Category: Top Bob

Streaming toward 10 degree Knoxville Tennessee this morning with a rollicking China Cat Sunflower percolating around in the cab of my truck, I had one of those moments. Big grin shoots across my face. Chills ripple through me, playing my spine like vibes. A strange, happy tear wells up in my eye. Bruised purple clouds cling to the sunrise, casting that “scruffy little city” in a frigid halo, pillars of steam rising up from several buildings like hotsprings in Yellowstone. The traffic on I-40 hits a sudden synchronicity, flowing and pulsing toward downtown. It all melts into one …

“Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”

BTW: I’ve been loving Keith Godchaux’s keyboards on Europe ’72. His work is just incredible, and the band seems so young, so not-addled by life and addiction and all the other bunk that dragged them down by the ’90s. If you haven’t listened to that CD for a while, get it out. Put it on. Smile smile smile.

I was driving through the Rape of Hardin Valley this morning on my way to work (the state has decided this rustic road needs to be four lanes), and I saw the oddest site: There, among the dust and commotion of yellow bulldozers scratching the earth like pumped up canaries on steroids, a rotund JimBob wearing bib overalls and a buzzcut was flapping his arms like a giant chicken. He was following a wiry little fella who clearly wasn

I was returning home on Interstate 40 last night when I saw about four or five semis slowed to a crawl in the right lane. Strange. An acrid, burned-rubber smell drifted into my truck. I slowed to about 10 mph and came upon one of the most horrifying things I’ve seen in a long time. A man was lying in a fetal position on the highway while a woman ran toward him, screaming, crying. A mangled red SUV was about 30 yards away, off the road. It all happened so slowly, so strangely. I drifted past, noticing the glimmering broken glass covering the roadway. The Do Lung bridge scene in Apocalpyse Now came quickly to mind. Then adrenaline hit me. I pulled over, already past the accident, and fumbled for my cell phone. Misdialed. Dialed again. Was put on hold by the 911 system. A police car’s lights approached in my sideview mirror. I sat stunned for a moment. Realized there was nothing to be done but gawk at this point. Shut off my cell phone. Pulled slowly back onto I-40, hands shaking, and continued on home.

I still don’t know what happened. No report in this morning’s paper. It was probably past their deadline. But the image of that woman and man on the Interstate won’t leave. It reminds me of my reporter days, when I would “cover” a fatal accident. I always felt like a vulture circling carrion, and it always took me a week or two to flush the scene from my mind …