When you see the Southern Cross for the first time …

All week I've noticed the tributes to David Crosby after his death. My own feelings evaded me as I read what others had written. That was until today when I saw this post on facebook, and subsequently listened to that song for about the millionth time. Now I can honestly say, as that post did: "RIP David Crosby and thanks for the boat songs." (I have sailed with them and had many a midnight watch with this music to accompany me — TJ). "He had great taste in boats... He was a sailor of the first order....Here is his boat "Mayan"...I am sure "Southern Cross" and "Wooden

Big Dipper/north star of the South.

 Ships" express this yacht....

MAYAN, John Alden design #356B, was built in Belize in 1947. She sailed for New York City upon launching and was sold into a post-war market starved for boats. MAYAN served in the charter trade until 1969 when she was bought by David Crosby, the rock star." (From The Boating Site on facebook)

     I never did see the constellation, nor did I ever make or receive that call from a noisy bar in Avalon. (I did find a letter addressed to me at the harbor in Hawaii when we aarrived.) But, if you recall those questions like if you were on a desert island and could only have one song, this would probably be it for me. And now I feel the loss.

 

 

Oh when the saints …

 

Around the time of my 70th birthday I noticed the number of my favorite musicians who were in the same age range, feeling sort of comfortable getting old with them. Now, having gone to the place out past 80 I am realizing many of us are dying — Jeff Beck yesterday, the most recent. They leave behind what someday may be called the greatest era of American popular music. And I am marching on with them still a year older than Keith Richards. Thinking ahead, if anybody is listening despite my love of classic rock,I would like to have one of those New Orleans jazz funerals. Philip would you bring your trombone? And carrying that a little further, wouldn't it be something if rock bands could stand to the same sort of ceremony? Start out with Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" or Laura Nyro's "When I Die" and wrap it up with a wild run at "Layla" or the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up." With trombone of course.

I  hope the following doesn't sound morbid. I woke up today with Bob Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" in my head and that had me thinking about other songs. Mind you this playlist is not any indication that I am preoccupied with my own death, it's, like always, about the music. And the picture? Well anybody who knows me knows I am not religious, still I know religion exists and at times I get a flash of the beliefs. This opening in a dismal, overcast sky brought them to mind.

Might this be where the stairway leads?

"Stairway to Heaven"  Led Zeppelin, performed by Heart at Kennedy Center Honors 2012

Bob Dylan: "Knocking on Heaven's Door" 

Eric Clapton, "Tears in Heaven"    unplugged.

Blood, Sweat and Tears: "And when I die." (Laura Nyro)

Oh, what the heck!

And for the march back from the cemetery

New Orleans Traditional Jazz Band

(You have to love those trombones right up front)

Strangers in the night

 

Not the same moose.

I saw the moose last night. I’m now in my 14th month here, halfway through the second winter. During all the snow months there’s been a stomped out trail up and down the lawn outside my window along the edge of what looks to be an extensive wood lot. I’ve imagined what or who made that trail. At first I thought moose, but it is trampled down so often that seemed unlikely. I thought maybe maintenance people here moving from one parking lot to another and the third was a homeless person camping in the woods. First one who came to mind was the Solitary Man I observed often on my commutes years ago.     

     He lived on an island between the northbound and southbound lanes of the Glenn Highway just south of the bridge over Eagle River. I often saw him walking the bicycle trail between the island and downtown Eagle River. Some years ago improvements to the highway wiped out the island and I’ve often wondered what happened to him. Where I am now is less than 10 miles from the bridge, so it’s not impossible. 

     Then this morning around 4 a.m. the solution appeared. With just enough light outside to make out shapes, I sat on the edge of the bed looking out the window, and there it was, a moose trudging through the deep snow making way up the hill. There might even have been two of them but by the time I found my glasses and put them on they had disappeared into the parking lot at the top. No doubt about one, though, 

    

Proof

Then in daylight I noticed an impressive pile of moose nuggets in the trail, dark against the white snow. Even more interesting were the tracks made heading down the hill and approaching the building just below the window. One of these days, I keep telling myself I am going to put on my snowshoes and stomp around down there just to see if I can figure out what’s going on. I’ve been thinking that for a long time. 

SolitaryMan : They paved paradise and put up a parking lot