Susan Herndon

So, it's dusk, and I'm just East of Memphis, driving back from Nahsville...

Rockin' out to John Hiatt's latest, Mystic Pinball, re-living the fantastic show he and his band had put on the previous night, I suddenly gather that there are flashing red lights behind me.

I pull over.

I have no idea how long they've been following...

I wait.

The guy walks around the truck and I roll down my window.

His badge says, DEA Special Agent Johnson.

He tells me, "You were weaving."

"I was what?!"

"You were weaving."

Hmmmmmm

He asks me to get out of the ride....

He wants to know what I do for a living, where I'm coming from, where I'm going, what I've been doing.

I swear to him I'm not carrying anything illicit.

... a musician, singer-songwriter, caught weaving between Nashville and Memphis....

He seems not to believe me.

It's nightime now.  And for the next hour, he searches every bag, every case, every sack in the vehicle. Looking. For something. He opens my guitar case. Nothing. He looks through my CDs. Nothing. He searches every compartment-- places I didn't even know existed in this thing.

Nothing.

He opens up a door and a bright red chiffon tutu springs out and bounces in his face.

"WAOH!" exclaims Johnson.

My friend, Andrea, had left it there after she and her friends had gone to a festival in Colorado. They had dressed up as mushrooms.

I start thinking, wondering if maybe they had dropped some magic mushrooms in the truck?

But Johnson, as he eagerly goes through my affairs one by one in the suitcase, seems disappointed.

Not one stem. No seeds. No moonshine.

Not even any beer in the cooler.

How pitiful.

....And I think of my hero, Willie.....

And I think, I need to have more fun!  ;-)