Back on the Chain Gang

My daughter and I are back on the chain gang.  We're not really out in orange work clothes on the side of the highway, but we're about that miserable.

Our chains are made of mental heavy metal as much as they are of pretty papers.  At some point when she was just a little girl, we made a chain of colorful construction paper to count down the days to a special event.  Nowadays, we use the chain to count down the days until we are reunited.

Over the years, my daughter's status of child of divorced parents has caused heartbreak and misery on the part of both mother and child.  The summers apart or the holidays spent away took giant chunks out of my heart. Now, when we start to feel like we've been apart too long, the chain rears it's head, offering up both bondage and hope.

My daughter is visiting her father this week.  She's been away two days and is due back in five.  So it's back to the chains. Sing it, Chrissie.

The powers that be/

That force us to live like we do/

Bring me to my knees/

When I see what they've done to you/

But I'll die as I stand here today/

Knowing that deep in my heart/

They'll fall to ruin one day/

For making us part

Chrissie Hynde

"Back on the Chain Gang"

WTMT 620

The jingle for WTMT 620 could only mean my dad was at it again: on the go and in need of race results. My first intersection with country music was with my father and the radio.  Although my father’s musical tastes ran more toward mainstream pop, his gambling genes put him on the receiving end of country airwaves more often than not.  He always needed to know how that horse in the fifth did at Aqueduct or the horse in the sixth did at Santa Anita.  For that reason, his right hand could turn the dial to 620 while his left hand steered onto I-65.   Once he had the racing news, he’d put the dial back onto something more to his liking.  And he liked songs with a backbeat and a great big ‘ole hook.

Back in ’78, when he was still driving me to school, his favorite song was Alicia Bridges' “I Love the Nightlife.”

Please don’t talk about love tonight/

Your sweet talk won’t make it right.

Backbeat, check.  Hook, wait for it:

I love the nightlife/I got to boogie/On the disco round, oh yea.

My daughter’s home from college, and the sounds coming from her room have changed.  No more Foo Fighters.  Now it’s the Randy Rogers Band.  Her biggest risk factor for a country music affinity would have to be living in Waco during the school year.  I’ve never cared for mainstream country, and it was just her grandfather’s way of finding out how much money he’d made. Otherwise, he'd never have strayed all the way down to 620 AM for a country station.

But this country music coming from a distant corner of the house is taking me back to race time with Robert.  Given that we’re right here between the Derby and the Preakness, it’s a timely acoustic memory.

Sailors sail, cowboys ride/

Lovers love when they get the chance.

“Kiss Me in the Dark,” Randy Rogers Band

Last Word

My professional writing has sparked my muse, and I'm left to ponder the power of last words. A study from Mass General on marathon runners contained the nugget of history that Phidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to announce victory and in proclaiming it, died on the spot.  His last words: “Rejoice, we conquer.”  

My grandmother’s last words were, “I love you.”  I received the words (thanks to Alexander Graham Bell) in a car at a drive-in. I relished the truth that Mamaw spoke her last words to me before going to bed, saying her prayers, and slipping into her final slumber.

My nephew slipped into a diabetic coma this month.  When his friends and family gathered, many testified.  He had been quite a catalyst in his short twenty-six years. He leaves behind songs and guitar melodies as his last words.

Today my friend Susan will stand before friends and family, giving her version of the last word on her father’s life.  Unfortunately, he lost the capacity to speak due to a brain tumor, but he had proactively worked out a system of communication using blinks and hands. In his final days, Susan was a vigilant daughter at his bedside decoding messages.  

Imagine that, though, trying to come to peace with the end of your life yet not being able to speak.  Surely Susan’s father was a strong man in life and in death.  And that he died quietly might be a testament to this man’s style in life. And perhaps our deeds should speak our last words for us.

In his case, news of one of his great deeds reached me after news of his death. When we were high school students, a friend in need received a large sum of money from an anonymous benefactor that changed his life for the better in a lasting way.  None of us had any idea who gave him the money.  I recall the power and the mystery of the money scared me a bit and yet no harm was done. 

Before he died, Susan’s father told her he was the donor.  This quiet man’s deeds have outlived him. Last word.

I read in the Good Book someplace it says every word uttered will be accounted for/

What’s the last word? What’s the password? Anybody gonna say?/

But in heaven it’s the lion laying down with the lamb/

Yeah in heaven, all the dinosaur look in the face of an angel man.

-Victoria Williams “Last Word”

In memory of Michael Sheldon Griffin and Brenner Fillmore Eugenides

Of Brandywine and Men

Sometimes father and son pursue the same career, just like Senior and Shrub, Kirk and Michael, Woody and Arlo. And the Wyeths.  Like father, like son, right? A trip to Brandywine River Museum left me less certain.

After weeks of driving around the rural, winter Pennsylvania countryside, a pilgrimage to Chadds Ford (the area of Pennsylvania that inspired Andrew Wyeth) became inevitable. One weekend I was in Chester County photographing farms like this one

And the next I was visiting farms made famous by Andrew Wyeth like this one

I arrived at the "Wyeth well" early on a Saturday afternoon.  At the Brandywine River Museum, I hadn’t expected to be pulled to the river first, but given the abundance of glass that only minimally separates the museum from its surroundings, nature competes with the gallery interiors. Outside each gallery, a southerly wall of glass allows views of the gently flowing Brandywine River.

After spending some time on the banks of the river, I moved inside the converted mill, and over the next few hours grew in my conviction that very small, intimate museums often give me more of a reason to pause than the d’Orsays or MoMAs.  The Brandywine seems to exist for just that reason:  to provide the thoughtful art viewer an intimate place to look and and reflect. 

And there’s plenty to consider as you ponder the grandfather, NC, who illustrated James Fenimore Cooper novels, the son, Andrew, who painted rural scenes of his Pennsylvania and Maine neighbors over and over again, and the grandson, Jamie, who followed Nyurev’s career. For me, not all Wyeths are created equal; only Andrew’s work has a haunting quality that transcends time and dimension.

Nonetheless, upon returning from the land of Wyeth, I had to know more about all these men.  In researching the family, I came upon a fact tying the Wyeths to this blog of acoustic memories:  NC’s engineer son fathered a musician who played on Dylan’s Hard Rain. Howard Wyeth, along with others including Joan Baez, Kinky Friedman and T-Bone Burnett, were part of the Rolling Thunder Revue.

Not a word was spoke between us there was little risk involved/

Everything up to that point had been left unresolved/

Try imagining a place where it’s always safe and warm/

“Come in” she said/

“I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”

"Shelter from the Storm"

-Bob Dylan

Wyeth Country

Unmoored

At this juncture when I am miles beyond “This is not Kentucky,” “This is not Texas,” and even “This is not North Carolina,” I drive around on the weekends if only to assure myself that I am someplace familiar, someplace like home.  Lately, I find myself in Wyeth country.

Christina's World

My first travels to Wyeth Country began in my teens in the early 80s.  I became enamored with a copy of Christina’s World that hung in my aunt’s house.  At that time I had no idea that Christina could only drag herself across that field.  My sister convinced my boyfriend to buy the print for me.  Suddenly, I found myself in Wyeth country in the privacy of my own bedroom.

You are in line for tomorrow

In the late 1980s, I flew to NYC to spend a day in Manhattan with my sister.  I was not supposed to end up in front of Christina in the MoMA.  As fate would have it, after standing on line for an hour with my sister at Sotheby’s (we were going to see the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels), we reached a sign that told us we were in line for the following day’s exhibit. We had no choice but to retreat to the MoMA.

Breeders' Cup

In the early 1990s, a cold autumn rain fell outside the window of my hospital room as I labored over a name for my firstborn.  Ellis Anne?  Certainly not, the monogram would be E-A-T.  Ella Elizabeth?  A family name, for certain.  My father was at the Breeders’ Cup.  My baby’s father had gone home with a cold.  In my solitude, I settled instead on Ella Christina.  Now, I wonder, was I returning to Wyeth for comfort at that vulnerable moment?

Faraway

This fall, as I drove my son from Lancaster to Reading, I noticed the stark brown landscape of Berks County and thought, Wyeth! The following week, as I poked around in my attic for the first time, taking stock of my possessions now confined to cardboard boxes the movers had stowed, I came upon a framed poster the home’s previous owner had left behind.  I pulled it down from the beam to get a closer look at the front, which faced the eaves.  To my surprise it was Wyeth’s Faraway, the squirrelly little lad with his knees pulled to his chest, his head covered by a coonskin cap.

"Depths of dirt and earth"

This weekend I traveled closer to Wyeth country than ever before, quite unexpectedly, but not uncertain of my arrival.  The dotting of the bleak winter landscape with white farmhouses, the gentle roll of the hills, the quilted land, where subtle changes from one plot to the next divide the earth into rectangular grids of varying shades and heights of vegetation, had a familiar quality.  That evening I learned I was only miles from Chadds Ford, Wyeth’s birthplace.  In my library I found one of the Wyeth books my sister had given me and read what Wyeth had to say about Pennsylvania:  “In Pennsylvania, there’s a substantial foundation underneath, of depths of dirt and earth.” 

In Kentucky, bluegrass was home, in Texas, concrete, and in Carolina, pine.  Here, in the bleakness of a Pennsylvania winter, I find myself intrigued by the still, brown earth.  Graphic art and music certainly can coexist, but when I look at a Wyeth, or when I view the landscape in Wyeth country, all that comes to mind is silence: no score, no lyrics. Just silence.

A December Letter to Friends

Now that it’s December, the still winter nights are inspiring me to look inward, quietly. I’m hitting pause to acknowledge a few special moments from this year. While snippets of songs and important conversations have paved the way for the muse on this blog for years, the tones are more muted under the influence of winter's hush.

I want to remember:

Realizing I could play the song about the gypsy on my guitar.

Pulling over just to admire a Virginia stream and spotting Tristan’s twig.

Seeing those Blue Ridge Mountains and wondering how the family ever left them for Kentucky.

Rocking on the porch of the inn while trucks and sedans breezed past on the Appalachian Trail.

Turning down that rock road and taking it real slow.

Marking my nearness to the show by the lights on the Austin capitol.

Smiling from overwhelming joy and catching a friend’s wink.

Opening the shade of a westerly window in my boudoir to find a round, morning moon there to greet me.

Watching the sun rise in the east at the breakfast table, sensing all the activity in neighboring Philly and feeling glad to be tucked into a quiet residential enclave.

Acknowledging that even severe pain is fleeting in the grand scheme of things.

Looking at my buzzing cell phone on a Friday night at nine o’clock and knowing that it has to be that gal in the bayou calling just to ask me how life is.

Padding around wooden floors in fringe moccasins, checking on nothing in particular in each room while my family sleeps.

Figuring out it's best to lie in bed at night with an earbud loaded into one ear and a pillow under the other so when the sound gives way to dreamscape I don’t wake with an earbud ache.

Sitting up in bed one night because I finally heard what the music was saying.

Hearing a song and knowing I’m not alone.

The month is waning and I fear the cards will never get sent. I wish you sweet dreams for the long winter’s nap, and some quiet in your December.

-HH

James McMurtry and Walter Benjamin at Threadgill's

The point at which my daughter realizes he is the son of the man who wrote Lonesome Dove came much later than I thought. Her eureka moment occurs while white clouds sail past a gibbous moon that’s casting a light on a gray Texas sky that doesn’t promise not to drench my leather jacket or my daughter’s silken dress. And thank God the truth didn’t crash like a lightning bolt because we were sitting on metal bleachers at Threadgill’s.

An hour had passed since my drummer friend patiently flipped through the pages of the Austin Chronicle with us at the bar in the Saxon Pub, looking at all the shows for the night and making important commentary about their relevance. Jazz at the Elephant Room or authentic Texas songwriter stuff at Threadgill's: Those were our final choices in Don’s opinion, but in my mind there really was no choice.

I was hell-bent on taking my daughter to hear James McMurtry. I even explained to her that he was Larry’s son, but there must have been too much neon shining in her eyes for the message to take seed.

I wasted no time on the ride to Threadgill's. I launched right into my first Janis Joplin song in preparation for all the photos of Janis I knew we’d see at the venue. My daughter didn’t recognize “Bobby McGee.” And not because I don’t sound like Janis, because I do, er, can, with minimal effort, (unfortunately) croon just like her. But it turns out it was “Mercedes Benz” that my daughter recognized. Or maybe she said she did only to keep me from singing more Janis. We’d already passed Peter Pan Golf, and she probably had no idea how much longer she might have to ride in the car with a woman intent on singing Janis until the cows come home.

“Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz/My friends all drive Porches I must make amends.”

We pull into the parking lot at Threadgill's, and even though the show was on the lawn, I direct my daughter inside to do some sightseeing. And there was Janis, on the wall,singing from about a dozen photos. My daughter takes one look and says, “Oh, she looks as obnoxious as she sounds.” And that just singes a wee bit because I did look up to Janis once upon a time. But as I told this story the next day, my brother-in-law offered that Janis was voted ugliest man at UT. So my daughter’s opinion is not an outlier.

We make a stop in the loo because that’s what girls do, and on the way I point out to my daughter that the man sitting at the bar wearing a black hat is none other than James himself.

Outside there are only a couple spots open on the bleachers. I lead us to a group of men, closer to my age than my daughter’s, that are seated just far enough apart to make it obvious they did not come together. I see no reason for homophobia to keep us from sitting for the show so I ask if we can sit next to one of men, and wouldn’t you know, he scoots a little closer to the nearest man to accommodate some female companionship.

When the band begins to play, I have the unexpected delight of seeing Cornbread on bass. And just as this realization sets in, my daughter reacts to the music by leaning into my ear and saying, “Now I feel like I’m really in Austin!”

James is in the mood to tell stories, and he relates a border crossing story that casts the Canadian border patrol officers in a bad light.

The music continues and James winds the crowd up with “Choctaw Bingo:”

“Strap them kids in and give ‘em a little bit of Vicodin ‘n cherry Coke/We’re going to Oklahoma to see the family reunion for the first time in years/It’s up at Uncle Slaton's cause he’s getting on in years.”

James has got a blonde with her arm in a sling dancing so wildly that you just know she used to strip or the doc has her on Vicodin for the arm.

“He’s got a Airstream trailer and a Holstein cow/ Still makes whiskey cause he still knows how/He plays at Choctaw bingo every Friday night /You know he had to leave Texas but he won’t say why.”

The men sitting around us begin to critique the dancer's technique, and my daughter shoots a movie of the gyrations with her new camera.

“He cooks that crystal meth because the shine won’t sell.”

I look back at the crowd to see all eyes are on the dancer, none on the band. James doesn’t seem to mind cause he’s watching her, too. He just keeps playing his guitar and spinning the yarn.

Back home in Pennsylvania, I have a couple books on my shelf  written by James’s dad that are memoirs of sorts. On the first page of one book, Larry states that he is sitting in the Dairy Queen in Archer City, reading an essay by Walter Benjamin on the “examination . . . of the growing obsolescence of what might be called practical memory and the consequent diminution of the power of oral narrative in our lives.” But as I sit and listen to James, it strikes me that his songs are living proof storytelling will not die in the hands of our generation of Texas songwriters.

I comment to my daughter that the songs are not just hooks, but real craft, and mention the McMurtry family proclivity for storytelling. Her eyes get real big and she says, “You mean this is Larry McMurtry’s son?”

I suppress a giggle.

James starts another song, and I look over at my daughter. She’s intently listening to James sing his tribute to “Levelland.” Levelland sounds a lot like Archer City, Larry's town. Archer City is the place my daughter calls “that godforesaken, cricket-infested town” because she does remember the day her mama drove her two hours off course from Amarillo to Fort Worth just to have Larry sign a copy of Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, only that day my she was a little girl in ponytails. But on this night of acoustic memories with Larry's son, my daughter shines brighter than the neon light.