Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen could not know it, of course, but 11 years ago this week the pair of them spent their last afternoon with the man who had been their dear friend for nearly a half century, fellow Flood founder Roger Samples.
On a perfectly suitable-for-framing Saturday in the summer of 2013, the Peytons and the Bowens trekked from their Huntington homes to Mount Sterling, Ky., to be with Roger and his wife, Tammy.
They would always remember it as a day of laughs and food, of stories and, of course, music. And Pamela Bowen was wise enough to capture videos of some of the tunes they played that joyous day. Most of them were songs that dated all the way back to the very beginning of the band in the mid-1970s.
The Demon at the Door
It was impossible, of course, to know that this would the last time the Samples, Peytons and Bowens would all be together; however, a suspicion surely lurked in the background, unspoken. After all, by then Roger was mid-way through what turned out to be a five-year battle with cancer.
Good days and bad days for him were the new normal in 2013, and, sadly, after that sweet summer, it was more bad than good.
But Aug. 17, 2013, was a decidedly good day.
At the end of a particularly fine music session, Roger often liked to quote the opening lines of a favorite old Ian Tyson song:
Play one more and then I'm leaving, boys.
Pick one more — let those guitars ring ….
And ring they did on that sunny day in Kentucky.
That Last Day with Roger