Thursday; October 19

On Wednesday; October 19, 1977, the Southern Rock band, Lynyrd Skynyrd played the Greenville (South Carolina) Memorial Auditorium. You could get tickets for $6.25. For many who attended, it was probably a great concert – but, it would become even more memorable because it was the last concert many of the founding members of the band would play together. On October 20, the band would board a plane heading to Baton Rouge, Louisiana – but the plane wouldn’t make it through Mississippi. The plane crash killed Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and his sister Cassie in addition to three other people. Over the next few decades many of the injured band members would recover and the band would be reimagined, but Skynyrd would never be the same.

As I reflect on this day in history two things come to mind. The first one is that you never know what tomorrow will bring. As the band packed up that night, I imagine they all assumed their next show would be at Louisiana State University the next night, but it never happened. Are we prepared for today’s activities to be our final curtain call in this life? Yet, there is something even more poignant in that show. According to a report I read, the final song was Free Bird. The first line in that song is, “If I leave here tomorrow would you still remember me?”. Very few of us will be as famous at the members of the band, but we all have relationships in life – how will those people remember us? Have we done what we can do to make the most of the opportunities we have been given to influence those around us? Who will remember us and maybe even more importantly, how will we be remembered?

Let’s make the most of the lives and the relationships we have here and now. Today is the only day to do anything because yesterday is a merely a memory and tomorrow is just a dream!

Think About It!

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