Virus that killed Prine killed CMA fest, but maybe Fan Fair will return to the Fairgrounds one day and I think Cuomo is doing a good job

This started out as a blog about the illness of John Prine, but, tragically and not unexpectedly, he succumbed the other day to COVID-19. It’s a major loss to us as a nation when a humanist who also is a true artist is gone.

And hell, I’ll just miss him as a guy. But I’ve spoken of this before, so no sense revisiting.

A lot has been lost in this COVID world.

Today, maybe I’ll talk about CMA Fest. Gone for this year. Will it ever return?

I was more concerned about Prine, of course, but I came out on the losing side.

But the death of Fan Fair  -- it’ll never be CMA Fest to this old newspaperman who lost too much sweat and sleep over at the Fairgrounds -- of course, is terrible news for the city. But then as my old pals would have said, given the state of things these days “It can’t get much worse.” That’s about when Nashville’s Mayor Mister Fluffy Eyebows … aka John (My brother is a congressman) Cooper announces the need for a hefty property tax increase.

I don’t want to comment on that other than to say the fool on the hill sees the sun going down.

Anyway, back to Fan Fair and its demise for now and perhaps forever and ever, Amen. I really hope not, as this is a massive tourist draw, filling up the hotels and motels and restaurants and bars and whorehouses of Music City.  But apparently none of the taxes from that $65 million annual “take” by the city goes to help property taxes? Help schools? Pay for lunches? Get the mayor an eyebrow trimmer?

Actually, the trimmer probably comes from city coffers. But all the tourism dollars from Fan Fair and from all of those drunken, puking, lovely-when-they-turn-over-and-skirts-drop-over-their-faces bachelorettes apparently do not go to support the city. Bachelorette babies, keep coming. Someone needs to keep buying those three-for-one boots. Well, actually, bachelorettes, please return, come back to us, when this virus leaves.

Unless we’re all dead.  I told my wife to throw my ashes in the backyard or in the stream that runs through it. Maybe do one of those Lord Jim sendoffs.  A flaming raft going down Seven Mile Creek might draw unwanted attention by the time it gets to Mill Creek, though. I’m hoping I have time to figure out other details and the truth.

Truth? What is the truth? I’ve been a so-called coward and a so-called hero, and there’s not the thickness of a piece of paper between them. Maybe cowards and heroes are just ordinary men, who for just a split second do something that is out of the ordinary. That’s all. At least according to Joe Conrad and Peter O’Toole.

Longtime entertainment editor (defrocked, though seldom naked) and columnist for local newspapers – I now write some for Nashville Ledger – I’ve covered a lot of what I still refer to as “Fan Fairs” during the last few decades.

Hell, I was there when Garth Brooks, then a humble and thin guy who may have even had hair, stayed at his Fan Fair booth for 24 hours, signing anything, living or dead, that fans would put in front of him. His wife, Sandy, a fine songwriter and nice woman, often was there at his side. With Trisha. Joking here. I love Garth, who refers to himself in third person “Garth is very unhappy with you Tim. Garth thinks Tim needs to shave his skull and give Garth some of his hair.”

I also love Trisha and thought it piss-poor judgment that when the CMA Awards were held last fall, she was not onstage for the female icons segment. Oh, I like that hockey-loving little girl from American Idol fine, but Trisha opened doors. Like Reba. And me, if a lady is coming and needs to get inside. I may not be “old-fashioned” but my mom trained a gentleman.

Of course, that Garthfest was out at the old Fairgrounds, same place I saw George Jones and Tammy Wynette reunite for their fans and produce new memories. George later became a friend and he died still owing me a steak dinner.  I should go down and tell that story to all the pilgrims at his grave at Woodlawn…. Except no one is out there these days. COVID-19 robs even the dead of their glory. I’m sure the Possum’s grave is lonely.  Course, Paycheck is nearby.

Anyway, I also saw the Fan Fair debut of Billy Ray Cyrus and his Presley imitation “Achy Breaky Heart.” Still a catchy song, though I like “Old Town Road,” his pairing with flamingly hot, pink suited and cocksure Lil Nas X, better.

Back in those days, before the CMA Fest became a huge banner event for Korporate Amerikan greed, I really loved it out at the Fairgrounds, also the world headquarters of the dream to be an international soccer hub when we don't support an over-priced Minor League baseball team.

Everyone from Beach Boys to Jo Dee Messina and Garth Brooks and Trisha (they were otherwise engaged back then, as I noted above) came out to the Fairgrounds back then. Helter-skelter in the summer swelter. Oh yeah, I did spend a couple of hours there with Jo Dee one summer. She was hot (literally, figuratively and otherwise).

What happened to her? I mean she was nice and could sing fine. Well, there were some major health issues.

And, of course, this is a flavor-of-the-month world. Jo Dee’s far from that.

For her, it’s a long way from the edge of the center ring filled with groomed hopefuls in Nashville to the Gobbler Theater in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin.    

Of course, she’s still talented and, without going into details, she is a survivor, and I wish her well. Hell, I’d rather be at the old Gobbler myself these days. Speaking of which, wild turkeys since have begun to populate the hill behind my house. Got deer, fox, raccoons, skunks, opossums and coyotes. And turkey till the coyotes find them.

As for Jo Dee, she was a kinda star on that day as we hung out between a security guard and a porta potty – I visited with both -- talking country music, Fan Fair dreams realized and just about being people.

I liked her and the Fairgrounds Fan Fair guard and hope this summer is fruitful for them both. The guard’s probably dead by now. I hope he had a nice life and enjoyed my company.  If he is alive, he’s old and I hope hiding from this fucking virus.

At the old Fan Fair, I also got to interview the quadruple amputee who was with his buddies from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, or somewhere. They were anxious to get inside on the day that Billy Ray shook what then was something of a Springsteen-patterned tush. I really liked the guy in the wheelchair. A lot. Hell, he was handicapped, but he was driven to keep up with his buddies and have fun. And he swore like the proverbial drunken sailor. I was able to keep up just fine.

While on the subject of Springsteen -- who is as country as Florida-Georgia Line, actually would blow all the country “rock” pretenders off the stage if he was to participate in what I still call “Fan Fair”-- I looked up his web page to find out he and his wife are doing well, riding horses and singing songs, while waiting out the virus at their spread in New Jersey while trying to raise money for the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund.

Speaking of Bruce, man do I miss Tom Petty. All I need to say there, but Tom has been with me a lot these last few months.  And now, well, I feel like we’re all free-fallin’ baby.  And I’ve been a good boy.

Let’s see here. I was talking about the CMA Fest. See I did it. I didn’t call it Fan Fair. I hope it’s back next year.

Course I hope a lot of things are back next year. I love the NFL above all sports, though back when I used to hang out with Muhammad Ali, I preferred boxing. And I like baseball because my Grandpa Champ used to listen to the Detroit Tigers on the radio back when he was collecting admission to the beach at Walnut Lake, Michigan.

And he smoked pipes all the while. He died almost a half-century ago. I’ve got his pipes in his office. I don’t smoke tobacco or otherwise anymore. I also have a War Is Over! (If You Want It) sign from John and Yoko’s web site. And I know war isn’t over. I saw it on Homeland Sunday night.  Damn, that Carrie sure is a character, isn’t she?

Series almost over, so I think Saul will kill the weak-kneed fucker who is the president in the show.

Happy endings. Happy endings.

Oh yeah, back to the Tigers for a second. See a blog I wrote earlier this week about the death of Al Kaline. In today’s “all-for-me” sports world, he’d have been a supermillionaire thanks to marketers of ED medications, four-wheel drive cars that never leave the highway and appearances on Jimmy Kimmel. But most people didn't know who he was when he died. What in the hell is a "K-line?" asked an adviser to Mitch McConnell.

Before I move on, I should say I like Jimmy Kimmel. I'd like to have coffee with him sometime.

I’m going upstairs to watch the news, where some kid who never really paid his or her dues as a journalist by learning how to write obits or take box scores or ask unbiased questions or learned how to use the AP Stylebook or read the Constitution will tell America how to think.

I am cheering for Cuomo. This pandemic is shitty.

It killed John Prine.







  

When a singer names a rescue pit bull Pearl, you just gotta like him: How Kevin Gordon got cut from my column but made folks dance

Sometimes when I write a column, the editors whack out a piece to make it fit. But I feel badly that in this week's Street Level column in The Nashville Ledger the nice little section on Kevin Gordon -- a talent and nice guy -- was dropped.
I contacted Kevin because I like him and I admire his talent. And, in a world of acoustic fellows, he sometimes stands out by staying electric.
Anyway, the story was about how musicians have been affected by the COVID-19 virus and how it has pretty much forced cancellations or, as in Kevin's case, adaptation.
I chose him as one who could represent all the pickers, grinners, lovers and sinners who are out there who have been forced to go to Stageit or other similar online venues to play for tips and to keep their fans in the loop.
I'm sorry it got cut, though the story turned out well (check it elsewhere on my Facebook page) and mentions all kinds of folks from Mick Jagger to Jimmy Church to Suzie Brown Sax to Super T and even my pals Thomm Jutz and Eric Brace and honky-tonk hero Jon Byrd. Actually, I pretty much love everybody I interviewed for this long piece, and I think you should read it. Hell, Duane Eddy, one of the fellows who invented rock 'n' roll and who I love as one of my best friends, even talks about what Waylon called "Skull Orchards."  Anytime I can get Duane Eddy and Waylon Jennings into a column or blog, even, I feel fulfilled, Hoss.
However, Kevin, who is a big name in smaller circles, didn't make it from the big Apple computer machine to the printed or digital page.
I am sorry about that.
But I figure that, what the hell, this is a fine musician and he spent valuable time with me. And anyone with a pit bull named Pearl has to be a fine individual, with the accent on individual.
With all that as a prelude, let me bring the section on Kevin Gordon back from the dead. Well, I've been talking a lot about death lately. Let's bring him back to life.
That lengthy prelude, in which I was able to invoke the names of Duane Eddy and Waylon Jennings, and apology brings me to this point: 
Live from the dining room: It’s Kevin Gordon.
When counting Nashville’s musical treasures, Kevin Gordon is in the first fistful, and, like all independent musicians, he’s a road warrior.
The other day he had one of his shortest gig trips in his long and poetic/rocking career.
“I’m doing one of these live-streaming things from my dining room this evening,” says Kevin, who is hunkering down and staying away from crowds.
“I’ve done a couple of them, and I really like it,” says Kevin, who was to perform for a crowd of one in the live audience: His 44-pound rescue pit mix, Pearl. His wife was in Des Moines, Iowa, visiting their daughter.
“Once I get started, I’m fine,” he says of live-streaming shows. “Beforehand, I get this feeling like I’m producing a television show, and I just worry way too much about it, especially since a lot of the people are going to watch it on their phones.”
His choice for the concert was Stageit, but there are different platforms for live-streaming, and artists from Nashville continue to use them in order to make a little money via remote. 
The basic format of Stageit is artists select their times and places to perform and hope to get the word out to their fans, who pay to hear the intimate show as well as tip the artists. It’s always live, unarchived and offers fans the chance to request songs.
If you look at Stageit.com, you’ll see a large number of your Nashville favorites, from the troubadour types, like Kevin, to the voices from the Lower Broadway bars. Big label artists also are finding online platforms, Facebook, etc., to connect their fans during this time of pestilence and constant sorrow.
 Kevin adds he didn’t lose a lot of gigs, because he is in the songwriting part of his creative cycle, working out songs for a new record.
“I did have a couple of dates in April. Those have been postponed. They haven’t been rescheduled yet.”
And then there was the elaborate staging of his online show: “I have a little amp across the room in the dining room. That’s the best room in the house as far as ambient sound.”
And I'm sure the pit bull named Pearl enjoyed it as much as the fans from around the world who checked it out.

(Note here: Street Level is on COVID-19 hiatus. You'll still see me around, though … writing other stuff I hope, since I try to support my family and pets... And I expect my personal blog "They Call Me Flapjacks" will get pretty active. I hope you like me. This is free stuff. Maybe I need to put out a tip jar. But the loss of a column, even temporarily (I hope), while nothing new to me, is not much to be concerned about when I've lost friends like John Prine and other people are dying all around me. On ABC News David Muir said "small businesses are getting fucked these days," and I'm a very small business. Oh, I also may have only been wishing David Muir, my favorite TV anchor, had used my colorful description, because I talk that way and he probably doesn't. Anyway, if I was you, I'd go upstairs and listen to some  happy music. Maybe something by Duane Eddy. Or Thomm Jutz. Or Kevin Gordon. 
 Me, I'll likely settle for Dylan's "Murder Most Foul" as a pick-me-up. Or "Working Class Hero.") 

Here is the link to the story in The Ledger, my last Street Level at least for now. You'll like it:
 http://www.tnledger.com/editorial/article.aspx?id=127765&fbclid=IwAR0vYEviLOYTgQ_iTDxbhGdJQIVLO8XfX2v8wZ-otTRT0S68feq83NPzRYU

John Prine and me with the Rev. Will Campbell, other dead guys I liked; as well as the Kristoffersons and Peter Cooper

Someplace in a column I’ve never published, I’m sitting by the deathbed of a Country Music Hall of Famer, pioneer and a man I considered one of my best friends.

He was “sharp as a tack,” as they might say and I can’t think of a more-apt description, even during his dying days, when I visited him often. He always was present and filled with smiles and love even though I'm sure he knew he was dying.

 No need to go any farther there or to reveal who I’m speaking about, because, unfortunately, I’ve sat aside too many deathbeds, mostly regular folks, but sometimes a musician or someone else of popular note. Or my Mom’s or Dad’s. I loved them the most.

On this day I'm speaking of, the bleary-eyed fellow in the bed awakened from his medical drifting, looked at me, and smiled. “Hi John,” or words to that effect, he said. 

He later corrected himself after the medical blear cleared up, and he called me by my own name – generally I’m known as “Tim” – and we talked some as I watched him continue toward death. Still sharp as a tack, I should add.

But I had taken no offense that when he had awakened he mistook me for John Prine – that was the “Hi John” of his greeting – because I really liked John and knew of his love for this fellow, a mutual good friend and confessor.

This was one of the  incidents I thought about last night, April 7, 2020, when the expected news broke that John Prine, a great American songwriter and grit-observer of life, had died.

I really have no great John Prine stories.

 I never wrote about him, other than an occasional blurb.  At Christmastime, when I was writing about a homeless-helping-semi-organization’s efforts to come up with goods for the homeless, his wife, Fiona, and John became involved in this effort.

They wanted me to call, so they could endorse this drive. When I did, Fiona told me to call back and John would talk to me about it.  But when I did that, he was not around. I actually think he was, but he didn’t want to talk about personal generosity. He was a humble man.

So Fiona, a kind woman, spoke for them both, quoting the great wordsmith, and "they" sort of issued a challenge to others that they should help my friend Stacie Huckeba’s homeless mission. Don’t need to go on more about this, but I enjoyed talking to Fiona and hearing her quote her rather humble husband with the incredible mind for words.

This morning, as I listened to a bit of Prine on You Tube, I rescued a blog post from a couple of weeks ago, that I’ll more or less regurgitate here, with additions and deletions, because it was about one of my favorite Nashville nights.

Here goes:

OK, so I'm standing outside the Belcourt Theatre on a sticky Nashville night.

It's about midnight and Hillsboro Village is quiet.

"Sam Stone" plays in my head for a moment.

It's just me, the Rev. Will Campbell and John and Fiona Prine.

 I had met John before, but this was the first time we really "talked" as people.  I wasn’t taking notes, was trying for no story. I was just talking with him as a guy. Or guys. One guy who worked for a newspaper and another guy who wrote some of American’s best life-observing songs. They both were rather cynical by nature.

The Rev. Will was a long-time close friend, who would call me frequently both at home and at the newspaper. He viewed me as "the last one left" who really loved the so-called "Outlaws," for whom he was the preacher and absolver and eulogist.  He had started calling me when I worked for the old Nashville Banner and stayed with me when I worked at The Tennessean (Nashville’s morning newspaper.)

Our friendship blossomed because for years, so much of what was covered in the newspapers involved the commercial country acts. And I was stuck, in my heart, with the guys Will had nurtured. Years later, he told me that one day he’d share the details of the lonesome funeral he emceed or whatever you call it, for Waylon Jennings out in the desert.  He got too sick to tell me that story though. Then he died.

Another friend, Billy Ray Reynolds, eventually described that sparse funeral for me. He’s dead too.

Anyway, back to that night in Hillsboro Village, which was Nashville’s hipster district before the conquest of East Nashville by white people.   

John Prine and I talked about the concert we'd just seen.

Our mutual friend -- all of ours -- Kris Kristofferson had just finished a two-plus hour show.

I've seen Kris a score or more times over the years in concert. I also ran into him decades ago at the Tally-Ho Tavern. And his music mattered to my maturation. Still matters as I past maturation and ride too quickly the decline. Anyway, Kris and I long ago became friends and I cherish my relationship with him – and he’s not all that well anymore – and his wife, Lisa, and their children.

The night John, the Rev. Will and I spoke beneath the marquee had been after the best show I’d ever seen by Kris. Another old Pilgrim, Chris Gantry, had done the intermission. I’ve since learned to love him as well. He’s one of a kind and so was his heavily-Christed performance. I can say this now, this Christ stuff, because on the day I’m writing this, the Wednesday before Easter, Christ held his final feast and went to the garden. The rest is history, of course.

The Rev. Will was, I should note, the best Baptist preacher I ever met, and he could talk Jesus with anyone, without judgment. He liked Christ a lot.

Back to that marquee.  John and Fiona and the Rev. Will and I all were waiting for Donnie Fritts, Billy Swan, Chris Gantry, Buzz Cason, Billy Ray and the rest of the "inner-circle" to finish paying their respects to Kris before we would go into the theater to visit with him.

Will told us about the long-ago demolished apartment house across from the long-deceasedTally-Ho, where Kris lived above him and the floor was so thin, he could fall right through.  Maybe he did. That was a long time ago and details blur at times.

John talked about an album he was working on, and after I told him I’d like to write about it, he suggested that maybe I could come and meet up with him sometime to do a story or a column.

 I knew his label's partner/boss, Al Bunetta, pretty well, since my wife, Suzanne, and I had "talked" Al and his wife, Dawn, through the process of adopting a child from Eastern Europe.

I had written about our experiences adopting Emily in Romania for the old Nashville Banner newspaper, and my tale inspired them. That's just an aside.  I probably should note here that we also adopted Joe in Romania, but by then I was at the morning newspaper, for which I was working as a copy editor at that point, and they didn’t encourage me to write a story about it.

 Al was John’s partner and more in Oh Boy Records. Suzanne and I had talked him and Dawn through the back-in-the-1990s rare adoption process of an Eastern European. Tragically, Juri, their son, died in a car accident at 19, but he had all sorts of love to absorb from the Bunettas that he’d never have gotten in the orphanage back in the Soviet colonies.  Al’s dead, too, but he was a helluva character and I was fortunate enough to be at a celebration of adoptees out at the house he and Dawn and Juri shared.

Back to that warm night beneath the marquee in Hillsboro Village. ... 

I was the entertainment editor for the morning newspaper by then, and I had gone to that concert with my friend, Peter Cooper, who was on my staff after I helped him escape Spartanburg, S.C., where I think the revenooers were after him. Or maybe the Marshall Tucker Band. 

We enjoyed a scotch before the show at a nearby (since deceased) tavern. At show’s end, he had to rush back to the paper to write his review.

I lagged behind at the theater while he toiled in the fluorescent light 1100 Broadway, where there used to be a newspaper of some note, at least for a long time. 

After spending the better part of an hour with Prine and Will outside the Belcourt and quickly ducking into the theater to talk to Kris, his wife Lisa and their kids -- then pretty young -- I went back to the newspaper office to see if Peter needed an editor.

Or a friend. Or company. We'd already had a drink. Nothing special. Twelve-year-old Dewar’s maybe. I don’t drink much anymore, but I’d savored that drink with Peter and with his wife, Charlotte, who didn’t go to the concert. She probably had a dry white wine.

But let me jump ahead to after I left the theater, where I’d spent an hour with Prine and hugged Kris and Lisa and as many of their kids as I could find.

From the Belcourt, I went back to the paper to see if I could help Peter with his review, edit his copy or just enjoy his company.

When I told him about Prine's offer for in-person album talking, Peter said he really wanted to do that instead of me.

 I was a good boss and knew his affinity for Prine and his music, so I agreed. I was supposed to spend most of my time in stupid meetings playing games with corporate brass, anyway. The general premise was that  I was supposed to learn about back-stabbing and ass-kissing and success. I left a few years later for my basement without ever learning those traits.

Anyway, Peter contacted Prine or maybe Al, and he was the one who ended up doing the interview and writing the feature.  Probably better than mine would have been. Different anyway.

This story isn't going anywhere today. I'm in my office in Da Basement working, keeping the virus at bay, and I just stopped to think about that precious hour with the Rev. Will, long-deceased now but he loved me, and John Prine. And Kris and Peter and Lisa and the kids.

Funky Donnie Fritts had something to do with it, too. I loved him. He sure knew how to get someone else to pick up the tab, too. An adept expert at it. He’s dead, too.

A week or two ago, I wrote in a semblance of this blog that “If there is a prayer left in you during this horrible time, please send one to John, who at last notice was clinging to life because of this fucking virus.”

“Shit, I wouldn't mind a prayer or two myself and I'm doing OK,” I wrote. Still am.

I don’t need to repeat the rest of that column at all.

Other than to say that's all I've got today. Feeling more than melancholy … or is that worse than melancholy?

I wish I could be as happy as I was that night standing beneath the marquee with the Prines and the Rev. Will.

Funky Donnie Fritts had a lot to do with it, too.

And John Prine died Tuesday night of this COVID-19 virus bastard. It wasn’t a surprise. He was hardly the picture of health and cancer already had "killed him" twice.

Still, today, it’s a mighty mean and dreadful sorrow. I borrowed that line.

Me, Marc, Jeff, Eric and Al Kaline; Blood spurts from my leg; Catching worms at Walnut Lake

When I was a kid, spending summer days and nights at Grandpa and Grandma Champ's house in the hollow by the marsh at Walnut Lake, Michigan, Al Kaline and the Detroit Tigers were always on the radio or the old black-and-white TV.

 Sometimes, the family -- my dad, my cousins Marc and Jeff Champ, Grandpa and my brother Eric Anthony Ghianni would load up and go down to Briggs Field (where I cut my left leg on a headlight, but that's another story, though the scar remains).

Kaline, who died Monday at age 85, was my brother's favorite player.

 As I grew older and more independent and my dad took us to live in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, my team was the Chicago Cubs and Ron Santo forever became my favorite player. Always will be and he had the fighting spirit that kept him battling despite life’s obstacles until long after most of us would have surrendered. A true Boy of Summer.

That’s another story and you can find it on my blog somewhere if you look.

This is a short little note about Al Kaline, because he died yesterday, April 6, 2020, while we all hid in our houses from the virus.

But this isn’t about deadly viruses and these strange days indeed (most peculiar, mama.)

This is about Walnut Lake, also.

Cigar smoke. Or Prince Albert in the can jammed in a pipe as Grandpa presided over the house he built with help from my Uncle Les, Shirley’s husband. They are dead long ago.

Grandpa thought he ruled the house. Unless Grandma decided otherwise. “Now Bea….” “Well George ….”

Maybe Marc, Jeff, Eric and I would sleep out on the back porch, screened in and not really locked. Can you imagine that in 2020? Course this was back in the mid-1950s, when Uncle Joe Champ’s health was failing from the flame-thrower scars in his lungs, further ambushed by smoking. Everyone smoked back then. (I did, too, as soon as I could. That’s another story and tobacco was only a part of it.) Those days at the lake continued well after Joe died. I think in 1957 or 1958. I was just a kid, but I sure loved him. My son’s name, coincidentally???, is Joe.

Back in the late 1950s, Grandpa once went out into the woods, pounding pieces of timber together in the middle of the night. Scared the shit out of us.  There was a killer … or perhaps a monster on the loose in our eager and impressionable minds.

We didn’t sleep well that night. It wasn’t until the next day, when he showed off the timber pieces over his breakfast of pepper and scrambled eggs (mostly pepper) and kippers (sardines) or fried perch, that we learned the truth.    He had been the monster. Laughed like hell that he’d scared us so.  We laughed, too. We all thought he was the guy who, I think they say “hung the moon.” Whatever. He was a great man.    

Almost everyone is dead now who was there, but those nights and days at Walnut Lake returned to my heart and head after I learned Al Kaline had died.

We had the opportunity to meet most of the ballplayers back then in those gentler times, and he was no exception. We’d always go see games when the Yankees were in town, too. You ever see Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris at bat? How about Whitey Ford on the mound and Yogi Berra trying to throw a pickoff ball to second from behind home? Ahh, wonderful times.

When I think about Kaline, though, it is not so much about baseball, but more with thoughts of playing poker with Grandpa (he didn't let his grandchildren win), while listening to the radio.

Grandma would take us out to the vegetable garden, where we'd dig for night-crawlers and put them in an old cottage cheese carton filled with black soil.

The plan was that we would be ready to get up at 5 the next morning to paddle out onto the lake and catch bluegill, sunfish and perch. Cleaning them later at the stump out back while Grandpa smoked his pipe.  If we caught a bullhead, he’d pound a nail in its head so he could skin it.

Grandpa would bury the innards, hoping that Topsy, the black beaglish hound, would not dig them up, roll in them or eat them. She did frequently. Helluva good dog.

When Topsy died, Grandpa and Grandma got Spuddy, another beaglish dog, who (along with Grandpa) lived with my Mom and Dad in Nashville after Grandma died.  Another story. A dog story. Check out my book about my Mom if you are interested. Somebody ought to make a movie about it, but I haven’t kissed enough ass in life to know how to even approach such a project or who to approach.

Anyway, after the fish were cleaned, the boys would cross on the path through the marsh and then over the black-oiled road to the clubhouse at Walnut Lake. Back then it was a blue-collar town and beach. Now, I think rich people, probably mostly millennial assholes and their parents and offspring, live there with their fancy speedboats and lack of sentiment about what that lake meant to us.

 The boys and my cousin Michelle (Marc and Jeff’s sister who now ferries Amish and Mennonites across Kentucky and always wears floppy hats, but that’s another story and I love her) had fun. She was older than us. Still is, by the way. Sorry Michelle…. Or Mitzi, as Grandpa called you.

I guess I should get back to Briggs Field or was it Briggs Stadium? Shit, doesn’t matter. It was a real ballpark. Hot dogs and beer and Coke were sold. Maybe peanuts and Cracker Jack. No raw octopus and sake or whatever the fuck they serve at ballparks today. If Grandpa Ghianni was there, a flask of brown whiskey was there, too. No security at the gate back then. 

It was in the time of double-headers, and about halfway through the second game, Grandpa got tired.  I think he waited by the park, because of his arthritis. But we, Dad, Marc, Jeff, Eric, me, would have to go get the car. My Grandpa Ghianni, who sometimes visited the Champs, may have been there, too, I noted above. Anyway, we were parked bumper to bumper across that part of Detroit. It was before they burned the city down and Roger Smith killed GM.   

Had to walk across the bumpers of the cars to find dad’s white, convertible Oldsmobile.  Unfortunately, one of the cars had a broken headlight and the sharp glass grabbed my left leg when I dragged past it. Blood spurted like in a Peckinpah film. Nah, not really, but it bled like hell.

I think my Dad, the only WWII infantryman who was nauseated by blood… actually, he probably saw too much of it, caused some I’m sure, while in his late teens and early 20s … panicked. I think they wrapped my leg in a T-shirt and we went home where Grandma and Mom tended to it.  When Dad died last September, and after we buried him, we were at Eric’s house, where my Cousin Marc (or Maurice, as the big-city fancies in Detroit call him) and I were drinking 12-year-old seltzer or somesuch, he asked if the scar was still there.

I showed it to him.

Anyway, I could go on. Maybe I should someday. Walnut Lake was heaven for little boys.  I loved rowing the boat across the lake with Grandma at dawn. Grandpa’s hips were too arthritic for boat rides, though he could sleep while floating on his back across the lake. Sometimes with a grandson aboard.

And then, at night, fried perch, bluegill and potatoes. Corn on the cob, if a neighbor brought some. Strawberry shortcake, perhaps. Or watermelon, but we'd have to go outside to spit the seeds. Before poker.

And Al Kaline on the radio hit another home run for the Tigers.