One year ago today: December 7, 2017, almost fifty years.
Five years ago today: December 7, 2013, that is good enough.
Nine years ago today: December 7, 2009, they got him!
Random years ago today: December 7, 2017, animal tracks.
Happy birthday, Eatmore. That’s one of the few gals I know that definitely remembers me. What a fling that was in 1970s. You see, that was when the Hippie generation finally left home en masse. It was the time slot where most of the things talked about (and erroneously associated with) in the 60’s actually began to happen. I did not know it at the time, but she was to be the last gal I every did anything really, truly new with in my youth. I did a lot of reminiscing this week, want to hear some? Sure, but I warn you it is trivia.
Chip dip. It did not always exist, you know. It was a late-comer to the community where I grew up. I never heard of it until I was around ten. Then the kids at school started talking about it. Suddenly chip dip was a must for after-school platter parties, something else I never had. After school, you deliver the newspapers, you chop the firewood, you practice the piano, you have supper, then you crash. Parties? Who the hell do you think you are, the goddam King of England? Unquote.
A sample of this “chip dip” finally made it to the church banquet. I happened to be watching when some of the elders watched the kids scooping it up. The look on their faces was “What’s the matter, now store-bought potato chips aren’t good enough for you any more?” But I never knew what they thought of it. I saw Ernst, the eldest of the elders, go over, pick up a chip, load it with dip and bite into it. He took one or two chews and stopped. Dead silence descended on the hall. He could not spit it out. With labor, he swallowed, and sat back down.
I sort of liked it [chip dip] after a while, but avoid the chemical-laced commercial brands. I still like it on a baked potato, but really, the one kind I prefer is the one with French onion soup mix. This is day 367 of my diet and my weight has stabilized around 180 lb. However, I am dropping inches fast, finally. A month ago, I could just slide into jeans that are already baggy on me. All my belts are past the factory holes. My waist size is a comfortable 34” and that hard to lose belly-fat is ever so gradually giving way.
I said gradually, but it is detectable and I gotta like that. The skinny jeans I wore a few weeks ago, I can pinch more than an inch now, in fact, four inches, see photo. As usual, I buy nothing new [clothes] until I know the change is permanent. I’ll say it again, folks. If you need to diet, start today. It is worth every moment of what you got to go through. I waited a year to put on jeans like this again.
North Dakota.
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It’s not a priority but the yard is going to get a bit of attention. I finally have the name of those plants I called ‘African spikes’. You put them in the ground and they grow. I’m about to find out if they’ll thrive in bright sunlight. They are called mother-in-law tongues and somehow that seems apt. I have lots of horticulture for you this afternoon. The grapefruit tree has to go soon. The rule is after it is cut away, you need three years before any new citrus trees can be planted on the property. That makes it nearly 2022 before I get my lemon trees. I’ve learned that pecan trees grow to look like oaks, which would be okay in the back.
You have to narrow your eyes to see where I’m pointing. It is those spotted spike shaped plants in the undergrowth. I’ll clear those vines away when the sun gets higher. It might be another mistake getting the vines cut, but they seem to grow everywhere around here on their own. It’s those mother-in-law tongues I want to get at. There are around 150 of them back in there all along the fence. I want to plant them all around the perimeter of my yard where ever there is chain link fencing. My thinking is they will help disguise the fence without growing anything that gets tangled in it.
Orange trees. It seems that in a mature orange orchard, the roots all become intermeshed to the extent years are needed to let the system naturally decay. I once watched some farm land being cleared by an implement called a root rake, towed by a caterpillar. But I kind of recall the cost (I was only around seven years of age) as being $2,000 per acre. I would not want to know the price today.
Next item was dogwood trees. My horticulture lady says don’t plant them where I was going to.
The reason? She says the flowers are nice, but when they fall, they will stain anything underneath the color of the petals, usually pink or yellow. Good, I was going to put one in the front yard where I usually park. I don’t, as a rule, drive pink cars. She’s giving me some starter plants, such as crepe myrtle, Mexican petunia, and plumeria. I just love the way women say that word, ‘petunia’. I don’t know what these plants look like and I’m too old to learn a new vocabulary I might use once.
ADDENDUM
Here’s a better view of the mother-in-law tongues. I’ve had enough time to review the audition. Yep, he comps, but it is a rather advance blend of comping and, although I don’t know that he is aware, it follows that CAGED system. He claims not 400, but 1400 songs in his repertoire and that is almost a sure sign he has been playing the old folk’s homes. I don’t know what the correlation is, but a song list like that always means he plays to seniors a lot.
Another tendency, this one more understandable, is that if a song has been released in many versions, he rarely picks the most popular one. Invariable he goes for the version with the most guitar work. So he plays Sawyer Brown’s version of “Six Days”, where I play the Ferlin Husky which sold the most. This was a constant in every tune like that as we went over material—he has never listened to either the other instruments or the audience’s preferences. I call it “the Hippie syndrome”, but mostly when I remember that I call it that. Today I will learn the original of “Long Tall Texan”.
We could play out with a couple more once-overs. I videoed a couple of songs and he’s satisfied that I’m a stage man. Let’s wish he remembers that when he rehearses anything with the droll crop of wannabes he’ll inevitably bump into. On the other hand, they may reject him for the grounds that he cannot play exact riffs. My bass playing works best with basic but distinctive chops Alas, he could not even play that characteristic guitar part to “Here’s A Quarter”, the part that makes the song. He’s on beat, but the nature of how he chords noticeably slants the music back toward the middle area where he plays his own style. Not the best formula for a band whose aim is to provide a solid show. I know a lot about comping because it is the only way I can play piano in a band.
He’s really playing the same thing all the time. But I can work with that. I have a carved-in-stone rule to never stilt my playing to match any guitarist, the audience quickly picks up on who is doing the job right. It means you know who becomes the stage darling once again all over again. If I had to spell it out, I’d say it sounds like what it is, a guitarist who has finally met his match struggling to keep up with a real bassist. And I am more than totally okay with that. Really, and I’m not just saying.
