Last night I finally finished the 700+ page Don Winslow opus, The Border. It was (supposedly) the final installment of a trilogy about the Mexican and Central American illegal drug trade and the development of the infamous cartels. I did not enjoy this last installment at all but pushed myself through it. Full of paper thin stereo-typical characters, a plot spread way too wide, a la Game of Thrones, and contrived over the top political virtue signaling, it was, in my assessment an utter failure. This was an incredibly disappointing summer read as his last book, The Force, was an outstanding accounting of police corruption in New York City driven by an unforgettable anti-hero.
So, I am due for a cleansing science fiction read and out of my queue I pulled Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, which won a Hugo award years ago for its depiction of a post apocalyptic world and a theme of the cyclical nature of human civilization. I think I was vaguely aware of this book, but recently found it on one of those web lists of books that absolutely must be read, so I grabbed it off Amazon… I’ll let you know how it goes…
Exterior of Cup of Joe, on the corner of Main and 1st Street…
In Cedar Falls, Iowa, right smack dab in the middle of flyover country exists a funky little coffee shop that’s been in business for twenty some odd years. The coffee is excellent, the baked goods are great, and the authentic retro-fifties furnishings give it an ambience unlike other coffee shops I’ve ever been to. In short, it is one of those idiosyncratic local treasures that inhabit small towns. The shop is called Cup of Joe…
Besides purveying what coffee shops typically offer, Cup of Joe is also a patron of the arts… The owners rotate through the walls of the shop varying two dimensional art forms, including paintings, sketches, photographs and prints. In fact, a couple of years ago, the shop was kind enough to host an exhibition of my landscape and prairie photography.
Cup of Joe interior… performance space in the far back… Note artwork on the wall…
Most importantly, on every third Friday of the month, Cup of Joe hosts an open mic night for musicians, poets and what have you…
In fact, last night was my first year anniversary performing country blues guitar at the Cup during open mic and a great night it was…
Through some arrangement for which I am unaware, open mic night has been hosted by three gentlemen who referred to themselves as The Three Blind Mice… They consisted of Rick Vanderwall, Bill Guernsey, and the late Rick Nees. They would perform themselves at the opening of the event and then help out others during their time at the mic. As Rick V. was out of town visiting family, the evening was hosted by Bill alone.
Bill and I mugging for the camera…
Here I am with Bill at the end of the show; however, earlier in the evening my friend Grant Tracey and I helped him haul in his equipment as he was working alone that night. He brings in a PA system and microphones, as well as an amp suitable for electric and acoustic guitars. During the show he tweaks and fine tunes the sound such as you can in that particular space. Most importantly, Bill maintains order and keeps the participants in line and within a 15 minute timeframe.
What was unique and particularly fun that night was the shop owner, Dawn’s request that Grant, another guitarist, and I participate in a video feed advertising the night’s festivities. We all have different music in us… Yeah, you can quote me on that… Grant is a singer/songwriter, largely influenced by his youthful devotion to punk rock… Me, on the other hand, I love those old time, deep rooted, foundational country blues and that’s what I play… You can see our introductory video below: (you may have to click twice)
After Bill warmed up the crowd with a Neil Young cover, I opened the night with a fifteen minute country blues set. It’s my preference to play first, and I will arrive at the coffee shop a good hour before set-up just to get my name on the list first.
Here I am playing my set of 4 country blues tunes. That night was the public debut of my newly repaired Taylor Solidbody Custom Walnut electric. I had the guitar signal passing through my pedal board with compression, some gain to fatten up the sound a bit, a dash of vibrato, some slap-back delay and all blended into some hall-like reverb… Even though I painstakingly set up the pedals at home through my Fender amp, it sounded a bit boomy from where I was sitting… fortunately Bill smoothed it out for me with some amp equalization. Still, when sitting behind the speakers it’s hard to assess how your rig sounds… a performer monitor would be nice, but that’s a lot to ask for at an open mic night…
My set included:
I Do Blues – a new tune for me credited to Rev. Robert Wilkins
Police and a Sergeant – Rev. Robert Wilkins, arranged by Catfish Keith
Railroad Bill – traditional, arranged by Etta Baker
Cocaine Blues – traditional, arranged by Stefan Grossman
I was prepared to play more, but Bill put the hook on me as there were a number of others signed for the mic! I did a pretty good job on three of the four tunes, but shanked a few into the rough on Police and a Sergeant, which I played flawlessly at the Bandshell performance last month. Throw of the dice at this stage of my performing career, I guess… It’s not for lack of practice that I shank one, but more dependent on keeping focus and maintaining the brain/finger connection…
My beloved wife Nettie was there to take photos of me playing. She does a great job with an iPhone… I hope to upgrade my iPhone from the current 6s to the latest because the cameras on the new ones are so “dadgum” good and perfect for supporting this weblog.
You’ll no doubt note that, as is typical, I am obscured by a music stand… There are reasons why. First, I much prefer playing sitting down because I have better control of the guitar and secondly, I like referring to the charts while I play because I simply cannot remember most of my pieces which have fairly complicated finger movements.
Before the next time I perform, I hope to convert to an iPad, equipped with a foot pedal, to dispense with the paper and music stand, which should obscure me less while I play…
Lillian and me…
Jacob and me…
After my performance, I had a chance to catch up with one of my former Northern Iowa Textile and Apparel majors, Lillian T. If I missed teaching, which I do not, it would be because of special kids like Lillian… she was an absolute delight to work with in the classroom… I also had a chance to interact a bit with one of the two Jacobs in the coffee shop that night… He is a Northern Iowa music major and a tremendous guitar player… he noted my tasteful use of pedals and the pleasant “acoustic” sound of my guitar, which obviously delighted me to hear!
Grant digging into his Mustang…
The Jacobs laying out masterful Jazz riffs…
After my set, as you can see above, my pal Grant played a 4 tune set on his beloved Mustang, including some soulful picking of individual notes within his chord progressions… The show concluded on a high note with the Jacobs, both exceptionally accomplished jazz guitarists, who laid out their improvisations in masterful style…
September’s open mic night was a night to remember… until next month… I am working on some new tunes as I write… see ya…
It was sometime in my early 20’s when I was in graduate school that I created a fundamental method for myself and that was if you’re going to invest yourself in some activity, first get a book and learn about what you’re doing. Looking back, I think one of the first books of that sort that I’d purchased was the Complete Book of Running, and I ran for years afterward using the knowledge gleaned from that read…
As a result of this practice, my home library has quite of number of background books in such disparate areas as bicycle repair, blues music, civil war reenacting, wildflower identification, prairie restoration, all types of photography, and even dog training.
If you’ve been anywhere in and around this weblog then you will know that one of my keen interests during my retirement life is everything about guitars. As my opening paragraphs would suggest, I’ve dug around trying to find books about guitars to deepen my understanding of the instrument. Thus far, two of the more interesting books I’ve found include, Clapton’s Guitar and the Guitar, An American Life. They were both excellent reads covering aspects of the social/cultural/historical elements of guitars and to some extent guitar construction, but still fell short of really offering a deep understanding about the structure of the guitar, how it functions and how it affects playability. Nevertheless, I recommend both books as fun and informative time well spent.
Then, one day I was noodling around on my computer searching guitar culture and philosophy subjects and ended up on Ervin Somogyi’s website. Mr. Somogyi is a world renowned master luthier, in other words a guitar builder. I had previously read about his apprenticeship program in Fretboard Journal #36 so I was curious enough to explore his site a bit deeper. He had in one section some fascinating and articulate discussions about guitar culture, which I perused and in later meanderings discovered that he had published a two volume treatise on guitar building. The first volume was focused in detail on how guitars behave as a function of choices a luthier might make during construction. The second volume was explicitly step by step how to build a guitar.
The basic pair of volumes (not the leather bound version) was listed at well over $200 which was a bit too rich for me; however, I only wanted the first volume regarding how a guitar functions. I never intend to build a guitar so the second volume was of no interest. Fortunately, I found a used copy of volume one in a Canadian used book store and though it was still more pricey than I would have liked, I bought it anyway and am so glad I did because it is a classic exploration of acoustic guitar design and function written in an interesting and accessible manner.
All elements of guitar structure are discussed. For example, Somogyi evaluates in detail the various trees that are available for harvesting quality tonewoods or general structural elements such as the neck. I was fascinated to learn that mahogany makes a great guitar neck because it is an equatorial tree that possesses balanced longitudinal torque because of how the tree interacts with the sun in its particular region of the world. This matters because the neck is less likely to twist over time. Given that I recently had a twisted guitar neck repaired, I appreciated the discussion.
No subject about guitars is too esoteric and the end notes take up about 1/3 of the book offering even more detail. Subjects of discussion include the various ways in which a guitar top vibrates and how the bracing underneath interacts, or how the back wood of the guitar cooperates with the top wood to project sound outward through the guitar’s sound hole. Everything you need to know about intonation is detailed.
Taylor 510 “dread”…
The aesthetics of guitar shapes are also considered which was illuminating to me. Take for example a comparison of the now discontinued Taylor 510 “dreadnought” shaped guitar versus the new Taylor Grand Pacific.
The 510 according to Somogyi’s view had very little aesthetic appeal. Though a good guitar (I owned one years ago) it was strictly utilitarian in appearance. The shoulders of the guitar are just plain horizontal and flat, the guitar has almost no curve at the waist… it’s basically just a box of wood with a neck and strings, lacking all elegance.
Taylor Grand Pacific…
On the other hand, consider the Grand Pacific. It is a reimagined dreadnought-styled guitar, and its shape is much more appealing. In fact, Somogyi would point out that the Greek Golden Rule of Proportion was applied by reimagining the waist of the guitar to give a perfect ratio of top bout size compared to the lower bout. Further, the shoulders of the guitar add a subtle sloping drop which enhances its elegance giving it an altogether more appealing shape to the human eye!
In sum, if you really want to understand the art and technology of the acoustic steel string guitar there is probably no better book than Ervin Somogyi’s The Responsive Guitar. It took me the better part of the summer to wade through it because it takes time to give thought and consideration to his analysis, but it is a journey worth taking.
As a final side note it is worth mentioning that Mr. Samogyi frequently points out the relative “newness” of luthier built steel string acoustic guitars. For much of the steel string guitar’s history it was an artifact of industrial factory production. The development of custom made luthier guitars grew along with the relatively new tradition of steel string finger-style guitarists. It can be argued that American finger-style playing was historically rooted in older country blues, played on factory guitars; however, Somogyi points to a new aesthetic in finger-style that benefited from guitars designed expressly for that purpose. In a later section of his book he carefully points out the necessary differences in guitar design between flat-picked (plectrum-driven) guitars and finger-style played instruments.
Somogyi points to both Ed Gerhard and Martin Simpson as notable leaders in the new finger-style revolution. I had the great good fortune of hearing the aforementioned gentlemen play live and to spend some “quality” time with them afterwards discussing their guitar philosophy. It was through my association, in the middle late 1990’s, with the Manhattan, Kansas based Birdhouse Productions who hosted several outstanding acoustic guitar players.
When I first announced I was going to retire the most common reaction I received beyond congratulations was a dubiously phrased, “What are you going to do?” Initially, I was caught off guard believing that my interlocutor thought my plan to retire was somewhat suspect. So, in response I would list off the many activities that I engage in, including photography and guitar playing/learning to prove I was worthy of retirement…
Then after I while I became fatigued with trying to prove that I was prepared to retire, and instead stated that, “I would do whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to…” which, so far, has been pretty much the case within the resources I want to allocate to the “whatever I want to do” aspect of my time spent.
It’s actually a little more complicated than that… Though it initially it seemed that time is available to do anything/anytime, there are still chores around the house like cleaning and yard upkeep, as well as time at the gym to avoid backsliding health wise… Nevertheless, I do have dedicated activities that I hold sacrosanct and one of them is reading…
I’ve been a devoted reader almost all my life… perhaps when I was a nascent reader it was a little rocky, but by the time I was 10 years old. Ian Fleming and Edgar Rice Burroughs enchanted me into a world of fiction where all things are possible… I am still there in that fantastic world of spies, detectives, space ships and time travelers… I found the vintage paperback covers to some of my gateway books into a life of escape reading…
So, I’ve lead the life of a voracious reader… to prove the point, I was not a lit. major in college, but I managed to take a lit. class almost every semester, including classes devoted to Shakespeare, Greek Tragedy, the Literary Significance of the Bible, and Late 19th Century American Literature…
The fact is, my dedication to literature is a bit of a problem… there is no room in my home for anymore books yet I keep buying them…. I really should read more books on my Kindle, but I feel suffocated and constrained when I read books electronically… I like to flip ahead sometimes and that is difficulty with an electronic reader…
I have to make way sometimes by disposing books… some I give away to friends, others get deposited at the local library’s Book Nook… most if the books I toss off are not what I call keepers… I still hang onto the books that are “classics” or ones that really affected me.
Some of the giveaways make a difference. Yesterday, Coach Chip, a young man who coached my son Parker in club basketball when he was in early grade school and who subsequently gave him private lessons in our driveway shared on FB that his “travel” team just one second place in a tournament. I know how hard Coach Chip works and congratulated him. His response was: Â “All because of the book you gave me!” Well, I think there’s more to it than that but it was fun to hear from Chip. Below you can Coach Chip and the book I gave him… It was a first edition of Dean Smith’s Basketball: Multiple Offense and Defense.
If you’ve looked into this nascent blog as it’s developing, it’s quite apparent that I allocate a significant proportion of my time in retirement to guitars… in fact, you could argue that at this stage of my life I am a bit obsessive about playing, and the technology associated with the instrument…
I get a great deal of satisfaction from working with my Taylor guitars, across the spectrum of acoustic, hybrid acoustic/electric, semi-hollow bodied electric, and solid body electric (currently on a UPS truck to Iowa after being repaired by Taylor!).
The commonality among all those guitars is the neck. The neck is where the rubber meets the road for a player and includes such key factors as the contour (radius) of the wood, its finish, and the height of the strings from the fretboard. It’s very easy to switch among the Taylors from one to the other because of neck consistency.
There is a substantial degree of snobbery associated with guitar culture. Traditions play a major role, such as the headstock decal for Martin guitars… I don’t like them, but that’s just me… One of the things that distinguishes the Taylor company besides marvelously playable guitars is their devotion to innovation and technology. Though a bit dated (the below instruments have evolved or been pulled off the market), the embedded Youtube video with Bob Taylor and Brian Swerdfeger speaks to the interesting tech that underlies two of the guitars that I’ve purchased off the used marketplace.
Swerdfeger moved on to Fender to develop a different acoustic/electric hybrid, the Acoustasonic…
I still consider myself a learner… perhaps I always will, and the primary way I continue my guitar education is by learning new tunes. Sometimes I’ll learn a tune that I like just for the fun of it, but more frequently I select a tune that I initially think will stretch me to gain more control over the mechanics of playing the instrument. More often than not I am successful in learning the piece, but sometimes I find myself totally stymied, and not willing to bog myself down, I will leave it behind. Most recently, I was defeated by a Robert Johnson piece, but that’s ok because he played at a very high level… higher than me for now.
I focus my playing efforts almost exclusively on finger-style “Country Blues,” and at this point I am playing strictly instrumental versions of the tunes. I am not interested in singing… I’m a guitar player… There are a variety of reasons why I stick with this blues genre:
I love the sound of the music when played on a solo guitar. You don’t need a band to sound interesting, and frankly I am totally uninterested in playing with a band.
The music itself is so American rootsy and foundational… There’s not an ounce of pretension built into the music… it’s just plain honest sounding and you can hear it echoing throughout early rock n roll, so there’s a recognizable pop culture element to it, but seasoned with a purity that appeals to me…
I’ve been able to find plenty of this type music that is well within my “skill grasp…” I am not saying it’s either simple or complicated, but I can get a handle on it and people seem, like me, to enjoy the sounds of these tunes.
There is a large extant body of music in this genre that can be found in book collections, as well on training DVD’s…
With such a large body of work available to study I feel absolutely NO reason to write a song… the other day, a good friend of mine at the local Guitar Store suggested it was time for me to write a tune as if it were some important ritualized rite of passage. I think there’s enough good songs already available or being written by talented musicians without me adding some pedestrian, self-indulgent POS to the mix.
I’ve developed a modest collection of old blues music so I can recognize the tune or players who’s music I might wish to learn. If you’re interested in old blues, a good place to begin would be the collection of original blues tunes, Confessin’ the Blues, curated by the Rolling Stones. In fact, several of these tunes were covered by the Stones themselves.
What works for me, after I’ve identified an old blues musician or a tune, is to shop around for a training DVD that offers a tablature version of the music as well as basic instruction how to play it.
Guitar Workshop DVD dedicated to Robert Wilkins
To the left you can see a great example of the educational materials I use. It’s a DVD containing numerous tabbed tunes by the great old bluesman Rev. Robert Wilkins, taught by John Miller, who I never heard of, but is a decent teacher of the basics. I was attracted to this DVD because I wanted to learn to play “Prodigal Son” a Wilkins tune covered by the Rolling Stones on their classic LP, Beggars Banquet. Two of the best online locations for training DVD’s are Happy Traum’s Homespun and Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, which is where I got the Wilkins collection.
Tablature and standard notation for Wilkin’s I Do Blues
First, I listen to the song and become familiar with it… I usually choose a tune that will stand up on its own as an instrumental without the lyrics, as I do not feel comfortable singing. Then I will tackle the music which is normally presented in standard notation and tablature. I work with both; however, I would be helpless without the tab. Tablature indicates which strings and frets to press with the left hand and which strings to pluck with the right. The standard notation is important to understand the time/rhythm signature of the tune. The music is typically included in pdf printable format on the DVD, though sometimes it comes as an included booklet. I am totally unapologetic for using tablature… in fact, tablature was the first way of communicating music for stringed instruments like the lute and later guitar. Standard notation followed some time afterwards. Working with tablature is a slow and steady process, during which time the most important steps are to become familiar with the tune and to develop the muscle memory for your hands and fingers, measure by measure. Some pieces come quicker than others but most require lots of repetition for me to succeed.
Before, during and after working with the tablature I will refer to the instructional video that is on the DVD. There are best approaches for how to use your hands during play and the instructor usually goes through those key moves measure by measure. A caution here is that sometimes the tablature and what the instructor does do not always match up, but that is rare. Also, as in the case with “I Do Blues,” Mr. Miller teaches a particularly challenging measure one way, but actually plays it a different way, which is a little frustrating because the way he plays it is easier than the way he teaches it! Some DVD teachers are better than others. I particularly enjoy Stefan Grossman.
More important than learning the measures in the tune is the phrasing of the music. It’s easy to fall into the trap of playing a measure at a time; however, the music flows across measures and getting that proper flow is the key to mastering the tune, and that can be easy or really very challenging with these old blues pieces.
Tom Garman, my teacher… (photo appropriated from Tom’s website, Guitar Antihero.
It is usually at this point that I will bring the piece to my guitar teacher, Tom Garman, who is great at working with adult learners like myself. He’s located at Bob’s Guitars in Cedar Falls, where I live. Tom is great at pushing me on technique and helping me interpret the tune beyond what the DVD instructor can do.
After working with Tom to master the piece (such as I can do), I have two final steps: First I choose a “go to” guitar for the tune. Though I will often play the tune on multiple instruments, there is one that I usually find particularly suited for the tune. In the case of “I Do Blues,” which I initially worked with on acoustic guitar, I found some of the string bends just too daunting with stiff acoustic strings. So I moved to the much easier to play Taylor T5, which is an electric/acoustic hybrid that is much easier to string-bend and the tune sounds great on it! The original country blues tunes were played almost exclusively on acoustic guitars so they sound “more authentic” when played thus so; however, I am not embarrassed to move to a different musical platform to get on top of the tune and also to put my own music “twist” onto the piece also. It is 2019!
Finally, if I am playing an electrified instrument, either electric or acoustic guitar, I will run it through an amplifier and set it up thus so in the event I play the piece publicly at, for example, open mic night in the local coffee shop. Beyond using the amp, this also involves choosing from among my pedal inventory to truly put my mark on the tune. How and what pedals to use is a story for another time.
Here’s a version of I Do Blues by Rev. Robert Wilkins on my newly repaired Taylor SBC:
There’s a slow rolling environmental disaster occurring in Blackhawk County, IA where I live… The Emerald Ash Borer is boring its way through the heavily populated Ash trees that grow in this region, and sadly, my yard had its fair share of those large trees. The Borer digs into the tree weakening it, which eventually results in the tree’s denouement.
Fallen Ash tree in my yard…
Besides the loss of the beauty that the Ash tree lends to the landscape, the tree itself, when compromised, can be downright deadly. If you’ve ever seen a full size tree fall, there’s no warning and it falls immediately with the full force of gravity. A full grown tree is quite heavy and will kill or crush anything in its downward path. As you will note in the photo to the right, we had one unexpectedly drop a few years ago. Fortunately, it did not hit my house or my neighbors, but took out some new expensive landscaping that we put in the season before and destroyed a perfectly good Oak tree as it fell. Finally, it was an expensive clean up.
Not dead, but mostly dead…
With some anxiety Nettie and I recently concluded that the remaining two Ash trees that dominate spaces in both the front and back yards were dying from the Borer invasion. The typical symptoms of sparse vegetation at the top and new odd sized green shoots emanating from the lower portion of the tree convinced us that those two trees had to get got as soon as practical for safety reasons.
So, I took some bids from tree removal companies. Because Ash trees are dying all over the county, the tree guys have more work than they can say grace over, and they can charge whatever the market will bear.
The first tree guy I spoke to we had used before and his pricing was, in the past, reasonable; however, this time his pricing was almost double from last year… See what I mean about what the market will bear? In the end, we could not use him because he cuts strictly from a cherry picker truck and our tree in the back was inaccessible to him. He informed me that we needed a “climber” to get the tree in the backyard.
So, I took two more quotes. The first quote was really depressing as he wanted many, several thousands of dollars. The next guy also wanted thousands of dollars but he was at least two thousand less than the previous guy! I shook hands on the deal with the second guy and his company Twin City Tree Service would do the job.
The wood chipper arrives…
The tree guys finally arrived yesterday after weeks and weeks of waiting. Being retired, I was around for most of the action. They were a professional group, all wearing company t-shirts, hard hats and with three trucks full of equipment.
As you can see below, they used a portable platform to get up into the heights of the tree and methodically whittle it down. Then the tree was dismembered and the remains hauled away. I am not sure what happens to the wood, but a lot of solid bodied electric guitars could have been made from those trees.
Tree removal hardware
Whittling it down
Hauling it away
It was very nice in that the wood hauler used rubber tracks instead of wheels which was much easier on my grass. The final step in the process besides fine cleanup was the grinding down of the stumps, which can be seen below. It was a pro job with the use of curtains to limit the spread of the ground chips.
Grinding down the stump.
Twin City did a great job, but in the end as the title of this entry states, it was “Money for Nothin'” as Nettie and I poured several thousands of dollars into a process that left nothing but a slight depression in the yard. I will miss those trees but I’m glad they’re gone and the worry along with them…
I came of age in North Carolina, so it is a very important location to me… I have two children, three grandchildren, a brother and his family, and some of my oldest friends situated throughout. It was North Carolina to where I drove two days cross-country to spend a week or so with friends and family… I’d been looking forward to this trip all summer and timed it to coincide with the beginning of school back in Iowa… I wanted to be away from that craziness, having just retired… bwahaha…
My first stop along the way was at my brother Brian’s house in the Greensboro, NC area. He’s about 10 years younger than I am, and a retired physician enjoying his life immensely. He loves traveling around the world…
I had great fun catching up with him, as well as with his wife Andrea and his daughter Maddy… We had a grand time at one of Brian’s favorite watering holes, The Wise Man Tavern, a craft beer distillery and entertainment space in Winston Salem, NC. The Tavern is built within an old downtown warehouse… Classic gentrification and renewal of an old mercantile district. It’s an excellent space and the weather was perfect for a late August weekend in the South!
I had the great good fortune to see the new grass band Gipsy Danger playing inspired covers of “bluegrass-rearranged rock songs, such as the Beatles “I Am The Walrus” or Fleetwood Mac’s “The Weight”… They get the house rockin’… and you know what? Tar Heels party way better than the folks do in the midwest… no doubt about it… Click just below the name of the band on their image to follow a link to a Dave Matthews cover…
The beer was killer too… I had a dark beer that’d been aged in a previously used bourbon distillery cask. Tasted great and went down smoothly which just a hint of bourbon flavoring… pretty high alcohol content; however, I only knocked down one…
After two days with my brother, I took off for Chapel Hill, NC, one of my absolute favorite places on earth… every time I’ve ever left Chapel Hill in the past, I’ve always wondered if it’s the last time I’ll get back, but somehow I manage to do so… I spent the afternoon and evening with an old frat brother, Ron Parks, an artist and long time musician who plays in multiple bands, as well as writing and recording his own songs. We drove to Cary, NC where one of his bands (The Doug Prescott Band) was playing at a local art festival.
Ron ripping out a solo on his vintage Strat…
Doug Prescott Band, with Ron on rhythm (left) and Mike (right) on lead…
In this particular band, Ron serves as rhythm player, but gets the opportunity to sing and rip out a solo lead on occasion. Most of the leads are played by Mike who rode along with us to Cary. I had great fun comparing notes on guitar playing and pedals with Mike. I shot a series photos of the band, post-processed them and loaded them up to my Zenfolio hosting site for the band to use. I you click on the image you can follow a link to the Zenfolio site.
Best of all, that night after Ron and I ate dinner in Carrboro, a twin town with Chapel Hill, we went back to his home and played guitar together into the night. Ron was way patient with me, adding fills while I played my repertoire of old country blues tunes. He played a Breedlove acoustic dread, while I plugged into my little Mustang travel amp and played my Taylor T3, semi-hollow bodied electric.
After spending the night at Ron’s, I tooled over to the Research Triangle Park in Durham, NC and spent a couple of days with another frat brother from days gone by… retired naval captain, Mike Schoedler. I had an excellent time catching up with “Sheds”… we took in a film one night and the next, Sheds cooked up a great batch of seafood gumbo and Ron came over for the final gathering of old TEP’s (Tau Epsilon Phi.)
me, Sheds and Ron…
I am incredibly grateful for the kindness shown to me by my brother, his family and my old frat brothers during my visit… on to Wilmington to see my daughter Sally and her family… perhaps my son Ben will find us too… and Nettie arrives Saturday!
I’m a road warrior… I hate flying, but I’ll hop in the car without reservation to visit friends and family in the east or travel out west to the spaces in the U.S. that I love the best.
Besides a brief trip to Kansas City to visit Annette’s brother and to see the traveling “Hamilton” musical, I stayed home in Iowa for most of the summer. With the season approaching an end and my old university, where I recently worked, firing up classes next week I thought it would be a great time to get out of town and take a road trip.
This is my first “retirement” road trip and the plan is to visit my brother and his family, hang with two of my old frat brothers from my days at Carolina, and to wrap up with my daughter Sally’s family, including a brand new grandson… This would be a trip across country from Iowa to North Carolina, landing initially in the Greensboro area, then a trip to Chapel Hill, concluding in Wilmington on the coast.
According to AAA, the trip would be roughly 16 to 17 hours by car, so I chose Winchester, Kentucky as my 2/3 of the way point across the country. I like to do the heaviest lifting on the first day of a trip. I took a reservation at the Hampton Inn in Kentucky… my experience is you can travel almost anywhere in the U.S. on the interstate system, stay in Hampton Inns and eat at McDonald’s or Cracker Barrel… Not 5 Star travel but works for me…
So what’s it like driving half way across the country? Initially traveling through Iowa and then Illinois, it’s gently rolling terrain dominated by cornfields and the occasional soy bean plot. I thought late summer, the road traffic would be thinning, but no, I was wrong… still a lot of folks on the road…
Cornfields out the right window…
Busy roads in late August…
You know you’re making progress when the Mississippi is crossed heading east out of Iowa into Illinois! Then its endless highway for hours and hours where the geography barely changes and the frequent nutcase driver flies by or someone else blocks traffic in the outside lane until you hit Kentucky where small rock outcroppings suggest that the Appalachian Mountain chain is not far off…
The endless road…
Crossing the Mississippi…
With about 650 miles done, the reward is a meal at the Cracker Barrel and a night at the Hampton Inn…
Cracker Barrel porch…
An above average Hampton Inn room…
The second day of the trip is dominated by driving for hours through the mountains of Appalachia via Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and finally North Carolina. This particular day I spent much of it driving through pelting rain which made the mountain curves even more harrowing then usual…
Dropping down into North Carolina…
Finally after two days behind the wheel… NC feels like home, but it’s not… I came of age in NC but spent most of my life elsewhere… still feels like home, but it’s not really…
I retired recently, which is several years before my wife, Annette plans to do the same. So most mornings she packs off the university to do her good work as an academic unit director. For me the house goes instantly quiet, which would be a bit unsettling were it not for my constant companion, my dog Nike…
Since my childhood, I’ve always had a dog or two around. In fact, I could not imagine life without a dog… I’m a dog person… I’ve had cats too and they’re fine; however, every cat I’ve ever owned has gone bad, soiling the house… No more cats…
Of the several dogs I’ve had live with me, some have been excellent, but Nike by far is the best dog I’ve ever been involved with. Indeed, as I was writing this piece she interrupted so that I would let her in the house from the backyard and then she promptly jumped onto my lap. She is a most attentive creature.
Nike is a Brittany. As her breed suggests, her gene pool was refined in the French province of the same name. At one time they were referred to as Brittany Spaniels; however, some years ago the AKC decided they were different enough from their Spaniel cousins to drop the designation. Now they are just plain Brittanies. Brittanies were bred to be hunting dogs, specializing in pointing and retrieving game birds. The characteristics required to be an excellent “gun dog” include toughness, endless energy, and intellect. Nike possesses all those characteristics in spades. She is the brightest dog I’ve ever taken into my life. In fact, she’s scary bright. Very little gets by her, she’s exceptionally attentive to her people and quite demanding too. When it’s time for her long evening walk, she will let it be known with a verbal lecture.
as a pup on the hunt…
Like most dogs too, she can be a pain in the ass at times… Stealing food from the kitchen counter, seeking attention by dragging out underwear from the dirty clothes basket, or excavating the yard. Nevertheless, taken in balance Nike is an indispensable companion and member of the family.
I do not hunt, so Nike does not get to express her instinctual gifts in the field, but she compensates… She roams a nicely sized yard bound by an “invisible dog fence” which gives her the freedom to police her kingdom. Living adjacent to the woods, there is enough wildlife activity to keep her in Defcon 1 mode most of the time. In fact, as sweet as she is to our family, Nike is a stone cold killer. She’s recently bagged three ground hogs, two of which I was able to save, and just the other day while Annette and I were sitting on the back porch, she nailed a big fat squirrel and dispatched it before I could intercede!
Fact is, she’s becoming a much more effective hunter over time. She studies the behavior of rabbits, ground hogs, birds and squirrels like a Talmudic scholar and knows intuitively when they make a mistake and expose themselves. Like a P51 Mustang fighter plane going after a Japanese Zero, she goes in high and fast and makes the kill… It’s a bit unnerving but I love that dog and she keeps me good company.
