"Boys, it looks like it's going to rain."

As the summer Southern Gospel Music concert trail is really kicking into high gear, it's quite common to run into a little rain shower now and then. But this past weekend, well, was quite a doozy.

Saturday, June 26, was the annual Waycross All-Night Sing, held in, naturally, Waycross, GA. Appearing were the Kingsmen, the Greenes, the Perrys, Michael Combs, the Gospel Enforcers, the Beene Family and the Dove Brothers. Everybody did great, but for several hours leading up to sing time, there were many people beginning to wonder if there would even be a concert.

Around four in the afternoon, just as the groups were setting up the sound and product tables and tents, the bottom fell out of the skies and the Waycross Fairgrounds became the newest lake in South Georgia. Sure, all of us who travel every weekend are used to this, but I do have to admit that the 100-count box of cassettes that floated across the walkway got all of our attention.

Then the wind picked up. Not from one direction - but from all directions.

And it wasn't a gentle breeze, either.

Artists started getting under their tents. Not just to stay dry, mind you. No, they were getting under the tents to try to keep them from blowing into the next county. The Near-Miss Award goes to the Gospel Enforcers who snatched their tent from the jaws of the wind, just as the tent was making a NASA-quality lift-off. Pianist Willie Horton's slide into the table, however, will most likely not make the sports highlights film.

Gathered under the Singing News tent was Brian Franklin (sound engineer of the Greenes), the Perrys' Loren Harris and Justin Ellis (they had given up on their tent because the wind had rendered it into something that looked like modern art in front of a government building), JB Cruise (my assistant) and me. Also in the congregation was the occasional passerby on their way to a bus - stopping just long enough to write a will in case they didn't make it.

It's rather amazing what a long spell of hard rain and boredom will do to a bunch of people gathered under a tent. For example, we learned that you can sing "Amazing Grace" to the tune of the theme song from "Gilligan's Island." But, you can't do the reverse.

We also figured out that all of us have at least 300 "this reminds me of the time..." stories that we can recall when we're stuck under a tent. And, we all mentally inventoried our closets, trying to figure out what to put on when we were finished being drowned rats.

We also learned that nothing gets by the Kingsmen's Tim Surrett. No, nothing at all. As the lightning flashed across the sky, creating thunder so loud that it was deafening, Tim sloshes his way across the field, stops under the tent, sticks his head back out and reports, "Boys, it looks like it's going to rain."

It's a good thing he can sing.