and the smell was just plain awful.

Ugh. Obviously I was there just long enough and just close enough to get a nice little dose of for-real smoke inhalation. I can’t get loose of the smell!!!!

I get home and change clothes immediately – which I was gonna do anyway. Hair – eh. Couldn’t do much about that, at the moment anyway. But smell, smell, smell. It won’t go away.

It has now been over eight hours since I left the store. I have showered and washed my hair TWICE.

IT WON’T GO AWAY. I can still smell it, and obviously it’s not on me, it’s IN me. ICK.

I mean, it’s not constant. Just, like, every five or ten minutes it’s back again. Yuck.

This is worse than when I was in high school and college and our TV at home kept getting zapped by lightning. Several times I’d come home late at night on the weekends and I’d open the front door and that smell would just hit you in the face. But it wasn’t, like, stuck in my nose and head forever. Of course, maybe that’s because I was never there in the room when it happened.

I hope it’s not going to be like this all weekend. Blah. It’s going to go away soon, right? Please?

PS – Anyone who’s been following the situation at Atomic Tumor… things have worsened extremely and I think she needs nothing short of a miracle now. But please continue to keep BJ, and especially AT and their children in thoughts, prayers, wishes – whatever it is you choose to do. I think AT & the boys probably need prayers and thoughts for strength and getting thru all this more than ever right now… thanks.

Save a Prayer

A quick turn thru some of my usual blog haunts this evening turned up a situation I cannot even comprehend the horror of. Even though my better half is not here with me right now, I am ever so grateful tonight knowing he is safe and well.

Prayers, or if you’re not the praying kind, good thoughts & karma for some folks who could really use it right about now… thanks much.