Bluebird Cafe.

My first year of teaching was 2003-2004.  Those kids, fifth graders at the time, are now half way through their sophomore year of high school. [Trust me, I know.  I’m friends with most of them on facebook.]

That year, my friend James recorded an EP, I think.  Or a demo.  Or a CD.  Or an 8 track tape. I don’t know the official wording, but maybe the slaughteration of his life’s work that I just did right there will force him to correct me via comment on this blog, which has been a mini-goal of mine for a while.

That may be a run-on sentence.

That group of fifth graders LOVED them some James David Carter.  I’ll tell you what.  I would pop that CD in during spelling seat work.  To this day, it is one of my fondest memories.  Hearing those kids singing real quiet to themselves while working at their desks?  It’s why I stuck around as long as I did- to see more moments like that.

At the end of the year, James came and sang for them and GOOD GRACIOUS you would have thought Garth Brooks himself had arrived.  One of the songs on the CD that always got the kids going was later recorded by Reba [you may have heard that I like her a bit] and that song is called “Somebody“.  The kids sang along that day at the top of their pre-pubescent lungs and I. LOVED. IT.

So that song has a special place in my heart because it always takes me back to that first year teaching school. When I literally felt like I was livin’ the dream.

Fast forward to last night.  Annie and I go to the Bluebird Cafe- where songwriters perform.

[And let me go ahead and say that I’m real sorry but we didn’t make a video.  The calaber of talent that we were around tonight?  Let’s just say it was a *wee bit* higher than our personal videoing talent.  And truthfully, we both take the Bluebird REALLY seriously, so aside from a beer getting launched at Annie P, the video would have been minutes upon minutes of us waxing poetic about well-written words that ruin your soul just a little bit in that good way.]

And it appears I have adopted a deep love of run-on sentences today.

So a handsome and scruffy songwriter, Dave Berg [frequent Frothy Monkey patron, by the way], kicks into his first song.

And y’all.  He wrote “Somebody”.

It’s like the world kinda froze. And there I am, five years later, hearing that song again from the mouth of the songwriter.  Not James in Marietta, not Reba or the radio, not 25 fifth graders in Hoschton.  But in Nashville.

In a completely different world.  With a completely different life.

Annie 2003 would be shocked if I told her this story.  And I’d tell her if she thought THAT was livin’ the dream, she was not going to BELIEVE the things God had for her around the corner!

Truth is, Annie 2008 sometimes can’t believe it either.

Totally unrelated but cool side note: My good buddy Chip is headed on a mission trip where he is going to get DIRTY.  Go read HIS BLOG and help a brother out!

Let's be friends!

Stay up to date with our weekly newsletter. It’s all things fun with Annie.
No spam we promise