Day One

Well, we hit the road yesterday and ended up in Memphis, Tn. We had a nice house concert in the Binghampton neighborhood. Actually, Brian and I first met when we worked at an inner city summer camp called SOS (Service Over Self) here. (www.sosmemphis.org) The concert went well and it was nice to start out the tour by playing for lots of familiar faces.

Everything felt pretty good but we have a couple of sound system issues to iron out. By the second set we had settled into things more than in the first set as far as music goes. Packing the van was an adventure. I think we've got a ways to go before we're very efficient in that department. The vans contents sort of looked like it had done a cartwheel after we packed it.

Our hosts were good to us! They cooked some delicious incredibly edible taco soup. Which to me was just really good chili. They also had cheddar cheese and sour cream and some good cake. Thanks, ya'll! They made it easy for us to feel at home and were really generous with their place.

One highlight of the evening was when one of our favorite neighborhood kids showed up during the break. He's a four and a half year old and he loves to dance. So Brian and I played a little funk rhythm and Kenny danced like crazy for everybody! Hilarious! Wow, that was a great time. There may be a photo forthcoming.

After the concert we watched "The Secret Life of Bees" with our friend Adrienne who's done all the booking for the tour. Good movie. Now we're watching Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne on a Simple Living DVD at our dear friend's The Pates house right now as I type this. I like the challenge of living simply, or not buying into the fabricated needs of our culture. I'm pretty curious to see what Jesus will be teaching us as we travel this month, what conversations will we have? what stories will we learn?

Tonight we head up to Knoxville. Right now I'm boiling macaroni and cheese. Thanks for stopping by the site... Matthew