At approximately 7:00 tonight, it will be 37 years since that horrible night just outside of Gillsburg, MS when we lost Lynyrd Skynyrd's Ronnie VanZant, Stevie Gaines and Cassie Gaines.   Also killed were a manager and both pilots of a small prop plane, as the band and about 20 other people were flying from South Carolina to Baton Rouge for a concert the next night at LSU.  The plane ran out of fuel 8 miles shy of a small airport, skimmed across the tops of trees for as long as it could, and finally crashed in a swampy area in Mississippi.  There have been many who have said that running out of fuel, and having nothing to trigger an explosion or fire may have saved the lives of those survivors.  Nonetheless, it was one of Rock's greatest tragedies.

As I listen right now to Dwyer and Michaels playing "That Smell" from their Street Survivors album which was released 3 days earlier, I know that the memory of that night still makes me sad and makes me pause for that "moment of silence".... every year.  The above picture is one of the more recent band line-ups, but not all of these people are still around either .. but y'know what..?   As long as they decide to keep a band together and keep touring, I'll keep goin'  ... count me in.

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