My Life in Music: 1956

Nothing pleases me more than talking about music, and I’m especially pleased when I’m talking about me . . . and music.  So here’s the start of a new series, which I humbly call “My Life in Music.”  True, Google that phrase, and you’ll find dozens of autobiographical books by successful, big-time musicians in every genre.  But, hey, they don’t own the title.  Well, some of them do, but I’m talking about my life in music, not theirs, so . . . uh . . . nuts to them.  God, I hate propriety.  Anyway, even a mediocre non-professional musician can have a life, and this is mine.  I won’t tell my tales in chronological order, but will follow the unreliable associations that drift in and out of my mind.

Oh, yeah, that gorgeous girl with the guitar is my singer-pianist-guitarist-songwriter-granddaughter Riley.

In 1956, when we were attending Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Junior High School in Arcadia, California, my friend Einar and I organized a rhythm-and-blues quartet for our eighth-grade graduation assembly, which took place in the school’s cafetorium  in the mid-morning before the mid-afternoon graduation ceremony.  Our quartet included a singer-guitarist who did an impressive (to us) cover of Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes” (with appropriate footwear and gyrations), and then Einar and I vocally harmonized on “Hey, Mrs. Jones” and “Cherry Pie.” 

“Blue Suede Shoes”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZwZSjLzNUU

“Hey, Mrs. Jones”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msuCH6ISodc

“Cherry Pie”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tPjZOXNEXo

The last of these finally broke into the consciousness of the lunching school administrators, who were of course officially shocked, and there was briefly hell to pay, including a threat to keep us from going through the graduation ceremony.  Their perfervid reaction may seem mystifying today, given the open salaciousness of current rap lyrics, but the smirking slyness and insinuating double-entendre of “Cherry Pie” seemed like a big deal at a junior high in 1956—as of course we hoped it would.  Luckily for society, or at least for Einar and me, cooler heads eventually prevailed, and in the afternoon we were reluctantly but officially allowed to graduate.

Later in 1956, during the first semester of our freshman year at Arcadia High School, Einar and I created a “modern jazz” group, with him on piano and me on clarinet.   We actually scored a gig at his sister's sorority house at the University of Southern California, and we felt we needed a bass player.   To help us out, our junior high band teacher, Mr. Jacoby, set us up with a kid who lived way over on the west side of Los Angeles.  This kid turned out to be the little brother of Carson Smith.  Carson was a famous bassist with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, the Chico Hamilton Quintet, and several other great West Coast bands.  The little brother’s name was (or later became) Putter, and he too had a long, very successful career as a jazz bassist on the West Coast.

At the time of the sorority event, however, we were 14 or 15 years old, so we had to be driven to the gig at USC, and along the way we picked up young Putter.  Why is this significant, you ask?  Patience, Grasshopper, patience.

At the sorority house, we were supposed to play for two hours.  We played about 10 minutes, 15 at most, and then they asked us to take a break while they made announcements.  When the announcements were over, everyone (including our band) was invited outside to eat fresh pineapple dipped in honey while watching a full eclipse of the moon.  One thing led to another, and we never did  play again that night.  In terms of compensation per minute of playing, I think this was the biggest payoff of my whole career.  Yes, as I explained earlier, I call it a career.

Many, many years after the sorority gig, around 1995, I saw Putter Smith in Mendocino, California, playing at a small jazz concert produced by local pianist and jazz guru Kent Glenn.  After the group finished playing and stood around chatting, I went up to Smith and mentioned that we'd once played a gig together.  Not surprisingly, he said he couldn’t recall that, and pretty clearly he doubted whether we had. 

"When we came to pick you up,” I told him, “an old lady who lived next door to you started yelling and screaming at us, accusing us of projecting pornographic movies onto the side of her house." 

"Hey," he said, "I guess we did play a gig.  Nice to see you again, man." 

I love jazz musicians.  So flexible.

The word “cafetorium” is not used nearly enough.

And it was definitely 1956.  I looked up "lunar eclipses" on the Mount Wilson Observatory webpage.

FISHING - Dusy Basin, My First Backpacking Trip

For a relatively recent  birthday, my life-long friend Bob Winn sent me a picture (above) of our backpacking trip to Dusy Basin in the High Sierras around 1956, when we were fourteen.  Shown from left are Mr. Winn, me, Bob, and Joe Green, a friend of Bob's brother Bill (far right, with strikingly handy hatchet).  Mrs. Winn (Francis) took the picture. 

Dusy Basin ranges from 10,000 to 11,000 feet in elevation. It is far above the timberline, so the landscape is very sparse and dramatic. A hat is required at that altitude because of UV rays.  Please note that my hat is not molded into a stylish funnel, like Bob’s, but is doofus flat to provide maximum protection from the sun, and also to document that I didn't know how to mold a hat brim.

The trail into the basin, Bishop Pass, has an elevation of 11,900 feet—all switchbacks, and very tiring for a punk.  I had a headache for the first 72 hours.  

For a few days, we fly-fished in Upper Dusy Basin’s seven or eight lakes for rare golden trout (which breed only at 10,000 feet or higher). 

Mr. Winn daily caught enough fish to feed us all by strolling down to the boring lake next to our campsite and casting off.  The results were tasty, but maddening to those of us whose  fishing expertise emphasized curiosity, flexibility, intrepidity, and most of all endurance—meaning a lot of hiking to far-off places without a noticeable population of fish.

After a day or two, while Bob and I were out together scouring the hinterlands for fishy pools, we decided to swim across a tarn or very small lake.  Hey, fourteen years old, what do you expect? 

Since we weren’t stupid, at least theoretically, we devised a safety plan.  First, we’d test the water temperature.  I jumped in, and with what I felt might be my last words ever, shouted to Bob that it was fine, jump on in, so he jumped on in.  This exemplifies the mental edge that I feel I’ve maintained over him for nearly 70 years. 

It may perhaps be that he jumped in first and then sucker-talked me in.  But it’s a long time ago.  Why argue about it now?  I’m confident that I jumped in first, demonstrating that I was the smart one.

The second part of the plan—the nitty-gritty “safety” part—was that he would swim halfway across, and when he reached the middle, I’d start crossing. 

. . . .7, 8, 9, 10.  Wait for it. 

I have no idea why we thought that was our safety plan.  I can see pretty clearly now why I might have thought that it was my safety plan, but I can’t really claim credit for that.

Eventually, the Winns and Joe Green and I descended a couple of thousand feet into LeConte Canyon on the John Muir Trail, passing through Little Pete Meadow and setting up camp at the smaller Big Pete Meadow (western humor). Or maybe we camped at Little Pete Meadow and fished up in Big Pete Meadow. You want a geography lesson, talk to somebody else.

Wherever we were, it was very, very beautiful [see websites below], and we fished for several days (rainbow, brook, and brown trout).  Setting a lifelong trend for a week of effort in the piscatorial arts, I caught one fish, and (also normal) I caught it on the last day before heading back to civilization.

I caught my one John Muir Trail fish in a stream while Bob was off exploring for Fishing Paradise—a lifelong quest, as it turns out.  When I hooked the trout, I yanked the rod up, and as I did so, I managed to fling the fish off of the hook and into a 12x6 foot pool behind me, maybe two feet deep at its deepest, but generally more shallow.  I quickly sealed off the pool’s small exit channel with my knapsack, and then turned to seize the fish.

Meaning, of course, turned to begin trying to seize the fish.  In a battle of wits and skill that surely lasted at least half an hour, possibly a lot longer, I stalked and lunged at that little shithead trout repeatedly, but every time he slipped easily away. 

Though I say “slipped easily away,” I think he was actually working very hard to elude me.  But he had an air of aristocratic ease as he did so.  Renaissance Italians would call it sprezzatura.  I called it “goddamn fucking fish.”

At last, I herded the prey into the narrow, shallowest end of the pond, and reached down to seal its doom.  But it darted past me, and as it did so, I continued to reach for it, thus propelling myself into a fully prone pratfall into the pond.  Actually, at the time, kind of refreshing.

[Yes, relentless volunteer editors, "frontal fall" might be more accurate, but it lacks the humiliating overtones of "pratfall."  And besides, I said "prone."]

But the main point is that I finally stood up with the smirking Machiavellian critter in my hands, and threw it onto a grassy patch next to the pond. From there, it was a relatively easy transfer into my otherwise useless creel.  In this fashion, I began my soggy victorious march back to camp.  

Just the thought of the Winns’ (and Joe Green’s) amazement and, one might say, delighted appreciation when I got there in the deepening evening shadows brings something like tears to my eyes.

Mr. Winn (with a bemused rising inflection):  "Well. . . . "

Mrs. Winn (with a cheery smile and an encouraging but mainly silent giggle): "At least you caught it.  Well, didn't you?"

The Winns.  60 years ago, and I still remember so much of them and my first back-packing trip. What a great family.

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There's a topographical map of the Dusy Basin at this URL:

http://www.trails.com/topomap.aspx?trailid=HGS018-068

Here are some nice pictorial accounts of hike over the Bishop Pass trail into the Dusy Basin and beyond to Big and Little Pete Meadows:

http://web.stanford.edu/~swt/2001backpacking.html

http://www.stormdude.com/hab/backpacks/bp/bp.html

http://kevingong.com/Hiking/201308NorthLakeSouthLake6.html  (from Big Pete UP to Dusy Basin)

There are some spectacular images of Dusy Basin at this website:

http://www.google.com/images?q=dusy+basin&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7GGLL_en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&sa=X&ei=tkCCTYfPGMTdgQfD-_zKCA&ved=0CB8QsAQ&biw=1248&bih=628

https://www.google.com/search?um=1&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7GGLL_en&biw=1207&bih=748&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=dusy+basin&oq=dusy+basin&gs_l=img.1.0.0l3j0i24l4.14995.16604.0.20373.10.8.0.0.0.0.759.759.6-1.1.0....0...1c.1.64.img..9.1.759.-QG0mHMsPgM&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.&dpr=1&ei=Je1hVZOmL8XqoATtrYBA&emsg=NCSR&noj=1

Don Geyer’s photos of Dusy Basin are located here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=dusy+basin&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7GGLL_en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&sa=X&ei=tkCCTYfPGMTdgQfD-_zKCA&ved=0CB8QsAQ&biw=1248&bih=628&tbm=isch&gws_rd=ssl#um=1&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&tbm=isch&q=dusy+basin&imgrc=GJ92yzbAzSqUvM%253A%3BNPl8sf-rEEGmoM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.mountainscenes.com%252Fimages%252Fsierras%252Fdusy_basin_SIE.315.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.mountainscenes.com%252Fimages%252Fsierras%252FSIE.315.html%3B600%3B400

Greg Cope’s pictures are here:

http://www.highsierratopix.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=1&p=47065

You can also see some unrelated but beautiful mountain photographs at my brother's website, 

http://halbroadheadimages.photoshelter.com/

Hey, he pays me, I keep my word.

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One last consideration: over the years, I think Bill Winn could have let me win at least one game of ping-pong.  But nobody's perfect.

BARS: More about Jack's Nest

Kids will groan when you tell a story, complaining that they've heard it a hundred times.  Then, one day, unaccountably, they'll ask you to tell it again.  Go figure.

Here’s more about Jack’s Nest, a bar near Farmville, Virginia, which I frequented while teaching at Hampden-Sydney College, fourth oldest college in the United States, and at that time (1980-81) still an all-male institution of about 800 students.

On one occasion, Jack announced that a corn-eating contest would be held at the Nest.  This was deeply interesting to me, because I love corn on the cob.  I entered, along with 8 or 9 local guys. 

On the big night, all of the contestants sat facing one another on opposite sides of a couple of tables that had been set up end-to-end, and the corn was brought in and dumped onto the middle of the table in a huge, steaming stack.  As I began to butter, salt, and pepper an ear of corn, a bell rang, and all the other guys tore into the pile of cobs and began gnawing off the piping hot kernels like a pack of vicious dogs. 

Assuming that dogs eat corn on the cob.  I think that our dogs would.

In any case, it was incredible how fast those guys could reduce an ear to a smoldering husk, but the process was clearly painful, even with a good measure of alcoholic preparation. 

Before too long, I may have begun to understand that the goal was to eat as much corn as possible within a given time limit.  But in my heart I was still in it for the long haul: greatest ultimate consumption.  So, having absorbed the lesson of the hare and the tortoise, I calmly continued to eat my first ear.  

As I began to butter and season my second ear of corn, I began to appreciate the point of the contest more fully.  Now, you might think I would say to myself, “Oh, gosh, I’ve misunderstood.  I’d better join in the fun and do as the others.” 

But I have found that, in life, one must be true to one’s inner core of values, and I quietly reasoned to myself, “Wow.  This is a great opportunity to eat a lot of free corn on the cob.”  Loyal to my authentic self, I continued to munch at a leisurely pace.

Unfortunately, the crowd which had tightly gathered around the table began to notice that, unlike the other competitors, I wasn’t trying to maximize speedy intake by burning off the roof of my mouth.  Incredibly, to them, and also unacceptably, I was simply eating some corn. 

They started to turn on me with a scattering of gibes and curses—pretty common in conversation at some barrooms—but these criticisms gradually increased in pace and volume, until at last I felt that more drunks were shouting at me than were urging on the other competitors.  In time, one or two guys in the crowd began to scream over my shoulders, “Eat corn, you fag!”

Not my greatest moment, perhaps, but not theirs either, I think.

When the allotted time for the contest had passed, and everyone had moved over to the bar for celebratory, consoling, or medicinally cold bottles of Old Milwaukee, I sat alone at the table, finishing off my fourth or fifth ear of corn.

Sic transit gloria.

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During one month, the Nest buzzed with anticipation about the up-coming Four County Fair, which I was told was a big deal, and I should be sure to go.  Especially, I was told with smiles and knowing nods, I should check out “the hoochie-coochie girls.”

How quaint, I thought.  These simple yet somehow engaging yokels.

Naturally, I did in fact go to the Four County Fair, taking along a cheap camera which I hung on a cord around my neck, so I could send photos to my stylish friends in the world’s most elegant cosmopolitan urban centers.  For example, Wichita, Kansas.

Once at the fairgrounds, I meandered casually among the various amusements—mainly ring-toss and coin-throw games that you might find at the average PTA fund-raiser.  I took lots of pictures of these manifestations of rustic southern pop culture, and especially of the primitive, primary-colors artwork festooning the premises.

Eventually I worked my way to the back end of the fairgrounds, where I found a big tent with a banner announcing “Hoochie-Coochie Girls.”  I had thought that the gang at Jack’s Nest had been kidding me, but there it was.  So I paid and went in, much as an anthropologist might decide to dwell among a newly discovered Amazonian tribe in order to document its primitive ways.

Inside, a very large group of men, many in bib overalls, were standing in front of the stage.  Before long, recorded music started up, and four or five women climbed onstage and began to gyrate to the music in unexpected yet complicated and interesting ways.  Pretty soon, they were doing so nude. 

Not burlesque house “nude.”  Not Sally Rand Fan Dance with pasties and g-string and artful feathers nude. Nude nude.  Right then and there, a couple of miles outside of Farmville, Virginia, in 1980—years before coeds going wild at wet T-shirt contests on DVDs, before show-us-your-tits-for-a-string-of-beads, before instant porn on your iPhone, before teenagers parading around malls in thongs—young women were totally naked and gyrating in explicit representations of sexual congress at the Four County Fair.  It was like going to a movie house to see “Meet Me in St. Louis” and they show “Debby Does Dallas.”

Eventually, some of the dancers invited physical participation by a couple of members of the audience.  I choose my words carefully.

At the end of the show, I think it accurate to say “dazed and confused,” I left the hoochie-coochie tent—and within four steps found myself face to face with three of my Hampden-Sydney College students.  Heads nodding, we said hello as we passed one another.

The next morning, when I walked into my 8:00 o’clock class, I was stunned to encounter a roomful of fully awake and widely grinning late-adolescent schoolboys.  Soon, one of them broke the silence by politely asking, “Get any good pictures, Doctor Broadhead?”

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Another of the barmaids at Jack’s Nest was a chatty young woman in her mid-to-late 20s. In contrast with Pernell’s sister-in-law, she was very, very white—freckled, but very pale.   I believe the word “blowsy” was coined on her behalf.  I guess I probably mean “blouse-y,” in the sense of zaftig. 

In any case, she was very pleasant, and she and her boyfriend once had me to an early dinner and cards at his dairy farm so I could see how such an operation worked in south-central Virginia.  I think that guy was so strong that he didn’t need gates in his fences.  To get a cow into another pasture, he’d just pick her up and toss her.  Nice folks.

Back at the Nest one afternoon, as I started to leave while she was tending bar, I said with what I thought was a comical melodramatic sigh, “Well, I guess I’ll go try to pull together the tattered shreds of my life.” 

“Oh,” she said without a trace of guile, “Doin’ your laundry?”

BARS: Jack's Nest near Farmville, VA

In 1980, I got a job teaching at Hampden-Sydney College, just outside of Farmville, Virginia, which was midway between Richmond and Roanoke, fairly close to the North Carolina border. 

Before I left for that job, I had had a “Southern dinner” with my friends John and Georgie Cooper.  Georgie was one of the most erudite persons I ever knew, and a wonderful musician.  More importantly, in this case, she was from Greenville, Mississippi.  Knowing that I’d never been to the South, she said she wanted me to learn what grits were before I went.  But what she really wanted was to give me some advice.  Here’s the gist—and I truly wish I could replicate her Delta accent, since she always managed to wring about five syllables out of “Glenn.”  That accent gave her advice a shitload of gravitas.

“When you’re in Virginia,” she said, “eat some Smithfield ham.  Have a bowl of Brunswick stew.  It should have squirrel in it, but probably will just have chicken.  And this is really important, kiddo.  If some old red-neck tells you to mind your own bid-ness, you mind it!”

When I got to Farmville, there wasn’t a lot of action for a dashing assistant professor of composition, but pretty soon I managed to find a roadhouse about four miles out of town.  It was called Jack’s Nest, and it was owned and run by an older black man whom everyone called Jack, although his actual name was Pernell.  When I say “older,” I mean he was probably in his 60s.  He had grown up in Newport News, and then made his bundle as a liquor distributor in New Jersey.  To me, this background suggests that he was not intimidated by anything or anyone on earth.  Even so, he was friendly and easy-going, and a lot of fun to talk to if you didn’t mind his occasional looking-away smiles.  I amused him—sometimes as I intended, quite often not.

His wife was the nurse at the public high school, which was 99% black.  She was gorgeous, and they had two gorgeous kids, then in their early teens or pre-teens.  After being a nurse all day, she’d come to the Nest and be the waitress in its small dining room.  I would sometimes say to her, “You know, if we left right now, we could drive to New Orleans and get there in time for dinner tomorrow.  What should we have?”  And we’d plan a menu.  It’s my favorite game.  We also pseudo-dined in Chicago, Albuquerque, San Francisco, New York City, and several other exotic places—exotic at least from the perspective of Farmville VA.

Although Jack was black, his customers were 100% white.   It was a strange dynamic, because many of his patrons young and old would treat him like their best pal when he was tending bar, and then, when he was out of the room, would use the word “nigger” freely.  At this stage of my life, I was pretty well aware that people could harbor and act on antithetical attitudes and behaviors; even so, I could never figure out what was actually going on in the social milieu at Jack’s Nest.

At one point, Jack had a black singer/guitarist from Roanoke come in on Saturday nights to play for entertainment and dancing.   I was always impressed at this musician’s repertoire, which was inexhaustible and thoroughly multi-cultural.  He could and would sing any song ever sung by anybody, from a grinding blues to a current, perky, inane pop favorite.  And for dancing, he could set down a throbbing beat that led to outrageous slow dirty-boogie dancing that you had to see to believe. 

[You go on to the next paragraph.  I’m thinking about that dancing.]

The biggest ovation every night would come when he played a rousing country version of “Under the Double Eagle,” whereupon the crowd would happily stomp away deep into the night.

After he’d played at the bar quite a few times, some young black people began to show up, and for couple of months things went pretty well.  I was told that Jack’s Nest was the only bar in Virginia where such mixing occurred, which is hard to believe (now, at least), but it was certainly the only place like that anywhere near Farmville in 1980.  Back then, tensions could be pretty high at these integrated barroom entertainments, and eventually there was a bad scene in the parking lot late one night, and after that there wasn’t a black singer/guitarist on weekends anymore.

It’s important to remember that Jack’s Nest was in Prince Edward County, which gained fame by closing its public schools rather than integrate—and kept them closed until 1969.  Yes, 1969.  At that time, by court order, they created a public school system.  At the same time, they maintained the 100% white Prince Edward Academy.  When I was there, mainly just blacks attended the under-funded public schools (except for a handful of white children whose parents were liberal professors at Hampden-Sydney College), and the all-white Prince Edward Academy continued to flourish.  Since a few Hampden-Sydney faculty members were on the Academy’s school board, this led to some interesting interactions at faculty get-togethers. 

So that was the local atmosphere around the roadhouse called Jack’s Nest.

At one point, Jack had his sister-in-law come in to tend bar.  Though her complexion was nearly jet black, she had striking, naturally red hair, and she was one of two people in south-central Virginia whom I spoke to nearly every day, but felt that I understood only one word out of any two or three.  The other largely unintelligible talker was white.  Both had almost completely impenetrable accents.  I did a lot of nodding in those days.  “Yeah…well…you know…is that so?”

One night, I went into the bar and the sister-in-law was serving—and the only free stool at the counter was next to the white guy whom I couldn’t understand.  He and his pals had pretty clearly knocked down quite a few Old Milwaukees. 

After a while, he said something to the sister-in-law bartender, and she said something back.  This exchange was repeated several times, each time with harsher emphasis, until finally he said, or may have said, “I don’t need the opinion of no red-haired nigger.” 

I was appalled, but quietly continued to drink my beer, feeling, with some justice, that I didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation. 

Eventually, the guy turned to me, having noticed my quietness, and said (possibly) “That don’t mean nothing.  That’s just the way we talk down here.”  I continued to drink beer, let us say, impassively, and a few minutes later the guy said “Really.  We’re okay with it; it’s not a problem.  Isn’t that right?” he said to the sister-in-law bartender.

She replied, or may have replied, “You could die right now and nobody would care.” 

Though the actual sense of their remarks to one another was not at all clear to me, the general import was an obvious and mutual hostility. 

So I continued to drink my beer without responding or even looking at him—just minding my own bid-ness.

Apparently driven by inexpressible doubts about me or perhaps himself, however, he wouldn’t or couldn’t give it a rest, and continued to lecture to me about the natural, traditional, time-honored ways of communication in southern culture, getting more and more vociferous in making his case.  Pretty soon a bunch of his friends were standing around me, too, saying stuff like “Yeah, he’s a good guy, he don’t mean nothing by it, everything’s fine” and so on.  Eventually, their comments led them to some very excited shouts and even some cursing, so I left and went back to my apartment. 

The next day, I got to the bar around 4:30 to have dinner.  Whatever Jack had prepared for the night’s entrée and side dishes was baking or bubbling unattended, and Jack was behind the bar, cleaning and re-stocking.  I edged onto a stool.

“Pernell,” I said, “the damned-est thing happened last night.” 

He laughed and said, “Yeah, I heard about that.  Don’t worry about it. I told them ‘Don’t be upset, he’s just a white boy from Kansas.’”

Now, to be frank, I could accept the fact that he identified me as the cause of the situation, because I really was an ignorant oddball in the South of that time and place—not that subsequent years and different places have made much improvement.  But, for a native Angeleno, that “from Kansas” really cut to the quick.

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Georgie, though you’re gone and I miss you, I want you to know that I did eat some Smithfield ham, and also had some Brunswick stew with chicken.  As for that third bit of advice, you’ll have to be the judge.

Georgie Cooper with her son Jack

BARS: Gosh's in Stevens Point, Wisconsin

Kids will groan when you tell a story, complaining that they've heard it a hundred times.  Then, one day, unaccountably, they'll ask you to tell it again.  Go figure.

BARS

Sometime in the 1980s, while we were living in Ames, Iowa, the kids gave me a book for my birthday, though I believe Marlis likely played some part in the selection.  I don’t remember the title, but it was about the 100 best bars in America, two for each state.

From that author’s perspective, a good bar—a bar bar, as he termed it—would be a window-less structure made of concrete blocks, with one thick, padded red door for entering (or possibly leaving).  In the deep murk of the interior, there could be no ferns, no pinball machines, nothing except possibly a fuzzy black-and-white TV.   Basically, it should be a machine for drunks, at least one of whom should be a master at “holding forth”—i.e., delivering long,  rhetorically florid commentaries on matters of little interest to any adult with a brain and at least a minimal experience of life outside of a barroom.

I had been in seven of them.

In my time, I’ve enjoyed quite a few others, too.  Here’s one.

GOSH’S IN STEVENS POINT, WISCONSIN

Back in the mid-1970s, I visited my friends Neal and Abigail in Stevens Point, WI, for a week or so in late December—the season of the year when the radio would daily announce the amount of time it would take for human flesh to freeze.  In this daunting milieu, I took to spending late afternoons at a bar on the town square called Gosh's.

Fronting this town square in Stevens Point were at least 10 or possibly 15 bars, lounges, and liquor-enabled restaurants.  Of these, Gosh’s was a classic neighborhood bar.  As you entered, a long wooden counter and back-bar extended more than halfway down the left side of the room, always tended by a bald gent who looked to be in his 60s.  Only guys sat or stood at the bar.  

On the right side of the room were 10 or 15 tables where husband/wife pairs and the occasional female group of friends or relatives sat.  At the back of the room was a pool table surrounded by a ring of small tables and chairs, all set far enough away that you could actually play pool.  A very decent set-up.

At that time, as my friends had warned me, there was a strong town-and-gown antipathy in Stevens Point, whose economy depended almost entirely on the Lullaby Furniture Company.  So my bearded presence at the bar was aggressively ignored as I sipped my bourbon on the rocks.  However, the place had an ancient jukebox stocked with about 8 million really good polkas and schottisches, which naturally drew my musical and ethnomusicological interest, and I played a bunch of the 45 rpm records each day that I went there—which was basically every day for a week or more.

After several visits, I decided I wanted to play some pool, so I walked to the back of the room and put a quarter down on the pool table’s edge to reserve a place. When my turn came, I inexplicably shot better than I ever had in my life (or ever would again, except maybe for one time in another bar), and as I neared victory I started taking a lot of verbal abuse from the very large mid-20s Polish guy whom I was, against all odds, beating.

The guy was getting pretty hot, I felt, making slurred comments and then glaring at me, and he seemed to have the enthusiastic support of several friends.  After a while, however, an older guy walked back from the front of the bar, drew my opponent’s attention with a beckoning finger, waited for the guy to bend his head down to hear him, and said quietly but firmly, "Old Mr. Gosh says to lay off the kapusti."

The guy immediately backed away from me, but wasn’t happy about it, and stood there muttering. To try to clear the air, I said "Hey, let me buy you a drink." He deliberated and then said okay if I'd have one with him.  I shouted to the bartender, "Two of whatever he's having."

This turned out to be peppermint schnapps.  Yes, “This turned out to be peppermint schnapps.”  There should be room in that sentence somewhere for the F word, at least twice.  Somehow, I managed to chug down the shot like a man, quickly chasing it with a small glass of Point Special beer. After a few more one-ounce slugs of this vile swill (with chasers) and several increasingly hilarious games of pool, which I was careful to lose (by playing at my normal skill level), I paid off my debts, thanked everyone for the games, and then went back to the bar and stood in an open space next to the guy who'd calmed down my opponent.

After a respectful silence, I asked him, “Which person is Old Mr. Gosh?”

“He was here a while, but he left.  That’s his son behind the bar,” he said, nodding toward the old bald guy.

“Ah,” I said, and stood quietly for quite a while, trying not to seem inquisitive.

"What," I asked him at last, "does kapusti mean?"

He thought a few moments, and then said "Cabbage-head."

I nodded.

After a few minutes more, I turned to him again and said, more as a statement than a question, "It doesn't really mean 'cabbage-head,' does it.'"

He looked at me for a moment, and finally said "No."

I took a rest from Gosh’s on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but dropped in the day after, found a stool at the long bar, and ordered peppermint schnapps with a Point Special chaser.

The waitress looked at me and said, "Oh, there you are."  She walked down to a small table-top Christmas tree at the end of the bar, picked up a tiny wrapped present, and brought it back to me.

"From Old Mr. Gosh," she said.  "He says thanks for the polkas."

So kapusti is good with me.

 *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

AFTERWORD:  No, I don’t remember what the gift was.  Probably a key holder, or maybe a church key with “Gosh’s” stamped on it.  I’d like to think it was a tiny bottle of peppermint schnapps.

A Kansas Wedding Reception - Billy and Debbie (kind of)

Kids will groan when you tell a story, complaining that they've heard it a hundred times.  Then, one day, unaccountably, they'll ask you to tell it again.  Go figure.

Back in the 70s, Billy and Debbie were two of the younger denizens of Kirby's Beer Store, a tavern located just across the street from the Wichita State University campus.

Kirby’s was a decidedly grungy bar, and kind of scary at night, but in the afternoons it was populated mainly by WSU students (especially petroleum geologists) and a few bottom-feeding professors from various disciplines (I represented English), along with a large contingent of non-academic patrons running the gamut from interesting through amusing to deeply disturbing.

Billy belonged to Mensa, but even so asked Jim the bar owner, another student, plus three faculty patrons (including me) to appear as groomsmen at his wedding, which transpired at the biggest Catholic church in southeastern Wichita. 

In true 70s fashion, for lack of a better word, we groomsmen were elegantly costumed in cream-colored tuxedos with brown piping along the lapels and pockets, and with shirts accented by ruffles at the cuffs and chest.  More or less the Pips, except Gladys couldn’t make the gig.

The huge reception—featuring a polka band brought in from Nebraska—was held way across town in southwestern Wichita, the cowboy-tough part of the city which at the time was more rural than suburban.  To get there, I rode over with Jim in his faded-blue, 40s-era Ford pickup.

Jim had earlier delivered several kegs of beer to the hall where the reception was to be held.  But now, immediately after the wedding ceremony, as we drove along ancient Highway 50 to the reception across town, he suddenly wondered whether Billy had ordered enough ice to keep the beer cold.

Concerned, he pulled into an isolated, ancient filling station that might well have serviced the 1919 cross-country convoy led by young Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower.  Off to one side, we could see the station had a separate cold-facility on which, sometime in the very distant past, someone had stenciled the word ICE.  Along the front of the main building, some old-timers in overalls and cowboy hats sat sunning themselves, tilted back on wooden chairs.  There we pulled up near the old-style pumps.

Kirby jumped out, saying “Let’s go see about some ice,” and then remembered that there was no interior handle for the right-side door of the pickup, and also that the right-side window was broken and couldn’t be rolled down.  The door could be opened only from the outside.

So as I waited patiently, Kirby did a half-circle around the pickup, grasped the outside handle, and opened the door for me.  Still dressed in my cream-colored tux with brown piping and ruffled shirt, I stepped demurely onto the cracked concrete.  Kirby, ever the gentleman, closed the door after me.

“Thanks,” I said, almost audibly, and probably taking too much time to observe the eyebrows of the crusty gents arrayed along the station front.

“Got any ice?” Kirby asked a guy who was in what might have been a uniform.

It turned out that this guy was the station owner, and he gave a quick backward head jerk over his right shoulder.

“Yep.  Back there,” he said, turning, and adding pointedly, “You’ll have to haul it yourself.”

Once in the cold room, the owner literally kicked huge blocks of ice toward us.  We silently loaded them into the back of the truck.  When we were done, Kirby took out his wallet and paid. 

Slowing double-counting the bills, and speaking loudly enough to be heard by the old farts in the row of chairs, the station owner slyly drawled, “You boys havin’ a party?”

A brief silence, then--

“Just a few guys over for poker,” I said.

A Kansas Wedding--Marlis and Glenn

Kids will groan when you tell a story, complaining that they've heard it a hundred times.  Then, one day, unaccountably, they'll ask you to tell it again.  Go figure.

The wedding of Marlis and Glenn was relatively low-key, perhaps in keeping with the conventions of second marriages.  Some second marriages.  One afternoon, we loaded the kids into the pink station wagon and drove over to the house of one of Marlis’s WSU friends, whose husband was a judge.  As we drove down a street of suburban Wichita houses, Marlis said “It’s one of these, I think.”

“Which one?” you might ask.  I know I did.

“I’m not sure,” she said.  “Maybe you could just knock on a few doors and ask?”

Premonitions, premonitions.

At this point, the three kids noticed that they were a block or so away from a friend’s house, and wanted to know if they could go visit.  Right then.

“Not now,” said their mother.  “Glenn and I are getting married right now.”

I thought they already knew, since they seemed to be neatly dressed for it, but maybe not.

Somehow we found the judge’s house, went in, and began a wedding ceremony that had been promised to be the equivalent of a brief courthouse civil proceeding.

Since Marlis had not long before been hospitalized in traction for her back, the first significant pause came when the judge asked for a promise of lifelong fidelity “in sickness and in health.”  She peered at me out the corners of her eyes, looking for a response, but by the time I realized what he had said, the moment had passed.

A more resounding silence came when the judge asked me for a ring to give Marlis.

“Ring?”

“Here,” said Marlis, eventually--producing her mother’s wedding ring. . .with perhaps a hint of another sideward look as her own premonitions arrived on the scene.

Yeah, definitely a sideward look.

Just when things seemed to be over and settled--and completely out of keeping with the agreed-upon Wedding Ceremony Check-List--the judge announced his wish to read aloud a relevant philosophical musing from a source purported to be Native American.  So he did, and at some length.  Really quite a bit of length.  Something about nature, ownership, sharing, earth, oneness, the stars in the sky, the prairie, treading softly in one's moccasins, clean air, responsible stewardship of the land, letting what you love go free, the Great Spirit, whatever.  You could look it up.

The moment that most lingers in one’s memory, however, came afterwards, as the judge escorted us all outside to his driveway. 

“Wait a minute, ya gotta see this” he said, opening the garage door so that we could view—and hear, and appreciate—his new riding lawnmower.

Sickness and health.  Great Spirit.  John Deere.  Your full-service wedding in Kansas.

Two California Weddings: Larry and Geraldine and Mary and Joe

Kids will groan when you tell a story, complaining that they've heard it a hundred times.  Then, one day, unaccountably, they'll ask you to tell it again.  Go figure.

Everybody has wedding stories.  I’d guess that no more than ten percent of them could ever be told to anyone other than a family member, and then best in a drunken stupor that would leave only a few uncertain and hopefully unactionable memories. 

But I’m especially fond of two California weddings which can safely be reported.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

My college friend Larry and another friend’s sister, Geraldine, got married in a hippyish-era ceremony in a flower-bedecked backyard in southern California.  I remember him as wearing cowboy boots, jeans, a long-sleeved white shirt with subtle pin-stripes, a light-brown corduroy vest, a paisley string tie, and a blonde Fu Manchu beard.  That description may not be factual, but I believe it is faithful to the time and place.

Beautiful young Geraldine wore an exquisitely simple, vaguely old-timey dress.  And, yes, she wore a flower in her hair.  Simply gorgeous.

Just before the ceremony was to begin, as we stood behind the crowd, Larry confided to me in a low voice, "Wait until you hear the music I recorded for the ceremony.  It's Dylan." 

I thought it was odd that he would mention this to me at that point, but on the other hand we shared a deep interest in music.  He had shown me how to play guitar, and had also taught me a lot of old-time country songs by the likes of Jimmie Rodgers, Bill Monroe, and Reno and Smiley.  For several years, we played and sang together a lot—in living rooms, of course. 

Anyway, after Larry and Gerry had completed their home-made vows and were walking back through the seated audience, a recording of Larry singing began to play from a boom box:  "New Morning."  Very upbeat, very joyful.

A bit later, after the reception party had had a chance to settle into a groove, Larry came up to me, smiling, and said, "What did you think of the music?" 

"I'm a bit disappointed,” I said.  “I thought it might be 'Lay, Lady, Lay'." 

He laughed as if I’d made a joke.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

The union of Mary and Joe took place in a simple churchyard atop a hill overlooking the town of Mendocino and the rocky Pacific shore beyond it. 

How can one explain Mendocino?  About a four-hour drive north of San Francisco, right on the coast among scattered redwood groves, it is a lingering slice of the Age of Aquarius, but with a much better view of the ocean.  Some residents (in earlier days) were salmon fishermen, loggers, and lumber-mill workers (mainly in nearby Fort Bragg), while the people I knew tended to pursue two or three humble part-time vocations in order to support their love of natural foods, fusion cuisine, earth-toned clothing, very, very liberal politics, Birkenstocks, and the lively arts.  It was a great place to live.

Of course, there was the time warp.  While living there in the late 1990s, Marlis and I were once invited to a costume party by a fellow faculty member at the College of the Redwoods, and I decided to go as a 1960s Berkeley hippie with black turtleneck sweater and love beads.  On the way to the bash, we stopped so I could run into a market and buy some wine.  Once inside, I realized that I looked just like everybody else in the store.

So Mary and Joe’s outdoor Mendocino wedding ceremony was held in a churchyard meadow on a gently sloping hill.  Since Mary was Catholic and Joe was Jewish, the ceremony was led by an ecumenical committee of what I felt to be alternative-lifestyle religious officers, including a rabbi (possibly), a priest (possibly), and some kind of feminist spokesperson.  As I recall, two of them were women.  You figure it out.

Quite possibly I’m making all of that up, but no matter how snotty I may sound, I’m trying to be objective.  Given my unease anywhere near a church, it wasn’t easy to focus at the time.  Anyway, Mary and Joe were warm, genuine, deeply nice people (and still are), and everything seemed plausible, unpretentious, perfect.

Down toward the lower end of the sloping churchyard was a canopy that might give shade in the unlikely event of an unfoggy day, though its main purpose seemed to be to delimit the immediate area where the bride and groom and the cheerful union trio were to do their thing.  The rest of us stood up the hill, just a bit away from the happy couple.

As the ceremony was about to begin, a gentle rain began, which then quickly increased to a downpour, and we were all invited to come down the hill and crowd close together under the canopy.  We did so, nudging shoulder to shoulder, and the ceremony began. 

After some sincere introductory remarks, one of the officiators said, "Mary and Joe believe that a marriage is not just a union of two people, but also involves all the friends and family who are an important part of their lives.  So they join in asking all of you to participate in celebrating this union.  Please recite after me." 

Some people—okay, the person “me”—might have thought, “Hey, this is a bit much.”  But then, it was Mary and Joe—Mary and Joe!—and it seemed right.  So something like the following dialogue ensued, with the officiator enunciating clearly and strongly, and the crowd murmuring gamely.

OFFICIATOR:  Joe and Mary, we all know that marriage involves the support of friends and family.

CROWD:  Joe and Mary, we all know that marriage involves the support of friends and family.

OFFICIATOR:  We promise to support your union as the days and years go by.

CROWD:  We promise to support your union as the days and years go by.

OFFICIATOR: In good times and bad, we will stand by you.

CROWD: In good times and bad, we will stand by you.

OFFICIATOR:  You are part of us, and we are part of you.

CROWD:  You are part of us, and we are part of you.

OFFICIATOR:  Well, I see the rain has let up.

CROWD: Well, I see the rain has let up.

OFFICIATOR:  No, I mean. . . .I see the rain has let up.

CROWD:  Ah.

One of the great moments in history, and I was there.  So very, very grateful.