Holistic Music

There are a lot of big men in this room. These big men seem to have inordinately big hands, in which they hold a variety of instruments. They are dressed, most of them, in cowboy shirts and jeans, a few wear cowboy hats. And, while I watch, they make magic with their instruments, turning an ordinary Saturday afternoon into a toe-tapping, hand clapping wonder.

I wandered into this room after hearing music while working out at Bill Heddles Recreation Center. Following the sound down the hall, I discovered a little known musical joy, the monthly Bluegrass and Pickers’ Jam. Circled like wagons on the prairie, the musicians take turns leading a song, picking out the melody on guitars, banjos, mandolins and steel guitars. A harmonica player or two provide the bluesy background, and the fiddles smooth it all into one seamless work.

Lots of the songs are familiar, “I’ll Fly Away” and “I Saw the Light”; others are new to me, “Little Maggie” and “The Spanish Two Step”. Most of the people seem to know each other, and they call out turns to play “solos” by name. Each person in the circle is afforded the opportunity to play “lead” for at least one verse.

The level of proficiency is amazing. An eleven- year old girl sits quietly for several hours, strumming along with the grown-ups, whose average age appears to be about sixty. She declines any turns to play solos, but the expression on her face says she’s absorbing everything in sight. She never asks for a break, or looks impatient or frustrated, even during the most complex riffs.

Over the years I’ve heard blue grass, and country, and country-western, and cowboy music, all packaged for my consumption. But this music is different; the only word I can think of is holistic. It is music born from the joy of making music, intrinsically and completely from the spirit of the musician without regard to the outside world. The small audience that has gathered to listen is infected with that joy; people sway and bounce on their chairs, clapping time to the beat.

This loosely conglomerated hootenanny reminds me of the barn dances and church socials of long ago. They are a disappearing remnant of Western culture. I take my seat, in my sweaty gym clothes, clap my hands and sing along.

Etchings

Prostrate like a dead snow angel
My face in the grass and my heels tipped skyward
A hawk crying far away
finches tittering nearer,
I wonder,
What was that advice you gave me?

The Cemetary

There is something about country funerals. The abscence of a church is one thing, contrary to the stereotypes of country folk. The last two I attended were in the VFW hall and the funeral parlor, respectively.

The room is always full of burly men, with big hands and fish belly white foreheads. Several have cowboy hats in their hands, others bear the crease in their hair of wearing a cowboy hat for most of their lives. The wives are dressed up a little, wearing nice blouses and good shoes. These are fierce women, make no mistake. Many have had to bury at least one child, others have worked beside their husbands trying to make a living on the land. They are mostly elderly, as the younger generation has gone off to the city to make a decent living.

There's always a cowboy poem, usually pretty bad. If there are musicians, they are surprisingly good, even if you don't particularly like cowboy music. Today, the music was a recording of Vince Gill singing "Go Rest High on That Mountain", guarantee'd to bring tears to the eyes of all but the toughest of us.

It might sound blasphemous but you can't beat the food at a country funeral. It's as if the women all try to outdo each other. Baked beans made with ham hocks, and molasses. Pot roast or sloppy joes, and home made buns. Corn pudding, almost unheard of in America today. Every kind of jello salad imaginable, including one that had raspberries, strawberries and blueberries in it. Potato salad, pasta salad, broccoli salad, green salad, three bean salad, and sliced tomatoes. The desert table is a child's Christmas eve dream; three kinds of brownies, four different chocolate cakes, homemade lemon meringue pie, berry cobbler, that chocolate pudding-coconut-whip-cream-pecan concoction that I can never remember the name of, and a german chocolate cake tall enough to be featured on a cooking magazine cover. Not one single thing that you would think of as "good for you", but somehow, cooked with such love that you are convinced it can do you no harm.

Some families are there with four generations, and the children are allowed to move freely about the hall, without fear of kidnapping and amber alerts. Sticky children, hot and tired from the cemetary, chase each other back and forth.

People are eager to update you on all the tragedies that have occurred in the community since the last time you saw them, as if to say, "It happens to all of us."
The list of oldtimers that have died increases so quickly, I can't help but wonder what will become of this beautiful valley. Will it be filled with houses like every other valley in Colorado?

Standing in the cemetary, looking out over the bluff, I can see about 50 miles. There are maybe 10 houses in all the space.

How long can that last?

Loose Screws

I have a question. Who loses one screw?

Over the years, as I’ve walked the roads of Coal Creek, I have found, variously, screws, tacks, nails, and really big nails, which someone tells me are called spikes. I always pick them up, having run over a few nails, screws, tacks and, more than once, a piece of angle iron myself. I find myself wondering, where in creation these devices-designed-for-fastening come from. Do they fall out of livestock racks? Someone’s homemade camper? Horse trailers? Bike racks?

Suspiciously, they are often found at the mouth of a drive way, or a lane, or a canal access road. Were they thrown there by a secret enemy? Or an avowed enemy for that matter? Is it the fact that there’s a little jounce as one leaves most driveway-lane-canal- access-road type pathways and return to the pavement? Hmmm, it’s a mystery. However, I consider it my neighborly duty to pick them up and carry them away before they cause harm.

Picking up things along the roadside is not new to me. Treading these back roads I have found enough toys to stock my own toy store. A long time ago I came across a magazine called “Found” that published pictures of collections of things found by people in their daily lives. It was fun to try to puzzle out the scene that led to a tear-stained love note being left under the windshield wiper on the wrong car. The picture of people in 1940’s clothing found blowing down the street. The musical score with serious profanity written all over it.

My toys were not so hard to figure out. The little plane was probably held out a window and dropped to see if it would fly. The McDonald’s Happy Meal toy, thrown away with the bag by a passing car (tsk, tsk). The pinwheel? Who needs an explanation for that?

I brought each of these, any many others, home, and put them in an old tie-dye pencil box my daughter had in third grade. At some point, I hoped to mail them all to “Found” so that they could come up with their own theory of their origins.

Alas, alack. Or is it alack, alas? Well, whatever. I made the mistake of reading a women’s magazine with an article on ridding oneself of clutter. It said that you should immediately throw away eight items. Now, did I throw away the 15 years of cancelled checks I have (from back when you still got cancelled checks)? The entire works of Larry Mc Murty (of “Lonesome Dove” fame) in paperback? The 15 coffee mugs I keep in the cupboard though I live alone? The copies of my divorce papers, my mother’s estate proceedings, or the various paid off promissory notes from my various endeavors?

No I did not. On an impulse I reached for, and threw away, the little tie-dye pencil box, with all the found toys dropped by children out car windows as they sat patiently in their little car seats, safely ensconced from harm and all human contact in the back seat, whizzing down the roads of Montrose County.

And I’ve been thinking. Why is it that we throw away so quickly the whimsical, the sentimental, and the silly? Why do we cling so tightly to the rest of it? Why do we remember with horror that moment we realized our dress was tucked into our pantyhose, re-experiencing the embarrassment and humiliation, but so quickly forget the little girl who says, “I like your pretty shoes?” Why do we catalogue every hurt and injury inflicted upon us by our loved ones, but forget the odd laugh, the worried look when we’re ill, and the unexpected caress?

I have no answers, and oddly enough, though I’ve found many screws, nails, tacks, and one more spike, while out walking, I have never yet found another toy.

Raptors

When does an interest become an obsession? Is there some invisible line that you cross and all of sudden you find your friends trying to change the subject all the time?

As I walked my dogs today in a very brisk wind, I spied the ferruginous hawks playing in the updrafts. Has anyone ever studied that behavior? Is it really play, or just an opportunity to have the wind do part of the work? As I watched, the female stooped and fell to earth, but from my vantage point I could not see what her prey was.

Returning home I found myself exploring the licensing requirements for a falconry license. I started this project long ago, but became discouraged when I saw that it was recommended that you capture your first bird, hopefully a young American Kestrel. The thought of kidnapping a bird put me off my feed (as we say here in the West), and although I had already arranged a sponsor (you have to apprentice for two years) I let the matter drop.

The recent story about Travis the chimp made me realize that there are probably falcons and hawks for sale online. I soon learned that some people are looking for homes for birds that can't hunt for one reason or another, or that are not appropriate for public hunt sites. If these birds are not placed, I presume they meet the fate of all unwanted animals. The rescuer in me was put on high alert.

I am starting the process anew, although I guess there is no guarantee I will actually follow through this time either. I just would love to have input from all my thoughtful and interested friends. So, I've put together a little survey, and I hope you'll take a second to vote.

If I do go through with it, I'll keep you posted.

Milestones and Missed Opportunities

Milestones have a way of sneaking up on you, don’t they? Not so much when you have your first baby home, and feel that you have to document every drool, every nap, and that strange smile a baby gets when it passes gas. But, after that, when the milestones stretch far enough back in time that they mark the way to Venezuela.

Recently I passed a milestone I never thought would be part of my life; the foofoo dog milestone. I’ve always loved labs, border collies, blue heelers, chows, and combinations of the same. My dogs have been workers or guardians, well loved, but held at a certain distance. Enter Tex the Yorkie.

A gift from my daughter, Tex was named before he was delivered, as my daughter was convinced that, true nerd fashion, I would name the poor creature Ewok, or worse yet, Deej after the ewok cum mountain man in the Star Wars movies. Her husband picked the biggest name he could think of for a dog that weighed a pound and half. Now a whopping nine pounds and full grown, Tex tries to live up to his name every time someone dares to approach the house, growling and barking as if to say, “Stand right there, Pardner, and let me see your hands. Drop the gun, slowly . . .slowly.”
This little ball of fur and spirit has solved a mystery that I’ve wondered about for years.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I was a prison lawyer. When our grant was renewed the salaries were not increased, and I was already unable to make ends meet. My boss gave me the choice to continue to work for next to nothing or be laid off. I chose being laid off.

While a little unnerving to be laid off two years out of law school, like so many “misfortunes” the event was actually a wonderful opportunity in disguise. I had always wanted to return to a small town like the one in which I grew up, and now I had the chance to find the right spot. I decided to spend the summer traveling through the West looking for my new home.

From Strawberry, California to Lee Vining, to Winnemuca, on to Elko, I drove, looking in each little town to see if they had a stone or brick courthouse. For some reason a stone or brick courthouse became emblematic for me, an indication that the town had the lifestyle I was looking for. In those days, the courthouses were located downtown, often off a town square. As I drove through the towns, then on to Twin Falls and Pocatello, Idaho, driving through downtowns with shuttered shops, and Mary’s Cafes, and Dew Drop Inns, I noticed a similarity. Everywhere I looked there were rugged old men with little tiny dogs, riding along in the pick-up, leading the way down a sidewalk on a leash, or cradled in the arms that looked like they’d spent many years driving a tractor.

The men wore cowboy hats, and worn boots, jeans with pressed creases and pearl snap shirts, and the company they were keeping were little cross breed dogs that clearly adored them. As I drove I conceived of a book “Men and Their Dogs”, a series of photographs of these extraordinary men and the charming little dogs.

Like so many things conceived on a road trip, I kept putting off starting my project. I found Montrose and it’s stone courthouse, and home. Then the nursery rhyme came true, you know the one, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then come Peggy pushing a baby carriage”, and my life was consumed with other things.

Many of those old timers are gone now, and I've missed the opportunity to document this delightful phenomena. I can still picture one guy in his grey Stetson, walking the streets of Elko, Nevada led by a tiny little mutt. I only hope Tex and I can live up to his example.

Spotted Dog

My first ambition was to be a waitress. Or a firefighter. Or an astronaut. My aspiration to restaurant service was inspired by the waitresses at the Red Rooster Drive In. They wore short skirts held out by scrunchy crinolines, roller-skates, and they could carry a loaded tray balanced on one shoulder and one hand. The firefighter is easy –what more could a girl need than a red truck and a black and white spotted dog. The astronaut; well I have to admit the bulky spacesuit and huge round helmet were not attractive. It must have been the idea of orbiting the world in a silent space all my own (being fourth of six children will do that to you).

My parents were not thrilled by the scope of my dream to make milkshakes and skate around the round Red Rooster building. Neither one had read Dr. Spock so they felt no compunction about actively dissuading me from my goal. My father had vague, grandiose ambitions for me, predicting that there would be a female president by the time I was an adult (Uh, Dad, you underestimated a bit), and alluding to the diplomatic corps from time to time. Ironically, he told me in no uncertain terms “girls can’t be astronauts”, a statement I accepted without question since he worked for Bell Aircraft Missile Systems.

My mother, far more pragmatic (and probably hoping to protect me from the slings and arrows she felt awaited me) told me I should take up nursing or teaching, until I had a family. I can almost feel my head cock to one side as I write this, and I’m sure the quizzical look I gave my mother confused her. I remember thinking “I thought all those Miss America ladies were just trying to fool the judges when they said that.” I was shocked to hear those very words from my fourth grade classmates when we talked about what we wanted to be when we grew up.

All this reminiscing was brought about by a recent conversation I had with a young professional. Over the course of our conversation she told me that she thought my generation had made things easier for hers, but that we were “bra-burners” and that we had gone too far. To say I was stunned would be an understatement. I can remember that when I entered graduate school, in a class that had only 19% women, the belief was that the changes we were striving for in gender equality would not be seen in our life times.
Now I was listening to someone tell me that the fight that made her own education and professional path so much easier had ‘gone too far’.

In a way, I guess it might be a good thing (can you get any more conditional than that statement?). If education and opportunity are so accessible to young women that they can look back and criticize the women who fought for that access, a new norm is so well established that it would be difficult to erode. Still, it was only a very deep breath and counting to ten, or maybe twenty, that gave me the wherewithal to nod knowingly and say, “I know a lot of people think that.”

I wonder what such a young woman would have done if her own father had looked her in the face and said, “Girls can’t be astronauts?” Would she roll her eyes and walk away? That would be the best expression of the true progress we’ve made.

I never did get to ride on a fire truck. So if any of you work for the fire department or know someone who does, see if you can arrange it for me. I’ll bring my own spotted dog.