Weekend Ramblings
My, how time flies when you are having fun! It's Tuesday already and I've not yet written about last weekend. So, here's to catching up.
I played golf on Saturday morning in the men's scramble at High Meadows and actually won $38 from the pool for a gentlemanly second place overall and three skins. That's because I played what is for me these days a pretty decent round of golf, a 9-over-par 81 that included no penalty strokes, two birdies, eight pars, five bogies and three never-in-trouble double bogies. Now, folks, those doubles will drive you nuts. Sometimes you can just feel them coming on like a bad cold. Oh, well, had I made bogies instead, I would have won the same $38.
In the evening, the CFO and I went to the third and last Appalachian Festival concert of the season in Boone. Now, there was some serious men's hair there. Six inches, 9 inches, 12 inches, even 15 inches.
This night it was Arlo Guthrie performing with his kids, Abbie and Sarah Lee. Now, the Guthrie family, including Woodie when he was alive, all travel down life's highway well to the left of the center line. If you are able to just put that out of your mind for a couple of hours and go with the flow, Arlo gives a most enjoyable performance. In addition to being a decent musician, he is a terrific storyteller. Sarah Lee, looking and dressing a lot like Gillian Welch right down to the cowboy boots, has a wonderful voice and Abbie, well Abbie has a good time playing the keyboards and smiling.
Yes, Arlo sang/recited Alice's Restaurant in it's entirety with a few updates to cover the passage if time. The actual church in which Alice lived in the bell tower and the garbage accumulated in the sanctuary has been purchased and converted into a museum. Sarah Lee told the story of a preacher visiting shortly after the purchase and asking Arlo what kind of church it was. Arlo thought for a moment and replied, "It's a bring-your-own-God church!" Now, if you think about it, shouldn't they all be like that?
In memory of some musician who had died the day before, Arlo sang Gambler's Blues (St. James Infirmary). It was one of the best renditions I've ever heard of this dirge and I've heard many, includes favorites by Doc Watson and Josh White. Trouble is that I've been working out my own version on the guitar over the last month of so and, after hearing Arlo's version using exactly the same verses I've been using, I cannot bear to play it again for fear of ruining the memory.
Music is interesting like that. A musical artist can perform a masterpiece, you hear it that one time and it's gone forever, disappearing into the very air that maked it possible to hear the music. Oh, you can always record its passage but the resulting reproduction is not unlike a lithographic print of a painting. It's just not the real thing. A painter, on the other hand, paints a masterpiece and it's there forever, eventually selling for millions and millions of dollars. Yet most great painters die poor and most great musicians die quite wealthy. Go figure.
The CFO and I went garnet hunting on Sunday. There's a lode of them just off the old Air Bellows Road. These iron-aluminum silicate crystals are found in sedimentary rocks and wash out over time as the rocks wear down. We found half a jigger of them just scratching around in the road like a couple of kids.
Later, we hiked down a portion of the old road. It began as a graveled road at the Blue Ridge Parkway, then continues for a while as a grassed road. Next came a ungrassed and rougher road and then a sign advising that vehicle travel was hazardous. Indeed. At some places the roadbed had washed out with ruts as deep as six feet. We did not go all the way down to Stone Mountain but were content to check GPS readings for comparison to the topo maps. At the bottom the old road abruptly ends and when we do go all the way down, we will be obliged to travel cross country for some distance to civilization.
I like hiking this old road. The footpath reminds me of the Appalachian Trail but it follows a gap down the mountain in the woods rather than a ridge across the mountain without trees. In my mind, this old road should have been made a part of the Mountain-to-Sea Trail.
I played golf on Saturday morning in the men's scramble at High Meadows and actually won $38 from the pool for a gentlemanly second place overall and three skins. That's because I played what is for me these days a pretty decent round of golf, a 9-over-par 81 that included no penalty strokes, two birdies, eight pars, five bogies and three never-in-trouble double bogies. Now, folks, those doubles will drive you nuts. Sometimes you can just feel them coming on like a bad cold. Oh, well, had I made bogies instead, I would have won the same $38.
In the evening, the CFO and I went to the third and last Appalachian Festival concert of the season in Boone. Now, there was some serious men's hair there. Six inches, 9 inches, 12 inches, even 15 inches.
Long beautiful hair!Loose, braided, pony tails. Man, I was freaking out at all that beautiful hair.
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen.
This night it was Arlo Guthrie performing with his kids, Abbie and Sarah Lee. Now, the Guthrie family, including Woodie when he was alive, all travel down life's highway well to the left of the center line. If you are able to just put that out of your mind for a couple of hours and go with the flow, Arlo gives a most enjoyable performance. In addition to being a decent musician, he is a terrific storyteller. Sarah Lee, looking and dressing a lot like Gillian Welch right down to the cowboy boots, has a wonderful voice and Abbie, well Abbie has a good time playing the keyboards and smiling.
Yes, Arlo sang/recited Alice's Restaurant in it's entirety with a few updates to cover the passage if time. The actual church in which Alice lived in the bell tower and the garbage accumulated in the sanctuary has been purchased and converted into a museum. Sarah Lee told the story of a preacher visiting shortly after the purchase and asking Arlo what kind of church it was. Arlo thought for a moment and replied, "It's a bring-your-own-God church!" Now, if you think about it, shouldn't they all be like that?
In memory of some musician who had died the day before, Arlo sang Gambler's Blues (St. James Infirmary). It was one of the best renditions I've ever heard of this dirge and I've heard many, includes favorites by Doc Watson and Josh White. Trouble is that I've been working out my own version on the guitar over the last month of so and, after hearing Arlo's version using exactly the same verses I've been using, I cannot bear to play it again for fear of ruining the memory.
Music is interesting like that. A musical artist can perform a masterpiece, you hear it that one time and it's gone forever, disappearing into the very air that maked it possible to hear the music. Oh, you can always record its passage but the resulting reproduction is not unlike a lithographic print of a painting. It's just not the real thing. A painter, on the other hand, paints a masterpiece and it's there forever, eventually selling for millions and millions of dollars. Yet most great painters die poor and most great musicians die quite wealthy. Go figure.
The CFO and I went garnet hunting on Sunday. There's a lode of them just off the old Air Bellows Road. These iron-aluminum silicate crystals are found in sedimentary rocks and wash out over time as the rocks wear down. We found half a jigger of them just scratching around in the road like a couple of kids.
Later, we hiked down a portion of the old road. It began as a graveled road at the Blue Ridge Parkway, then continues for a while as a grassed road. Next came a ungrassed and rougher road and then a sign advising that vehicle travel was hazardous. Indeed. At some places the roadbed had washed out with ruts as deep as six feet. We did not go all the way down to Stone Mountain but were content to check GPS readings for comparison to the topo maps. At the bottom the old road abruptly ends and when we do go all the way down, we will be obliged to travel cross country for some distance to civilization.
I like hiking this old road. The footpath reminds me of the Appalachian Trail but it follows a gap down the mountain in the woods rather than a ridge across the mountain without trees. In my mind, this old road should have been made a part of the Mountain-to-Sea Trail.
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