Blues singer – Juke Joint Festival, Clarksdale, MS
On Sunday, Terri Webster Schrandt (Second Wind Leisure) asked if the last few weeks of staying at home have awakened us to either an interest in something new or revitalized an old one. I had to think about that one because I have managed to avoid boredom by doing more of the same things I do regularly.
I exercise every day now instead of just a few days a week and have pulled out the bicycle after more than a year of letting it sit idle. I’ve had the opportunity to spend more time with my camera and learning to use some of the editing software I purchased years ago. Cooking has always been an interest of mine, but I’m doing more of it now that I have discovered some excellent one-skillet meals. I go to Sunday School on Zoom. There’s nothing new about any of the above, just more of most items on the list.
Lone Star Blues Revue
However, there is one rekindled interest that I can add to the list…listening to music. I find that before bedtime and after Helen and I have binge-watched another season of Bosch on Amazon Prime Video, I can’t bear to turn on the late newscast for another session of all-COVID, all-the-time. So, I turn to the music listings on my Dish Network service and search for Lucille, the Blues channel and use the music to accompany the remnants of a good Cabernet in the bottom of my wineglass and a square of dark chocolate in my hand. I love Blues and Blues musicians. Something in the music speaks to the soul, and especially so in the times we’re facing.
Mark Hummel, Blues harpist
I don’t have any current pictures to illustrate the art. Still, a few years back, Helen and I attended the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi, a Blues celebration held every year, which honors the late W.C. Handy, the “Father of the Blues” composer who lived there. I have a picture (top of page) that I love from one session we attended in a smoke-filled Juke Joint. I think of this place in my late-night listening sessions.
A few years later, I attended a Sunday afternoon Blues concert and wrote a post about it. I have a link to the post here and have shared a few of the pictures from that post. There is a link to the Easin’ Along YouTube page in that post that will give readers a feel for the flavor of this fun-filled afternoon.
Smilin’ while dancin’ to the Blues
I won’t linger on this short post, but in response to Terri’s question, this is one awakening that I hope to continue when the COVID cloud lifts. Maybe I’ll learn to play the harmonica while I’m Easin’ Along.
A photo sampling (click on any picture below to enlarge)
Last week, I told readers about my Covid-19 project of converting all of our slides to digital files. I completed the project (applause here) and uncovered a few jewels among the images. I want to focus on a few of those this week. In order to post something timely, I will share some pictures of the pets that have been a part of our household through the years. My apologies for the grainy pictures–I was going for subject matter over quality.
Conveniently, last Sunday was National Pet Parents Day, something I learned by reading Terri Webster Schrandt’s blog, Second Wind Leisure Perspectives. After converting my pet pictures, I decided to share them in Terri’s Sunday Stills Challenge. Once readers complete this week’s Easin’ Along, I encourage everyone to use this link to visit Terri’s very well-written and very entertaining website.
First, I should let everyone know that Helen and I are no longer pet parents. At the time we downsized, we had two dogs and one cat in our household that you will meet in a few paragraphs. The dogs were primarily outside pets and had complete freedom to roam the eleven acres we owned at the time. We had not yet retired when we moved into our neighborhood, and I just couldn’t bear the thought of keeping them cooped up in a garage. We found good homes for them on a large farm where they could continue to roam at will. The cat, no longer with us, was perfectly content to watch over the new house.
I miss having a pet around, but pets are not a perfect fit for us and our RV lifestyle of moving around every few days. Nevertheless, as soon as we change our pace and remain in destinations for more extended periods, I’m eager to “re-dog.” First, I have to convince Helen it’s a good idea.
Now…back to the pictures.
Our first pet was a Long-Haired Dachshund that we named Bruno. We lived in Wurzburg, Germany at the time, and some friends told us about a breeder, living out in the Bavarian countryside, who raised champions of the breed. Helen had grown up with dachshunds and wanted one badly. We visited the breeder, and it was love at first sight. The picture above is the moment we met.
Helen cradling her new love
Sadly, Bruno was killed by a car about a year and a half later. We were devastated and immediately adopted another dachshund we named Hansi. He was not as even-tempered as Bruno and not at all good with children.
Hansi
Maggie
Our second dog was a beautiful Golden Retriever we adopted when she was about a year old. Maggie was sweet, unbelievably good with young children, and loved Helen. Maggie gave birth to two litters. We kept the pick of the second litter, a male named Grits.
Maggie’s pups
The only picture I can find of Grits is this one. I don’t know which one he is, but he’s in there somewhere. Grits was a very handsome dog, with slightly more reddish coloring than Maggie. Both only lived to be about seven years old, and both died from pancreas failure. I suppose it was a genetic thing.
After the Retrievers, we had a cat named Percy (no picture), who went to live with my Mom, a cat lover.
Pogo and pal
Next was a tiny teacup Poodle we named Pogo. He never weighed more than four pounds, probably because he expended so much energy barking at me…constantly. Pogo was Helen’s dog exclusively, and he was very protective. Pogo lived with us for fourteen very…long…years.
Wilbur
About the time we moved into our lake home, Buddy, one of the masons on my brick crew, told me he was feeding about fifty cats in the trailer park where he lived. I said to Buddy that if he had an orange and white one (Tennessee colors) that might grow into a big cat, I would lighten his feed load by one cat. The next Sunday, Helen and I came home from church to find a pet crate with one orange and white cat inside. A note, taped to the container, said, “My name is Tom, and I’m yours!”
Tom, renamed Wilbur, moved in…slowly. Wilbur weighed somewhere around ten pounds, had mange and something dreadful oozing from his nose. He needed neutering. Wilbur had six toes on his front paws so, after a $400 vet bill, I instructed Wilbur to rid our newly built home of all the mice that moved in during construction. It took him one day to find the first rodent.It was my turn to fall in love.
Best friend I ever had
Wilbur soon ballooned up to twenty-six pounds and became a delightful, people-loving pet. He followed me around like a love-sick puppy dog. Wilbur lived with us for seventeen years. I cried when he crossed the rainbow bridge, and I miss him every day.
Chuck
Soon after Wilbur arrived, we adopted Chuck, an Australian Shepherd/Golden Retriever mix that could run like the wind and loved exploring our property. Chuck had a lovely disposition and would chase a ball for as long as I would throw it to him.
Max
Almost simultaneously with Chuck’s arrival, we rescued Max, a Shih Tzu, and Bootsie, a petite Calico cat. I was building a house in a rural area and learned from a nearby property owner that both animals recently appeared on the scene, probably abandoned. Bootsie was a skittish, sickly little thing, and did not live long.
Max was more than likely severely abused. He would not let anyone put their hands near his face, or they would pay. Our vet would sedate Max to shave him and we let him live with Chuck outdoors. They were constant companions and got along splendidly. I said that Max was probably the world’s only outdoor Shih Tzu. Max was a voracious eater. I feel confident that he had faced long periods without food and, every time I placed a food bowl in front of him, I could see the gratitude in his eyes.
Thanks to Terri, I had the opportunity to spend some with our pets again, if only digitally. So glad I got to introduce them to you. I dearly miss every one of these creatures…including Pogo.
Words like those above pour out of every television newscast and almost every conversation during this most unusual time. Some of the feelings associated with those words came back to me this week. I’ve had them once, and only once, a long time ago.
About five years back, I began a project that I never completed. When Helen and I returned home after an Army assignment in Europe, we brought with us over 1,300 slides sitting in trays and locked up to gather dust in the attic. I discovered those slides when we downsized and realized that I needed to preserve them, or a lot of great memories would be lost. After I purchased a slide converter from Amazon, I started the process and converted 500 of the slides to JPEG digital images and stopped there, promising to complete the task within a few days. A few days lasted five years.
The Kasbah – Tangiers, Morocco 1974
We had rainy weather on Thursday, and I decided to look for the slides and complete my unfulfilled promise. They were in a box under some blankets destined for the Rescue Mission. I pulled out 300 of them, thinking that would be enough for the day. I found the slide converter in a closet in the Man Cave and plugged it in—all the lights came on, and the SD card was in good condition. Game on! The first slides I converted in this batch were from a trip to Tangiers, in Morocco in 1974.
Moroccan dress
Before I get into a description of the remaining slides, I should provide a frame of reference for the period covered by the images I want to show to Easin’ Along readers. Please forgive the grainy photos. Some were taken with a Kodak Instamatic.
In 1972 Helen and I moved to Germany after graduation from the University of Tennessee. I received a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant through Army ROTC. We both were very excited about the adventure that lay ahead. After all, the world was at relative peace, the pay and benefits were good, and I needed a job to support my new bride of four months.
After two years and a delightful variety of assignments within the 3rd Infantry Division in Wurzburg, Germany (Northern Bavaria), the Division Commander, MGen Sam S. Walker, selected me to serve as his Junior Aide-de-Camp. General Walker, a no-nonsense kind of a guy, proved to be a challenge to work for, but I considered the selection as an honor and jumped right in at the ripe young age of 23.
Brandenburg Gate beyond the Berlin Wall
Within a few weeks, General Walker received an assignment to serve as the US Commander of Berlin. He wanted Helen and me to go with him. Although we loved Wurzburg and the friends we made there, the opportunity to serve in a quasi-diplomatic post near the heartbeat of the Cold War appealed to me greatly, and we climbed aboard.
Barriers beyond the Berlin Wall
My first task was to drive the General’s car through Communist East German checkpoints and on to Berlin. The General and Mrs. Walker took the train. At Checkpoint Alpha, I was waved into a parking spot by an East German soldier and directed to enter a small guardhouse to have my papers scrutinized. Carefully, I gathered my ID’s, Passport, and the registration for the General’s car. I had read too many spy novels by this time, and I was confident that the East German and Soviet soldiers standing around knew that I represented a high ranking American official. At any moment, they would pull me into the rear of the guardhouse and beat me with a rubber hose until I spilled all the Top Secret information entrusted to me. I passed my papers through a hole in an obscure window to a pair of waiting hands.
Suddenly, a door beside the window opened, and a Russian soldier came and stood next to me. He was tall with a shaved head. His thigh-high black boots shined almost mirror-like, and he looked very young…maybe 18 at best. I looked down to see if he had cuffs or a rubber hose. Seeing none, I breathed easier and waited for the return of my papers. As I waited, the young Russian began to make hand motions to his lips while staring at me. At first, I had no idea what he was doing, but he began uttering a soft hissing sound almost stuttering. Finally, that hissing sound became a very butchered pronunciation of the word “cigarette.” The young Russian wanted a Marlboro, and I did not have one to give him. He was very disappointed, but handed me back my papers and sent me on my way—no cuffs needed. We made it through Checkpoint Bravo and on into Berlin without incident—except for the East German guard at Bravo, who asked me for a Playboy magazine, and if I’d I had one, I would have given it to him. We were now behind the Iron Curtain.
Berlin Wall – East German guardhouse in middle of pictureOur quarters – First windows to the left of the stairwell, top floor
That story takes me to the slides I mentioned at the beginning. As I worked through them on Thursday, I came to the slides from Berlin, and I once again felt the feelings that were always in the background there. The Berlin Wall was not far from our quarters–and my pregnant young wife. Tanks would roll down the street in the middle of the night, rattling our windows. Almost weekly, the news would come over Armed Forces Radio detailing the killing of an East German fleeing oppression and attempting to make it over that wall. I made many trips to the wall and to Checkpoint Charlie to try and understand the need to keep a country’s citizens contained. I wanted to run across the border and ask the “why” question, but barriers, barbed-wire, and the threat of bullets prevented that.
Berlin social gatheringBagpipe lessons
There was no need for social distancing back then, and, as energetic young people, we socialized and made the very best of a life lived behind a wall, much like we do today while standing six feet apart. We wore uniforms, not masks, and every one of us stood together, doing our part to deter and defeat an enemy we barely understood. We did it one day at a time. We’re in a fight against a different enemy now.
Helen and I were long gone when that wall fell and life improved for the East Germans. The circumstances now are much different, although death is among the potential outcomes. This wall will crumble too. It will require all of us to work together, but it will happen. When this barrier drops, life is sure to be different, hopefully for the better. Maybe we will no longer have to hear words like surreal, bizarre, and unprecedented.
