We feel as if we have been waiting forever to see our son, Eli, his wife, Carrie, and their two beautiful children, Ruby and Stanley. The downside of traveling and camp hosting is that you are away from those whom you love for long periods of time...months. Of course, Zoom and Face-time help ease the absences, but nothing beats real face time along with long hugs and heartfelt kisses. Looking your child or grandchild in the eye and telling them you love them is truly the greatest feeling ever, only being matched by receiving the same from them.
We had that time with Eli and his family and we’re already looking forward to our next visit down the road. One of our highlights with them was when they came to our campsite at Babler State Park. We managed to trade our original campsite for one that was only 100 feet away from the camp playground complete with a Jungle Jim. I made the kids hiking sticks of their own which they seemed to really enjoy. Of course, we went hiking and we made s’mores and had a great time at the campsite. During our visit we celebrated Ruby’s 5th birthday at her home. Carrie did an exquisite job of decorating the house for the event. She made a balloon rainbow over the stairs that Ruby adored. Bob and Janet, Carrie’s parents, were also there for the party and catching up with them was an added bonus for us. This year Ruby was a veritable Barbie princess what with all the Barbie paraphernalia that she received as gifts. She was so excited to have a birthday and such a positive bundle of joy to be with. We couldn’t believe how much Stanley had grown the past year. We think he is going to be a pretty big boy before he’s done growing. Such a sweet, sweet smile he has...with two as perfect dimples as the Good Lord ever placed on cheeks. I think I must have given them both a hundred of my “airplane rides” during our visit, where I “fly” them around the house in my arms cradled as if they are in the cockpit of a biplane.
One of the important reasons for our visit to St Louis was seeing all the various doctors we need to see annually. By the time we made the rounds to see them all we probably spent the better part of a full week, perhaps a day or two more, what with driving from Babler to the various offices. It turned out that I was due for a colonoscopy...how much fun that is. But, the results from all our visits were great. We’re at least healthy enough to continue the “50 Amp Vision Quest” for a while longer! These doctor visits, though, cut into our “visit time” with friends and family. You’d think we could just add on a few days to our visit and time would not be a problem, and that’s partially true. But, we’ve committed to camp host in Texas this winter and that arrival date causes us to schedule everything else we need and want to do a little tighter. In pre-Covid days perhaps we could have organized a giant party to get everyone together in one place. That would have been wonderful, but this time it was just not meant to be.
One of the things I needed to do here was get my Worthington guitar fixed. Over the past few years he has really been showing his age and various issues have arisen that cannot be ignored any longer. For one, I was told by a technician in Colorado that the neck needed to be reset. This...would be a major repair, particularly on a hand built guitar such as Mr Worthington. Fortunately for me, Gary Hunt, the truly great musician and friend, told me of a gentleman named Kevin Liley in Bethalto, Il who is excellent at instrument repairs. I made an appointment to meet Kevin and made the trip over to Bethalto where he examined the guitar as a master physician would a patient. Saints Be Praised, no neck reset needed! In two weeks Kevin had Mr Worthington playing better than ever and sounding just as good if not better than ever. I’m delighted with his work. Diane talks to me about a semi-retirement for Mr Worthington and generously mentions perhaps I could get a new acoustic guitar, but I can’t give up on him. I love that guitar too much for that.
As an aside, I remember talking with Vince Gill not too long ago. Vince has hundreds (plural!) of very excellent guitars. At one time there was a terrific flash flood in Nashville and the warehouse where Vince and other musicians stored their guitars was inundated with the flood waters. I believe Vince told me he lost something like 100 guitars there. (It was some unbelievable number). Now, Vince does not buy anything but classic instruments. Instead of buying property or bass boats or motorcycles, Vince has invested in guitars over the years. So, each one of these guitars was a serious loss not only in property but in real value, both financially and emotionally. Vince told me that Amy, his wife, said to him comfortingly as he sat there grief-stricken, “ It’s all ok, you only need one guitar to make a living.” He recalled that moment of comfort that Amy gave him with an emotional tear in his eye and a quiver in his voice.
Instruments, to a person who has music in their soul, are an extension of their innermost emotions. You reach out to people through them. You bond with other musicians through them. There is a shared emotional and spiritual communication that occurs through music. It’s as if all those shared moments of spiritual, emotional, and physical bonding are all stored up in those special instruments. When you pick up a guitar, my Worthington for instance, they are all waiting for you to summon them up from from where they are stored deep in the grain of the spruce and mahogany..perhaps to form as a new song or maybe an old rocker that still brings folks to their feet on the dance floor.
And speaking of that, playing in a dance hall lately has been pretty much taboo. I know musicians all over the country now who are hurting financially as well as emotionally over the fact they can’t earn their usual living that they’ve built up over the years due to Covid-19. Folks like Sam Bush and Vince Gill, the world-class artists, are not playing out much, but they’ve sandbagged some money over the years to tide them over. However, the artists just under that level of success are really hurting. The roadies, the lighting crews, the bus drivers...all those support people are languishing badly...waiting, waiting, waiting for this damn virus to leave. Some are searching, some finding new ways to reach their audiences. Others are looking for “day jobs”. Thayne Bradford and Bob Breidenbach and Gary Hunt are playing on folks’ lawns to appreciative street-side audiences. Justin Brannum, the great musician who used to live in St Louis and now resides in Nashville, is giving concerts and lessons via the Internet. But, I don’t think many musicians are making the kind of money they used to make, which in reality never was that much, particularly when you consider all the costs involved in “making music”.
Fortunately for me Gary Hunt reached out to me while we were in South Dakota heading eastward and invited me to join him for a band job at a private party. It was to be outside so social distancing would be definitely available. Any chance I have to play music with those boys I jump at...pun intended. That group of artists is pretty darn good if you ask me. Gary Hunt, Bob Breidenbach, and Dade Farrar on doghouse bass would all be there along with yours truly. What a joy! I was a little bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to play very well due to my recent affliction of “Trigger Finger” in both my hands. My hands had been really hurting and the flexibility in my fingers had been getting somewhat limited. I had received treatment in my right hand and it was starting to feel much better, but my left hand, or fretting hand on the guitar, had not been treated yet. However, I was able to play acceptably, not great, but OK.
The party was held at a gentleman’s house that is perched high on a bluff overlooking the Meramec River. There is a wide and long patio that overlooks the river as well as backs up to a grotto-like natural stone wall. As perfect a setting for an acoustic band as ever there was one. Wooden instruments sound best outdoors and in this setting the notes and harmonies drifted out over the broad river valley for miles, I’m certain. There were a lot of musicians in attendance...pickers galore, so we not only enjoyed each other’s musical company, but we put our best licks out there so as not to be under-valued by those very good musicians and singers. ( Being a little competitive when musicians are in the audience is part and parcel to perfoming ) I think we passed the audition. We all did our best to keep distance among ourselves and the couple dozen partyers. Looking fondly back at that evening I have to say that this event was one of the most memorable “party jobs” I’ve yet played. Bob’s silky smooth dobro slides trailed as campfire smoke into the night sky towards the Milky Way. Gary’s mandolin flurries floated over the river valley and blended with the ancient, crystalline tones of the river splashing over limestone-littered riffles upstream. Sitting here at the computer writing this I can still hear the cascading ending B minor scale of “Pancho and Lefty” echoing down the river valley in the twilight. It’s there still, hanging in suspension like an invisible evening mist. Music, like spent emotion, never dies.
Amidst all the visiting with Eli’s family, with old friends and doctor visits we mapped out time for ourselves to get back to the outdoors stuff in Missouri we’ve always loved. I booked a campsite at Echo Bluff State Park along the National Scenic Rivers corridor in south central Missouri, at Sam A Baker State Park in southeastern Missouri along Big Creek. I also booked a campsite at my favorite Missouri state park, Hawn, near Ste Genevieve, Mo. Hiking and canoing were taking front and center roles at these sublime areas. We stayed at Echo bluff State Park for 5 days and though it rained for 3 of those days and it was unseasonably cold for October we did get out on the Jack’s Fork and Current Rivers on two of the days. We were alone on the rivers, something unthinkable during the peak Summer months. The rivers ran well, though a little low. It was splendid. I plumbed the depths of the clear water beneath the sycamores, staring into the water as we drifted lazily by, searching out memories of times such as this from just under the surface of the rippling, sun-dazzled surface. We were so glad we set aside time for floating. New river-born memories created.
Echo Bluff is a fine State Park. The amenities are new and everything in the campground works flawlessly. I never ever grow tired of being on the rivers in Missouri. Diane and I literally grew up together canoing and kayaking these streams. We used to keep all our camping supplies bundled up in a corner of our garage so we could take off in an instant whenever we had a chance to go floating. At the drop of a hat we could be out the door and down the road towards whatever watery destination was drawing us. In later years I used to keep an active link to the US Geological website so I could assess the current river levels of every float stream in Missouri. In the olden days we would call canoe outfitters and ask, “How’s the river look?” But in recent days technology provides the real-time river assessment.
Sam A Baker State Park is a glorious piece of the St Francois Mountains. These hills and hollows are nearly as old as the earth itself. Once more jagged and a lot higher in altitude, the St Francois’ have been worn down by millions of years of wind, rain, flowing water, and the general spinning of the earth to their present state. There are some great hiking trails here that are really rugged and rock-strewn and offer exhilarating walks through the forested hills and valleys. With it being peak Autumn leaf-changing time and the moon in its fullest, full self, we got to experience everything sublime that nature in the area had to offer. Big Creek runs along the edge of the Park. A little upstream from Sam A Baker it cuts like a diamond saw through granite fields of boulders creating a wild challenge to river runners in the Spring when the Creek is up and running hard. Diane and I once ran it during such a time.
Though I am not particularly proud of certain portions of my life, and this story echoes one of those times, I’ll tell it anyway. Now and then when we were in our 20’s Diane and I would go floating with our friends Brad Koberman and Kathy Barth. Brad and Kathy were very experienced canoeists and kayakers and had kayaked some really dangerous Class IV creeks and rivers. They knew what they were doing while out on a river in a canoe. Brad told us about Big Creek and said it was up and running hard. It would be a blast to run it right now, though it would really test us. Of course, we were up for it.
We put in about 7 miles upstream from Sam A Baker, our take-out point, as I recall. It was a brisk day, sunny in the low 60’s with a breeze out of the northwest. As was our habit in those days we toasted our start with strong, deep draws on liquor...this time “summer coolants” as we dubbed them...Vodka Tonics. Why we thought we could drink alcohol and navigate this stream at this time is beyond me now, but that’s what we did. It seemed that’s exactly what we should do. No sooner than we set out downstream we passed under a small bridge carrying a one-lane dirt road. Under the bridge curled up tight against the eaves was a guy sleeping with no apparent sleeping bag or means of keeping warm during the night. It being really early in the morning, we inadvertently woke him up as we approached the bridge laughing and carrying on. Startled, he called out to us from his dusty sleeping place, “Hey, can y’all carry me down river to Droosy Bend? I gotta be at a friend's house near there this mornin’ and this would save me a lot of time.” Well, we being in a very good mood, and the thought of picking up a riverine hitchhiker, the likes of which we’d never seen before, and fitting him into the middle of the canoe, we thought it a perfectly plausible idea. Hell, why not? So, off and down the river we went, the three of us crammed into that beat up canoe, the river hiker regaling us with crazy stories of his life of late. Come to find out he spent more than a few nights curled up under that bridge for various reasons. “It’s nice up in there.” He stated. “ You’re out of the rain and there’s no one else there but the raccoons and possums. They don’t bother you much.” Sure enough, we got to his designated jump-off point and off he disappeared into the woods somewhere, gone, but never forgotten by Diane and me.
We set off again downstream in the raucous current bobbing and weaving every which way to avoid hitting boulders and spilling over into the stream. Brad was dead-on right. It was white-knuckle challenging. For some reason, never to be understood by people of reason, I kept on drinking those summer coolants until at some point, I remember not, I decided it would be a great idea to paddle down the river in my underwear. Diane tells me they all talked me into it, but I have no recall. The idea of us somehow attempting to navigate that treacherous and long run of rapids, with me drunk as ever I was in my life, stripped down to my underwear and at times standing up in the boat, seems ridiculous... but it made sense to me in my stupor at the time. Why Diane didn’t just kick me out of the boat and leave me to wander the woods for eternity with that guy who hitchhiked a ride with us is a true testament to unconditional love. God bless her.
Somehow, by the everlasting Grace of God Himself I’m sure, we made it all the way down the river through all those rapids of granite and furious water without turning over, or so much as spilling a drop of summer coolant. Brad said we looked like pros coming through the frothy rapids. I’m not so sure, I don’t recall any of it. I do know that I was way more than relaxed for the tense challenges. There are pictures of the adventure somewhere, though. Me in my underwear and Diane doing the best she can to compensate for my condition as our canoe threaded the boulders and shut ins, preserved on Kodachrome. I just hope they’re buried in a box in a basement somewhere. As Providence would have it, and as karma would insist, at the very, very end of the float, when the water had calmed to a nice easy current...we flipped. There was no logical reason for it...except I was really buzzed. This story is Reason #623 why I no longer imbibe in the Forbidden Fruit.
All the eddies and pools on these rivers are etched in my memory like a well-marked-up map. Every big fish we caught, every belly-laugh, every near spill in a canoe rounding a tight bend in the river with a threatening, stuffed root wad blocking half the river, every night out under the stars have all become part of our DNA. My dad, who had the pioneer blood and the traveler’s bone, used to tell me, “You know, there are more dramatic states in terms of scenery. Colorado is tremendous and of course, Alaska is well...Alaska. But...no state is more beautiful than Missouri.” I believed it then and I believe it now. When you get out there alone with your loved one on that rocky bluff at Hawn State Park and look out over the rolling hills and that fertile valley of kaleidoscopic colors in the Fall, with River Aux Valles lazily carving its way through the granite boulders... you feel it. When you round a tight bend in your canoe in the Jack’s Fork river and you come face to face with Jam Up Bluff and that massive cave entrance with the underground river flowing out of the porous limestone… you feel it. When the St Francois Mountain streams run fast with melting snow... you feel it. When the katydids begin singing in perfect time on a warm and humid summer night and the unmistakably lonesome whippoorwill calls from a hidden branch of a tall sycamore tree...you feel it. Missouri finds its way into your soul, your spirit, and your heart. You never lose it.