Lips on the bottle, hand on the phone...
Before you all start thinking, “Oh my God, she’s getting drunk and going to call old boyfriends” - something I’ve never done - that’s just a lyric from a K.T. Oslin song.
I am in a sentimental mood today; not sure why, but that song probably started it. There’s a 6-CD player in my car, and the same five CDs have been in it for months, possibly a year; I’m not sure. I don’t spend much time in my car, and if I don’t want to listen to the same CDs (which I’m too lazy to change), I tune the radio to WNCW - the best public radio station in the country. Today was a day for Getting Stuff Done, so before I headed out I took out whatever was in the car, and put in KT, James Taylor, Thistle Dew, Pavarotti & Friends, and a tribute to Hank Williams by Shelby and Linda Stephenson.
I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Linda Stephenson. Shelby was the poet laureate of North Carolina between 2014 and 2016. He’d come to the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival, and stay in my guest room with his dog, Cricket. He loved Burnsville, and came back several times, LitFest or not. He was fun to be around; one time, we were at the farmers’ market, and the FFA kids had a booth. Shelby had been in the FFA, and together they recited the creed. The kids were dumbfounded; maybe they thought it was just a club for young’uns.
In 2015, Shelby came for the 100th anniversary of Mount Mitchell State Park to recite a poem he’d written for the occasion. On the Blue Ridge Parkway, heading for the event with our friend Kathleen, we stopped at an overlook. Cricket saw something in the brush and bolted into the greenery while Shelby and Kathleen were yakking. I always pay attention to dogs (I like dogs more than I like people, most of you know), and I dove into the greenery to grab Cricket. I couldn’t haul myself and Cricket back up without help, and had a hard time getting Kathleen and Shelby’s attention. Kathleen eventually did grab my arm and pull me and Cricket up to safety.
Shelby has a rich singing voice and a Gibson guitar with mother-of-pearl inlay. It weighs a ton. I never sang with him, but he’s played and sung in my living room along with such local luminaries as Susan Scoggins, Rob Levin, David Howell, Dean Gates, Ron and Minnie Powell, Eric Williamson, Sam Maren, and more. My hope is he’ll come back soon and jam here again.
Back to the present: I was driving hither and yon today, hoping to score a permanent Christmas tree - one with its roots still attached so I can plant it in the front yard where - years ago - I’d had a square of the concrete sidewalk removed so I could plant a Leyland cypress so the man who lived across the street couldn’t watch me. (He’d sit in his underwear in a white plastic lawn chair on his front walk, which was directly across from my front walk.) As far as I know, I never did anything worth watching, but I suppose he was bored.
Leylands grow quickly, and I didn’t know anything about pruning, so eventually it got out of hand and I had it cut down. Months later, when it was completely dried out (but still green!) we burned it in the yard. It was like we’d poured jet fuel on it - the heat actually melted some of the vinyl siding on the shed. When I can find a young Fraser fir, it’ll go out front, and I’ll keep it at a height I can deal with up on my 5’ ladder - for Christmas lights. With the dogs being what they are, I won’t try for an inside tree - real or fake.
I’ve always loved Christmas, and last year was such a letdown for me - no meal, no company, no friends over. A real black hole for me. I went to the discount store and bought the last (display, actually) phony white plastic Christmas tree, and set it up on the porch. Lit it and decorated it. It was cheerful in a pathetic way, but wasn’t pathetically cute like in a Charlie Brown Christmas tree way. It really just looked like shit.
This year, I’m looking forward to a real Christmas again - but probably minus the neighborhood caroling that was a tradition back in the 50’s/60s in Big Bend. We’d walk around the two or so blocks in our neighborhood, and belt out carols in two or three part harmony, and be rewarded with cookies or cocoa. (I may be romanticizing or mis-remembering, but I get warm fuzzies thinking about it, so don’t correct me, sibs, okay?)
I miss singing. I’ve thought about joining a community or church choir, both of which types I’ve belonged to before, but I think I’d burst into tears. If there’s one thing I absolutely can’t stand, it’s how I look when I’m crying. Plus how embarrassed my fellow singers might be by the sobbing cohort nearby. I’ve put favorite CDs on the player and realized that I don’t even sing along with them anymore - not even HARP (Holly Near, Arlo Guthrie, Ronnie Gilbert, Pete Seeger). Maybe this realization will signal the end of my growing CD collection and open my voice again.
This ButtonDown was brought to you courtesy of Kill Devil Hills rum with pecans and honey. Kill Devil Hills is on the Outer Banks, and has a connection to the Wright Brothers (Wilbur and Orville, from Ohio) who really inventing flying.
It gets dark so early now…I wonder what I’m supposed to do next. Eat supper? Watch MidSomer Murders? Go to bed? I don’t remember daytime/nighttime messing with me before like it’s doing now.
Ah, well…
Cheers,
Lucy