The boss, Captain Alva, was perhaps the most mature and sensible adult male I'd known up till then. He offered positive, actionable advice when asked and took joy in the highlights of the day. Still does. Inevitably, after a sunset cruise, the friendly fishing folk hanging around Merry Pier would ask how the sunset had been. Because I love to get the laugh, I usually answered with something flip, deadpanned for shock value: "Aw, you know –– same old same old. It was a re-run. Saw it last week."
We often end the sunlit day at the beaver pond. We put a two-seater deer stand up a pine tree so we can get above some of the mosquitoes and see beyond the fringe of cattails that surrounds the pond. The beavers –– true to stereotype –– clock in at dusk and work their fannies off maintaining the mud dams. They are reliable as clockwork, chugging through the water like mammalian tugboats. With the right show, we can watch re-runs –– one most devoutly hopes –– for years.
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I am only sorry that I didn't know about Lhasa de Sela when she was still alive. I don't believe her untimely death makes her music better, but it certainly makes listening to it all the sweeter. Sometimes a person just needs a silly song in a different language. !Hay Machete! He was not my favorite Bond, but he was a smooth Saint. And he was a pop culture icon; Amy Winehouse didn't have to explain anything past "like Roger Moore," because we got it. I'll skip the Nerf Herder song and also close my eyes against Roger Moore's own song stylings. Goodbye, Mr. Moore. Weird, cool, and oddly entertaining: How and why? Who would do such a thing? I can only answer for why I found and listened to this Craftsman music as I was in quest of power-tool Christmas music, which I remembered from a long-ago NPR story about the things people play at the holidays. The album (A Toolbox Christmas, natch) scores high in the category of odd, though not so well in the "listenability" department. Well, kudos* to anyone who makes music.
*Word nerd alert: "kudos" is a singular noun that translates from the Greek as "praise." So in a grammatically correct universe, when someone is highly praised, she gets much kudos rather than many kudos. It's unfortunate that Winston Churchill, in the midst of fighting for the survival of freedom and decency during World War II, did NOT actually respond to a call to cut funding for the arts by asking, simply, "Then what are we fighting for?" It would have been neat to have heritage for such a sharp rallying cry. Thank you, NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts. Even though with only about 20% of your budget coming from the feds, I am happy that some of my taxes go to support this, not that. And thank you, Lake Street Dives. Really enjoying this latest bit of what my mom would have called blue-eyed soul.
A river of words is usually in flood. And while I write about nearly everything, my blogging impulse is toward humor. This spot abounds with absurdities and piffle. This week has thwarted me. Not on a personal level, but at the world-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket level. I'm not ready to josh around with words today.
I have high hopes. The sun'll, as Annie would belt out, come out –– tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun... Mashed up, inevitably, with the melancholic fall "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge. Be as kind as you can be out there.
This ties into my New Year's genealogy binge. My binge was marked by long stints in front of the trusty laptop punctuated by exclamations of, "Huh. Well of course it's his great-uncle Gorton," and "What were the chances that these two families would intermarry this many times? Jeesh. Guess they swiped right on KINder. Nyuk nyuk nyuk."
But back to my binge: I was poking into the history of my Wheeler kin. They lived way up in the hills of Franklin County, Georgia, fifty or so miles southwest of Asheville, NC. My Grampa Navy would have pronounced that word as "he-ills." Franklin County held quite a number of likely Richard Wheelers who might be my great-great-grandfather, but he's been a sticky wicket. In that steep corner of the world, Wheelers bifurcated like tadpoles in a pond. And they each named their kids after the same uncles and dads: William, Richard, John, James.
Taking a closer look at the census-taker’s handwriting, I saw that Lu Ellar is more likely “Sue Ellen.” Regional –– but not so over-the-top as "Lu-Ellar."
Mr. Foreman used to insist that we pronounce the lyrics as befitted the song and its historical setting (just as a later professor taught me to read Spenser so that it rhymed). So when the chorus came up in my mind (and –– full disclosure –– throughout the living room) I sang it this way: “A-WAY! I’m bound away, across the wide Missor-ah.”
If Lu Ellar can be Sue Ellen, what about Massurah? Massurah, Missourah...Missouri. Missouri? Click-click-click and it turns out that Massurah was the delightfully easier-to-track Missouri Caroline Wheeler. Her grandfather was my great-great-great grandfather. I don’t yet know why she was given this unusual name, but I do have a better handle on Richard, son of Mary Freeman and William Wheeler. For every genuinely cheerful Christmas song, there are thirteen gruesome dirges that –– for some of us –– tend to get stuck on the internal jukebox. For instance, I love me some "Santa Baby," especially the Eartha Kitt version, but then there's The Pogue's "Fairytale of New York."
Both songs embrace the material feel-goods of the season, but with such different moods. The other dozen miserables? Challenge accepted: The Chieftans and Elvis Costello's The St. Stephen's Day Murders, which sounds cheerful until you listen to the actual words. Shelby Lynne's Xmas nails the dark side of the material feel-goods of the season. Then there's Hayes Carll's Grateful for Christmas (dare you not to get choked up over your egg nog on that one) and Robert Earl Keene's fantastic Merry Christmas from the Family, which is painfully funny with the sad. I vote that the most suicidal Christmas song of all time is anyone's version of I'll Be Home for Christmas. (Because they won't. Of course they won't. Everyone's heart is going to break for Christmas. Jeesh.) Second runner-up in the depression sweepstakes? Of course, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Happy X-Mas (The War Is Over). Yeah, let's hope it's a good one. Add in the tunes that are just so irritating: even the youthful Jackson 5's version of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus makes me claw at my ears. So does the spiteful Gramma Got Run Over By a Reindeer by Patsy and Elmo and Spike Jones' All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth. The best way to chase me out of Home Depot? Play these songs. I cannot be the only person who finds Wham!'s Last Christmas more than a little soul-killing. And while I am not hating on the King, seriously, who can listen to Blue Christmas without chiming in a broader, more sarcastic verson? Likewise, Brenda Lee's wonderful gappy voice just grates on me on Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. Okay, uncle. I can't listen to any more. I close with a few seasonable choices that make me happy to deck the halls and bake cookies.
And the best song for the season...<she belts out: And given the choice between the two of you, I'd take the seasick crocodile.> Holding my blogging blah blah in the interest of NaNoWriMo (don't ask, my word-count is pathetic, but I am churning along...). Instead, to mark my mourning of the loss of this national treasure, a couple of the songs that might not get played from this guy.
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