Incorporeal Works

The end of May, 2005 the Stone Lion Tavern on High Street in Chattanooga was open for one last day, auctioning off items from the crammed and disreputable interior. Among the consolations of this sad day was my first stint behind the bar, pulling my own Guinness

Drawing a Guinness

for as long as the keg lasted - no charge, just a donation to a scholarship fund set up in memory of Chuck Pierce. Chuck was a brilliant young man who ended up dying young, his last years spent alternately working the bar at the tavern, or sitting on the customer side, drinking instead of pouring. Here is a picture of me doing what so many others had done for me, working the taps. We ended up taking one of the cabinet doors home, decorated with a varied mix of stickers, pictures and labels.

I spent some of my time between bar or bidding leaning on the rail outside, where patrons watched passersby and other traffic, especially rewarding during Riverbend, the river front music festival held each June. Homemade “Riverbend Bingo” cards were available with nominal prizes for first completions. The squares had short descriptions of sights likely to present themselves on High Street, as Riverbent revelers went to and fro - “Abuse of Spandex,” “Girl with tattoo,” “Puking on street,” “Rollerblade” and many others, some quite acerbic. Most of the regular patrons of the Stone Lion had no use for the Riverbend event other than this Bingo game.

Finally, the most awesome experience in the Stone Lion was using the men’s bathroom. The walls were graffiti intense, which was not quite enough to distract the patrons from the gothic filth. I put together three shots for a panorama - of only the walls:

Graffiti Wisdom

Apparently we lost two cats last week. First Amos, about ten years old, sickened and lost weight over a couple of weeks, first slowly, then the last three or four days, much more rapidly.

We took him to the vet’s, and in spite of their best efforts, he died. The next day, determined to give the remaining two cats and one dog the best care they could use, we took all three to the vets for examination and any necessary shots.

One cat wriggled away in the ten feet between the car and the front door of the vet’s office. We and some of the personnel from the vet office looked and looked, but Chelsea had taken off out of earshot and sight.

Being mere humans, we were vexed that ten years plus of care, affection and nuture counted for less than the discomfort of a car ride and the alien smells of the vet office.

Cats, of course, have their own priorities, and we have not seen Chelsea since, although we have searched a widening area from the vet office outwards, and posted notices in several neighborhood businesses.

Now Barbara is scanning classifeds for kittens. One dog and one cat is not the population she wants. She wants kittens.\

Chelsea, you know not what you hath wrought.

When I was eleven, my grandfather the Colonel took me to Savannah beach for a fishing trip, just the two of us. My grandparents had just moved back to Augusta for my grandfather’s retirement, and my mother and grandmother were occupied with cleaning up the house from the tenants who had lived there for the years Boozle was posted elsewhere. Menfolk were an encumbrance for such undertakings, so we were dispatched to the beach for a male bonding weekend.

We spent hours on a pier dangling our lines in the ocean, with little result except for one small fish I insisted on placing in our cooler. Then I went swimming. My grandfather, who could deny his grandchildren nothing, rented a float for me to paddle around in the surf. I stroked it out into the calmer water beyond the breakers, and drowsed away an hour or two. Not liking to squint into the sun, I stayed on my belly, the fish belly white of my back exposed to the August sun. My grandfather finally managed to get me to shore, and we walked back to the motel. My back was already on fire, and I soaked in the freshwater fountain in the motel courtyard, cooling my reddening shoulders and back. My grandfather, beginning to be alarmed, bought some Noxema cream to spread on my back. It did no good, and by morning, after a sleepless night, blisters the size of half dollar coins were popping up on my shoulders.

The trip back to Augusta was long and agonizing, for me due to the pain of my scorched back, for my grandfather by the thought that he had failed to protect me from myself. The Colonel was absolutely devoted to all of us grandchildren, and his mental and emotional pain was at least as painful as my physical suffering.

Days of lying on the couch in an upstairs room, belly down with cloths soaked in tea spread across my blistered back followed our return, with my mother and grandmother in constant attendance on me. My grandfather hovered in the background, suffering such guilt that my grandmother refrained from chastising him after the initial shock of seeing my back.

Fifty years later, my grandparents and my mother are gone, and the story of my sunburned back I can relate with no sense of pain. I am sure that until his death, my grandfather remembered that day with undiminished pain. Parenthood and grandparenthood have made  me understand what he felt. Where love is felt so strongly, responsibility for pain remains long after the event.

I understand that bars and pubs and taverns exist to sell beer and alcohol of all kinds, everything else on the agenda is sales support for adult beverages. And certainly, having done my share, I understand that loud conversation goes hand in mug with serving booze.

None of the above reason and temperate comment helps on a night as we have had, however. Each Sunday night, a shifting group of musicians who love Irish and Gaelic music jam at our favorite neighborhood beer emporium, the Tremont Tavern. No cover, no demands on the audience, just musicians enjoying what they love the best. We love their music, as well. Tonight, two couples at the bar were so engrossed in their loud conversation that we had trouble hearing the acoustic sounds of the Celtic jammers. We eventually moved closer to them, and enjoyed ourselves.

There are two ironies here, since the conversation was so loud, I heard most of what the two couples were saying. They were all very impressed by a band that performed late one night after the big show at Riverbend, the eclectic music festival played out on the Tennessee River at Chatanooga. The Travelin’ McCourys are the sons of Del McCoury, Bluegrass Power, who tour in their own band when not appearing with their father.

The enthusiasm of the folks next to us for McCoury music was a  bit odd since their converstation interfered with some of the root music of Bluegrass. Celtic heritage emigrants carried the bones and foundation of Bluegrass to this country centuries before Bill Monroe and others, including the McCouries, shaped the old harmonies and instrumental riffs into the compelling music that so entranced the two couples at the Tavern. The second irony here is that only applauding the end of each group improvisation by the Celtic musicians interrupted the flow of racous conversation. Why could they not just listen?

Today is the longest day of the year, when the northern hemisphere is tipped as far towards the sun as it will be until next June 21. The slow counter-rotation leading to the winter solstice begins tomorrow. Today has been brutally hot, so appropriate to the first day of summer in the South.

We have had a whole week of long days, one cat sick and at the vet’s twice, dying the second day, and another escaping Barbara’s grip as we were loading all the remaining animals into the vet’s office for shots. No sign of Chelsea the Fugitive (from what? three squares, shelter from the weather and hostile animals?) We have posted notices around the neighborhood.

It is a long time until October.

…and Harvey and Tazy and Harriet the Wonder Airedale and Sam and Chuck and Mr. Mange and Baron - too many pets gone on before us to number.

Amos, whose recovery looked likely, reversed course early this morning and joined that loyal company of cats and dogs who only left us when they could not help it. I took Amos back to the Vet when he developed breathing difficulties this morning just after breakfast, and was called from the clinic just at twelve noon. The doctor was upset and apologetic, saying that Amos simply stopped breathing, failing to respond to CPR or anything else.

Continue reading ‘Amos and Stella and Tucker…’ »

Growing up, my sisters and I competed for many things, from who chose the TV programs to after school snacks to who got the funnies in the morning. If you were able to read the funnies completely before your siblings did, You Won. Sunday was the Playoff each week, whoever won first access to the Sunday Funnies was the champ for the week.

My sisters, being devious females, younger than I, would use my status as eldest and male to undermine me at every turn. Skillfully, they would sob and enlist my mother as referee in many disputes. “Skipper, you are the oldest and a boy, you should be nicer to your little sisters.” Sometimes I had to give up the hard-won Sunday Comics.

Sulking, I would sit at the counter in the playroom, spooning in my cereal and waiting for the crumpled and stained pages of Dagwood, Dick Tracy, Lil’ Abner and Peanuts after my sisters had worked their destructive worst upon them. Of course, my sisters never gloated, never smirked at me over the ruined pages of the comics. Not much, they didn’t.

Many years later, tempered by real life and children and now grandchildren, my sisters are quite nice and generous to me. I know that is only because they now have their own Sunday Comics, though.

People tend to outlive all their pets but the last one.

Today, our ten-year old cat named Amos went to the vets, very thin and weak. We feared the worst. After some tests, it may be that the only problem is that he is very undernourished. Amos recently went on a walkabout for a week or ten days, finally showing back up very thin. Barbara thinks he may have been shut up someplace.

Andy, Chelsea, Amos

The vet is keeping him overnight, after ruling out feline leukemia or kidney problems. Liver functions are consistent with too little to eat. Amos also has an upper respiratory infection that makes him unable to smell efficiently. Cats that cannot smell usually won’t eat. An overnight visit with the vets, big antibiotics and careful monitoring of food and water intake will tell us more by tomorrow afternoon.

The picture here, right to left, is of Amos, the very black cat, Chelsea, the gray and white middle cat, and Andy on the left, striped tabby reddish orange. Andy decamped a year ago over alpha animal issues with Lucy the Wonder Dog, a mixed breed rescue. We see Andy at a distance once in a while. He is quite well nourished, but avoids us completely. Cats are imperfectly domesticated, and totally dedicated to having their own way. If Andy gets sick, he might come back, but only on his terms, I suspect.

We are hopeful of Amos’s recovery and peaceful coexistence with Lucy.

Between the explosion of digital electronics, the internet and wireless technology, musicians have in the past dozen years been able to make their own audiences. Web pages, song downloads, storage of large volumes of music in small, portable players have set up parallel distribution systems for indie and alternative bands. Some of these developments, principally the internet file-sharing sites, have felt the wrath of the recording industry, seeing their own business model threatened.

I look around Chattanooga, my home town, and every night of the week there are small venues available to bands and singer/songwriters in dozens of locations, covering a wide variety of music. Most will never have the old style major label recording contract, they sell their self-burned CDs, or even better, offer downloads on the internet payable through PayPal or similar services. In many of the places I visit for entertainment, or just a beer, employees jack in their personal iPods into the business-owned sound system, and play mixes they have created themselves from a variety of sources.

I have been amazed recently to see the extent of one type of music, familiar and well-established, but enjoying accelerating growth. Bluegrass enthusiasts gather for jams, festivals and post their thoughts in online websites dedicated to their music.  Young bluegrass musicians are coming along, sometimes mixing other influences into their acoustic compositions. I heard one such youngster this afternoon on NPR; Sarah Jarosz, just turned 18 and releasing a recording. Traditional music of other kinds also prospers, sounding from small clubs and bars on odd nights, sometimes in an open mike setting, sometimes in a regular jam, like the Celtic evening each Sunday night at our favorite place, The Tremont Tavern.

This democratization of the music business, dispersed and decentralized, has made it possible for thousands of musicians to support themselves partly through their music, occasionally not needing day jobs.

I like it.

Growing up in an expanding neighborhood on Lookout Mountain in the late 1940s, before television or the electronic world which resulted from the invention of semiconductors, I roamed the mixed woods and homes within a few blocks of our house, often with a group of children of varied ages. We might play a game of sketchy baseball, without bases or complete teams, or football without goal lines or pads. We explored the woody areas not yet turned into yards and houses.

Continue reading ‘A World of Play’ »