Dimon Kendrick-Holmes: A man for all seasons

I believe in the seasons. When it's supposed to be cold outside, I like it cold. When it's supposed to be hot, I like it hot.

Right now, it's supposed to be cold. You know, winter and all. And lately, we've actually been having winter around here.

I thought about this last week when the Columbus Symphony Orchestra hosted and provided accompaniment for three accomplished country music songwriters from Nashville. They were playing the songs they wrote and telling the stories behind them.

It was pretty great, though it was also a bit annoying how many names they dropped and how many times they celebrated their incredibly good luck. ("I bungee-strapped my guitar to my Harley-Davidson and rode out to Carrie Underwood's farm," etc.)

One of the songwriters, Brett James, told a story about the time he was standing in his kitchen in Nashville on Christmas Eve when the phone rang.

He answered it against his better judgment, and it turned out to be "a buddy of mine." The buddy wanted to fly him to the islands the day after Christmas so they could write some songs together.

James has a wife and four children, but this was a business opportunity. So he sucked it up and flew to the islands.

When they landed and felt the warm sun and smelled the salt in the air, they "went a little crazy."

The next day, James was sitting out on the balcony when his buddy woke up and came out and declared, "Last night, we went out."

This was the part of the story where James revealed that the name of his buddy was of course Kenny Chesney, and the song they wrote was of course "Out Last Night."

But the story made me kind of sad. It was December in Tennessee! What if it had been snowing?

On Tuesday, I flew to Sacramento, Calif., for a meeting. Meanwhile, temperatures in the Chattahoochee Valley were plummeting, which made me kind of sad.

Until I stepped off the plane. Man, it was warm and bright!

I checked into the hotel and had a few hours to kill before my first meeting, so I went for a walk in the park next to the Capitol. The grass was green. The palm trees swayed. I looked up and noticed other trees too. They were loaded down with oranges.

I took pictures of the palm trees and the oranges and texted them to my wife and children. I didn't mean to gloat, but OK, maybe I was.

Bess texted me back with a picture of her own. It was our house blanketed with snow.

Dang it! Now I was sorry.

Then she sent another text: "Just kidding."

It was a picture from last year.

Good one.

When I returned late Thursday night, it was definitely still winter.

Just the way it ought to be.

Dimon Kendrick-Holmes, executive editor, dkhomes@ledger-enquirer.com.

This story was originally published February 20, 2015 at 10:25 PM with the headline "Dimon Kendrick-Holmes: A man for all seasons."