The Ins & Outs of Music City

It didn't take me long to find a job in Nashville.  Only a few nights of staying at hotels & crashing at a friend from high school's place before I got my first out of state gig.  

I got hired on as a "technician" at Can-D-Lab inside of the Opryland Mall.  

It was way more glamorous than it sounds.  I got paid around minimum wage to wear a lab coat at a mall kiosk & help parents & their kids fill up giant "test tubes" of sugar (think Pixie Sticks).  

But, even though I worked during the holidays, in a mall, I was thrilled to be out on my own.  I found a decent hotel that gave me a good weekly rate & it was walking distance to the mall.  They also had continental breakfast every morning & fresh coffee in the lobby.  

It was great.  I didn't really have to clean my room, I'd eat in the food court during work & grab beer & whiskey on the walk back to top off the styrofoam cooler next to my king bed.  

I spent Thanksgiving 2006 at the Shoney's next door then went & saw Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny at the movie theater.  I was living the life of a teenager, but all the while I kept looking for a real job for the new year.

My persistent search finally paid off after taking the bus all the way out to Franklin twice for interviews with Logo Chair, Inc.  At first it sounded like they wanted me to work in the office, but when I actually started work in 2007, I was in the warehouse unloading pallets & soon driving a forklift.

The work was steady, I got paid a nice salary (the only time I have in my entire life) & the company had just moved from Memphis, so everyone was new to town.  

I got my own 2nd floor, 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment in Franklin & still had plenty of fun bucks to burn.  I spent most weekends exploring Lower Broad & West End honky-tonks, catching rides with co-workers as well as expensive 20-mile taxi rides into Nashville.  

What more could you ask for being a single guy in his mid-twenties?         

But, after two years, I grew tired of that life.  I worked long enough to get my drivers license back & for some good SIU friends to move to Florida.  I flew down a couple of weekends to visit them & I knew after hanging out at the beach what my next stop would be. 

"Whatever you do Zach, don't settle.  You'll only have regrets," my anti-alcohol DUI class teacher once told me.  I learned a lot during those many hours, but that stuck with me the most.  And, at that particular time, I knew I wanted to live somewhere where I could wear shorts year round.

At the beginning of 2009, during a recession, I might add (not the smartest idea), I packed up my recently purchased GMC Sonoma pickup & headed south to Florida for another fresh new start.