BRIDGES

 After returning from overseas service in the U.S. Navy Security Forces, I served aboard the USS Hunley for the remainder of my service. One day as I lollygagged at the ship's fantail, a shipmate named Bussey ran up to tell me about a new song he had heard. “It ain’t like nothing you’ve ever heard before.”

A short time later, I did hear it and for over half a century, each new hearing reminded me of beloved shipmates. I remained in agreement with Bussey’s original impression.

Things change. I continue to make each day a good one overall, but lately some dark clouds have passed over. I always try to find a ray of light in the darkest of clouds.

I found me one.

As I have watched one family member fade from this earthly presence, I’ve reconnected with others to my great joy. I’ve stayed in daily contact with them to the extent that this song will now, as long as I have presence of mind, to make me think of beloved kinfolks as well as beloved shipmates. I pledge to be a bridge, not an island.

Music can do that sort of thing for us.

Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water (Audio)

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 STRUGGLES

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. once wrote an interesting piece about working hard at something you’re not good at. The idea is counterintuitive, contrary to what some great thinkers said. Joseph Campbell, for example, wrote that we should follow our bliss. Shouldn't we concentrate on what energy and talents we have in areas of our strengths and talents?

 It makes me think of my own life. Are there examples therein?

 I once tried architecture. I was horrible at it, but I learned that fitting an idea to its setting was not only sublime, but functional. I learned lessons about such ideas as articulation, modulation, balance, and form that can relate to almost all professional endeavors. I also become an emotional companion to some of the most wonderful expressions of creativity ever imagined by humans. To follow our bliss, mustn't we first have to determine what bliss is?

I tried sports and was terrible at it. But I learned that it’s okay to be knocked down and lose as long as you get up and keep going. I learned that fear is transitory if you will it so.

I tried music and was terrible at it. But I learned that to strive to get a little better at something each day is of more value than seeking to be an overnight success. I learned that prodigies aren't good teachers. Prodigies say, "Just do it. That's what I do. That's all there is to it." The good teachers are the ones who have struggled to become good at it and are best friends with hard work. And, of course, I learned that nothing can heal like music.

What was I ever good at? I don’t know. Not much I guess, except picking friends and finding a wife. Oh, and I learned that one way to be successful in a profession is to be willing to do the things that others don't like to do. Usually these are things that it is hard for anyone to be good at. In my profession, it also involves the ability to see the good and beauty of places that history has treated unfairly, places most people find deplorable, places where people must pick themselves up and continue the struggle.

Memories

Off to the memorial service for Larry Dickson. I expect there may be music. That would be most fitting.

Forethought

I’m listening to a German violinist, Lisa Batiashvili, perform the a violin concerto as I work on an overdue project. I stopped to watch her for a moment and a thought struck me. We tend to become lost in a musical piece, listening to the melody, the flow, the tempo, the phrasing and all the senses that music evokes. We can’t help ourselves. Notes performed without flaw captivate us and take us wherever our emotions will follow.

The composer, though—in this case Brahms—wrote each individual note after what may have been a great deal of thought, agony, and anguish. Before he put pen to paper, he had given much consideration to what he was about to do. In doing so, he employed all his talent as well as the knowledge, compassion, restraint, enthusiasm, and knowledge accumulated throughout his life (45 years at this point).

His care in presenting his thoughts allows someone to understand and translate his notes with a sublime and coherent presentation. The audience receives a gift of pure unalloyed joy. The world becomes a better place from the shared experience.

What, I wondered, would happen if we put only a smattering of thought into the words we say and write. What if we put each word on trial? Will it fit the situation? Will it not offend unintentionally? Will it add to, or detract from, the grandeur of life? Will it bring comfort to the afflicted? Will it teach us and not diminish us? Most of all, have we followed the teaching of writer Francine Prose and put “every word on trial for its life?”

It might be better if we did so, don’t you think?

My Redacted Life: Chapter 35 (Cont._2)

What does a young man who is to be married in a few weeks think about? Oh yeah, there’s that, but I don’t remember much else about those days. I do remember that my old friend George Owen, a native of Crossett, Arkansas called one night to see if was busy. “I have something to show you,’ he said. “Does your record player work?”

I assured him that it did, and he showed up some 30 minutes later with a double phonograph album with a busy black and white cover. He showed it to me and asked if I had heard it? No.

It was an album put together by a group called “The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.” The cover read “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” and promised performances by a wide range of famous musicians, including Merle Travis, Jimmy Martin, and Mother Maybelle Carter. Yep, it was Bluegrass-oriented, not the kind of music Brenda liked at all. Maybe this would pay her back for A Clockwork Orange. I was all ears. I knew the “Dirt Band” from a couple of popular hits. Some names I had heard of. For others, a profound surprise awaited me.

I heard, for the first time (I’m ashamed to say) Doc Watson and his son Merle. Oh my. Then the magic kept coming. The producers kept the mikes running during the recordings and the listener enjoyed gems of dialogue like the first meeting between Don Watson and Merle Travis. Merle played and sang “IAm A Pilgrim,” and I almost fainted. Doc and his son did “Way Downtown,” and I began to consider places where I could burn my guitars. Earle Scruggs performed and I resolved someday to learn to play the banjo. Then Roy Acuff sang. We sat and listened, as we enjoyed a beer, to the old, the new, and the curiously arranged.

We sat, not moving, for what seemed like hours and grew more mellow by the minute. The experience would change my life. I finally turned to George with something like “Whatever this is, it’s the most of it ever made.” He agreed. We reached the final ensemble production of the title song, written in 1907 by Ada R. Habershon with music by Charles H. Gabriel. The Carter Family immortalized it later and it still stands as a beacon in Bluegrass gospel circles. It had previously stirred some psychic fear in me due to a woman who used to corner me after church services and, pointing out that my parents weren’t there, hoped aloud that our family circle in Heaven would be unbroken. That all changed that night George played the album for me. It was just music, after all, and music should soothe, not cause despair.

And what did that have to do with me? Maybe it sounds trivial, but for one evening I forgot that in a few weeks I was going to have to stand in front of a church full of people and say “With this ring, I thee wed,” to an angel I had known for less than a year, who was upstairs at the moment sewing her wedding dress. Feeling more relaxed than I had in weeks, I went to bed singing to myself

“I am a pilgrim and a stranger

Traveling through this wearisome land

And I've got a home in that yonder city, good Lord

And it's not (good Lordy it's not) not made by hand.”

Still a classic
after all these years.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Five (Cont._4)

After a couple of months on a new job in a new city my social life began to improve. I actually had a date, fixed up by Tom Hodges. It didn’t amount to much. It was a woman with whom I had attended college. She was divorced and had four children. We had a nice time but nothing came of it except for a lingering wonderment on my part on how a couple could make four children before deciding they couldn’t live together.

I guess I had a lot to learn about the new world to which I had returned.

A more lasting event occurred one evening while I was practicing guitar of a Friday evening. I had purchased an old Gibson sunburst from a sailor aboard the Hunley and had become intimate friends with it. As I tried my hand at fingerpicking a tune, I heard lumbering footsteps ascending the stairway. When they turned toward my apartment, I laid the guitar aside and went to the door.

I opened it and there stood a close friend from my college days, a man named George M. Owen. He clutched a six-pack of cold beer in his arms, so I knew he had come with no evil intent in mind. I welcomed him in with enthusiasm and he handed me the beer, a late housewarming gift. I bade him sit, removed two beers, handed him one, and took the rest to the refrigerator.

My oh my, did we have a lot to catch up on. Nearly five years had passed since I saw him last. We both looked that much older and possessed a great deal of information about the lost years. He was working for a local architect and had taken up the banjo. He told me of a group he had joined called The Rackensack Society. It was a bunch of folk music enthusiasts and entertainers that included amateurs, semi-professionals, and even some prominent names like legendary political cartoonist George Fisher.

The group met the first Monday of the month at the Arkansas Art Center and would welcome me with open arms. Me? Aside from family, no one had welcomed me with open arms in years. Was he sure? Yes. Actually, they did, and I stayed close to the group for years, until a work assignment took me away on meeting nights.

That evening, we finished the beer and began swapping tunes on the Gibson. I broke out a bottle of Gallo Sauterne I had been saving, and, in the words of our old and dear friend, songwriter Gary Toler from Texas:

The time it ran so slow,

Cause we had so much to say.

Singing slow and drinking sweet white wine,

We passed the time away.

Friend George had filled in an empty spot in his life. I was no longer alone in the big city. And time, we both felt assured then, would always be a soft loving breeze across our cheeks.

Back then: Gary Toler and I.

Morning Thoughts: March 21,

I have some pet peeves about films that drive anyone me around crazy. Take handguns. No, don’t “take” them. Just consider an example.

Make notes from this, by the way. It’s important. When a semi-automatic pistol fires its last round, it doesn’t keep going “click click” when you pull the trigger. After the last round, the slide stays back and it looks pretty silly, which is probably why they don’t portray it accurately in movies.

As an inside, and you won’t be charged an extra cent for this, an Army-Issue 45-caliber semi-automatic pistol has three safety devices: the regular kind, a pressure-sensitive bar on the handle, and a disabling feature on the barrel if you press it into someone.

When I was a star-garnished member of the United States Navy (that’s a LOL for those who don’t know me) the Army-Issue 45-caliber semi-automatic pistol was responsible for more accidental deaths than any weapon in history. A drunk discharged one while going through a checkpoint once that sent a slug whistling by a foot from my leg and embedding itself into a pile of sandbags. I was left to ponder the question forever whether, had the round nipped my leg, would I have earned the Purple Heart and the CIB?

Later, there was a Marine on our ship who killed his relief while showing him his “fast-draw” technique. It was a sad and tragic affair that should remind us that weapons of war are not playthings. I can still see the face of each Marine, both very nice guys.

Now how did I get off track? Oh, I remember. Pet peeves in movies. My most despised involves music. Incidentally, I have found no examples of accidental, or intentional, deaths from a musical instrument, even a banjo or accordion. I think Bing Crosby threw a sweet-potato whistle at Bob Hope once, but he missed.

No, my peeve involves bio-pics of the lives of musicians. Let me ask you. In all the films you’ve ever seen about the lives of great musicians, have you ever witnessed a scene in which they were practicing?

I doubt it. The scenarios generally run like this.

- A child witnesses someone playing beautiful music on some instrument

- The child is intrigued

- The child is too poor to obtain an instrument, but obtains one somewhere

- The child immediately plays music on a street corner but makes no money

- The child has to pawn the instrument

- The child works a series of meaningless jobs and, along the way, falls in love

- Love gets the instrument back somehow

- Love produces scene after scene of amorous adventure and disharmony

- Love triumphs and the couple spends a year abroad doing God knows what

- In the penultimate scene, the hero or heroine is playing a Paganini violin concerto in a packed concert hall

Scenes of passionate love: dozens. Scenes of bitter poverty and despair: dozens. Scenes of a musical performance: dozens. Scenes of practice: none.

It’s like a child can get a guitar for Christmas, open a tab book, and play the guitar break from Hotel California (both parts simultaneously) that evening for his family. We don’t need no stinkin’ knowledge or practice. Everything in life is simple and easy. Just ask a Libertarian.

Is it any wonder that we have elected such a bunch of clueless clowns to run our country?

I don't think he learned his craft
by running a reality TV show.

Morning Thoughts

There are so many of life’s lessons to be learned from music that it’s hard to start. Maybe this: you have to work at it, music and life.

Now that may sound simple but consider a conversation I once had with a young man who wanted to learn to play guitar. I advised taking lessons from a pro. He said, “I don’t want to take no lessons, waste of time.”

Undeterred, I recommended learning chords and how to strum them in rhythm.

“I done tried that,” he said. “Chords is too hard.”

“Maybe scales?”

“I don’t need no scales or chords,” he said. “Just help me find the tabs to Stairway to Heaven.”

Rule One: You can’t be successful in your chosen endeavor by reading tabs. It takes a lot of getting dirty, getting tired, getting beaten up, getting persecuted, getting knocked down, and getting up.

Music teaches us that being best is only an illusion that the sports world has foisted on us. There may be a most lucky or proficient at a given moment, but we can only determine where a person's life stands on a scale of worst to best upon their last dying breath, long after the strength of youth has left them. Oh, did you hear that Stephen Hawking died last week?

Anyway, there’s a story that is most likely apocryphal—but as John Steinbeck once observed: “Just because something didn't happen doesn't mean it isn't true.” It’s about guitar legend Merle Travis, considered by many to be “the best” at what he did. Seems he had made up this song on the guitar but, to make it sound like he wanted it to, there was a lick he just couldn’t master. Then, along came multi-track recording.

“Aha.”

He had them overdub the stubborn lick and sent the song out for distribution. Years later, as the story goes, he attended a recital where a 13-year old boy announced he would play this particular Merle Travis song. Travis assumed he would simplify the passage, but was astounded when the kid played through it flawlessly, without the benefit of any mechanical help.

Rule Two: There’s always someone better at what you do. Cockiness can make the gods mischievous.

Music teaches us, or should, that life is hard, complicated, confusing, and demanding. This is especially true, for example, in governance, a fact totally lost on those who call themselves “Libertarians.” Oh, that life could be as simple as simple minds would have it. Just read the tabs Ayn Rand published and all is well.

A fine musician (and better entertainer) once told me that there was a definite, but unalterable sequence to be followed before performing a musical piece before an audience.

- First, learn your instrument,

- Next, learn the song,

- Next, learn to play the song flawlessly,

- Next, learn to play it in rhythm with others, and finally

- Work at it until you can make it look easy.

Rule Three: Don’t attempt difficult or demanding things until you are ready.

And we are out of time after only three lessons. Oh well, I’ll close and to see what messes our national leaders have gotten us into today. You know, Americans are pretty well decided by now that only females should govern our country. When that finally happens, I hope that a lot of them are musicians as well.

Well now, there does happen to be
a best tractor driver, after all.

Sunrise With Schubert: February 27, 2018

I read once where William James said, “I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.” Do feelings follow actions? I don’t know. James is called “the father of modern psychology,” so there may be some truth in it.

Victor Frankl, a survivor of the Holocaust noted how finding beauty in a sunset, while in a German concentration camp, helped some Jewish prisoners survive while others succumbed.

I do remember, personally, that as America drifted into a national state of nihilism that culminated in the Vietnam War, folk-music enjoyed a brief but emotionally charged revival in an attempt to prolong our descent into madness.

And let us not forget that Steve Martin once reminded us that one simply cannot frown and play the banjo simultaneously. I know that's true.

What does this all have to do with the price of Scotch? Well, I’m old enough to remember seeing, on television, the culmination of one of America’s other darkest periods. Actually, at the time I just thought it was just a bunch of old white men, half in uniforms, sitting around talking and disrupting the morning television programs.

It was, of course, the so-called “Army-McCarthy Hearings.” They would lead us out of one of America’s most awful national disgraces.

Known now simply as the “McCarthy Era,” that was a time that the American Spirit was hijacked by a man born absent of any normal sense of goodness or righteousness. It was if a malfunctioning gene had destroyed in him any modicum of empathy or morality. Many Americans revered him for reasons of their own, although he destroyed lives as casually as we might swat a gnat. It was a dark time.

It was a time when this man captured the support of enough Americans, through lies innuendos, braggadocio, threats, and manipulation of the press to chip away at the very foundations of our experiment in democracy.

It was a time when otherwise patriotic Americans allowed a charlatan to disparage the most cherished individuals and institutions of America, calling General George Marshall a traitor and claiming that the United States Army was riddled with Communist spies.

It was a time when a heartless demon redefined what was proper and fitting behavior on the part of elected officials.

It was a time when bad was called good and a malignant political parasite was called a patriot.

It was a time when our country watched with bemused silence, until one great man said to this Joseph McCarthy, “You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? Senator.”

That’s all it took. One brave man among millions of Americans. A man named Joseph N. Welch slew the seemingly unstoppable demon, by singing the truth. In doing so, he saved hundreds of lives from being destroyed. Hundreds of others had already been, in sham hearings. Those hearings, in fact, were held in committee rooms in the very capitol of our nation. It was to our everlasting shame, indeed a time of dark days.

Men who had stormed the beaches at Normandy and Iwo Jima, along with the families who had sacrificed to support them, had stood outside those committee room doors and refused to enter.

Why bring this up now? After all, I had not, at the time, reached the political version of what my up-bringers called “The Age of Accountability.” (That’s a religious term invented to help dampen a child’s primal fear of facing eternity in a fiery pit of unimaginable agony for rejecting the belief of its elders).

I have always known, however, that if I had been of age while those dreadful, spirit-killing hearings were happening, even if I didn’t have a singing voice, I would have rushed in, at the top of my voice, to save our country.

Planning how to cut food stamps?
I don't think so.

Morning Thoughts: February 2, 2018

 There is such beauty in works of art, one wonders why we concentrate so devotedly upon the mundane. I do it. We all do. Sometimes I leave the village, though, and it is a grand experience.

Consider the adagio movement to Mozart’s Serenade for 13 Winds. That’s the one the Salieri character in Amadeus describes as sounding like a “rusty squeeze box” at first, until the oboe and clarinet pierce the dimness. You won’t see a political candidate producing anything so ephemeral unless Abe Lincoln rises from the dead.

I’ve failed at the arts like I’ve failed at so many things, but I keep trying because the effort makes me smile and keeps me happy. I’m headed out this morning to see a dear friend name Mike Benetz to resume guitar lessons after a holiday break. I’m afraid I’m headed for rough seas.

My fingertips have lost their callouses from lack of practice.

My favorite guitar has the equivalent of a flat tire, i.e. a tuning peg gave up the ghost weeks ago.

I have the rhythmic capability of aging banker at Jimmy Buffett concert.

I haven’t practiced “Mike’s Misery” nearly to the extent that would allow advancement to a half-step closer to just below average.

What is Mike’s Misery, you might ask?

 

Notice: the bottom string is open and must
strike clear. Impossible? Quite.

It is a bar chord form, commonly called an A-shape. You don’t hear much about it because by the time beginners are ready for it, 90 percent of them have given up art and gone back their cell phones for joy and solace. It is, however, one of the basic building blocks of the guitar. During a PBS special this week, I noticed that Eric Clapton dotes on it.

In other words, you can’t live without it.

As you can see from the photograph, it requires a hand position that is literally impossible to make. The price for accomplishing it is ten years constant effort or the price of one’s soul. Take your pick.

I chose practice, for after a quick trip to the crossroad at Clarksdale, Mississippi, I found that my soul had not been rehabbed to the point of being valuable enough yet for the “A-shape.” I was offered a single-note version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and further negotiations proved fruitless.

My problem is that my dear friend Mike thinks that Mike’s Misery is the best thing that has happened to the guitar since The Wildwood Flower first aired. (He has even developed a version of that ditty that requires … you guessed it). Most of the time, nearly all the time, he is one of the kindest, gentlest, most sympathetic, and most wonderful people you could ever meet. But, the insertion of the A-shape into a tune still brings a Paganini-like gleam of devilment into his eyes.

That’s enough. Think I’ll go practice. I don’t want to experience that gleam today. There are things in life worth great effort, after all. Ask Mozart.

Seems easy to me. Ask Clapton.

Morning Thoughts: January 7, 2018

I guess there at some things in everyone’s life they wish they had taken advantage of once. One of mine had to do with hitchhiking. No, it wasn’t the time I was picked up by three cowboys in Wyoming and invited to go with them to Montana to work on a ranch.

Nah, it wasn’t that exciting. This happened when I was hitchhiking to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, from Fayetteville, to see a college girlfriend who had invited me up for the weekend. It was during the height of what we now call “The Folk Music Revival.”

Someone had let me out in a little crossroads called Goshen, Arkansas. I think it’s a bigger crossroads now, I don’t know. I lost both the girlfriend and the urge to hitchhike about the same time.

I’m standing there when a thin little man comes across the road to pick up his mail. He looked like he could have easily been the father of Popeye the Sailor Man. We chatted. Somehow the topic turned to music and he said that he was a folk-singer and banjo-player. My ears pricked up at this revelation. He further stated that he had entertained many a college student in his home.

Allow a digression. In those days, there was a wonderful woman, Mary Celestia Parler, who taught a course in folk music back in Fayetteville. As part of the course, each student had to find an original folk singer or artist and file a report on them. Her view was that, “if you throw a quarter anywhere out in those hills, you’ll hit a dozen of them.”

As a result, folk singers and musicians were sort of the Boston Mountain versions of rock stars.

Back to the side of the road. This cat, (oops, flashback) uh, dude, uh, man pointed to his house, wrote his name and pone number down, and invited me to come and hear him play sometime. I can’t for the life of me remember his name. I’ll call him “Mr. Capps.”

Of course, I took him up on the offer. A friend had a car, co we rounded up a couple of more aficionados, stoked up on whatever we could afford, and “set-sail” for Goshen of a Saturday night.

Well, this fellow could play the banjo. Further, he played it “clawhammer” style, or perhaps it’s sophisticated cousin, “frailing” style. Don’t quite remember. What I do remember is that the first thing he played was “Bluebells of Scotland,” a popular but not well-known ditty. But on that ancient banjo in the hands of that sparse little man, it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Hear a vocal version here.

Mr. Capps become a good friend and frequent guest at our impromptu “hootenannies.” It wasn’t far to Goshen from Fayetteville. Someone would fetch him and we would play until he got tired, which was usually long after the rest of us got tired. He could always revive us, though, with “Bluebells.”

It all ended not badly, but sadly. Mr. Capps began to imbibe a bit as the gatherings progressed, and, as gateway sins can do, his transgressions escalated. After a few unsolicited and unwanted “touchings” on some of the females of our group, he became uninvited and forgotten, by most anyway.

I saw him later at a little event put on by some group. My girlfriend and her friend were on the program. They sang Woody Guthrie’s “I’ve Been Doing Some Hard Traveling,” which was odd in that neither of them, in their matching sweaters and short plaid skirts, possessed any internal knowledge of hard traveling of any sort, save perhaps a long walk to a particular class from their sorority house.

Backstage, though, Mr. Capps professed to remember me and asked why he didn’t see us anymore. I told him we had been too busy studying. I waited for a lightening bolt. When it didn’t come, I asked him to do Bluebells of Scotland for me, which he did.

I never saw him again.

But how I wish I had borrowed a recorder and made one more trip to the land of Goshen. Who knows? By now I may have been able to warm someone’s heart with that simple little song, from that simple little man, in that simple little place, in those much more simple times.

I think about that sometimes when I see these million-dollar extravaganzas on TV.

Morning Thoughts: December 9, 2017

It was my turn for caretaking last evening. My wife went our condo in Little Rock and I stayed at the farm with mother-in-law. Started out rough. I had to issue some demerits for untoward behavior. Didn’t work. Then I tried shame. “You promised us you would behave.”

“I had my fingers crossed,” with a mischievous smile. Then she sang “Santo Claus is Coming To Town,” for the 32^nd time that day. Next, we went through the litany of what each sibling was doing. They have all died, but we went through the list again anyway, for the fourth or fifth time that day.

It’s challenging, caring for someone who’s memory has deserted them. On the one hand, it is pleasant to think they are being cared for and that they are comfortable, well-fed, and free from work and worry. On the other hand, it’s like looking through a window toward a magnificent view that is blocked by a thick and permanent layer of fog. The beauty is there, somewhere, but we’ll never see it again.

There was only one thing left to do last night. That was to play our favorite game, the one that we play when we are alone. I call it “Name That Hymn,” and it works like this. I love playing the guitar, although I’m not very good at it at all. Old church hymns lend themselves to the finger-picking style that I’ve been trying to master for 40 years with very little result. I am to the point, though, that the hymns I play are recognizable to someone who grew up with them.

So I play. She listens, and tries to identify the song, hence the name of the game. Last night she was “in the zone.” Didn’t miss a one. That’s remarkable for someone who can’t remember that her own father passed away nearly 50 years ago.

Sometimes she’ll perseverate for a short time in naming the hymn. That’s a medical term from the root “persevere,” and it refers to “getting stuck” on some thought. When it happens, every song might be “In the Sweet By and By,” for a while. Last night, though, she moved right through from “I’ll Fly Away,” to “The Soul of Man,” batting a thousand. I couldn’t even fool her with seculars like “Maggie,” or “The Old Spinning Wheel.” And remembered more of the words to “Grandfather’s Clock” than I did.

It was a splendiferous time, all in all. Then my fingers got sore and we watched “Scrooge.”

I read somewhere that they are using music help ease the symptoms and pain of dementia. I hope so. I’ve been trying it. I caught her once listening to some hymns being sung on YouTube. I videoed a short segment, and spent two days fiddling with Adobe Premier Pro (a highly complicated and confusing profession film-making software), just to pass the time and exercise my own brain. Here it is, an altogether amateurish and rocky piece of work but, most of all, an act of love. That helps with most things.

Morning Thoughts: November 24, 2017

There was this man in our extended neighborhood back home. I can’t remember his name. Folks mainly called him “Good Boy.”

They called him that because he would start every greeting with, “I’m a good boy, ain’t I?” He was of indeterminate age, maybe somewhere just short of his sixties. He wandered the county in the company of two or more dogs who had an uncanny ability to determine whether one was greeting, teasing, or threatening harm to their master. They enjoyed the first, tolerated the second, and you didn’t want to fall into the third.

It’s scarcely an exaggeration to say you could smell him coming before you actually saw him, and you might see him anywhere, at anytime of day or night. You could buy a smile and harmless chatter, along with a day’s tolerance from his dogs, with no more than a cigarette and a friendly ear.

I don’t know his full history. According to my mother, he was from one of those pioneer families of the county whom a stranger would have classified as lower-middle class but whom locals knew as possessors of significant wealth. In the land where I grew up, the highest and most honored classifier of “class” was to be secretly wealthy while giving all appearances of a modest existence. A family who, particularly if it had inherited wealth, displayed opulence of any sort were so far beneath contempt as to be socially invisible.

So, it probably was true that "Good Boy" had been eligible for an education and a comfortable life, but something went wrong. My mother explained it in the common language of the day. “When he grew up, they just couldn’t do anything with him.” That was the local euphemism for “he went crazy.”

I subscribe to theory of his being educated for one reason. The man was some sort of musical savant. I know. I’ve heard him, from having worked at the swimming pool of a local country club for four summers while attending college. It wasn’t uncommon for the subject of this post and his dogs to wander onto the club grounds to watch the excitement and chat with old acquaintances.

Sometimes, when the club guardians failed to notice him, he would ease into an empty ball room, sit with his dogs beside him, and launch the club’s grand piano into sounds of breathtaking beauty. The most educated and knowledgeable person associated with the club was a head waiter who had previously taught English at our city’s African-American high school. He would identify the day’s music as Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, or the likes from the brief snatches played ere the authorities chased the performer and his dogs away.

I’ve heard that churches in the county, particularly those with powerful church-organs, locked their doors at night to keep "Good Boy" from terrifying nearby residents with midnight serenades. I can’t swear to that, but it’s too good a story to omit.

Don’t know what ever became of him. I fled Arkansas and Orval Faubus while the man, his dogs, and his music were still wandering the county. I thought of him this morning after I located a particularly exquisite rendition of a Chopin nocturne. I do an exercise I call “The YouTube Thread Predictor.” I simply count the thread of comments related to a particularly sublime piece of music and count the entries before one appears that involves either the “F-word” or an ad hominem attack on the previous commenter. It stands at about five on some pieces now, down from about ten at the end of last year. As with the so-called “Doomsday Clock,” a further rise may signal the end of civilization as we know it.

In the meantime, I’ll try to remember that one should never presume to predict from where pure beauty—or a pure lack of class—may emerge.

Morning Thoughts: November 10, 2017

It’s funny how my mind works, or doesn’t as some would say. Far from a linear process, it more closely resembles a blackbird’s, that is to say that a current interest is easily abandoned when some other shiny object flies by.

Thus, it was almost by accident that, while searching for peace of mind early one morning, I came across a recording of Vladimir Horowitz playing Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 by Sergei Rachmaninoff. I haven’t fully re-established contact with terra firma yet.

I can’t find the exact date at which this marvelous musician began to play and study the piano. Biographers simply say that his mother started him at “an early age.” It must have been very early as, at the age of 16, he performed the Rachmaninoff work upon graduating from the Kiev Conservatory.

Flash back with me to a segment on NPR in which a top tier musician commented during an interview that they are starting children as early as age three on a musical education. This steered me to a road trip a friend and I took a while back through the Arkansas Delta. He is highly educated and studied something akin to urban economics as an undergraduate.

We talked briefly about the economic concept of “location quotient” which is a way of quantifying how concentrated a particular industry, cluster, occupation, or demographic group is in a region as compared to the nation.

Hmm. Did you just see those blackbirds flying off?

What occupation might rate a high location quotient in the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta? “Music?” you say. Why I suppose that’s so. Think of Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy, B.B. King, Levon Helm, Johnny Cash, and many others.

Then, another shiny thought flew by. How many musical prodigies may be scattered through this largely forgotten part of our country waiting for a parent, friend, or teacher, to start them on the road to music? Is there a Horowitz, or a Scott Joplin, waiting behind one of those closed doors, waiting for someone to offer the key to greatness? Perhaps there is a Rachmaninoff. A Beethoven? There must be.

If you believe as I do, in the immortal words of Plato that “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything,” you must be distressed as I was at that moment. Distressed? Why? It’s only that some of the richest and most powerful people in America are bent not on ennobling, but on dismantling our public school system and replacing it with some ill-defined market-based affair.

And what will the new system teach the very most capable of those young minds waiting for nurture and guidance? One can only wonder, but …

You can bet your sweet ass it won’t be music.

Morning Thoughts: November 5, 2017

I was in an ugly frame of mind this morning: another year older, eye swollen shut from a wasp sting, and a list of “must do” items a mile long. The bi-annual ordeal with time change has begun, and, furthermore, it’s Sunday.

On top of all that, I’m scheduled for an overnight trip this week. That means I’ll have to pack a bag, wear a suit, and sleep alone in a galaxy far away.

If that doesn’t suck enough, I need to patch a hole in the roof of one of the buildings at the farm. Along with the “year older” bit, the height at which I become debilitated from fear of heights is a foot lower, now standing at six feet—two feet lower than the roof.

Just thinking of the national news creates ten percent rise in my blood pressure.

The devil on my left shoulder began to list my shortcomings.

- I’ll never write like John Steinbeck.

- I’ll never play guitar like Steve Davison or Mike Benetz.

- I’ll never create woodworking masterpieces like the fellows at the hardwood store.

- I’ll never be elected to the Piddlers’ Hall of Fame unless I drop my remaining consulting work.

- I’ll never finish Finnegan’s Wake.

- I’ll never convince some of my friends to use The Sermon on the Mount as a voter’s guide.

- I’ll never give Scarlett Johansson a case of the vapors.

Wait a moment!

That's when I woke up. I looked into the sleeping face of the prettiest woman in my world. A soft glow surrounded that face like a thin gauze pressed from fairy dust. She smiled in her sleep and whispered "Matthew McConaughey" but I knew she was thinking of me.

I smiled. Another year older and another year wiser and less likely to panic over what someone possessing high power tweets. America has survived worse.

Music? If it still makes you smile, to hell with fame and fortune. And the most important thing about woodworking is not making masterpieces, but not cutting off your fingers.

Voting? The arc of history will flow back to justice, peace, and compassion, just you wait and see.

Another year older, but not another year deeper in debt. Our investment portfolios have risen steadily since the Great Recession and we’re currently taking profits in prep for the next GR, or, as we financial gurus put it, “when the chickens come home to roost.”

I’m too old for the draft, but also more advanced in my knowledge of avoidance should we actually achieve the current goal of a two-front war. The bone spurs only bother me at heights above six feet, and helicopters go a lot higher than that.

The three of us are in good physical condition for our ages, and we all still enjoy a glass of wine, a good laugh, and happy music.

With these thoughts a’swirling, I went to the bathroom and stared at my swollen face. It stared back and said “Just remember, this face once snared one of the most beautiful girls in Arkansas."

True that.

Then I walked to the table and fired up the trusty old computer. Lo and behold! That great teacher and writer: The Journalist Sonny Rhodes, had lauded something I wrote.

Suddenly, I was beautiful again.

When you're loved by
someone like this, you
have a damned fine life.

Growing Up Southern: September 8, 2017

Know what keeps me sane? Music, playing it and listening to it. I'm no good at playing it, but it makes me smile.

Steve Martin says you can't frown and play the banjo at the same time. Some folks say you can tell when a banjo player is standing on a level stage if he is drooling equally from both sides of his mouth. And so it goes.

Anyway, I got my old banjo out the other day and hit a lick or two. I finally have a place where the sound doesn't produce threats of divorce or mayhem. I tried to frown while I played Fireball Mail. Couldn't. I tried to say something mean about someone I don't like while playing Earl's Breakdown. No dice. Coundn't think of a nasty thing to do to my little brother while taking a try at Sally Ann.

Hey, got to go. I'm going to open a Fund Me account for the purchase of banjos for the entire Trump administration, and his pals.

Thoughts: Darwin and Stuff

As most readers know, I shamelessly paraphrase the late Lewis Thomas. He, however, reflected late at night while listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. I reflect during the quiet times of the morning listening to whatever the YouTube sprites might suggest. This morning they slipped in a collection of Maria Grinberg’s rendition of the Beethoven sonatas. Have mercy!

It did remind me of a Thomas quote I read somewhere about the majesty of the earth’s life moving from blue algae to the B-minor Mass in only five billion years.

Then my friend Michael Hester posted “25 Life Lessons from Albert Einstein.” All were good, but the last one hugged my neck like a long-lost friend: “Never lose a holy curiosity.”

It reminded me that I heard a speaker say once that if you studied a topic for 30 minutes a day, in five years you would be an expert. That led me to a long crusade to learn about Charles Darwin’s writings on descent with modification, commonly referred to as “evolution," or, by some fundamentalists as "oozings from the pits of hell," It had seemed the most logical thing I had ever heard of when I encountered it in high school but I had not taken the time to learn, really learn, about it.

So, with the help of “Books on Tape,” a career involving a lot of travel, and Little Rock Public Library, I started. I began with Stephen Jay Gould’s “Ever Since Darwin,” proceeded to a life of Thomas Huxley (Darwin’s “Bulldog”), and then to the works of Darwin himself. Hardly an expert, I do find myself able to converse freely on the topic.

I worked myself through the feuding between Gould and Richard Dawkins over whether the process of modification occurred at the organism or genetic level, an argument that ended with Gould’s untimely death and the advances in genetics that seem to have proven Dawkins right. Imagine the thrill of attending a presentation by Richard Dawkins himself in what will probably be his only trip ever to Little Rock.

It has been a joyous journey. I still marvel at the mind of this self-taught man Darwin (science as such was taught in universities as a field of study until after Huxley’s campaign for it in the late 1800s). Since its publication in 1859, there hasn’t been a scientific study or breakthrough that was not consistent in all important aspects with “On the Origen of the Species.”

Amazing. That’s all I can say. Amazing. Well, the sonatas are as well.

 

See also: www.wattensawpress.com