More Good Times Down the Music Road

Hello from Phoenix, Arizona! As I write this morning, I'm at the home of good friends "Buckshot Dot", western singer/songwriter/poet Dee Strickland Johnson, and her husband John. Arrived in Phoenix yesterday after an enjoyable if loooong trip from Austin, Texas.

After an good visit with Florida friends Dan and Diana Ost, transplanted to the Austin, Texas, area, and an intimate concert in their home, I drove out to Kerrville (Ingram, actually), Texas, where I met up with world-traveller Davy Crockett (his real name), with whom I'm plotting up, hopefully, a trip to Peru next (northern) winter. Davy is a fine guy, and an interesting adventurer I enjoy knowing very much. Next stop was Las Cruces, New Mexico, where I visited and spent a day and night with musician Bob Combs. Had some great Mexican food with Bob and his friend Jane, and Bob and I jammed into the night one night. Mostly blues. Bob's a fine guitarist. He has me interested in doing some of the music of Robert Earl Keene. High quality stuff.

In Las Cruces I also connected with a very longtime friend, Dr. Kathleen (Sue to family) Hales. I've known Sue since she was ten years old. Her dad and mother and I were friends away back. Walt Lashley, her dad, was a genius, a self-educated scientist, visual artist, and writer, and one of those one-in-a-million characters I've been lucky enough to know. I had a multitude of good times, fascinating discussions, and adventures in the wilds of New Mexico with Walt in our younger days. A victim of what proved for him to be an unconquerable cigarette-smoking addiction, Walt passed on much too early to whatever is next after this life, but Sue's mother, Walt's widow, Sheila Lashley, is very much alive and we are friends today. I could only visit with Sue Hales briefly because she was at work seeing patients, but it was fun for both of us to make contact.

I enjoyed poking around in Las Cruces too.

After Las Cruces I drove on to Grant County, New Mexico, where I visited for a couple of days with my old bass player Pete Silman and his wife Nancy, who live in Arenas Valley, New Mexico, not far from Silver City. That was immense fun. Pete and I played some music, of course, and we all reminisced about events in days of old. We were young together, away back when. Visited with several other old friends while I was in Grant County, too, including Sheila Lashley; David Berry, who usually works with the USA's operations in Antarctica but who was at home when I stopped at his place; and great good friend, Dougan Hales, one of the world's true thinkers and scholars, and a fine writer. Dougan teaches at an alternate school in Silver City, and passes on his wisdom on to younger folks both in and out of the school.

Early one morning while I was in southern New Mexico I also visited my ex-wife, Donna Samuels, in the village of Pinos Altos, on the edge of the Gila National Forest, where we once lived together and where she still lives. We had not seen each other in a long time, and in fact have been together only once or twice in all the many years since we were divorced. Like me, Donna never married again. We've been apart for a very long time and most, maybe all, of the pain of our parting, for me at least, has been swept away in the river of time. Donna and I had a nice visit last week. She seems to be doing well. The fact that we could not continue as a married couple does not change the fact that I love her and hold her in my heart always. As I said to Donna last week, I think the most important thing to me about our relationship now is that we have never become enemies, as so many divorced people do.

Leaving New Mexico I drove west on I-10 to Fort Bowie National Historic Site, away back a long, twisting road, first paved and then dirt, south of the town of Fort Bowie. A few miles of hiking took me through beautiful desert hills, the ancient home of the Chiracahua Apaces, to the ruins of Fort Bowie. The hike was interesting and physically stimulating. It was a deep thrill to stand, away out in the desert mountains, and watch water steadily burbling up out of Apache Spring---as it has for millenia untold. I was saddened, though, to think, as I made my way along the trails, of the way European-descended people, without any right to do so and without any compassion or consideration for the rights of others, flooded into that remote area and destroyed the lifestyle of the orginal residents there, whose homeland that had been for millenia.

Pressing on the next day to Benson, Arizona, I arrived at the home of my good friends Charlie and Elaine Reece. Charlie and I are longtime cohorts on the music road. Hailing originally from Nebraska, Charlie plays on many of the same festivals I do in the summer in the midwest. We had a grand time together, as always. Charlie is one busy guy!! He has a huge barn in Benson full of projects he's working on. He cuts and polishes gems, restores old cars, and does a dozen other interesting things. Charlie is in a band in the Benson area with some other good musicians. We all met the second day I was there for a good long jam session. That was major fun.

Heading west again from Benson I arrived night before last in Casa Grande, Arizona, where I jumped off the interstate to camp out on the desert for a night, comfortable in cold temperatures in my sleeping bag under brilliantly glittering stars. The air on the desert was brisk and clean and delightful. I loved doing some yoga pranayama (breathing) exercises in that wonderful air. It was like drinking delicious icy mountain spring water. After passing an exquisitely peaceful night I woke very thoroughly refreshed and revitalized in the morning. I like to do that once in a while!!

Connecting the next day with John and Dee Johnson, I accompanied them to a meeting of a western history club to which they belong last night. There we ate and heard an interesting lecture about the Salt River Project, the water management system developed in Arizona to supply water to the hordes of people living there. I certainly have mixed feelings about that.

Met a lady at the meeting who puts on house concerts at her place in Phoenix, and made an agreement to do one there next year when I am back here for the Phoenix Folk Festival (To perform in the festival is my main reason for being in Phoenix this time.)

Well, dear readers, my first concert in the Phoenix series is tonight, so it is time for me to get to work. It's been fun. See you here next time!

Every day is a cherished gift, and life is good.