The Last Good Year...

 The year 2019 certainly had some ups and downs. All years do. Then 2020 came along, which kind of like 2019 had ups and downs also. One feature of 2020 was the stay at home efforts to contain Covid 19. Notice I did not say it was a down because worse things can happen. Now I have tested positive for Covid and am quarantined at home with a mild case. A friend, also positive described it as "stuck inside this Covid jail cell." All this stay at home time has led to excess TV watching which I have had enough of and I think that is the worst thing about all this. The kids gave us the TV we own for Christmas in 2016. I think that was the last good year and I am trying to feature what I was doing with my time before I had TV and these on demand channels. 

We tried to prevent TV from becoming the center of things when the family was young and I always liked musician Frank Zappa's take on the subject. When the kids were little we had no cable, no rabbit ears and only DVD movies that had been mostly taped by Cathy's mom, Linda to watch. It was classic material and they watched it a million times but if I came in to find them on the TV I let them finish their show and hustled them on to more active endeavors. It usually meant endeavors I would be involved in but most people would call that old school good parenting but don't get too excited. There was certainly some old school bad parenting that went along with this but you try your best. Like I said, there are ups and downs to each year. 

I did not realize how different thigs were in our household till Morgan became old enough he started spending the night out with friends. One day he said, "You are not like other dads." I said, "How so? What do they do?" He replied "Sit in a chair watching sports." 

After the kids all left home me and Cathy kind of struggled along with one of those little TV sets with a VCR built in. It was the kind of thing found in your work place that they make you watch a sensitivity training instructional video on after you have said mean things to another human. We cobbled a DVD to it and were happy as clams watching the occasional movie mailed to our house from Netflix. 

All this changed in 2016 when the kids gave us a modest sized unit and fitted with the stuff to get Amazon, Netflix, PBS, YouTube and a little news all on demand. Since then we have watched a goodly portion of TV which has increased with stay at home and now a real quarantine situation. 

What was I doing before this? Maybe aging and the slowing of a busy life has lead to falling into the TV trap. I have at least 11 more days of quarantine to go. Can somebody tell me how many shows to go before I'm well?   

     

Coming From a Different Place But I Still Got Here...

 I had a fellow musician, a person with a lifetime of  distinguished work, achievement and accomplishment tell me, "You are coming from a different place." This was after listening to a recording of one of my pieces. I can't remember now exactly which composition it was or what instrument I played. It might have been an instrument I broke specially for that moment of inspiration. I think my friend did recognize something musical in what I was doing. He may not have really liked it and it's possible it had the same effect on him as bebop jazz has on my wife. It makes her want to slap someone. I don't play bebop around my wife and when I do play in groups organized by my friend I play the music his way but all this does make me wonder what place I come from to play music. 

I do consider myself to have some deep roots in musical knowledge and training. I came up through public school band programs and attended college participating in the music department. I was influenced by respected and famous mentors. I had become a discriminating listener and record collector and by my late teens had left most popular music behind in search of deeper more artful forms. I had performed in marching, concert and symphonic bands and small ensembles. I had branched out from my original instrument of tuba to the guitar. 

In addition to my own performances I had seen a variety of other music and with my interest in guitar this meant large rock concerts and as I got older I was able to gain admittance to bars to see small combos, professional musicians all. In college I began to encounter a different kind of musician at backyard and deep woods beer keg parties. It was the sitting under a tree playing for free musician. One in particular sticks in my mind. 

I don't recall the place or the year. I do remember it was out in the woods. College students could chip in and gather up $20 to purchase a sixteen gallon keg and haul it out to the middle of nowhere where all the guys brought large empty pickle and jelly jars to fill from the tap as they gathered around the cheap free beer. It seemed like freedom and there were usually campfires and guitars. At this party there was a guy sitting leaned up against a tree with his guitar. Long stringy black hair, a thin moustache, blue jean jacket with ragged faded denim trousers he dressed like most guys dressed in that era. He sang and played into the drunken evening as we refilled our recycled reusable glasses. The songs don't themselves don't stick in my mind and I have no idea if he was performing covers of folk singers like Bob Dylan or Texas Outlaw Country singer songwriters that were having their heyday in cities just a couple of hundred miles from where we sat, drank and listened. Due to the influence of the beer that night and the passage of time I cannot really tell you if his playing and singing were of good quality but it was magic by that campfire in the still night and I have not forgotten that feeling.

I like to think that evening is where I come from. This past week I sat in a local park and played Christmas songs on the tuba. Children played on swingsets and slides to kill time waiting on Santa. Walkers and joggers hustled past on the trails burning unwanted holiday calories. I played and thought how I saw a guy sit under a tree and play songs to whoever would listen. He's well into his 60s and maybe older. I wondered if he remembers that long ago night by the campfire or even still plays guitar. I keep on playing and pull these old experiences up in my mind and hope anyone that hears me play feels some magic too. It's how you find a different place to come from. 

            

Big Slough Afternoon...

After a week where I played about all the tuba, guitar and banjo I could stand, washed the windows, and dusted the cobwebs from the room corners and ceiling fans I needed to go somewhere today. I picked a duck hunting trip to the Big Slough Wilderness Area. I saw one duck. It was a wood duck hen. I shot it. Cathy will make a delicious dinner out of it for us.  

Hunting and guns can be kind of controversial. Believe me, the time I have spent hunting, which was really mostly just sitting in the woods is not even proportional to the time I have spent killing. I have enjoyed eating what I killed, all small game and the times spent just sitting were good also. There were some sitting times where I was stuck, lost or broke down way out in the woods somewhere and we won't go into all that here.  

Duck hunting is something I did with my dad, learned from my dad, the tactics I used today were the same as he would have used and it was in a place he had showed me. I guess you can say while you could not impress anyone with the taking of one duck I thought it was pretty good since it's the first duck I have shot at in about three years and it does bring back some old, good memories.  

You can see from these photos me and duck hunting go way back. I remember listening to my dad and his brothers tell stories of places they went to hunt with names like Wild Hog Bend, Ice Box Slough and Wildcat. I could have carried the shot gun in this photo below on the hunt today. It's my dad's old Model 12, one of the best duck guns ever manufactured. I have hunted with it quite a bit in years past but it's pretty worn and the action is what I would call "loose." Instead I carried the shotgun my dad gave me for Christmas when I was about 16 years old. It's nothing special, just an all purpose general use hunting shotgun. I have never had reason to purchase another.

One thing I hate about hunting today is as with most things concerning guns it has become militarized. Lots of camo on clothes, boats, cars and survival type equipment that would not be out of place in a commando unit. Note in the photo my dad's flannel shirt and kaki duck pants. That's how he dressed to hunt his whole life. No camo for him. Maybe it was too uniform looking. He had landed on Normandy Beach in WW2 and survived the hedgerow campaigns that followed. He would not ride in a jeep. He told me, "never join the army."     

So I'll remember my dad with a duck hunt now and then. Hopefully that tradition will carry on. I have carried it on with my son. 

A duck tastes good around Christmas and in the photo with my brother Glenn you can note the Christmas cards on the wall behind us. 

I did wear a camo shirt and game vest today but the white beard shinning through the woods probably negated any effect they had on the ducks. 

 

Dreams...

 I was scrolling through my newsfeed and I saw a headline about Covid 19 dreams. It had a sub headline that said "seven minute read." At this point in the year 2020 I aint spending seven more minutes reading anything about Covid. I'm washing my hands, wearing a mask, limiting my gatherings and just generally spending a lot of time in the back yard playing the tuba and the banjo. Of course my neighbors wish there were seven minutes in a day where I'm not in the back yard with instruments.

So without reading the article or looking at pictures which I know from long blog writing experience and reader feedback is all ya'll do anyway I deduce that people are having some weird dreams and experts think it's the Covid. In my own personal research, which I spend at least 6 to 8 hours a day on I have been having some doozies myself. I wish I had written them all down and in fact I have written in this space about dreams in the past but if I wrote more you would by now be scrolling past. 

  

I did think my latest was worth sharing. I dreamed I was skinning a bear. I have been known to hunt, shoot and eat small game but I would never shoot something like a bear and have a membership in a no kill bigfoot hunting facebook group. I don't want to have to skin a large game animal, certainly don't want to cook and eat a bigfoot or a bear and am in no way on the side of what ever bear hunting group that my be imagining that their rights are being denied. 

In the dream I had a very sharp knife and do in fact own a very sharp skinning knife that I have never skinned anything with. I ran the knife along the inside of the pelt, peeling it back to reveal the inside lining to be velvety black with no blood or gore. The outside fur was thick, black and I remember thinking how warm I was going to be wrapped in it. 

At this point the bear seemed to roll to the side on it's on to better facilitate the hide removal and while I was not startled by this it was unusual behavior for a carcass. I floated to awakeness to ponder what the meaning in this was and if there is any at all. 

I don't know if this actually falls under the category of a Covid dream. I suspect those dreams deal with issues of loneliness, isolation, depression and hopelessness, and other feelings I can't pretend to have an insight too. I can only hope that those dreaming those find the comfort of a warm bear skin to wrap themselves in as protection from these elements.      .     

Remember Me...

Last Sunday morning I was listening to the gospel show on New Orleans public radio station WWOZ, I'll come back to New Orleans but the song I heard that morning which stuck in my head was Mississippi John Hurt's performance of the old spiritual "Do Lord Remember Me." In a year like 2020 there has been there is time to think deeply about this old tune. 

"Do Lord Remember Me" seems to have it's roots in the 1860s as a spiritual sung by slaves of African American descent who picked cotton in the American south. They probably sang it in the fields as a rhythmic accompaniment to repetitive labor. They probably sang it in church on Sunday morning as a prayer to ease their burdens. Mississippi John Hurt was born in 1893. That was 30 years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves and "Do Lord Remember Me" had been in circulation about the same amount of time. Cotton was still an industry and hard working people usually have a custom of church attendance on Sundays. Hurt surely heard this song as a child in one place or another.  

"Do Lord Remember Me" has been recorded many times. I don't think the Beatles ever recorded it but Johnny Cash  sure did. With parents born and raised along the Mississippi River only a few miles from where Cash was born and in rural East Texas I am only one generation removed from knowing what cotton picking is all about. I was lucky enough to have my family lifted by FDR'S New Deal programs and the industrial boom of World War II and the years that followed. My parents probably heard this song. As I say hard working people go to church and there were changes, trials and new things to become accustomed to and prayerful songs helped.    

As I toyed around with this song on my resonator guitar I thought about it's history. It's not the oldest song I have ever played. I've been in brass ensembles and concert bands covering Baroque and Renaissance pieces but those have a set way to be interpreted. "Do Lord" can be made your own. I like songs like that. 

Working on slide guitar licks for the song and still thinking I wondered what song was making the rounds thirty years before I was born? It was easy to find this information. The 10th most popular song of 1927, thirty years before I was born was "Charmain" by Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians . When I was a teen and my interest in music was growing my mom took me to see Lombardo and his group when they played the local community concert series. I don't recall what they played but I bet I heard "Charmain." It may not have carried the spiritual weight of "Do Lord" but certainly a good tune that has surfaced in movies and remained evergreen in popular interest. 

Now to bring things back to New Orleans. Once during a trip there I was going one place to another on foot and took a short cut through one of the old cemeteries. All burials are above ground due to the water table in a below sea level city so I was passing bleached white crypts, leaning monuments and mausoleums with some falling into haunted disrepair. With the music of the Crescent City on my mind a name on a crypt leapt out at me. I spotted a tomb with the name "Doctor of Jazzology." No other information, no dates, nothing. I've searched the internet. Nothing there either. "Doctor of Jazzology." Do remember him.  

            

Venture the Adventure While Holding a Baby...

U.S. Tico always says, "Venture the Adventure."  I say, "Yeah, but I'm holding a baby." Just do it. that's the whole idea. Pura Vida, with the meaning that you should be thankful for what you have and live a simple life is the way for Ticos but I lived it on one particular vacation to Mexico. 

The summer of 1991 had been very eventful. In July my youngest daughter was born. There had been house remodeling, family adjustments for the three older children and school was soon to start. As a consolation prize for the new baby taking away some of their summer fun thunder we promised the kids that there would be a vacation to Disney World as soon as mom and baby were ready to travel and before school started. Reservations were booked. Only problem with all these goings on, you must remember this was pre-internet when you could just google up this information, the trip was booked after the start date of school. Hasty adjustments were made, Disney World was canceled and it seemed that even though the baby was three weeks old, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico was a good idea.    

Puerto Vallarta is located on the Pacific coast of Mexico. Long a place where Hollywood celebrities could cavort while escaping prying paparazzi at the time it was not on the general American tourist's radar and was a preferred vacation destination for Mexico's domestic tourist. It was a great place, sunny skies, clear, calm water with a deceptive wave break right at the beach that would strip a bikini from the unguarded swimmer in an instant while beach vendors selling cheap silver and fat lazy green iguanas watched.      

"Night of the Iguana", starting Richard Burton and Ava Garner was filmed in 1964 at Mismaloya, a beach south of Puerto Vallarta. Our trip, with a three week old baby had none of the drama associated with the John Huston directed film about the human wrecks descending on an isolated resort. Instead there were jungle trips, donkey rides, good food, plenty of beach time and souvenirs to purchase from wandering sellers willing to negotiate what was perceived as the lowest possible price for their wares.        

Since much is made of the movie filmed there and the Hollywood connection to isolated relaxation it seemed like a good idea to book a boat cruise to Mismaloya Beach and Los Arcos Marine Park. The tour promised coastal sight seeing in the vicinity of the movie set, beach time, a jungle trail, waterfalls, snorkeling, and a roasted chicken lunch. Seems like an easy trip for a baby.   

It's not hard to imagine Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor living in a hillside home with the beach right below. 

Waterfalls and jungle trails capture the iguana movie mood. 

I must admit that it has only been in recent years on a trip to the Cayman Islands that I became comfortable breathing through a snorkel. I have a bit of claustrophobia and things such as reclining in the upper berth of an Amtrak sleeping compartment or trying to breath through a pipe activate it. I was perfectly happy to let my wife, Cathy, snorkel while I held the baby.     

Los Arcos became a protected area in 1984 to preserve the habit, fish and birdlife that is abundant in the waters around these granite islands carved down to arches by time and the elements.  

I should mention at this point that the roasted chicken lunch, with side dishes of beans, rice and tortillas had been washed down with cheap tequila, and Modelo beer. The boat crew was a gregarious bunch and seemed to lead the charge when it came to the cheap tequila. Maybe that's why it looked like a good idea to drive the boat through the arch. I have heard U.S. Tico was here in 1982. I am not sure if the boat Captain had heard about Venture the Adventure yet or not.      

These are all photos that I made that day. I don't have photos of the boat ramming the arch, running aground and shattering the rail. It was the pre-digital age so no cell phones to capture all action and post to Instagram. In the chaos I was too busy holding on to the baby. I could imagine the headlines. "Man drowns but saves baby." To Venture the Adventure you must survive it. I think that's a U.S. Tico rule. 

As you can see the boat did not sink, I did not drown, calm returned and I still had the baby. She's 29 years old. We made it back to port with the tour boat engine dying as we bumped up against a docked ocean liner. With the boat damaged and the cheap tequila gone the crew was not as entertaining on the return trip as they were earlier. As I think back on this experience and have learned more about the delicate ecosystem of Los Arcos I would think that compounded with the boat damage there might have been some consequences for the crew to the boat grounding on the protected reef.    

Pura Vida. Venture the Adventure. Even if you choose Costa Rica over Mexico and have to hold a baby. 

 

Slip Inside This House...

 The Man pulled his dark blue 1971 Dodge Demon off the dusty red dirt of old Martinsville Rd. into the driveway of the long brick ranch style duplex. A knock at the door was answered by U.S. Tico who said, "Slip inside this house." The Man entered. The universe shifted and changed by the actions taken and U.S. Tico drew down the old paper roller shade that hung over the front window and a pen an ink of Don Quixote tilting at windmills that had been sketched there by a previous tenant with plenty of time and better than average talent was reveled. 

Slipping inside this house is a mind set, an idea, a way to live that happens in so many ways and in so many places. The Man slipped inside U.S. Tico's house that long ago day to venture a friendship that would last decades with lances tilted to the "fierce and unequal combat" of life. Don Quixote slipped inside the house of adventure when he prepared to attack the windmills he believed to be giants. If you visit Costa Rica and step inside BenJammin's porch out of the tropical rain the afternoon will pass with song and fun before you know it. 

Slipping inside the house of travel never goes out of fashion. It was the writer Henry Miller who said, "One's destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things." 

Maybe that's the best way to think about this idea. Slip inside this house. Make friendships that grow. Look for art that has personal meanings. Listen to the joy of music made by friends. Travel and experience the world outside familiar settings. Find a way to slip inside this house, even if it is a long brick ranch style duplex. Venture the adventure and life will take it from there.   

Drum and Tuba Christmas at The Village Nac...

It is thanks to an invitation by the Village Nac to play their Christmas party that the 2020 version of Drum and Tuba Christmas got to roll this year. It was a nice evening with hot chocolate, a bonfire, smores and deserts and several local acts providing entertainment. 

The Village Nac is a non profit that has just got started this year and despite the challenges that face everyone in these times on my recent visits I have noticed growth and improvements that signal good things happening. Their purpose as posted on their website: 

The Village Nac is a faith based community in east Texas where people who have chronic mental health issues or chronic homelessness can find housing, help, hope, and healing.

The first band of the evening was the Campaneros. This duo is part of a larger group that performs locally and has a Latin based sound. I believe I have their names correct, Alex on pan pipes, flutes and percussion is from El Salvador and Johnny on guitar is from Argentina. 

Though not scheduled for the evening the Campaneros were generous with their time and invited a friend, Natasha to perform two songs. I believe I understood her to be a newcomer to the area and if you get a chance to catch her act playing locally you will not be disappointed. 

Honey Blond performed a variety of  Christmas pop hits. 

Drum and Tuba Christmas was the closing act for the evening. Mary, the usual drummer since this act began in 2012 had to work so this year's version include Morgan on drums and Casey Williams on congas. That's me on tuba for those not in the know. 

Casey was the event coordinator and had invited us to play. I had jammed on tuba with Casey before so it was only natural that he become a part of the group. Casey is the force behind Star Avenue Co. One of the ideas behind this nonprofit organization is that "creativity breaks down barriers." I believe that. The Star Avenue Co. Mission Statement:

Our mission is to provide the opportunity to build positive relationships among the citizens of each and every community by using creative expression like art, music, and other avenues to make productive lines of communication!

Casey on congas and Santa Suit. 

Morgan on drums. Welcome to Drum and Tuba Christmas son. 

If you need a Santa this Christmas, who you gonna call? 

You may have heard that "good things happen to good people." That might seem like a trite statement in a year like 2020 when good people have suffered losses and set backs but there are places where good things are happening. Drum and Tuba Christmas was privileged enough to be in one of those places last night. Thanks for having us.    

 

Keep an Eye Out for U.S. Tico...

 I mentioned a few blogs back I was beginning to write for an old college friend's Shopify web site called U.S. Tico. Things are moving right along and I don't know exactly when the web site goes live but it's exciting to have a place where my blogging will reach a wider audience. 

I can divide my life in parts. There's that part where I spent a lot of time playing electric guitar and howling at the moon, there is a part I spent raising kids and having a family, there is that part I spent playing a tuba, there is the fishing part, there is the part where I was a musician at church, there is the part where I traveled around, there is the part where I was a better electric guitar player but still howled at the moon and of course there have been a couple of different careers during all this. Some of those parts overlapped. The characters in these parts are mostly the same. There may be parts I have not unpacked or found a label for or even begun yet. I'm thankful that people have expressed interest in these things, or maybe it was the things I thought about all these parts that made them say, "hey, I want to read about this." 

It's pretty wild that this blog, begun in August 2005 has had 161,458 visits. I have written 2682 individual posts. I don't know how many words this has taken but it's a bunch. When I meet a blog reader on the street they usually comment on the photos. That's good too and if Cathy is with me they say, "The girl from the blog!" 

So keep an eye out. I'll let you know about U.S. Tico. There will be shopping, music, adventure and other blogs. May be you will have a part. If you do, I'll be sure to write about it.