Did you ever have this dream? You remember you have a huge assignment due that day and it's way too late to get it done.
Welcome to last Friday. This is not a dream.
Last Friday I woke at my usual 7ish, except I was in the city of angels, Los Angeles, California. So it was 4ish. This wasn't a surprise, I knew I was in Los Angeles.
It was a little bit of vacation and a little bit of work. I'd transitioned from the vacation part well into the work part by Friday with another day of work after.
It was way too early to get up on the west coast. It'd be four hours until the coffee and pastries were out at the conference so went back to sleep until almost 6.
I woke thinking of coffee. I don't usually do that, but coffee is one of my first coherent thoughts coming anywhere from 3 to 57 minutes after I get up.
Then I remembered it was Friday, the first full day of the conference, no coffee for two more hours. But there was a Keurig in the room, so I didn't have to wait. I got up, loaded the coffee machine, went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth.
I fired up my laptop and grabbed the little paper cup of hot coffee. Most Fridays, I take a look at the News-Express with my coffee just to see what the column looks like. I still love what words look like in print.
And that's when I remembered. It's very difficult to have a column in the newspaper on Friday morning if you forgot to write it.
The dog did not eat it. You forgot to write it.
I would be lying if I said I've never missed a print deadline. I have missed a few for various reasons. I come from a time before autosave, after all. But in forty five years of writing stuff for public consumption on a deadline, I had never flat forgotten.
Not only did I forget to write it. I forgot I didn't write it and wondered what it looked like on Friday morning. It's due Wednesday night! To be honest with you, a column didn't cross my mind after the plane landed in L.A.
Luckily, Russ had seen an incriminating Facebook post and was prepared for the likelihood of a missing column.
You might say I needed to get away for a minute. And thank goodness, the annual Levitt AMP convening made it possible.
I've gotten to spend a few days in Los Angeles most years since 2018 as the producer of Whitesburg's Levitt AMP Music Series. There were fifteen towns when we started, thirty eight now from every corner of the United States.
Each town will produce ten free to the public outdoor concerts a year. The majority of these shows feature nationally and internationally touring recording artists. Whitesburg has presented winners of every major music award, hall of famers, and the musical ambassador of Jordan.
It's been like living a dream sometimes being involved with Levitt AMP. That's a lot better than living the dream we started with, I promise.