A Number of Ones

 

I’ve been thinking of a number lately. No, it is not forty-two, but that would be an excellent answer, I’m sure. I guess it’s rational, but it feels irrational – neither known nor unknown. I’d say it’s fungible, but I am not really sure I know what that word means. Maybe it is finite, that’s a thing, right? Or infinite but infinity frightens me.

The number is definitely place and time-specific and it is certainly wide-ranging. It can seem arbitrary and perhaps is. When you bottom-line it – math reference – it is a very personal number, but I suspect we don’t all have one.

The number answers this question: how many people do you need in your audience?

Mine may or may not be thirteen.

Let me try to explain what I am getting at here. Many folks I know – you perhaps – are writers, musicians and singers, printmakers, painters, potters and poets, dancers, directors, actors and chefs. 

Artists all.

And, although some may argue against this, all require an audience.

 

When I was a waifish, hopelessly sophomoric, perpetually high college, well, sophomore, a group of us left our hip and happening, infamous partying university for a smaller and hipper and partyingly superior small college here in Southwest Ohio. I am not sure what brought us there now, other than the aforementioned partying.

The college town there was, and still is, a hippy enclave with little craft and book shops, and glassblowers and, just off the street behind the weird little bakery, was a blacksmiths workshop. Well, at eight in the morning, I was looking for coffee, and, after procuring some sort of vegan mud, I wandered down that alley and his sign said ‘open’ and I ding-a-linged in.

(Just to clear things up this is nineteen-hundred-and-eighty-one, and the town is Yellow Springs, the college Antioch.)

He was a bear, I was, frankly, bear fodder. But he looked kindly, and I asked what was going on.

Now, to make an already long story less long, he took a shine to me and me him and we hung out for a few visits. He was a welder and artist who worked with iron mostly - abstracts on a large scale - a hanger-on alum and one gruff and wise dude. He also fashioned tools for fellow artists at his forge. Tongs and holders and picker-uppers and bangers, hammerheads and auls and augers – honestly, I’ve not the vocabulary to be more accurate.

I thought it was vaguely interesting that he, an artist, made tools for other artists. When I asked him about that, my brain, although imaginative, was hardly prepared for his answer. He went on about the duty of the artist (I giggled at that) and making things for the makers and much more heady stuff – he had a master’s degree. Through it all, though, I did hear this:

“Art is for however many need it.”

He made art, the hand tools, and gave them to a single person, an audience of one.

He made grand, rusty behemoths in public squares seen by many thousands as well.

He said they were both the same audience.

 

In my fiftyish years of playing guitar and singin’ songs, I have played for numbers of crowds of varying numbers. A couple of friends in a college apartment, a kitchen full of folksingers at a summer party, a beautiful wife, two soft and tender little boys beside a campfire. I played to the endless stars, a moon, and a Milky Way, to the desert wind and the city snow, alone? Maybe, probably not.

I’ve played Christmas carols for my dying father and I’ve sung at funerals, church services, and weddings. I still feel special when I play for my mother and my brother and his lovely wife.

I played one night at an open mic, a very late slot, and the soundboard glitched and the mics were screeching and the whole thing had to be shut down. I said I could do without it all and sat at the edge of the stage and began to play and sing. A pool of light from above shone on me and into the front few rows of tables where the last of the crowd lingered. Midway through John Prine’s “Paradise” I looked out and counted thirteen faces, it was positively Rockwellian, every face different and warm and kind and patient… eager. Eager to hear me play. I played five songs that night and it remains the best set I’ve ever played.

When I think about an audience and what that all means, I often think back to Bear the Blacksmith, and I reckon I now understand what he was getting at – an audience is built a member at a time.

The answer, it seems, might simply be one.

It might be thirteen ones or seventy-thousand ones.

One.

You.

 

My sons, who I am no longer writing about around here, have inspired me to start up the old blog again. Some of you might remember them from many years of considering and watching and sharing their stories and such in the back pages here. One son took on the challenge of writing a poem a week last year and sharing them on Instagram. The other has listened to an album a day for all of that same year and shares his brief thoughts on them on Discord, is it? Both have decided to do it again this year.

So, I am going to do an essay a week and publish that on Fridays for the rest of the year… wish me luck.

 

Peace to you all in this New Year, thanks for stopping by.

 

(Nick’s poems can be seen here and, well, I dunno where Z’s stuff ends up, I think it's just for the youths...)

A Concert for Bill

I've written a few dozen songs over the course of my musical life, some good, some clever, some... not so much, you know? I recently got it into my head to perform some of them and post them on the innerwebs, Part 1 and Part 2.  I describe each song a bit in the video, but I thought it might be fun to go a little deeper here, where words go to, if not die, then to languish. (In all honesty, I am really pleased that Blogger has hosted this sight for almost twelve tears now, that's pretty cool.) The images are scans of the tabs I use for each song, some are very old.

 

SIDE A

 

Dancin' Girl

This first song is pretty straightforward - I saw a pretty girl walking down the street in front of our off-campus college house Junior year, and I wrote a song about it. I make it sound as if I knew she loved to dance because of some sort of cosmic connection between us. No, I'd seen her in the Dance building a few times.  For decades I called this song "Kari's Song" (yeah, clever) but, I'd lost the original song sheet and actually forgot her name and changed the song's title. I was later reminded of her name, but that's a story for another time.

Tears in Texas

I was living in New York City, Queens, in the nineteen-eighties and, back in those days, most everyone subscribed to magazines. I got several; Newsweek, Life, Psychology Today, Popular Mechanics, The Utne Reader of all things, and National Geographic. You might remember that the magazine came in a brown paper bag sort of covering. I pulled the newest issue out one day, and a young, good-lookin' cowboy was staring right at me, all macho and rodeo-ready, holding a pretty girl, both beaming. All the main title said was, "Austin!" The first thought I had was the opening line of this song.

 

This Old Cracked Guitar

I could linger long on this one, a whole damn book, probably - stories of pear trees and wedding restrooms, ill-fated roses and sweet summer seas, an actual very cracked guitar, and tender naive love. I won't. Two things: this is the most important song I've ever written and... she said "yes!"

What I Got (The Butt-Wigglin' Song)

I don't know if I've ever admitted this before, but that previous song was not the original one I wrote to ask Marci to marry me. This was.  Yeah, I quickly decided against it, it's a little rowdy, and the diamond ring thing didn't really work. But, I think it's a fun song. 

(Here's something I'd like you to know about why I am doing this. It's hard to admit, but... I, really - I just choked back one of those silly mid-sentence sobs we all get - anyway,  I am not sure how much longer I will be able to play these songs. My hands are going fast, and some of them are sort of difficult, and when you can't play your own songs it's sorta sad. At least they'll be here.)

 

Double Lines

I've sometimes wondered if this song was a little too show-offy and literary, what with its many references and general cleverness. In the past several weeks, as I've been working up these songs to do all this, I've just decided it's a pretty damn good song. I had the opportunity to drive a bit of the highway itself, west of Flagstaff, I believe. You could actually get off the road you were on, some interstate, and scooch over to what was actually "Old 66." I stopped off to the side and took a real look around. It was there I noticed those double yellow lines and the feel of the whole place - it seemed like you could feel all them souls passin' by. It is pretty special when giant, complex ideas get distilled to a piece of pavement and a dusty parade of ghosts.

Snapshots

This one's sort of self-explanatory. I don't think all these images were in the same photo-book, but other than that, I believe I could find all these photos in the albums my mom made for us, Bob and Don and I, growing up, thanks, Mom.

Missin' Mason

This is a song about my hometown. A bit of literary license has been utilized; everything is not true here. Except that... well, it is all true; the feeling behind every word is as true as rain. A couple of times, the accuracy of this song has been questioned - a little advice here for ya, don't do that. As you listen to a song, hear the notes, cipher out the words, ride the melody, be in the story, but never, never, question a song's truth.

 Sing Out

I spent a great deal of my teenage years hunkered down in a basement bedroom on my unmade bed, learning songs. Actually, I still spend a great deal of my time now hunkered down at a basement work desk learning songs. I suppose the artists have changed but I guess I like it. This one is for Woody Guthrie, John Denver, Jim Croce and Bob Dylan. I think I wrote this in the late nineties. I didn't include Gordon Lightfoot, but the songs are already too long so I am sure that's why. I worked in references to many of the artist's songs here, which I find clever. Those names sure do take me back to a time that was so formative for me. "That's the boy I was," says the man I will become to hisself. Time is a big, damn mess of noodles and intersections - and a liar.

The Rhythm of the Rain

This is the last song of the first part - side A if you will - of the video. It is also the first song I ever wrote. It's precocious and sappy, treacly, you know? But, but... I've been playing it now for awhile, after not even considering it for decades, and I've got to say it's pretty good. I really dig the droning sort of verse, those minors and all, then a happy full major chorus. It circles back and ends well. I wrote it in the summer of nineteen-hundred-and-seventy-nine on the same bed I learned the Dylan and Lightfoot and all, on the then new, not-yet-cracked guitar, a few months before I was off to college in Athens. In a way, I think it was a goodbye to, uh, maybe myself, there was certainly not a girl I was that enamored of at the time. I guess I was scared and thinking I'd once loved so much - fictionally, albeit - was comforting... I don't know where this tune came from - probably Gordon and Bob and Woody, Jim and John. An homage perhaps?

And, here - just to add a little verisimilitude - is the original copy I went to college with, in my songbook. Man, why does rememberin' hurt so much sometimes.

SIDE B

Where the Indians Danced

I've spent a lot of time in my life outside, often in places where there aren't a lot of folks, and so often I have sensed the long shadows, heard the faded echoes, felt the joy of those who were there before me. I spent some time alone on the Mogollon Rim in northern Arizona, on two separate occasions, and never exactly felt alone. Here in Ohio, probably not ten miles away from where I am right now - perhaps in my backyard - serpentine earthworks remain from the early indigenous peoples here, often referred to as "The Moundbuilders."

 Down on Jimmy's Farm

Another place that has that ancient, important vibe of pasts long gone is my friend's farm. He's a private guy so I won't dwell on him or how good and steadfast a friend he has been or his lovely family and all... it does seem I sorta called him out there in the title and I may as well have given global coordinates to his place in the song. Suffice to say, it's a damn nice place to sit and, well, sit. I've haven't been down there in years, I better do that soon.

In A Little Boy's Soul

"Some days you know just how it goes, Some days you have no clue. Some days you write the song, Some days the song writes you." Guy Clark wrote that in a song, and he titled a whole album on that truth -  Some Days the Song Writes You (2009). This one definitely wrote me. It's about the inherent hope and even happiness in longing and loneliness, a lifetime foe of mine. Also, again, time is a fucker, sometimes I can't find myself on my own damn timeline.

Ballad of Jane Doe

This song is based on a story I heard once at a conference in Cleveland. A women told this story and a few days earlier I'd seen the movie Days of Wine and Roses - a very rough watch about a couples' descent into alcoholism - and I remember thinking, "where were her days of wine and roses." The phrase comes originally from an 1896 poem called Vitae Summa Brevis by Ernest Dowson which is really quite lovely. I mentioned that it was written in a different tuning and on a big dreadnought guitar, but, I didn't mention that I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull this one off.

The Ballad of John and Paul

(The similarity between this tune and the previous tune is because they are indeed similar. They weren't originally what with the different tuning and all but, well, here we are.) Todd Snider a wonderful singer, songwriter, storyteller you should check out if you'd care to, always talks about his original tunes as songs he made up, like, "here's a song I made up about a beer-run." This song is like that, it just came out nearly whole one summer afternoon many years ago. I don't know who these cats are but they're as real as anyone I've ever known - sorta my Pancho and Lefty - with apologies to TVZ.

Whatshername's Song

Do you remember the first song on Side A here, Dancin' Girl? I told you for a number of years I couldn't recall her name. About twenty years after I wrote that song, well, what happened in this song happened; we were reacquainted, remembered each others' names and a few other things. In case you're wondering, I ended up with the shirt.

The Day is Done by Longfellow

In the late nineties maybe I was binging on a lot of Romantic poetry and such - as one does - Wordsworth and Longfellow and Whitman and Keats and the like. I got it in my head to put one of the poems to music. This is the result. During the Days of Covid (now there's a song title), my good pal Spoon Phillips helped me with a version of it for Play Music on the Porch Day - a real thing - it's really a better version because of all his fiddle-dee-dees and pretty do-dads he adds over me rather utilitarian rendering of the song, Here's a link: now. Ooh, this tab is in color... fancy.

The Nick and Zack Song

I guess I had to write this song. I was worried about being a Dad, getting it right and all. That's all I've got to say about it for now, I think I went on and on about it once in my blog but today... I guess it's, well, a little overwhelming somehow. There's a line that sort of summarizes my parenting: "I'm gonna teach you everything; how to sing and dance and love and live and pray." I am particularly glad I wrote this song, it's sorta hard to play though.

Princes of Loveland

An old buddy of mine penned these lyrics and I set them to a tune and that's about all there is to it.

That's a wrap, I guess. Thanks for sticking around, perhaps for listening in and all  that.  This took a lot of work and time but, I am very glad I did it.

Peace to you all.

 

Leather Journals and Weathered Campers

This piece was originally publish in City Dads Group in July of last year. There is an added paragraph that was edited out (for good reason, it's weird) included at the conclusion. I just wanted this here in my blog-cum-journal because it means a lot to me and I want it with my other musings.

 

I am going through a long and sentimental (bordering on mawkish) ending of sorts that involves a 20-year-old Coleman pop-up camper.

My wife and I bought it new just after we were married, well before we had the twins, well before I ever dreamed that was on the horizon. It’s old and worn now, ravaged by time and memory, many miles and many backyard sleepovers. I am trying to figure what to do with it as it’s barely roadworthy.

We were so delightfully young and naive when we were purchasing it. We spent weeks looking at floor plans, considering size and amenities, finally deciding on a smaller sized one that could be towed by my six-cylinder Chevy S-10. A smaller size would also made it a little easier to back up and, truth be told — ‘cause I suck at backing a trailer — could actually be hand pushed into a space when necessary. It never really occurred to us that we might be camping with twin toddlers or giant teenagers, so we based our needs on just us: no toilet and an interior set up to accommodate two newlyweds and a guitar.

The camper’s been in the backyard for sometime now. The boys like to hang out in it as the WiFi reaches that far. I’ve got to put it down before … well, I can’t.

You see, at the same time we bought the camper, I purchased a very nice leather-bound journal. I put it in a drawer inside the camper and vowed to write a bit about every night we would spend in it. And I did. The writing is not very good, few metaphors or deep insights, but the years are covered, each trip dutifully noted. Through the pages, the boys grow up, I age, the relationship with my wife deepens and a continuity and connection is established. Over the years, it has held the stories and hopes of a young family growing up together. Stories of thunderstorms and frightened toddlers, scraped knees and sleepless nights; hopes for the future in the young minds of 6-year-olds and my own hopes for their lives moving forward.

“Through the pages, the boys grow up, I age, the relationship with my wife deepens and a continuity and connection is established. Over the years, it has held the stories and hopes of a young family growing up together.” (Photo: Bill Peebles)

I am very glad I bought that journal. It sits to my left as I am writing this right now.

I spent a couple of recent evenings in the old camper, looking through what was in it when I came across the journal. I, of course, knew it was in there, but with a curious urgency — fueled perhaps by the beers — I put it with the pile of things to take into the house along with a nice bag of ropes and twine and three fire-starter type lighters — you know, the long ones.

Here’s the thing, the “ending” of that old camper is a new “beginning” for that journal. It is done with its long present and now can begin to show me my past: a past where I hoped for my boys’ future. It is so strange how, as one writes in diaries and personal journals, how prescient we can be. There’s an entry from 2011, written of an early morning at a state park in central Ohio, where I say: “The boys are getting along surprisingly well. They rarely fight or bicker and are good friends, it seems. Who knows how long that’ll last, but I really hope it does.”

How could I know then that, nine years later, they’d still be best friends?

Or, that at the time I was watching the beginnings of what I think will be a lifelong friendship?

How, perhaps, would I know that camping and close proximity and bonding in the close quarters of that little camper would help that along?

And how, perhaps I had helped it through sheer happenstance and in a leather-bound journal I’d noted it and can now look back upon it?

Recently, a fellow father and writer, purchased a used camper and solicited advice from a social media group we are in. I typed a long answer — advice on gear and the such — but I deleted it. The real advice I had for him was too ethereal and came from a place I’m at now, a place he’ll get to, a place he already is. Camping, like so many other family adventures and hobbies, are about memory making. Their worth can only be revealed later, but, at the time you’re making them, you still somehow know that even if you don’t realize it then.

Anyway, we all seem to be currently living lives that seem to simply be in the present.  Asking ourselves to consider what is ahead, or even close examination of what was just behind us is, if you’ll forgive me, untimely.  Literally, now, this now, is not the time. But, for me, this journal seems to be both future and past, a thing long gone, but ultimately to show its future self, uh… later?  Now?

Oh, nevermind…

 

Abba

This post was originally published on City Dads Group in April of this year, I am reposting it here because, as an archive of my writings, I like to get most everything I've written in one place. The original Editor's note precedes it.

 

Editor’s note: Pope Francis has proclaimed 2021 as “The Year of St. Joseph.” Pope Francis describes Joseph – the father of Jesus and spouse of his mother, Mary, in the Christian tradition – as “a beloved father, a tender and loving father, an obedient father, an accepting father; a father who is creatively courageous, a working father, a father in the shadows.” Contributor Bill Peebles wrote this tribute.

A young man holds an infant in an oak rocking chair. The baby fusses and cries, uncomfortable in its new surroundings, inundated with sights and sounds so new and unfamiliar. The father soothes and smiles, his rough hands stroke the dark hair and chubby cheeks and the baby calms and begins to coo and eventually nods off. The room is dark, but a simple lamp fills it full.

The toddler, two-and-a-half, now laughs and chases a kitten across the wooden floor of a dining room. The same father watches, a warm drink in his hand, and encourages the little one to be gentle. He lifts the kitten and teaches the little one to pet it with care. A morning glow fills the room and speckles the orange and black calico with a light that seems from within the kitten and kid.

That toddler, a boy now, 7 and full of energy and boundless love watches as the father makes his breakfast of bread and milk and sweet honey. He dances in his pine chair in happy anticipation and sighs at the taste of the honey and milk-soaked loaf. He knows he is safe even as a storm blows up in the trees outside the home, unafraid even as the room explodes in the flash of lightning close by.

Ten now, the boy runs and chases and tags and tackles his friends as they play outside the school. They rejoice in the temporary freedom, away from the hard wooden desks and dusty classroom. Another boy falls hard, and a sharp stone slashes his forehead, our boy runs towards him pulling off his garment, unafraid of the blood and pain of it. He comforts and tends the wound. The father watches, not proud but sure, sure in the lessons learned and taught, from both to each other.

An older boy, a young man perhaps, the rings of his years building up around him, protecting, comes into his age. There are celebrations and woodfires and wine and cheese and incantations. Some blood, perhaps, is let. The time is upon him now to look to the future – outwards, forward and in, always in.  The father knows, though, the rough and wondrous way ahead.

A job — a workshop, a woodshed, a quarry, a brewery, a bakery, a sanctuary – where is not important, but the boy is gone, his own man know. But, he is also his father’s son and shall always be.

The tenderness he shows others is in indeed his father’s.

The grace he has seen is only illuminated through his father’s eyes.

All that he finds sacred in the wood, and in the thorns and in the sorrows; all that is sacred in the sky and lakes and clouds and smoke is through the father.

All that he finds holy, the very whole of it all, is the Father.

After a time apart, both seconds and eons, they meet again.

The boy, always a boy to the father, smiles and simply says:

“Abba.”

The joyous father beams and whispers back, “My son …”