Low Light

Drinking with cops in New Orleans requires discipline.  I can’t go shot for shot, and I’ve got the body weight.  Better to concentrate on the games I can win.  Flirting with the pretty bartenders.  Naming that tune. Pickled eggs.

We’re rounding out the Tomato Festival at the French Market.  It doesn’t get any more Midwest than that, absent the Zydeco.  We’re rounding out sunny skies and I have delicate skin so a dark side street tavern is my answer to SPF5o.  A bar dog sleeping at my feet.  Ronnie Earl on the Juke.

I had planned a week of fishing in Montana, late spring trout and rapidly moving water.  Casting long and a good brace of sky.   Coming home instead to these rough streets and pulling in a line of favors to ride with the city’s knights.  Riding the night shift so you can bet I’ve been buckled up and vested, using my combat lenses to maintain a sensible perspective.  Low profile in that low light.

Received, after a bit of forwarding, my official invitation to our 35th Class reunion.  Your committee has been busy lining up entertainment, food and shelter.  It would be a shame to let them down with anything less than record attendance this August.  Rich McDowell has even organized a golf outing for the more sporting among you.   Someone among the inner circle has arranged a tour of the High School for Saturday afternoon.  (I spent most of my Junior and Senior year offering explanations in the superintendent’s office so I would be interested to see where the rest of you attended classes.)

The questionnaire includes the query:  What is your best/worst memory?  After thirty-five years of pills and alcohol that shows an amazing predilection for optimism.  And yet already there is Randy Bishop’s jokes, Audrey Bishop’s smile.   Barry Zebuhr’s amazing talent.  Easier than I thought to mine for happiness there.

Here I’m sitting on the sidelines of a heavily armed fraternity.  Abita beer.  Checking equipment and killing time toward another tour.  Thinking about trout leaping toward deep Montana skies and pretty Iowa girls in that dim past.  Low light.

Dave/La.

New Shoes

Mondays

Now the brides are assembling. Call the month June already and call collect because the economy is tight and we’re all pinching pennies. Or pinching the bottoms of bridesmaids if we’re already into the wine. We are, of course, and practically uninvited everywhere. Tucking extra battery packs and CF cards into tuxedo pockets, bouncing flashes off cathedral ceilings. Culling the herd in VFW halls and state park picnic shelters. Earning a living old school while we wait for travel visas and renewed vaccinations.

Call the horizon simply by that closer stand of trees.  Or call it over water by watching the curve of lake shore disappear.  I spent the morning calling the dog back from her pursuit of deer.  May mud underfoot and May flowers everywhere.  Almost the end of the run for crayfish in Louisiana.  Almost the end of planting season in Illinois.  Almost the official start of summer highways.

I’ve hung a baby swing in the backyard oak, the second time in almost twenty-five years.  I wiped the rain away this afternoon and plopped a diapered bottom in for a maiden voyage.  Tiny feet soaring toward the clouds.  Now I’m on deck for a Memorial Day cookout, grill smoking in the rain, guitar trying to keep pace with Juliana Finch on the stereo.  Having a bit of holiday and wishing you the same.

Give a listen to a piece of Juliana yourself:

Burning Down

Dave/IL

Broken Lines

Running the highway north, home to home.  Weather gray behind me and nothing but storms ahead.  You can practically count the sky as one black cloud this afternoon with lightning breaking against the trees.  Dog curled up in the front seat like another small black cloud.

I’ve left the land of  café au lait 300 miles behind me, drinking a rougher brew from a gas station paper cup.  Blowing through Mississippi like an eager, evil wind.  Georgia on my mind, or at least Flannery O’Connor.  Every hitchhiker in this downpour is The Misfit.  Every service stop clerk a grotesque.

Kris Delmhorst on the iPod.  There’s the comfort.  Her voice sweet and steady as the red car leans into the curves at Jackson.  I’m swerving around commuters and she’s singing “Mean Old Wind” as the banjo clips the tempo.  I ease off the accelerator as the radar detector pipes a warning and Delmhorst downshifts to “Lullaby 101.”

Now both of us are talking about the broken white lines.  Kris to a lost love, me to comfort the miserable lab pup.  How many thousand more until we cross to Illinois?  Dashing around Memphis, racing away from Blytheville, setting our far scope on Sikeston.  GPS ticking away the miles to the next rest area, next snap of leash in wind.

We’re cresting hills now in rain so heavy we seem to be cresting waves.  Wipers frantic.  Brakes a little mushy on the slopes.  That need for speed as we cross arbitrary borders between cities, counties, states.  Stiching those broken bars together.  Blowing home.

Dave/LA-IL

Listen To A Little Of Broken White Line

Queen Of Hearts

Hair like flames.  You can’t help burning for her.  Channeling Billy Holiday.  Torch songs.

The piano player is drinking whiskey between sets and I’m buying all the rounds.  Bad craziness on Bourbon Street the next block over.  Saturday night.  Valentine’s Day.  Everyone asking everyone, “Will you be?”

I’ve been and always will be holding my wife’s hand.  Fine dinner at Emeril’s on Tchoupitoulas Street, fine walk beside the river.  Now fine whiskey in a fine cut crystal glass in one of the finer watering holes on Rue Royale. 

The singer in a long black dress.  Very cool.  I’m channeling The Hollies and happy enough to burst into song myself.  Just sober enough to know my limitations.  My pretty wife, always sober, always knows my predilections and she squeezes my hand hard.  I sit back and let the singer do her job.

This is a great city for lovers.  Intimate streets, small cafes and bars, music everywhere.  Voodoo charms to draw love in if your true love is drawn away.  Mule drawn carriages.  A streetcar named desire.

The singer is working the tables now, moving through what hardly constitutes a crowd, more  a gathering of friends.  She’s singing Stormy Weather.  Our eyes meet and she runs her slender hand up my arm.

Later, walking back to the hotel, I’ll spring towards a lamp post, swing around in my worst imitation of Mr. Fred Astaire, kneel on damp cobblestones and offer my red haired wife my hand.  A silver fleur-de-leis  necklace purchased a month in advance.  I’ll mangle a proposal in French-Creole, resort to my native tongue, Pig-latin.  Declare my undying love.

Her funny valentine.

Dave/NOLA

Valentine

Waltz

Granddaughter and I have been singing.  She sways in my arms and does her best to carry the refrain.  A chorus of “Mony Mony” and then Crimson and Clover” as we work our way through the Shondell’s.  Six months is not too early to begin a formal introduction in classic pop.

My wife complains.  This is not, she argues, the way to sooth a baby to sleep.

Aubree laughs.  We spin across the living room.    I bend my knees and we dip.  Peals of small baby laughter.  I straighten, then dip again.  More peals.  Da da da da da daaaa. Over and over.

Let’s be clear, this is a tired girl.  She’s crawling now, pulling up, almost nailing the whole cruise the furniture routine and sometimes seriously pissed off that she can’t walk like a big kid.  She has been a baby in constant motion for most of the afternoon, fighting off naps through sheer tiny will power.  Sucking down bottles and devouring  jars of Gerber peaches for energy.  Playing toys with Uncle Nik.  Looking at books with Grandma.

Now singing with her grandpa.  Or jabbering along as grandpa sings to her.  As I swing past the rocking chair I snag her softest blanket.  We swing from north to south, from Tommy James to John Fogerty.  We lower the volume, raise the front window blinds to let in the evening stars.  Born On The Bayou.  Run Through The Jungle. Aubree’s head sinks against my shoulder.  Grandma picks up the tiny socks that have scattered across the rug.

Green River.  Slight baby snores as my granddaughter finally gives it up.  We sway together a few verses longer in the front window.  Grandpa happy.  Grandma impressed.  Barefoot girl dancing in the moonlight.

Dave/IL

Resolutions

New lenses for Christmas, camera not eye although I already have a fine collection of good German engineered conduits for my cameras.  Nikon D3X’s with 24 megapixel capture stresses the importance of good glass and I’ve made a promise to treat them kindly in 2009.

I’ll remain inflexable on several issues for the New Year.  Telling my pretty wife I love her everyday.  Telling my new granddaughter I love her when the chance presents.  Remembering the children’s birthdays.  Single malt Scotch.

I’ll place my financial and moral faith in a new president.  I’ll give our various investments time to drift back toward the center.  I’ll give our sitting Illinois Governor a chance to resign with, granted, no more dignity than an impeachment. To simplify the latter I will spend more time in Louisiana.

Sophie is much more resolute:  she plans to stay her usual course through blank winter field or damp bayou.  She plans to drag me out of my morning bed before morning fully forms and drag my formidable fat ass outside in any weather.  I could resolve to resist just to watch a puppy smile.

I’m posting this at almost 9 PM CST while in Bangkok authorities are sorting through 59 burned bodies at a nightclub.  I’m posting this while children huddle against rocket fire along both sides of the Gaza Strip.  I’m posting this as the slaughter continues in Darfur.

I’m counting down the hours until the old year rushes past and I kiss my wife to open up the new one.  As always she’ll understand my time on the road with so many details remaining to be witnessed.

New camera lenses for another new year.  Not the most important thing I’m hoping to protect.

Dave/IL

Bitter

Winds so cold today your breath comes back, refuses exhalation.  At 11:30 this morning -1°f  in Sophie’s Woods and even the Lab Pup was wearing her red winter jacket.  Still insisting, as you might expect, on a prolonged walk.  No squirrels or deer on the trail, everything hunkered down in brown grass or burrow.  Birds small fluffs of feathers in the trees.

Counting the days until the holiday.  No trip to the bayou this year.  Staying close to home for Baby’s First Christmas.  Watching the mound of Baby’s First Christmas Presents grow almost to proportion with her grandfather’s love.   Watching my daughter experience, as we used to experience, the demands of satisfying several households on Christmas day.

Despite the new batteries in the cars they still grind and resist starting. Water left running in the taps all night and day. We call the month December and the weather bitter.  At the diner we marvel at the weatherman’s explanations of wind chills beyond belief.  We count on the predictions of blue skies by the weekend and a Thursday miracle of highs in the lower 30’s.

Dog at the moment sleeping under my desk, her soft body warming my freezing feet.  Wife huddled under blankets and Jimmy Stewart talking to the angels.  Holiday greetings.  Dog and I hope they warm your heart.

Dave/IL

December March

As the days run together the Lab Pup runs ahead.  We’re tracking through damp December leaves and so running in stealth mode really with just my modest panting on the steeper grades to give us away.  We’ve tucked a couple sandwiches in my pocket for fuel.  The sky is preparing to fill with snow.

The trees and gravel roads and fencelines, hell, even the blacktop highways are filled with small grey birds migrating south.  Seasons change and you just have to keep moving seems to be the lesson for today.

Dog is moving with inconsolable joy.  She’s in her elements and following her own late autumn nature which is to say magnetic north, tail rigid as a compass needle, nose dipped to the cold earth.  I’m limping along behind, good leg going bad and bad leg beginning to drag.  Leaning on the cold iron of my cane.  Dog clears a fallen tree in one youthful leap and drops her nose to ground again.  I grind my teeth and take the longer hike around.

Later there will be coffee at the house, Louisiana grind with chicory mixed among the beans.  Boots steaming on the grate and the comfortable idea of a fleece throw across my lap.  Lamps lit around the various rooms.  A comfortable promise to drive me up and down these windblown hills.

Dog is on the scent.  A buck explodes from cover only a few feet from our trail and crashes away through heavy bracken.  A thousand grey birds explode toward grey december sky and as we clear the next dark hill the grey snow begins to fall.

Dave/IL

Turducken

Cold autumn and with my pretty wife committed to teaching math right up until Thanksgiving I’ve had to take the holiday in hand.  I’ve done the calculations, no way to get the family across six state lines by Thursday afternoon and into Louisiana.  Not that an Illinois Thanksgiving is anything to dodge.  Farm country with plenty of fresh game and crops just harvested.  Still I’m going against the grain, hungry for a traditional Cajun plate.  The compromise was to contact the Louisiana Crawfish Company and have them air freight me a Turducken with crawfish jambalaya stuffing.

The Turducken, for those not in the loop of silly gourmet extravagance is a de-boned and stuffed chicken inserted into a de-boned and stuffed duck inserted into a de-boned and stuffed turkey.  Injected with Cajun spices, the crawfish jambalaya moist and meaty, it is a rare and non-traditional holiday treat and one that sets my stomach growling in anticipation.

Turducken Awaiting Thanks

My sister-in-law is plating a traditional turkey as well, oven baked this year as opposed to our usual tradition of deep frying in hot oil.  (That makes, to paraphrase Charlotte’s Web, some turkey too, the deep frying method I mean.)  With a dozen side dishes it should be another memorable family gathering.

So that’s the plan.  No bayou breakfast with Andouille sausage, no sunrise over swamp.  Probably a very early jog through the woods in Illinois with deer and dog.  Probably a last minute rush to Wal-Mart for canned cranberry sauce forgotten.  Extended meal followed by a restless, extended nap.

I’m thankful for all that.

Dave/IL

Broken

Morning has broken and dog is trying her best to convince me to piece the day together.  Fields and farmland.  My old bones are protesting, grinding in place.  After years of accumulated damage I can’t do late autumn without a cane, steep curve of hills without constant allegory.

We’ve had at least three brown days in Central Illinois.  Not damp and gray as literature would like, but just that drab November brown that can be dispiriting.  Driving my pretty wife to dinner last night we had sleet pinging against the windshield.  Furies are foretelling early winter.

As counterweight I’ve been laying in a larder of good books.  This week I’ve been revisiting A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, the Oxford World’s Classics edition which is thick with introductions, forewords and footnotes.  Piled in no particular order is Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains Of The Day.  The American economy may well be counting on my continual mouse clicks at amazon.com.  I’m counting on the company of these old friends as the November weather deepens.

Dogs counting that by laying in front of the door and sighing she can break my spirit, break my morning fast and make me grab a windbreaker from the bronze hook by the door.  I’m counting steps to the door, the field, the closest horizon and counting on the fact that with old Sam Clemens waiting by my chair I can make the hard trek back.  Coffee with a bit of chicory in the pot.  Miles and broken promises to keep.

Dave/IL