Coop's Corner: Election Night 2020

Monday, November 2, 2020

Election Night 2020

Tomorrow, November 3, 2020 I'll stop on my way home from work at the oldest continuously used Town Hall in Minnesota and vote. After I have my round red sticker, I'll finish the drive home, make a cup of tea and sit down next to the fireplace.

Once there, the Good headphones will be plugged in and I'll listen to what may be a dozen or more play-throughs of Lyle Mays' Close To Home. Can't tell you how many times I've already listened but these sessions will be listened to harder and going in deeper...no bolt tightening, driving, assembling, online searching, background chores or one single other distraction. Now that Daylight Time is over, the evening will be even longer allowing for plenty of time to go through my library of favorite Mays repertoire with the greatest of care. September 15th will surely be in the rotation and again will likely end in a few tears as it almost always does when I'm focused. I honestly hope they come again.

A year or so ago, maybe even two by now, it dawned on me that I hadn't heard much or really anything about what Mr. Mays was up to these years later. Pat Metheny's projects sometimes bubbled up in news that found me but information like that hasn't ever really been front or center on my radar. I'm a listener and that's more than enough. Digging in, I then learned about some of the collaborations, the recordings, projects, etc. that Lyle Mays was working on, all interesting. Last week while searching out some more music and only then did I discover that he had passed away last February. Mr. Lyle Mays, RIP.

Over 40 years ago, well, 43 to the month to be exact, my friend Danny and I were at his place when he pulled out a white LP with 4 names on the cover, telling me that he really wanted me to hear something. Yet that very winter, he and I attended a live performance of the Pat Metheny Group at the Children's Theater in Minneapolis. I remember Metheny's strum on the stand-mounted guitar at the beginning of Phase Dance but after that, I was like an over stimulated infant, trying to soak everything in. The Metheny/Mays partnership has been one of my favorite listens to this day, Lyle's composing and keyboard skills right up at the top of all lists. I've mentioned before, there must be at least a few drops of Mays in one of my heart chambers because he's been circulating deep inside me for all of these 40+ years. We lost one of the truly greats back in February, his music will endure, certainly flowing inside of me until the end.

Back on October 29, 2010 dad passed away and now 10 long short years later, I'll be watching the flames in the fireplace, a 2nd cup of tea, possibly a 3rd and be pulling up old memories. No crying for what's gone, rather smiles for all that I've been fortunate enough to be a part of.

Dad.... you have been along.

Good health and peace to us all.

2 comments:

JasonNovember 3, 2020 at 4:14 PM
Early on, I was introduced to Pat Metheny and Leo Kottke. I haven't given Lyle Mays a spin but I'll rectify that shortly. The wife and I have been enjoyed Ben Cosgrove. He's a pianist from Maine who also plays with a folk/pop group that we like.

Enjoy your tea and fire place this evening.

Close to Home was fantastic.

Thanks!

Jason
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayNovember 4, 2020 at 6:54 PM
Jason, it was early on for me too. Kottke, Peter Lang and Fahey, managed to see them all live.

My evening was a great one, enjoyed myself listening for the first half and then a quick surprise, busy the 2nd with something I'll share soon.

Glad you enjoyed Close to Home and find some of his other things just as enjoyable.

Thanks for the Ben Cosgrove, another new artist unknown to me.
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"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)