AS NASHVILLE GROWS AND CHANGES

If you remember a little dive meat and three restaurant called the #CoffeeShop on #EllistonPlace in Nashville, then the odds are that you have been around here for awhile.  The Coffee Shop was a business that was once located at the same site of what has long since become better known as The Gold Rush.  #TheGoldRush itself is a longstanding institution of socializing over bean rolls and beer or your favorite mixed drink.  So, if I say that I was here in #Nashville and that my mother was once a #waitress at the Coffee Shop prior to its glory days as The Gold Rush, you can safely assume that yes, I have been in Nashville for infinity it would seem.  

I can remember my beautiful mother Margie in her white waitress uniform with her auburn colored hair, in her white waitress shoes with her hair often swept up in a fashionable do for women her age.  I can remember her penciled on eyebrows and her Raleigh cigarettes.  I can remember Mr. Anthony's Jewelry Store which was on the block, a few doors down from the Coffee Shop.  Just talking about those times elicits a sigh of nostalgia from me.  

I can remember when on Friday nights The Gold Rush was THE place to be.  You never knew what visiting celebrity from L.A. who had come to Nashville to collaborate on songwriting or to visit a recording studio would be in the Rush that night.  You never knew when you might just get invited to a showcase or to some artist's debut.  While it has been many years since I was hanging out at the Gold Rush, I can't help but wonder at this stage of earth-shaking and ground breaking growth in Nashville, who else might remember the time when the elements of Nashville that made it so inviting to everyone were still evident.

I still remember when one could walk safely down the sidewalks in the afternoons as children and on any neighborhood front porch steps you could see and hear the guitar pickers hanging out and just having fun.  They were not all here in the hopes of attaining fame and fortune because of their talents...they just were.  In other words, the talent was enjoyed and shared simply for the pure joy of it.  

The memories go on for a lifetime.  I couldn't possibly begin to share them all in this one post.  But, here is one more I will share at this time.  The site of the construction dig at the top of this page used to be a small church.  I attended there for awhile when I was married with two small children.  This was Bellevue Grace Assembly Church once upon a time.  I can only guess that it will now possibly become the home to more condos, of which Bellevue now has a plethora.  I took the photo while out for a stroll with my friend Hannah one day. The impact of how much things are changing and how rapidly they are changing in what was once a small, friendly colony of artists hit me like a ton of bricks.  I have obscured the name of the manufacturing giant on the tractors simply to avoid any possibility of liability, but I'm sure you know who they are.

Change is inevitable in the world today.  But with change, does a society also have to lose its soul?  Those of us who have been in Nashville most of our lives certainly would hate to see that happen to Nashville, and let's hope it's not already happening.