Fifty Years and Five Miles…

 

That’s my fraternity brother from college, Jon Ayres.

I’m standing, he’s sitting, 1968 and yesterday. In the first picture, I was pinching Jon's right nipple. He agreed to the new shot if I promised to drop the nipple squeezing.

We had just finished dinner with our families at the new St Augustine Fish camp.

That restaurant is only about a ten-minute drive for each of us, but it took fifty-one years to get there.

Synchronicity and Kevin Bacon…six degrees removed all that time.

Jon was one of the guys I just couldn’t locate when working with other alumni friends to put together a college reunion in 2009.

Turns out he was right here in town.

Jon’s son, Jay, along with his beautiful wife, Stephanie, stopped by my house a month ago to pick up business supplies that I was holding for Hannah. Hannah and Stephanie are best friends, both on the same team with doTERRA, an essential oils MLM. Sometimes the company sends Hannah’s stuff to me by mistake. Hannah lives in Hawaii, so she asked Stephanie to swing by and pick the things up and use them herself.

Both are yoga girls, teachers, and advocates.

I knew Stephanie was a good friend of Hannah’s but had no clue that her handsome driver/husband, was my old buddy’s son.

The only neighbors I ever really speak with on our street, are David and Pura. It turns out that they have known and worked with both Jon and his wife, Connie, for years at Cap’s On The Water and the Kingfish Grill.

Then recently, I saw a reference to a “Jon Ayres” on David’s Facebook page.

I run into David frequently on dog walks. Me with my little black yappers dancing frantically on the end of their strings, David with his three-legged big guy, one of them always wearing a headset and carrying a mug of coffee. (David, not tripod.)

Me: “I saw on your Facebook, a reference to your friend, John Ayers. I knew a Jon Ayres back in college, But I guess it couldn't be the same guy, you and your friends are 30 years younger.”

David: “No, he’s an older guy, probably your age.”

Me: “We used to call him “Foggy”, because he was so mellow and laid back.”

David: “That’s got to be him!”

Synchronicity started kicking into overdrive. One thing led to another.

It turns out that Jon and I both got drafted right out of college. He hustled over to the National Guard, hoping to avoid being cannon fodder for the Army in Vietnam, learning how to drive tanks right here in the States. I did the same with the Air force. Computer operations in the Pentagon. We both dodged a very unpleasant bullet, neither of us wanting to go halfway round the world to shoot at people we didn’t know or have any grudge with. Especially knowing they were well-skilled at shooting back.

Same thing with our first marriages. Dodged a bullet. Married for five minutes to the wrong people the first time around, then long terms second marriages.

Two budding hippy kids from New Jersey who wound up together enrolled at a tiny Methodist college in North Alabama during the social upheaval of the late 1960’s.

That’s another long and winding road right there.

Both of us old guys recently had our first grandchild, little boys. Jon and I will be eighty when those kids are ten.

We’re introverts who seem to agree on almost everything, including a passionate distaste for zealotry in politics and religion.

His wife Connie is youthful, bright, and beautiful. So is Carla.

After all the old memories… “remember when we… that guy who…the teacher that…” Did the college cafeteria really boil the steaks on steak Wednesdays? They looked like the curled hands of drowning victims who had floated in a warm pond way too long. What was the name of that pizza place we used to go to in the middle of the night? You know, where the graveyard workers from Sweet Sue Kitchens would flood in on break from their chicken plucking duties? The college kids and the chicken puckers sat and stared at each other, assuming that the group on the opposite side of the room must have just landed in a spaceship from Mars.

But after all that nostalgia, after the meeting of the families, young and old, we had a wonderful dinner by the water, here in our mutual hometown.

That’s where we started a brand-new chapter.

No longer simply “old college friends”, but new old friends, looking forward to our next multi-generational get-together…one that spans so many layers of connection.

I’m sure Kevin Bacon is in there somewhere…

hmh

 

 

Your World

 

Selfish sorrow at seeing you go…

Quickly washed away by a tsunami of joy in watching you do so.

Being who you are, who you must be.

Out there, in a world that’s been a best friend to you,

for so long now,

Karma is real,

In your world.

 

Winner, Winner...Chicken Dinner!

  

Split in half and rubbed with a mixture of salt, brown sugar, onion powder, chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, and black pepper, I let this chicken languish in the refrigerator for three days, growing ever more eager for the warmth of the smoker.

Four hours over Apple wood did the trick. The flesh of a common foul, elevated to culinary greatness, food fit for a king…or maybe just for a guy having a beer on the back deck, watching a lone Osprey make futile dives at elusive shapes only inches under the surface of the lake below, while Chicca locks her radar onto that damn squirrel flicking its tail and giving her the raspberries from ten feet up the big Oak... acting like he owns the place…

Next level chicken...proof of life.

 

 

 

 

Here Comes the Sun...

 

Earlier this morning, I thought I heard singing coming from our back yard. Stepping out, there he was…up above, looking East, deep in his own musical celebration of the dawn:

“Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
And I say, it’s all right…”

“Catchy” I thought, convinced that his tune could be a hit if he ever recorded it.

A Visit from Kira...

 

We spotted a small rectangle of tissue paper, lying in the garden, festively wrapped with multicolored ribbons.

No identification on the outside.

Inside, a beautifully painted stone, like a gift from an elfin world.

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About a week ago, I had posted an ode of sorts, to our special dog, Kira, on our “We Love St. Dogustine, FL.” website.

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This stone, along with a line from my post, had apparently been created as an awesome remembrance …by an artist who understands.

Kismet, I believe.

Kira stopping by to remind us of her loving soul, by way of a talented and generous artist.

All of our hearts beating in tandem for one of life’s special moments…

Many thanks to this generous artist… who walks the walk, leading by example…

 

WD-40

 

Use WD-40 To:

1. Lube a shovel. Spray WD-40 on a shovel, spading fork, hoe or garden trowel. The soil slides right off—especially helpful when digging in clay.

2. Clean tile. The spray removes spilled mascara, nail polish, paint and scuff marks from tile floors, and also help you wipe away grime from the grout lines. Clean up with soapy water.

3. Scrub stains from stainless steel sinks.

4. Unstick gum. A squirt makes it easier to pull gum out of carpet and even hair. It's better than cutting out the gum and leaving patchy carpet or a bad haircut.

5. Soften leather. Oil can help break in a stiff leather tool belt.

6. Free stuck LEGOs. Your kids will thank you.

7. Erase crayon. When crayon ends up on toys, flooring, furniture, painted walls, wallpaper, windows, doors, and television screens. Spray on WD-40 and wipe it off.

8. Prevent flowerpots from sticking when stacked together.

9. Get rid of rust. Spray and rub away rust from circular saw and hacksaw blades. It can also clean blades of tar and other gunk.

10. Remove goo. Unstick gooey residue from price tags, duct tape, and stickers.

11. Clean and polish the tactical knives gathered from the living room.

 

 

 

Concert High Harmony...

 

All my adult life, I’ve avoided crowds. It’s as if Covid 19 has always a thing. Large groups freaked me out. Huge gingivitis and methane scented gatherings of bodies packed way too tightly.

I don’t like to be touched by strangers or savor the air that was in their colon only moments before. If jostled too aggressively, I react in kind.

Don’t push.

Three artists drew me out though, three concerts in 50 years, Gordon Lightfoot, Eric Clapton, and Jackson Browne. They were almost three too many, but all were memorable.

The Gordon Lightfoot concert almost doesn’t count though. I needed a place to take Carla on our first date. That was at Wolf Trap Farm Park in Northern Virginia, lying on a grassy hill that sloped down to the stage. Lightfoot was drunk, his performance something of a shit show. I didn’t care. Carla and I were on a blanket. She wore white cotton slacks with an elastic waistband. Oblivious to Lightfoot’s sputtering, my greatest memory after four decades, is the smell of her long auburn hair.

I saw Clapton at the Capital Center arena in Landover, Md. He was deep in his “I Shot the Sheriff” cocaine/reggae days. Yvonne Elliman sang her balls off. Paranoia and claustrophobia had me ready to go postal in that packed crowd. The music so loud it physically hurt my ears. Fools in the balcony seats lobbing cherry bombs out over the packed bodies making lazy arcs like flying sparklers, exploding overhead like incoming mortar rounds. That shit infuriated me. Claustrophobia was replaced with rage. I wanted to hunt the perps down and kill them. A tactical knife always a close companion, I fantasized that in the din of the chaos it could be a perfect murder. Several well-placed kidney and neck thrusts and no more cherry bombs. People were focused on the stage. No problem.

Of course, that never happened, but a small level of regret for a missed opportunity, still lingers.

I love Clapton and his music but that shit was way over the top for me.

Never again.

Not, at least, until Jackson Browne came to Meriweather Post Pavilion in 1977 on his “Running on Empty” tour. That one was epic for all the right reasons. Many of the usual suspects: Craig Doerge, Danny Kortchmar, Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, and the amazing David Lindley.

Great music that I already knew by heart, a mellow crowd. It’s where Jackson recorded his version of the great Maurice Williams tune, “Stay”.

The funny thing about that one was the high chorus:

“Oh, won't you stay

Just a little bit longer

Please let me hear

You say that you will”

When that lone voice soared out over the crowd, cutting through the din like a laser, we all assumed it to be Jackson’s blond powerhouse singer, Rosemary Butler. But it dawned on everyone at the same time when the amazing David Lindley stepped out front and center, that he was doing the honors. This little gnome of a man with a brown river of hair as long as he was short.

Killing it.

Recognition caused me to point and yell out: “It’s David Lindley! Hooray for David!”

It reminded me of a “Little Rascals” scene where Darla got sick while playing Juliet to Alfalfa’s Romeo. Backstage, Spanky told Buckwheat that he would have to stand in for her on the balcony scene. When Alfalfa implored: “Juliet, my Juliet… wherefore art thou?”, there was a short pause of expectation, waiting for Darla to appear. When Buckwheat popped up on the balcony, grinning with a loud “Here I is!”, the silence of another pause of recognition was broken by the crowd of kids going nuts: “Look! It’s Buckwheat! Hooray for Buckwheat!”

That concert was memorable, with David Lindley’s vocal being the high point.

Literally.

I wrote a note to David a few years later, comparing his entrance and the crowd reaction to that of Buckwheat’s, many years before. E-mailed it to him and forgot about it. Days later I got a note from David’s wife. She told me that most of the band had been gathered around her big wooden kitchen table when she read my story to them. Most of the crew being my age, they too loved the Little Rascals, and Buckwheat, everyone loves Buckwheat.

And my story, they loved my story, “a lot” she said. I wish I had been there to read it to them myself. I'm always up for coffee and scrambled eggs.

Ms Lindley admitted that everyone loves the Amazing David too, a real-life version of the Adams Family “Cousin it” singing and playing incredibly beautiful high harmony to Jackson’s musical comfort food.

That concert and the entire body of work from Jackson Browne and the Amazing David lindley, always a very filling and satisfying meal.