"On the Beach" Redux

[AlanC]

Reporting from Christmas Florida.
A month or so ago (Pre Corona) I lamented that I didn't have a drinking buddy. File this under "Be careful what you wish for". I now have several drinking buddies and even someone to listen to me sing and play.

I was sitting outside our camper playing this afternoon and a passerby said she would pay me with a margarita if I would come down to the campfire and play something for them. I made a joke and passed it off but later thought "what the hell", fixed me a tall whiskey on the rocks, and went to the campfire spot. Aside from the two songs at the 2018 IJ, it was the first time I had played and sang for anyone since Jerry had his stroke (many moons ago).

Most of the folks there (my age or older) seemed to enjoy it. Just as the party was winding down a fresh bunch came and it fired up anew. After I ran out of alcohol I borrowed a golf cart from one of them to go back to the camper to retrieve my bottles of American Honey whiskey and Clooney's Tequila which were passed around the campfire.

Very few mentioned "you-know-what" except to pass on rumors of curfews or lock-downs. It reminded me of that old movie "On the Beach" where they waited for the radiation to reach them.

We are tucked away in the RV park awaiting the virus much like Gregory Peck waited for the radiation. Weird times. At least I'm motivated to pick up the guitar and try to get back a little of what I have let go for so many years.

Maybe it was the alcohol but they really got into "Layla" and "Melissa". I had some sing a long help with those.

Anyway, I now gots some drinking buddies now and have started playing again. Downside is a global pandemic.

[Marshall]

Amen, brother.

[millring]

"And perhaps a man brought out his guitar to the front of his tent. And he sat on a box to play, and everyone in the camp moved slowly in toward him, drawn in toward him. Many men can chord a guitar, but perhaps this man was a picker. There you have something—the deep chords beating, beating while the melody runs on the strings like little footsteps. Heavy hard fingers marching on the frets. The man played and the people moved slowly in on him until the circle was closed and tight, and then he sang... And the circle sang softly with him... He wailed the song, "I'm Leaving Old Texas," that eerie song that was sung before the Spaniards came, only the words were Indian then.

And now the group was welded to one thing, one unit, so that in the dark the eyes of the people were inward, and their minds played in other times, and their sadness was like rest, was like sleep. He sang "The Macalester Blues" and then, to make up for it to the older people, he sang "Jesus Calls Me to His Side." The children drowsed with the music and went into the tents to sleep, and the singing came into their dreams.

And after a while the man with the guitar stood up and yawned. Good night, folks, he said.

And they murmured, Good night to you.

And each wished he could pick a guitar, because it is a gracious thing."

from "The Grapes of Wrath" — John Steinbeck

[coachdoc]

Can't tell if that is the Ya aha. Has a lovely orange glow.