Hurricane Fran: what I remember 10 years later / Elvis 29 years later

Glances From A Nervous Groom

september 6 marks ten years since hurricane fran arrived with its fury in north carolina. i was playing a gig at berkeley cafe in downtown raleigh. seems we weren't expecting the worst of it till the wee hours. so we continued to play. we were the opener and terry anderson's band was on stage. they were so loud we could not hear the wind or the trees and limbs falling on the street there at nash square. eventually, my roommate called the bar from home and asked if i was coming home! was sweet and mother hen-like of him (joe - who's nickname is "sloe" if you read this, thank you!)

normally, it would be a 5 minute drive from berkeley cafe to my home where mordecai and oakwood meet. but it took me 20 minutes to go that 2 or so miles. fallen trees and power lines on every street. i felt like a mouse in a maze.

the only business open was krispy kreme on peace st. i got two dozen doughnuts and that's what we ate pretty much for 24 hours. being bachelors, we didn't have much in the fridge.

i do recall we sat on the front porch for awhile, drinking beer (sloe had stocked up) watching the wind, rain and eerie green lights of the sky. i still remember the sound of distant transformers blowing up every few minutes.

we lost power for 2 or 3 days. we were lucky compared to some. many lost power for a week or more. and it was miserably hot. and i was really sick the next day from the beer and doughnuts!

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while i'm on the subject of marking anniversaries, today is 29 years to the day that elvis left the building for the last time.

i was playing a version of baseball, called wiffleball, in my front yard in garner, nc when my sister's best friend lisa came to tell us. she was running and breathless. we ran straight into the house to see it on tv. we had just gotten cable, but there was no big cable news network then to my knowledge. i think the networks broke in with the news. it was a scorching hot and humid day in nc that afternoon and all the clips of memphis from that day seem like a boiler too. my main thought was "it's gonna be weird to live in a world without elvis." of course 29 years later, he's bigger than ever. just not among the living.