well this life that i live, it took me everywhere

 There ain't no place I ain't never gone

Well it's kind of like the sayin
That you heard so many times
Well, there just ain't no place like home (Van Zant/Collins)

talk about a swing in emotions....in 1977 i went from the euphoria on October 18th of attending the Reggie Jackson 3 HR game to win the World Series, to just 2 days later the sad depths of being woken up by my brother to the news that the Lynyrd Skynyrd tour plane had crashed, and the great Ronnie Van Zant was dead.

Skynyrd was on the precipice of becoming one of the Top bands in the world, the American version of the Rolling Stones. They were scheduled to play MSG in November and that would have been the launching pad to international stardom. 45 years later, despite being struck down before their prime; they remain on par with the Allman Brothers as the greatest band to come out of the American South.

Ronnie, the Jacksonville Kid; had all the qualities we admire in our Rock Stars....charisma, funny, hard drinker, unique voice, storyteller and a badass not afraid to tell Mr. Young where to go...the band had just released "Gimme Back my Bullets" in 76 and played a few nights at the Winterland in San Francsico to great reviews...(do yourself a favor and find the tapes from those shows....crisp, raw, rock n roll) a stint at MSG would have put them over the top. Alas it was not meant to be i suppose.... on October 20th 1977, on a flight from Greenville, South Carolina to Baton Rouge their plane ran out of fuel....26 people were onboard.... Ronnie, Steve & Cassie Gaines, the Road Manager and 2 pilots lost their lives....20 people managed to survive. (i had the good fortune of seeing one of the survivors Artimus Pyle this summer at the Basie) i often wonder what might have been had that plane not gone down.

anyway...clearly.....it's a whiskey day for me......and tons of Skynyrd on the stereo......i'll leave you with one of the last lyrics he wrote from the same song we opened with.... Rest in Peace Ronnie, from Rober E Lee High School in Duvall County to the streets of Brooklyn and beyond, you were loved, admired and terribly missed.

And Lord I can't make any changes
All I can do is write 'em in a song
'Cause when I can see the concrete a slowly creepin'
Lord take me and mine before that comes