Using what there was to grab, he made the bed. First time in over 50 years with just one pillow though, no top sheet either, like a dead dog covered by a rug. Lying in the middle, phone and glasses almost out of reach, he wadded the pillow underneath his cheek and stretched his limbs out to the corners of the bed where there was nothing. To his surprise the fresh cool emptiness was comforting with just him in it. This is how we go, he realized, the same way we come in, and for the first night in forever slept till morning like the dead.
WHEN I WAS EIGHT OR NINE YEARS OLD, I had the perfect room upstairs from the kitchen in a tiny house by the Blue Ridge Mountains in Blacksburg, VA. A nook in the attic, really, with slanted ceilings, but big enough for a dresser and a bed. The room had a window by the stairs and one on either side. I was sitting on the bed once looking out during a thunderstorm when a bolt of lightning split the locust tree next door. (I still see it in my mind’s eye.) Beyond my bedroom was a large room where my father made a platform to build a model train layout for the Lionel electric train set1 he’d given me (us) for Christmas by laying sheets of plywood across some sawhorses. He did it up right, built mountains and a tunnel with window screening and paper mâche. The locomotive had a headlight and there were pellets you could drop in so it puffed a little smoke. Sometimes I even got to play with it myself. After I’d run it through the tunnel a few times I usually got bored and set up accidents. My favorite way to wreck the train was building a fort of Lincoln logs to ram.
On Saturday mornings my mother would climb the stairs with a bowl of water to wet her fingertips and flick them in my face to wake me up for chores—couldn’t go off to play with the neighborhood kids until I’d earned my freedom. Of all the tasks they ever had for me to do, the only one I halfway liked was burning the garbage in a wire cage out back. I made it mine by building sculptures of cereal boxes and trash, inventing stories as they burned. Plastic junk was scarce then but I prized it, saving that for last because it burned with orange flames and gave off greasy smoke. Hard to believe that John and Helen trusted me with matches but maybe they were lazy. (Where else would I have gotten that?) Sometimes there were nifty things to burn like paint cans and oily rags. Once I set the grass on fire but stomped it out. What a way to live. Mess around outside. Explore. Make stuff, break stuff, get poison ivy, read comics when it rained. I don’t think we even had a teevee yet and I was never bored.2
I’m having a good time. I was lying in bed the other morning, hadn’t gotten up yet, just checking to see if you-know-who was dead you know, when a professional musician buddy of mine whose wife was off in California texted me to see if I’d have breakfast with him. Like then. I hesitated—indolent swine—then slapped myself in the face, got dressed, and met him at a place I know just 10 minutes away. Traditional northern New Mexico menu, old adobe building like my rented hovel but with better paint. We were the only Anglos in the place, too. I liked that. Bright sun outside, blue sky, hint of autumn. Ordered red and green chile on my huevos rancheros which made the waitress smile. Breakfast topics were basically women and guitars. Now you can say this and you can say that, but what a normal goddamn thing. I could almost cry.
Our opposite sex talk as such was secret and respectable. I can say that my friend and his wife have learned that each of them need major chunks of time alone each year. When his wife returns from California, he’ll head off in the general direction of Alabama, maybe. I doubt he knows for sure.3 Then we did guitars, pretty much a given. I’d been wanting a better acoustic 6-string and was just about to order a new Gibson J-45 despite never having played one. Hardly anyone had anything bad to say about them and my favorite retailer was selling new ones for about three grand. My friend however pointed out that for that much and even less there were many choices I might actually like better.4 He also happened to own a 1950 J-45 and had me follow him back to his studio after breakfast so I could check it out. There were half a dozen others to recommend as well and he let me play them all, including a Martin, a Taylor, a couple surprising Japanese guitars, and a custom koa wood beauty from a luthier he knows in Hawaii. After that he demoed each of them for me so I could hear from that perspective. What an fucking privilege. Each brand and model had a history and a reputation I’d be lost without. We talked about the tone, the action, punch, this quirk or that. Pure life, real life, true fun. Grown men on a Friday morning.
(One of the gang, no chores...)
When I got home I felt transformed. Calm, alive, expectant. My long-unplayed 1968 Yamaha FG-300 was nearby in its battered case without a handle and I pulled it out. With the sound and feel of the other instruments still fresh in my mind, I played a little on it with its poor dead strings but even so I could tell it might hold its own. It’s a big guitar with a fine deep tone—when you hold a thing like that and pluck a string, you feel the sound. Years ago I tried to re-glue the pick guard, botched the job, and a chunk of the top came with it when I took it off again. I know I felt ashamed of that when I put the thing away but I was wrong in thinking that I’d hurt it. The damage doesn’t affect the tone. When I showed this picture to my guy he texted, “Awesome axe! Actually makes it look really cool and gives it some solid mojo!” I’ve cleaned it up and ordered primo new strings and it’s sitting out where I can grab it now.
And no, I won’t replace the pick guard…
Where we’re going, we don’t need pick guards.
Trust me. Have a fine outstanding day.
Here and now my wi-fi died last week and I thought it was the router. No, it wasn’t. Got a new one anyway in Santa Fe, had no internet for three whole days, and nearly died.
I’ve never traveled that way and mostly have my overnights nailed down. The old man was a pilot—you can’t just point the plane in any random direction and see what happens at the other end. Whenever I try that in a car I end up in a retro retread with a cranky owner who cuts his own grass and you hear the teevee from the front desk and the room is awful.
Meaning play them doofus, then you order one!
For almost 50 years, I have mourned selling my Yamaha 12-string that was turned into a masterpiece by an old admirer. It might still live in Hawaii. Yesterday, my sister and I went to a friend’s garden - about 100 miles from ABQ, 7800 ft. I think all of us are about the same age. He calls to remind me every year, when his purple cabbage is ready. This tradition, which I treasure, started when, years ago, when I bought one of his large, purple cabbages. This particular cabbage, with it's size, topography, and purple and green coloring seemed so full of stories! I put it on my counter and visited with it for a week before I ate it!!
My friend’s got a tremendous gift for growing (you can see these gifts at the Jemez Farmer's Market). I realized yesterday that he could turn his garden into a meditation spot. Even the lettuce, eggplant, and sweet Italian peppers had something to say. I thought they might be singing. ♥️
Imagine pictures of other-worldly purple and Savoy cabbages in the field, leeks, eggplant, and deep purple and green lettuce. Mmmm.
Maybe Ranchos Plaza Grill?