The Last Word

When she isn't attending meetings with Metro department heads or cruising her North Nashville neighborhood in the pre-dawn hours looking for burnt-out streetlights to report to Nashville Electric Service, Jacque Pillow can be found in the basement of Rand Hall at Vanderbilt Post Office Station B tending to her "sweet peas." In approximately five minutes of a typical day as lead mail clerk, she encouraged a May-mester student to "have a safe and good summer, baby, and study hard," greets a customer by name and then scolds him for having stayed away for so long, listens politely to a rather adamant complaint about the upcoming increase in the price of stamps, and helps a woman mail a loaf of cornbread and a bag of homemade cookies to her father. "Sweet pea, you sure must love your daddy," she said, laughing. "My sweet peas. That's what they all are -- sweet precious people." Pillow and country music singer Pam Tillis serve together on the board of directors of Cumberland Region Tomorrow, and she's one of the many instrumental community leaders who helps Tying Nashville Together to improve the civic and social infrastructure of the city. These are but two of the many Nashville groups with which Pillow works. "My neighborhood has gone down from good to trashy. I've been on the same street for 46 years," she said. "I moved out of the state twice, but always came back because it's home. And when I came back the last time, I saw how my street, my neighborhood was deteriorating. When all people in all communities in Nashville -- from North Nashville to Belle Meade -- realize this, then real good will be done for the city. Then we'll stop looking so raggedy on one side of town and so great on the other. But this takes a lot -- a lot of courage, loyalty and prayer." Oh, and she crochets, too.