Sunday, November 17, 2013
What makes a Sunday morning? Perhaps it is a big breakfast
of waffles and pecans along with strong rich tasting coffee? Maybe it the
service where common absolution is delivered?
Perhaps it is the slowness of this the last space that exists between
two weeks? I don’t know what makes Sunday morning for you but for me it is the
quiet I find when I first get up, before people rise and begin to set and lay
out the agenda for the day.
Ola Belle Reed was an old timely bluegrass singer. She had a small following. You can find her on Smithsonian Folkways
records. Right now on this silent Sunday morning she is singing in my head.
Back when I lived in Delaware WDSD out of Dover would play stained
glass bluegrass late on Sunday night. Gospel
and twang, oh how I loved it. Funny that
affinity it was not anywhere near popular music at the time. But I think the
joy I found in hearing those songs came both from my family roots, Mom from
Kentucky and Dad from North Carolina coupled with my main musical taste, the
Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead was
really nothing more than a bluegrass band infused with lots and lots of LSD.
I digress. Ms. Reed with her hardcore hill country voice was
the radio show’s host’s favorite. Well
there was also the duo Jim and Jesse but the show would always close with a
song called Tear Down the Fences. The opening line had something about Sunday
morning and that is probably why Ola Belle is in my head today. That opening was followed by a chorus that
was roughly, “Tear down the fences that fence us all in, fences created by such
evil men.” As I sit drinking my coffee and milk that song is sitting in the
back of my brain. Somewhere I have that tune on a cassette tape but who knows where
it is now. Oh how many fences there are, but I am refusing to look at the news
or to listen to NPR.
On Sunday I mornings I always try and make some coffee. In days past I would use Kenyan whole beans
that I obtained from the omnipresent Starbucks.
Now I use Biggby’s Best, it is a local brand and it is good. When you don’t have children Sunday mornings
are for coffee and newspapers. (Oh how
twentieth century, of me perhaps I should say Java and the ‘Net.) When you do
have children these first days are for sports and if it is an off weekend for
laundry and the raking leaves and whatever else your far too busy life has
pushed down the line.
For me what I have pushed down the line is my writing. My A Space True and North blog has had no
new entries in several weeks. With my cat Coltrane pressed up against my side I
have decided to pound out some new lines. There are reasons I have not been
writing, some mechanical, some emotional.
I really can’t get into the emotional because I am merely a third party
to a time consuming drama. If I were to speak of it my mere words could change
the dynamics drastically. Thus I must be vague.
Still you should know I am an integral part of one small aspect of the
resolution. Somebody else’s world has
blown up and I have to attend to one of the victims, my son. My hope is that he will come out of this
stronger.
The mechanical stuff is pretty easy to explain. The school board is in turmoil. We are meeting every week. Reams of electronic paper are showing up in
my inbox daily. I also have a job. Between a full time job and a full time civic
duty not much time is left for anything else.
And then there was my laptop.
A few weeks ago I bought a new laptop. This computer on which I now work was the
cheapest most barebones models out there.
It does not have a touch screen. On
the other hand it does have a great deal of storage. The reason I bought this
model was because my old Gateway has issues.
Well, my old computer had two main issues. About a year ago one of my cats in a fit of
pique decided to inform of his or her displeasure. This was accomplished by said cat peeing on
my keyboard. While the computer still “worked”
every time I powered it up the odor was just nasty. Ergo a new computer seemed to be all but
mandated.
The other reason for the new computer is that like most
members of my generation music is important to me. I have about 50 days’ worth of music to craft
into the soundtrack of a given day.
Using my old computer had become complicated. The amount of old files and music had about
absorbed the storage capacity thus slowing the overall speed of the unit. Argh. So
to summarize I had a slow computer that when on and working smelled like cat
urine.
One of the evil companies I do business with sent me a $50
gift Visa for having their credit card, a credit I should mention I do not
deserve. That coupled with a Best Buy ad got me a stripy HP for about $225 out
of my pocket. Now I get to write again.
As I look out the window that what I see is the brown of
late fall. Barren trees line my street
for in the past week all of the leaves have fallen. Over the last seven days we have had spikes
in the temperature between highs of 40 F and 65 F. The music playing is Of Monsters and Men Little Talks. The kitchen is now smelling with the smell of
sweet, sweet apple butter. Between the
time I woke up and reached this paragraph my wife has awoken. She is fighting a sore throat. I made her oatmeal with brown sugar and
shared with her the coffee I had brewed and stashed in the carafe.
We have some found apples that will rot if not dealt with
soon. As a result she has proceeded to
commence making apple butter. I am in
reverie right now in anticipation of eating apple butter on a homemade slab of
bread. Crunchy French bread with a bit of sea salt matched up with apple butter
sounds like heaven. A slice of good
extra sharp cheddar would round out that experience.
Looking out the window I think I need to bring in the herb
box. It has survived so far but it will
not make it much longer. Snow will fall
soon. It is November here in the
northern tier. The rain has stopped and this may be my best opportunity. After I bring in the plants I will take a
walk about the block. A warm wet day is close to my idea of heaven.
On the artistic front last night Secundus and I watched
movies. We watched an Irish film called “A Film With Me In It”. Dark, dark black comedy, but for being a very
small film it was fun. A relatively high
and unexpected body count but it had a certain gleeful wink and chuckling
tone. It is currently on the Movie
Channel. DVR it for when the major
studio fare is not working for you.
I also watched “The
Words”. “The Words” was really flawed but there were bits of it that I quite
enjoyed. Mostly the pieces with Jeremy
Irons stand out as quite fun. Dennis
Quaid looked out of place, especially with Olivia Wilde. Bradley Cooper could have been used to better
effect.
Greg Laswell has come on the music. Very nice piece, called “It Comes and Goes In Waves.”
It comes and
goes in waves, I
Am only led to
wonder why
It comes in goes
in waves, I
Am only led to
wonder why
Why I, why I try
This is for the
ones who stand
For the ones who
try again
For the ones who
need a hand
For the ones who
think they can.
