My dream reverie of a lazy Sunday morning sleep-in preparatory to Exhibit Hall teardown (in no shape nor mood for a rousing gospel breakfast buffet with the Sacred Steel Revue) was jangled into reality by a panicked phone call from Steve: the Exhibit Hall was no more--every table stripped of everything and everything on or in it in the dumpster. Seems teardown was from 6-8pm SAT. night (which had never happened in my FA experience--teardown was always early Sun. afternoon, accompanied by frantic selloff deals by merchants who wanted to schlep as little home with them as possible). He'd retrieved the one FARM banner Annie had hung over the hotel escalators but the one I thought she'd wanted me to take from the hall had vanished into the ether. After frantic phone calls to everyone I could think of, Steve and I met for what was left of the breakfast buffet and began to brainstorm. I still felt awful physically, but the overlay of guilt made it even worse. I resolved to repay Annie to make another one (the printing firm still had her artwork). Went back to my room, updated e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook (whatever did we do in the olden days before 2006?) and there was a message from Annie telling me she'd gotten home safe and sound and had a blast. I apologized about the banner---and she replied that there had been only ONE banner--the one Steve had safely retrieved.
I collared the other officials and regional leaders to whom I'd made panicked calls and told them all was well. Said as many good-byes to departing friends and acquaintances as my diminishing voice and energy would allow and headed back up to the room for more e-mail, Olympics and naps. Awoke at 3:45pm, and for the first time that week, actually hungry. Called Steve (and woke him up too) and we decided to grab a cab to Gus'. Got downstairs, said some more goodbyes, and headed out to hail a cab. Unfortunately, the heavens had opened: rain coming down in buckets, thunder and lightning, and saw some old bearded dude in robe and sandals carrying a yardstick marked in cubits and a pile of lumber, muttering something about having to find a male-female pair of rats.
We took this as a sign to eat in. There were too few guests left (the cotton-gin conventioneers had not yet arrived in force) for the buffet, but we ordered off the menu. Chicken soup (finally!) and the best piece of salmon I'd had in quite a while. Just as we were debating dessert, we noticed Sue Fink, to whom I'd wanted to talk all weekend. We stretched out a lovely dinner and a lively conversation, and headed back to my room to work on a co-write we'd started earlier that week.
We'd thought it'd take at least an hour. Worked out the chords and melody for the verses and bridge (we'd nailed the choruses and lyrics earlier) and 20 minutes later we had the finished song "Chasing Lightning," the most equal co-write either of us had ever done. Only thing that kept us from recording it right then & there was that the remaining guests were not night owls and we didn't want to awaken anyone on a Sunday night. We said goodnight, knowing we had to pack, load and leave in the morning.