Nervous in Nashville

I’m always in Group 8 out of 9 when I fly on American. I can’t help but take it personally. It feels like being the last person chosen in a pick-up game. Typically, as we begin boarding, the gate announcer says that the flight is full and some people, Groups 8 and 9 for instance, may not have room for their overhead carry-on, so it might be prudent for those losers to check it now before it’s too late and they cause a big problem. I never do that. I take my chances. 

On this Friday night I am flying from Hartford via Charlotte to Nashville for a family reunion in Music City with my daughter Maeve Raphael-Reily, 23, and my son Chris Raphael-Reily, 25. Maeve is coming in from the University of Wisconsin, where she is getting her master’s degree in education so that she can teach high school chemistry. 

Chris is living in Nashville working full time for Red Light Artist Management. His main job is coordinating the career of Jordan Davis who is currently out on tour riding high on the country charts with his song “Bar None.” In September Chris flew out for Jordan’s big show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside of Denver and last weekend Chris and Maeve met up in Milwaukee for a Jordan concert. 

Since Chris’s studio apartment in Nashville is not big enough for the three of us, I have taken a chance on an Airbnb for me and Maeve. It turns out to be a weird little one-bedroom affair overly decorated with a grizzly bear theme and a light fixture in the bathroom that flickers on and off. 

“I feel like if I take a shower, I’m going to have an aneurysm,” says Maeve, who proceeds to get a terrible night’s sleep on the rickety pull-out sofa bed because there was so much noise coming from the nightclub next door. 

Things go better the next morning when Maeve and I discover that our Airbnb is right next door to a hip breakfast joint called The Loading Dock. Well-fortified, we get picked up by Chris and head over to the No Kings protest at the state capitol which starts at 10 a.m. The day is sunny and very warm for mid-October, temps around 85, tee shirt weather.

I was wondering if an anti-Trump rally would be popular in Nashville, but my concerns evaporate as we approach the site. Up on a huge, grassy hill below the capitol are thousands of people brandishing signs of resistance and American flags. They make a beautiful sight and a righteous noise that is resounding off the slope. A black woman named Odessa Kelly is on the platform. She ran for the U.S. Congress in 2022 and got 78% of the vote in Nashville but lost because of gerrymandered redistricting.

“It’s one thing to read about a revolution,” said Odessa Kelly. “It’s another thing to be on the dawn of one. I’m here for all the people that have been living check to check. I’m here for every person that’s been hanging on by a thread. I’m here for everyone who had an American dream, not to become rich, but to live and be happy and be free. That’s the reason why I’m here. That’s the only way you can drag my black ass away from Homecoming at TSU.” The crowd cheers and laughs. 

Tennessee State University is a historically black university located in Nashville, a city that is 25% African-American and 14% Hispanic. The tourists here are predominantly Caucasian, but the natives are black, white and brown.

The protest concludes with a musical performance led by bi-racial Allison Russell who Chris knew because he was briefly her dogsitter and stayed in her East Nashville house that she shares with her husband JT Nero. I met the couple when they had a band called Birds of Chicago that I interviewed seven years ago in Northampton for a Backporch Festival live radio broadcast. 

At the protest Allison is joined by six singers including JT and Emmy Lou Harris, whose shock of white hair gleams in the sun. They sing a song called “Tennessee Rise” written by Allison and JT in 2024 to support Gloria Johnson, a member of the famous “Tennessee Three” who Republicans attempted to eject from the legislature. Allison’s lead vocal fades in and out as she shares the microphone, but the song has a nice groove with handclaps, and the words “Tennessee Rise” sounds about right for a protest that had started at 10 in the morning.

Buoyed by the No Kings rally, we repair to Chris’s apartment in the Germantown neighborhood north of the capitol. In Chris’s minimalist apartment we decide to call the kids’ grandfather, Chris “Pere” Raphael, in Maine. We chat with Pere about his recently published autobiographical pamphlet where we learned that Raphael was his grandfather’s middle name. At Ellis Island the authorities changed his Greek last name of Chaoussoglou to Raphael in a stroke of bureaucratic arrogance that was kind of a good call. 

Continuing the Greek theme, we next visit the replica of the Parthenon in Centennial Park next to the Vanderbilt campus. Having defended democracy in the morning we are now visiting a replica of the iconic building from the city where democracy was invented. Nashville was nicknamed “Athens of the South” because of its colleges, most notably Vanderbilt, and that moniker was cemented in place when they replaced a wood version of the Parthenon with a concrete one in 1931. 

Inside the building is a 40-foot tall, gaudy, gilded statue of Athena which looks like something Trump would install in the White House. We learn from two young docents that Athena is the goddess of wisdom and warfare who represents justice, courage, strategy and the arts. She is also the protector of Athens. Our country could use some Athena oversight right now.

Walking back to our car in Centennial Park we hear a foghorn blast coming from the nearby Vanderbilt-LSU game. The sound is used to cue the fans to make lots of noise on third down. Last fall when he worked for the Vanderbilt sports department, it was Chris’s job to hit the foghorn button. That was the year Vandy beat Alabama, and the fans tore down the goalpost and then carried it through the streets of Nashville and tossed it in the Cumberland River.

After a dinner featuring a triple hummus plate, grilled shrimp, and pistachio pie at Lyra in East Nashville we head to the Ryman Auditorium to see Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. The Ryman is the centerpiece of downtown Nashville, a big ole brick church that was the original location of the Grand Ole Opry and is still the spiritual home of country music. Jason Isbell, 46, is a top-flight country-folk-rock, singer-songwriter-guitarist in the middle of a six-night residency at the Ryman.

Our balcony tickets are $200 a piece and at that price I am not happy that the opening act is a group of students from the Otis Redding Foundation music camp in Macon, Georgia. I love Otis and I think it’s nice they have this organization, but these campers were not ready for prime time. The audience was kind to the kids, but it was bogus.

When Jason Isbell came out, he and his six-piece band put on a hell of a show but I did not love all of it. There were too many basic rock songs, too many guitar solos for me. Isbell’s songwriting, on the other hand, was at times heart-rending. When he played his bittersweet “If We Were Vampires” on acoustic guitar Maeve and I both got teary. “It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever/ Likely one of us will have to spend some time alone.” That was worth the whole thing.

A few songs in Jason alluded to the No Kings protest. “Yes, it’s Saturday night, not Sunday morning, but it was nice to see people congregating this morning. Good to see like-minded people getting together.” About a third of the audience cheered as he launched into “Hope the High Road” with its lyrics about feeling besieged. “I know you’re tired and you ain’t sleepin’ well/ Uninspired and likely mad as hell.”

After the concert we have a night cap at a nondescript bar called the Black Rabbit off of Printer’s Alley. No cover charge, good cover band playing Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, The Meters. We get a table in the back. Perfect. It seems like downtown Nashville is loaded with these joints. 

Sunday morning, I check out coverage of the No Kings in Nashville’s newspaper The Tennessean. The headline says, “Hundreds Protest at the Capitol.” Hundreds? By consensus there were 8,000-10,000 people there. That headline feels gerrymandered, a willful under-estimation to diminish political importance. 

Today we are headed to the Patriots-Titans football game which is why we picked out this weekend for our family rendezvous in the first place. All three of us are Pats fans and the team is doing surprisingly well under new head coach Mike Vrabel. Vrabel was fired by the Titans two years ago so that adds some juice.

Before the game we Uber to lower Broadway to meet our friends Aidan, Liam and Aniston who are going to the Pats-Titans tilt with us. Just by chance we end up at the newly reopened Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop, which is equipped with a bar and a honky-tonk band. I tell the doorman on the sidewalk that I saw Ernest Tubb perform back in the day. He says, “Come right in. You’re practically a V.I.P.”  

Hearing Ernest Tubb at the Sullivan County Fair in Forksville, Pennsylvania in 1975 was the exact moment that I discovered the appeal of country music. I went to that show on a lark, thinking it would be a corny goof. Instead, it was charming, with honky-tonk classics like “Walking the Floor” and “Waltz Across Texas.” After the show Ernest Tubb signed 8 X 10 glossies for every fan who wanted to meet the man and get his picture. A true gentleman, he held the door open to country music for me.

Back at the Record Shop our friends arrive, and we walk down Broadway and then across the pedestrian Bridge over the Cumberland River to the stadium. It is amazing how many people in the crowd are wearing Patriots jerseys. This is going to be like a home game. I had been worried Maeve’s Gronkowski jersey might get flak from Tennessee fans. Not a problem.

Just outside the stadium there is a large tent set up with car tires suspended from ropes hanging down from the ceiling. Fans are invited to try their skill at throwing a football through the swinging tires. With his usual confidence, Chris steps right up and proceeds to pass the ball into the canvas tent, nowhere near any tire. To be fair, it has been raining all morning, and the ball is slick.

During the game Drake Maye, the dashing young quarterback for the Patriots, does much better than Chris. Maye completes a team record 21 of 23 passes and leads the Pats to an easy 31-13 victory. The play of the day was made by receiver Demario “Pop” Douglas who reached out and caught a ball thrown behind him with one hand as he was running the opposite direction.

During one of the frequent breaks in the action the stadium P.A. system blasts a snatch of “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy),” a macho mainstream country hit for the duo Big & Rich. A guy standing two rows in front of us with his girlfriend does a funky little Ride-Your-Pony dance to it with his hand out front like he is holding the reins. He is getting into it. 

“That is so Nashville,” says Chris. 

After the final whistle the Patriots jog off by twos and threes at our end of the stadium, and we get a chance to cheer our heroes. This is the most fun all day. The players and the fans are both pumped the Pats have gone from pitiful to powerful so quickly.  

Having refrained from stadium food, we hike a long way after the game to a sports bar called Neighbors for some sustenance. Sitting on the outside patio Maeve checks her phone and sees that her 9:00 pm Sunday flight on Spirit has been delayed, which means it will be too late for her to get a bus from the Chicago airport back to Madison, which means she will miss her student teaching on

Monday, which is not okay. After some discussion she books a different, earlier flight and I agree to foot the bill. I am spending money like a rock star with a new record contract.

Sunday night after Maeve heads to the airport we go over to Aidan and Liam’s house, where Chris used to live, to watch football and eat Five Points Pizza. Chris’s new girlfriend Anna stops by to join us which is a nice surprise since Chris has not even mentioned her. Anna seems very cool with an interest in making art, “being a creator not just a consumer,” as she puts it. She works at the Universal Music Group record label where Chris got a job right out of college until he was laid off. 

On Monday Chris is at work downtown, so I kill time at his apartment and then Uber to the airport. Everything is going fine until I enter the Parnassus Book shop in the terminal and pick up Tom T. Hall’s autobiography Songwriter’s Nashville.

That’s when it happened.
Actually, I don’t know what happened.
It was like a hole in the space-time continuum.

I pay for the book and start walking through the terminal looking for my gate. I get quite a ways when I suddenly realize that something is missing. I have both hands free. I don’t have my right hand on top of my rolling suitcase. In fact, I don’t have my suitcase at all. I have my backpack but not my suitcase. “John,” I say to my idiot self, “Where’s your suitcase?”

Thinking I must have left it at the bookstore, I race back but it’s not there. The cashier says she hasn’t seen it. I find a police officer in the terminal sitting behind a glass window and tell him my woeful story. He looks unconcerned and says if somebody finds it, they will announce it over the P.A.. In the meantime, he suggests I retrace my steps. 

I run back to the bookstore and there it is- my sky-blue, rolling suitcase leaning casually against a display of paperbacks. Somehow in my frenzy, I missed it the first time I searched for it. Thank God, I found it, or maybe, thank Athena, who helped Odysseus get home after the Trojan War. Whatever. I am exhausted.

Being a nervous traveler certainly contributed to that near-fiasco. I had a lot on my mind all weekend. I am 70 years old and not comfortable with all the new technology that comes into play- Uber, Airbnb, digital boarding passes. Usually, one of my traveling companions handles that stuff. It’s a pathetic excuse, but true. Plus, I have a brand-new, unfamiliar iPhone which I got because my old phone was getting hard to charge.

“That’s because of all the crackers in the port,” said Chris.

In any case, I almost lost my luggage and almost lost my mind, but I didn’t. I’ve still got my luggage, and I’ve still got my mind. I made it back home. It did rattle me though. 

It was just fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of MAGA, fear of rednecks, fear of climate change, fear that there won’t be enough room for your overhead carry-on. Fear is normal. You just can’t let it stop you.