more normal than not

I bought a satellite radio system…Sirius…to listen to while I deliver the mail.

I started out listening to the news…NPR, etc….but now I listen to a channel called “Soul Town” almost exclusively.

I guess I’d rather funk stuff up than educate myself.

I’d been hearing a song by this guy, Shorty Long, play occasionally…but until I heard some of the backstory, he really didn’t capture my imagination.

He died when he was 29 in a boating accident on the Detroit River…trying to save a friend.

He was one of two…the other being Smokey Robinson…artists on the Motown label who was allowed to produce himself.

Here’s one of his songs….

“Function at the Junction” Shorty Long

There’s an interesting story here.

Shorty Long isn’t a new favorite…but I want to know what this guy’s life was all about.

He had a short career…limited success…a couple of hits that were really pretty minor…and then he was gone.

I’ve never heard many people talking about Shorty Long.

Here’s a hit that he had that was one of the bigger ones…

“Here Comes the Judge” Shorty Long

Kind of a novelty song…came out when Flip Wilson was popularizing the catch-phrase…that was one of the bigger hits that Shorty had during his career.

It’s that “died trying to save his friend” mention that caught my attention.

Lots of people die.

Some die tragically.

There are a lot of forgotten artists out there, too. I can’t even remember them all.

There’s a lot of them, though.

But what about Shorty? He’s out having a good time on the river, something happens…and he dies trying to save his buddy.

What about Shorty? There is a story here that deserves to be told.

Here’s another one of his songs that Mitch Ryder redid at a faster tempo and had a hit with later…you might recognize this one.

Shorty was the first to do it…

“Devil With the Blue Dress” Shorty Long

I didn’t even know who Shorty Long was before I heard “Function at the Junction” on the radio.

I know a little about him now….but not much.

Here’s one more song…and then I’ll go…

“Lillie of the Valley” Shorty Long

This is a story that deserves some investigation.

I told Jenny on our way into town yesterday that sometimes I feel like I want to just keep driving.

Sometimes I feel like I want to gas it up and just go.

I just want to get somewhere….get somewhere “away”.

That I told them before I busted a move was more than a courtesy….I know that Jenny and the kids would be concerned long before I hit Memphis…they’d start to wonder why I was doing what I was doing on the downward slope to Knoxville.

I couldn’t get away with an escape from the everyday humdrum if I kept the exit secret from my passengers.

I’m no hijacker.

Later that day, we discovered why the coolant was disappearing from the overflow tank.

The minivan had overheated the day before (that’s a story that needs to be told, too…Jenny and the kids handling the steaming emergency in competent fashion…but I’ll save their story for another day…), but after topping everything off and then bringing the car back up to “temperature”, I didn’t see any hissing or steam…and the leak…wherever it was…remained a mystery.

We drove into town without incident…but when we checked the overflow tank, it was down again.

When we got home, Jenny said, “See? It’s steaming again…”

I popped the hood…and after looking around the engine compartment, noticed a slight stream of water coming from a heater valve …a plastic heater valve…back by the firewall…that was hitting the hot engine and steaming….

Sssssssssssssssssssssssss…..

“There it is!!!” I said….. (probably only one exclamation point on that one, in reality…I wasn’t that excited).

When I reached out to touch the part, it let loose with more dramatic intent….

WHOOOSHPISHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…..SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

It was a gusher.

And that was so much better than wondering what where the problem was.

Something I can see….something I can put my hand on…something that I can possibly fix.

These are the small comforts that migrate into my life on occasion.

It’s the mysteries that I can’t figure out that bother me.

So I went to the parts store in the little Toyota truck…Nate in the passenger seat…bought the 10 dollar part…got home…and 10 minutes later, the car was fixed.

It took longer to get the tools together than it did to fix the car.

Imagine what would have happened if I was a man without any impulse control?!

We might have been somewhere out in the desert….cruising along and wondering why the overflow tank level kept dropping…when that part decided to finally give way completely and left us worse than just stranded.

It might have been bad.

I’VE GOT CHILDREN IN THE CAR!!! WE CAN’T BE DRIVING OUT INTO THE DESERT IF THINGS ARE GOING TO BE STEAMING LIKE THAT!!! THAT’S NOT GOOD PARENTING!!!!

(I couldn’t remember if I’d ever titled a post “away”…so I did a search on my site with the keyword “away”.  I don’t think I’d have time to read all of the posts that must have mentioned the word.)

What’s this obsession with “away”?

Am I some terrified, moss-free rolling stone, gathering up speed as I move through it all, but thinking “we really shouldn’t do this! I should hold my ground…I have responsibilities…” or am I just another monument to inertia?

I may just bust a move one of these days…but first I need to let these new shoes cure a little more.

The concrete needs time to set, you know.

“Going Up the Country” Canned Heat

I stopped off at the property we’re going to buy the other day and was surprised at how different it felt.

It had been about a week since I’d swung in there….we don’t own it… so I haven’t been spending all my time poking around on the 7 acres yet….and it really felt different from what it was in the early spring before everything started to really grow.

One week of rapid growth and the vegetation had taken over.

I guess that’s a good sign….maybe it means that the ground is good fertile ground…but it was amazing how much smaller a “jungle” felt than when the property was a grassland winter savannah with bare oak trees on it.

When the ground can just do what it wants…and nobody is rushing in to clip and mow…it turns into a jungle pretty fast.

The house we live in now was like that when we bought it…vegetation taking over…fields full of Pampas grass, vines and thorns and trash to haul away….no windows, raggedy doors.

I forget that it was like that.

It’s a lot nicer now.

That’s encouraging.

Having done it once, I wonder if it’s smart to want to do it again?

Some of these mornings, I feel kind of tired.

I shouldn’t feel tired at the end of a pretty good nights sleep.

I SHOULD BE ENERGIZED!!

Pre-caffeine, I should be energized after sleeping….

But I’m not.

And here I am thinking about dragging my family into another bout of “tear apart and put together”.

That’s really kind of wacky.

But I saw this property with my eyes…and then I saw it in my head…cleaned out barn and fixed up house, path down to the pond…small dock….goats in the fenced in “lower pasture”…chicken house in the fenced in garden area…gravel on the mud driveway…bigger house on the upper field…running trail on the old logging road that cuts over to the old church…maybe a studio or shop somewhere on the property….and probably a lot more…a lot more that I can’t even remember….

I saw all this in my head when I finished seeing it with my eyes.

So my perception is kind of colored by my dreams.

I’m looking beyond what I can’t even see for all the green that sprung up around me….looking beyond to what I hope is still there…but hidden.

(…and now, the plunge of the french press and instant caffeine fueled lucidity. We’ll see….)

Maybe this lucidity is a time-released thing…I don’t feel anything different yet.

I think that I exist somewhere in the sweet spot between experience and naiveté… I have enough experience to know that I can do this…but not enough experience to know that I shouldn’t want to do this.

New construction is so much easier…so much cleaner. I would know a little bit more about what to expect. I could see farther along, maybe.

But to take something that was lost….gone…on the downward slope to abandonment…and resurrect it…now, that’s pretty exciting.

Maybe that’s what I see when I stare into the new jungle…a chance to make something good again.

I’m going to sit here and drink some coffee…and remember that it’s pretty exciting to resurrect.

Who am I kidding? It’s pretty darn terrifying to resurrect something in my head that I may not be able to even finance.

And to top it off, I can’t get this darn horse to act right…he won’t even start trying to push this cart.

People say that a dog is man’s best friend.

I guess that may be true….I guess.

I’ve had some wonderful dog friends, although I’m not sure if I’d consider any of them my “best friends”.

Our “heart to hearts” were usually pretty non-verbal.

Maybe that’s the secret…all these words get in the way. Maybe a real heart to heart doesn’t need words?

The hard thing about a dog, for me sometimes, is that they’re gone so soon.

A long life for a dog might be 18 years for one of the little ones.

If you’re going to fall in love with one of the bigger ones, it usually is a lot less.

These dogs don’t stick around like we hopefully do. They don’t wear out their welcome…unless they’re a pain in the rear and chew up all your nice crap.

They live a concentrated life of affection and enthusiasm…bounding and wagging, eating and loving.

I like dogs a lot.

I was pondering how short their lives are the other day while I was cramming letters into mailboxes…and I started thinking about something that sounded like a nice possibility.

Now, it doesn’t have a theological leg to stand on.

Like a lot of things that I ponder, it probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

I think that dogs have souls…and maybe…maybe…maybe they go to Heaven.

Now, if you talk to anyone who knows how Heaven works and who does and who doesn’t have a soul…they’d think that the concept of a dog having a soul is kind of heretical.

Dominion and all, you understand?

Dogs can’t have a soul if we’re the stewards of this “earthly kingdom”. We’re better than dogs. Dogs can’t have souls…right?

I came to the conclusion that a dog’s life is short because they act like advance guards or “scouts” for the people who love and take care of them on Earth.

I imagined a scenario like this:

A new dog comes padding quietly into the “Place”…the place where God is…and after the Dog clears his throat to get God’s attention, he says, “God…can I talk to you for a second? I had something that I was wondering about…”

God says “Oh, you can talk to me for more than a second if you need to! I’m pretty busy with stuff all the time…but what’s time to God?! Take as much time as you need…”

The “new dog” sits down at God’s feet and starts to talk….

“It’s about that Guy…the one who was with me on Earth. Do you remember him? I loved him so much….that Guy…”

“Right…I know you did. He loved you, too, you know.” God said.

“Well,” said the dog “you know that the Guy was a pretty good guy, don’t you? I mean he was a really great guy. He loved me like crazy, that guy did. You knew all that already, though, didn’t you?”

“You love that Guy, too…don’t you? You love him, too, right God?”

“That Guy? I love him more than you’ll ever know…for a lot of reasons that never would enter your mind. I love that Guy…your Guy.”

“I thought so…I was just checking, though. I want him to be OK, you know?” said the Dog.

“He’ll be OK…he’ll be better than OK…and yes, I do love him…”

“Good…I thought so, but good.  I’ll let you get back to what you were doing…like you needed my permission, though…anyway, thanks for seeing me. Thanks for taking care of the Guy, too”

God said, “Don’t mention it. You come see me anytime….the door’s always unlocked. Thanks for coming….”

And as the dog padded out, his mind at ease again, God watched him go and thought, “I love these dogs…I’m glad they’re around. That was a good thing…inventing dogs. I’m glad I didn’t stop with cats…”

“If Dogs Run Free” Bob Dylan

I heard this song and thought, “What a wonderful accompaniment that would be for a story about being lost in Panthertown…what a frantically wonderful soundtrack to a frenzied trip back home….”

So…here’s the song….and here’s the story…

“Jungle Boogie” Kool and the Gang

I worked at a summer camp on Lake Sapphire in North Carolina for a couple of summers….taught “mountaineering”…sometimes taking kids on climbing trips but usually just taking out hikes.

The camp property butted up to an area called “Panthertown”.

It’s a pretty amazing place…big rock walls, good hiking…and…

Impenetrable Rhododendron.

The day that I got lost, the mountaineering staff was up in Panthertown doing some orienteering practice. My map skills are minimal. I’m not a “nature king”. I can walk around in the woods with the best of them…but I don’t always know where I am.

It’s not a great mystery to me that I was the one who got lost.

We were making our way through one of the “impenetrable rhododendron forests” when I got separated from the group.

Actually, I separated myself from the group.

“I’m going around it THIS WAY…” I said.

After struggling with the leaves and branches for a while, I poked my head as far up as the tangle allowed and yelled for my other professional guides.

“HEY…WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?”

I could hear a faint sound off in the distance.

I couldn’t hear anything that sounded like the group.

(I found out later that they ditched me…they heard me but didn’t know where I was so…they ditched me…left me out there in the woods. It was one of those “every man for himself” kind of hikes…”we’ve got to save ourselves” kind of situations…)

So there I was…lost in Panthertown…tangled up in the vegetation…unable to see anything but the wall of green.

It was more irritating than anything…not scary, just kind of inconvenient.

After pushing through the rhododendron without any good result for a while, I jumped into the stream and pushed through the leaves and branches there.

I guess that I must have felt that following the water down was a better bet than just thrashing around in the woods the way I’d been doing.

I could thrash around in the water. That might be a better choice.

After a while of “under and over” hiking….my glasses fogged and covered with bits of grass and other vegetation…I came to the bigger river that I knew was down there “somewhere”….and followed it until I came to a familiar trail…and then I ran back to camp before it got dark and they sent the professionals out to find the “poor lost hiker”.

I’m glad I made it back before I made the evening news.

That would have been embarrassing to make the national news.

When I got back to camp, my friends told me “yeah…we heard you yelling…but we decided we couldn’t wait”. They were having a hard time, too…so decided to go on back to camp if they could push through the vegetation.

WTF.

Anyway….I guess it all worked out for the best.

I’m here, aren’t I?!

Sometimes being lost doesn’t mean that you’ll never find your way…sometimes it just means that it’s going to take a little longer to get where you want to go.

photo from here