This column was published in The Lebanon Democrat before my poem "Hands" was published last Monday. I am trying to catch up. I am also trying to figure out why i am putting these on the web for free. Putting my writing out there for others to read is really becoming a passion, something my friend, Pete Toennies, and i discuss often. But we will see where this goes. i hope you enjoy.
SAN DIEGO – I was not a country music fan growing up in Lebanon.
The family listened to the Grand Ole Opry on our Saturday evening rides over Monteagle Mountain to and from Chattanooga. There weren’t any options as WSM was the only station we could receive.
My cousin, Graham Williamson, a fiddler who eventually played in Roy Acuff’s band, would let me sing Hank William’s “Kawliga” when his band practiced.
But I was into The Searchers, the Platters, and yes, eventually Elvis.
At Vanderbilt, bluegrass began to grow on me. On Saturday afternoons, we rarely missed Flatt and Scruggs with the Foggy Mountain Boys on WSM-TV. We occasionally watched the earlier “Porter Waggoner Show” but only to see Miss Norma Jean.
My friend, Alan Hicks
My close friend, Alan Hicks, became a bluegrass fan. Born and raised in New York City, Alan’s family roots were in Rockwood. Now he is learning to play the banjo, Scruggs style. Bluegrass made a connection.
In recent years, Alan and other friends gather in Nashville for Vanderbilt sports events and reunions. These visits usually include an evening at the Station Inn, the underground bluegrass venue, just behind Union Station.
Recently, Alan, who has had a successful career in the shipping industry, became the Director of the Southern California Gateway for the Maritime Administration in Long Beach. I have made several trips to Long Beach for business and continuing our friendship.
Alan asked about bluegrass festivals in San Diego. Soon after, he informed me there was a bluegrass festival in San Diego on the third weekend of August.
Summergrass
So while the Wilson County Fair was roaring two weekends ago, we spent that Saturday at “Summergrass.” Perhaps the most amazing aspect was my wife, Maureen, after initially declining to attend a ballet performance in Balboa Park, changed her mind and went with us. She had a wonderful time.
The three-day festival was at The Antique Gas and Diesel Engine Museum in Vista, another small community in the Southwest corner burgeoning with new housing developments. The museum has kept an area about the size of the Wilson County Fairgrounds exempt from the urban sprawl. Among relic engines and several hundred tractors of various vintage, we sat on a grassy knoll and listened to bluegrass.
Folks back home may be surprised to find bluegrass as a thriving genre in the Southwest, but it is alive and well. Of course, the second set featured New Found Road with all but one of the four-piece band from East Tennessee. I bragged a bit about the roots of bluegrass.
The day was idyllic in many ways. I seldom relax in such a manner. People watching, one of my favorite past times, was ideal, and I realized the folks in the Southwest corner aren’t a great deal different than the folks back home.
I wished for my parents as I know they would have enjoyed the scene, especially my father checking out the myriad of engines.
Food and Weird Signs
The festival in the Southwest corner did come up short in the food department compared to what I know was available at the fair. There were three small buildings, not much more than shacks serving hamburgers, hot dogs, chili, and the much ballyhooed barbeque with ice cream and pies vended in the corner of a large barn. One shack featured Mexican fare. The best was corn-on-the-cob sold by a Boy Scout troop from a tent.
The primary eating establishment had a menu posted above the order window. About two-thirds down were two line items. One item read, “Chili Bowl, No Beans, $3.75.” The next line read, “Add Chili to above item, $1.00.” I am still trying to figure out what one would get ordering a chili bowl with no beans and no chili. I was afraid to order and find out.
It was a full day and we were likely just as pooped as we would have been from a day at the fair.
On the way home, we passed the pet psychic building and discovered she had gone out of business. I wondered out loud how she should have known from her psychic powers. After all she knew my dog had been a cat around King Tut.
Maureen observed that maybe the psychic did know.
It was a good day.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Hands
This poem was published in my column, "Notes from the Southwest Corner" in The Lebanon Democrat, Monday, October 5. It was written to honor my father, who at 95 remains the smartest man i know. He turned 95 on September 28. He is still teaching me how to live.
Hands
When most folks meet him,
they notice steel blue eyes and agility;
his gaze, gait and movements
belie the ninety-five years;
but
those folks should look at his hands:
those hands could make Durer cry
with their history and the tales they tell.
His strength always was supple
beyond what was suggested from his slight build.
His hands are the delivery point of that strength.
His hands are not slight:
His hands are firm and thick and solid –
a handshake of destruction if he so desired, but
he has used them to repair the cars and our hearts;
His hands are marked by years of labor with
tire irons, jacks, wrenches, sledges, micrometers on
carburetors, axles, brake drums, distributors
(long before mechanics hooked up computers,
deciphering the monitor to replace “units”
for more money in an hour than he made in a month
when he started in ’35 before computers and units).
His hands pitched tents,
made the bulldozers run
in war
in the steaming, screaming sweat of
Bouganville, New Guinea, the Philippines.
His hands have nicks and scratches
turned into scars with
the passage of time:
a map of history, the human kind.
Veins and arteries stand out
on the back of his hands,
pumping life itself into his hands
and beyond;
the tales of grease and oil and grime,
cleaned by gasoline and goop and lava soap
are etched in his hands;
they are hands of labor,
hands of hard times,
hands of hope,
hands of kindness, caring, and love:
oh love, love, love, crazy love.
His hands speak of him with pride.
His hands belong
to the smartest man I know
who has lived life to the maximum,
but in balance, in control, in understanding,
gaining respect and love
far beyond those who claim smartness
for the money they earned
while he and his hands own smartness
like a well-kept plot of land
because he always has understood
what was really important
in the long run:
smarter than any man I know
with hands that tell the story
so well.
Bonita, California
September 28, 2009
Hands
When most folks meet him,
they notice steel blue eyes and agility;
his gaze, gait and movements
belie the ninety-five years;
but
those folks should look at his hands:
those hands could make Durer cry
with their history and the tales they tell.
His strength always was supple
beyond what was suggested from his slight build.
His hands are the delivery point of that strength.
His hands are not slight:
His hands are firm and thick and solid –
a handshake of destruction if he so desired, but
he has used them to repair the cars and our hearts;
His hands are marked by years of labor with
tire irons, jacks, wrenches, sledges, micrometers on
carburetors, axles, brake drums, distributors
(long before mechanics hooked up computers,
deciphering the monitor to replace “units”
for more money in an hour than he made in a month
when he started in ’35 before computers and units).
His hands pitched tents,
made the bulldozers run
in war
in the steaming, screaming sweat of
Bouganville, New Guinea, the Philippines.
His hands have nicks and scratches
turned into scars with
the passage of time:
a map of history, the human kind.
Veins and arteries stand out
on the back of his hands,
pumping life itself into his hands
and beyond;
the tales of grease and oil and grime,
cleaned by gasoline and goop and lava soap
are etched in his hands;
they are hands of labor,
hands of hard times,
hands of hope,
hands of kindness, caring, and love:
oh love, love, love, crazy love.
His hands speak of him with pride.
His hands belong
to the smartest man I know
who has lived life to the maximum,
but in balance, in control, in understanding,
gaining respect and love
far beyond those who claim smartness
for the money they earned
while he and his hands own smartness
like a well-kept plot of land
because he always has understood
what was really important
in the long run:
smarter than any man I know
with hands that tell the story
so well.
Bonita, California
September 28, 2009
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