Searching for Americana in FLA

Your very humble blogger skipped the action at the Narrows and the Fall River Festival of the Arts to fly down to Tampa, FLA for a week of trying to reason with hurricane season (thanks Jimmy).

So I grabbed a Southwest flight out of Greene Saturday morning and high-tailed it to Tampa. One of the highlights of the flight (other than taking the photo at 10 million feet above
mother earth and having some guy sitting to my right sniff his nose loudly every 30 seconds for an hour), was to hear a Southwest crew member sing a promotional song about Southwest Airlines, using the melody from the Flintstones cartoon show.

I am staying at the home of my brother, who lives in a gated community. I took this photo out his back door to show you the pond where a "cute little baby alligator lives," quoting my sister-in-law. The gated community keeps nasty people away, but can't do diddley about animals known to swallow dogs.

It's a rugged scene down here, baby.

But the point of this exercise is to check out a legendary venue which a member of the group Chatham County Line told me is pretty much the place to play in FLA.

That venue: Skipper's Smokehouse, located at 910 Skipper Road, Tampa.

Skipper's books many of the same acts as the Narrows Center for the Arts.

But more of that in my next entry, when your "Backstage at the Narrows" blogger goes "Backstage at Skipper's," led by an apparent longtime denizen of Skipper's, and former rock singer, the very lovely (and funny) Ginny.