Verse I
My Papaw George regularly went on long walks three or four times a day. I rarely accompanied him on some of these outings, but now I find myself wishing for a chance to take one of those adventures with him. George Cotton, or Shuge, as many people called him could always be counted on for two things while walking his way out of his holler: random stops where his walking stick would find its way to a leaning stance so he could clap his hands to whatever song played in his head, and a whistle that mimicked the birds in the trees he passed.
One summer day I was left without the choice of sitting inside the trailer in the air condition, and reluctantly shared his pace on his daily routine. Somewhere between dragging my feet through the gravel and complaining we made one of the stops he had grown accustom to making suddenly. He looked out through the forest, beyond the wood that cross-hatched the view of Freddie Brotman’s hill, and into eternity. Idly his hands slipped into the chest of his worn out coveralls, between the corroded gold zipper’s teeth and fished out a peppermint and a butterscotch hard candy. Without looking at my face he presented them to me, in what I now know was a hope to get me to keep quiet. Greedily I snatched the peppermint, and loudly circled it free of its wrapper and into my mouth. Papaw’s whistle caught me off guard as I snuck the plastic into my pocket.
Something in me mumbled out, “Why do you whistle and clap all the time?” Papaw stooped his eyes to mine, the way a daddy-dog looks at his pup before nudging it with his head to get up and start living. “People complain too much. They cry and whine about this hurts or that hurts, and what’s wrong. I whistle, sing, and clap when I’m hurting. Music is much prettier to someone’s ear than bellyaching,” Papaw finished. This from a World War II veteran, who didn’t own shoes until he was a teenager, walked 15-20 miles to work a day, survived two heart attacks, the death of all of his siblings, the burning down of his home twice, and a quadruple bypass patient who was told he shouldn’t be active any longer. The sweat dotting my shirt no longer was so serious. “If I could have learned to play an instrument, it would have been a banjo,” he finished before we started walking again.
“Where Rainbows Never Die” by the Steeldrivers, there’s a moment where the banjo takes center stage in the recording. Banjos were meant for speedy rolls or claw-hammer thuds, that doesn’t align with slower songs. A song that seems to have been written from my memory of Papaw’s walk, is completed with that single moment where words fade, and the banjo speaks. The beginning verse though, prior to the banjo break, sounds like my Papaw’s thoughts before he stopped to buy silence from his bratty grandson. “I’m an old man now, I can’t do nothing. / Young folks don’t pay me no mind. / But in my day I sure was something. / Before I felt the heavy hands of time.” With this song, I can also hear what my Papaw was looking at lost among the trees. “And in my dreams I come out clean. / When I reach the other side. / West of where the sunsets, where rainbows never die.”
Verse II
Carisa Collins has become one of the most influential people in my life. A girlfriend, life partner, and best friend who seems to still believe in me, even when I fail to believe in myself. Someone to share a laugh with and a shoulder to lean on. When people speak about the strength of a woman, she is the one who defines it for me.
We have found ourselves in a swirling-whirl of Murphy’s Law. Without fail when I have reached my limit and have to start asking things like, “Have I lost my mind yet? Do crazy people know they’ve gone crazy?” She calms my storm and guides me toward easy waters. In truth there is no way I could ever say enough about her.
She played in the band in high school, and has a very diverse set of music that she enjoys now. Being such lovers of music we, like most other couples, find songs that become “our” song. At least once a month one of us will find a way to add another tune to the ever-growing playlist that makes us think of one another. In honest, this has become a bit of a problem because who really needs three mixtape cd’s of “our songs”?
Still amongst those that have yet to be downloaded and put to an ever present device for listening is a song that captures my attention and sets it toward her. “Someday We’ll Look Back” by Merle Haggard seems to fit the bill of how things go around our house. Part of the beauty in this song is though it is about the things that will be enjoyed one day, after the troubles of today are past, it is also serves as a reminder. A reminder to not forget about today. A reminder to find joy and something happy in today. Haggard sings, “We live on love and pennies / And the daydream out of sight. / And I’m amazed the way you smile / When things don’t turn out right.” Haggard continues to sing, “We climb each hill together, each step one-by-one. / And someday we’ll look back and say it was fun.”
Verse III
Jim Griffith is my cousin that should have been my brother. In my family it is well known that where one of us are the other is close by. When he knows it is time to plant the garden, he calls me. When I know it is time to go fishing, I call him. In truth it is better that we grew up cousins separated by states, instead of together where we would have most likely found ourselves in trouble.
Karis Adams is a friend of the family that has been around for about 21 years. Of that time she has been my “little sister” about 20 and a half years. There were times where she spent days at our house than at her own. It’s a running joke that I basically raised her, because I watched her for weekends and sometimes longer. Much of my childhood was spent making sure she had a good one. When it is time to get a bat out of the garage, she calls me. When it is time to redecorate the living room, I call her.
I moved back to Kentucky as an adult, soon after Karis and her parents joined us; just a few hills over. There became a weekend tradition among our families: my parents, her parents, and all my aunts and uncles would get together for a party Fridays and Saturdays. Without fail, at some point in the evening Jim, Karis, and I found ourselves sectioned off. It became such a predictable occurrence that we just started making plans for when it happened. The chief reason we always were cut out of others company was our lack of concern with whatever life crisis someone was having. There are drama kings and queens in the world, and some of them in my family have their own kingdoms.
“Dancing in the Moonlight (2001 Remix)” by Toploader, kind of became our theme song. We developed a routine where once we were separated from the group, we would wait five minutes to allow them time to remember, or forget we were there. They always forgot. We jumped on our four-wheelers and headed to the top of the hill just behind her new property. A clearing of trees and flat ground made the perfect place for a bonfire and tunes from an iPod pumped through a speaker. The moon seemed to be close enough to hear the song and dance along. Why wouldn’t it? We were celebrating a song wrote for it. “Everybody here is out of sight. / They don’t bark and they don’t bite. / They keep things loose, they keep it tight. / Everybody’s dancing in the moonlight.” There is still no way to hear the chorus and successfully fight the off urge to dance. “Dancing in the moonlight. / Everybody’s feeling warm and bright. / It’s such a fine and natural sight. / Everybody’s dancing in the moonlight.”
Verse IV
Alli Eastham, Cara Eastham, Johnnie Grubbs, and Bradley Grubbs are my children that have always been drawn to music. While Alli and Cara joined the school band, Johnnie and Bradley are not old enough yet to do so. This has not stopped their quest for musical delight. Anytime a musical instrument is out they want to help play it, sing with it, or dance along to it. All four of them have music notes riding through their blood. Bradley has fallen in love with finding and playing vinyl records. Johnnie has a cd full of her favorite artist. Cara enjoys the pageantry of the music video telling the story along with the song. Alli found streaming music through the internet to be her go-to for music. Various tastes from the Steve Miller Band, Nirvana, Panic! At the Disco, and Luke Bryan consume the air throughout the house.
About four months before Alli passed away I found a song by the Grateful Dead, which had been a tune stuck in my head from years ago. “Brokedown Palace” has such an easy going vibe to it, it almost mirrors a lullaby. I began to sing this to the two smaller ones each night as they lay in their beds, and quietly to the older two as they bounced and thudded up the stairs. The words and moment each night before bedtime became such an impactful song for me that I have it included on the songs to be played at my funeral. I did not know it would play at another one before mine.
A song that calmly talks about crossing over into other realms of existence, somehow makes sense to me in a way that most songs fail to do so. In conversation I have brought up this song being the last thing my children hear from me each night before they close their eyes to float into whatever dream-world the minds of babes can create that night. Once I was told it was “foolish” that you should sing a song like this to a child. There is a line in the song that gives way to some form of an awake dreamer, “Mama, mama, many worlds I’ve come / Since I first left home.” Though a beautiful line, I find the most meaning in the last verse of the song. These are the words I’m glad to have found for the ears of my children. These are the words I hope they hear again before sleep overtakes them. These are the words I hope they recall when I have no words left to speak. True words of affection are sang, “Fare you well, fare you well / I love you more than words can tell. / Listen to the river sing sweet songs / To rock my soul.”
Verse V
Jesse Grubbs, or Tyler as some people call me, is someone I have yet to figure out. Often times a war struggles inside my body to find out who I am versus who I believe myself to be. Sorrow finds a home where peace and happiness would most often make better use of the property inside my thoughts. I have tried to form a habit of making other people laugh and enjoy their day, but the key to unlocking the joyful thoughts for imagination purposes, has yet to be found. During a song writing session with my brother, he asked me, “Why do you write so many sad songs?” The question never really occurred to me until flipping back through the pages of songs and poems I had found held my name. I sat quietly most of the rest of the afternoon. The next day I wrote my answer in a song. “What I know best”, is not the most life changing moment in music. It has sold way under a 100 copies, and will never make it onto an album that has any aspiration of going more than aluminum, much less seeing gold. There’s an honesty I found in words that a pen wrote while I was lucky enough to hold onto it. A day later an answer for my brother’s question read, “I write what I know the best / How well a heart can break.” The odd part of that whole thing is remembering how happy I felt singing that line while he shook his head, and found understanding.
The majority of my elders have always expressed the idea that living simply is the easiest way to enjoy living. That does not seem to be the way I am allowed to live. I’m the guy who buys another Willie Nelson vinyl because it has one song that is not on the three cds we own of his. I’m the person who spends too much time with his head in the clouds, trying to find ways to say or write uniquely, when there’s nothing new under the sun. The procrastinator who uses being mad at himself for procrastinating, as a way to continue to procrastinate. The man, who wants to rid his spirit of jealousy and judgement, looks over and thinks, “It must be nice to be young, that smart and have Daddy pay all your bills.” Somewhere between a mental breakdown and writing break-through is where I’ve decided to make my home. Until tomorrow when living in an RV on the California beach sounds like paradise, or a wasted trip. Without any idea of who I am, I have found that I know what I want to be: the man whose children are proud to call him Dad, the friend who is more like a brother, the boyfriend who is everything a woman looks for in a husband, and the grandson a grandpa would be happy to have.
Somewhere between day dreams and nightmares lies a reality that should be worth living in. When thoughts of who or what I am come about, contemplating the ideas of philosophy, or trying to define the undefinable arise, a song by The Band shows my thinking even ground. “I shall be released” is a beautiful tune when played by The Band, but there’s something more I find in the cover done by Jack Johnson and ALO. On the days words escape me and the only thing that comes easily is a whistle, these are the words ringing silently on my eardrum.
They say everything can be replaced
They say every distance is not near
So I remember every face
Of every man who put me here.
I see my light come shinin’
From the west down to the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released
