Glad we are celebrating our 23rd 'Gotcha Day' with the best All-American young man I know

Twenty-three years ago today, I waded through a muddy yard filled with boys, 3-and-under. They hungrily grabbed at the chocolate cookies -- "biscuits," they called them -- that we'd gotten at a gas station along the road that eventually passed through Giurgiu, Romania, and crossed the Danube to Bulgaria.

I looked at the boys and wondered which one was mine.

They were dirty, obviously not tended to well by their guardians in terrycloth bathrobes -- even late in the afternoon.

This sea of children, most with dark brown eyes and hair and skin, almost Middle Eastern complexions, gathered around my legs.

My wife, Suzanne, was perhaps a dozen yards from me, also making her way through the island of unwanted boys, society's castoffs, who pushed at all of us, eyes pleading. We gave out more hugs than biscuits. Plenty.

Our attorney and my friend, Doru, passed by me, his eyes focused firmly on the front door of the disheveled building that obviously was the tattered home that had spilled these boys out, unsupervised for the most part, onto the muddy field.

My eyes played over the faces. I'd been in a similar situation three years earlier, when we found our daughter, Emily, in an orphanage in Arad, Romania, a few hundred miles to the northwest.

But that time, the children were, for the mostly clean. Semi-happy. Little Mariana -- we kept that as Emily's middle name -- was chubby, the favorite of the nurses and caretakers.

In the yard at the boys' orphanage in the countryside outside Giurgiu, no one was clean. It was a Dickensian scene. Little boys, many in toboggan caps, clothing and bodies soiled with sweat and whatever, had not been cared for.

"Which one is mine?" I asked myself, realizing that if I could, I'd take them all, maybe 50 of them.

They smiled and begged, tugged on my clothes. They'd been here since they graduated from the infants' orphanage in Giurgiu, where the sewers ran in big, leaky pipes above the sidewalks and yards.

I know that, because we had stopped at the infants' orphanage, where some of our party of four couples, had adopted little ones.

We had actually wanted to adopt a 2-year-old, the same age as Emily was when we got her. The babies had a better chance of being adopted. The older they got, the harder it was to get adopted.

A few weeks before we had climbed from the little, Romanian-styled "Mercedes" -- I'm not sure if it really was one -- we had been told by the adoption agency here in Nashville that a boy who was pushing 3, was in desperate need of a family who'd take him.

Who'd love him.

His adoption had fallen through. Lazar's days in the "warmth" of the children's orphanage were numbered. If we could get to Romania quickly enough, we could adopt him. We cleared our paperwork and then made the journey, standing in that yard two weeks after we had decided, with no coaxing, that we should take the boy we'd name Joe, a family name filled with love and dignity.

Time was running out for him.

When boys turned 3, they were relegated to the big institutions, lost in the system, perhaps destined to be living in the sewers and tunnels of Bucharest, the pedophiles' capital of Europe at that time. Teenage boys and girls were out there, every night, all night, outside our hotel, one time a group of them nearly cornered me in an underground shopping mall. I doubt they meant harm. A few bucks and they would be gone. Or a Snickers.

"Don't give them money," Doru had told me, in his thick Bela Lugosi accent.

"That will encourage them." Instead, we carried candies to hand the children. I had seen "stern" Doru handing money over to a child, I should note. Doru's dead now, but he spent his adult life helping the orphans of his native land..

On that first trip to Romania, teenage girls and boys waited in the hotel bar well into the night. Smiling at the tourists, bumming cigarettes and selling themselves.

I swear the guy down the hall from us in the hotel in Arad was Saddam Hussein. Two soldiers, automatic rifles at the ready, stood outside his room day and night. Inside, I'm sure he was mapping out weapons of mass destruction. I doubt that Saddam Hussein was evil enough to be there to prey on children. Suzanne tells me it wasn't Saddam. But I prefer to think I was two doors down the hall from a 20th Century villain.

But that was three years before we descended on the dirty yard outside Giurgiu, where little boys asked "Mister" "Mister" "Lady" "Lady" to take them to America. Anywhere but this desolate and heart-sickening compound.

Across the road on one side, a farmer had set up a tent where he and his family were selling "buy-'em and gut-'em" chickens for the early evening, ox-cart and horse-and-wagon "commuters" on this dirt road that ran pretty much parallel to the Danube River in extreme southern Romania.

A family rode past in a horse-cart, leaving "souvenirs'' on the roadway.

One of the women in a bathrobe made her way through the crowd of boys and rescued my wife and I.

"Your son is inside," is probably what she said in Romanian. I gave her three packs of Merit 100s for her trouble (a long story, but bribes of American goods were encouraged if you wanted to make it quietly through Romania in 1998.)

She led us into the building where we were met by a snarling, swearing doctor in a soiled white coat who was scolding, bitterly, hurtfully, the crying almost-3-year-old who was in the room where we were led.

Suzanne, who by coincidence, lucky stars or whomever/whatever, was celebrating her birthday by adopting a child, held the boy and told him "it's OK, Joe, you're safe now."

While she stripped him of his worn orphanage apparel -- all of the clothing had to be left for other boys -- and put on the little blue shorts and jacket we'd brought him, I looked at my son.

I wondered where all the scars had come from, but didn't want to ask.

I didn't want to stir up any fuss. I just wanted us to get this little boy out of this horror, get him back to the relative civilization of Bucharest, begin the series of legal steps and medical tests, that would enable him to move to Nashville.

Sometimes it hurts me to think of the little boys who "didn't make it out." And it hurts to think of what Joe may have gone through in his first three years. And what he escaped in the last 23.

But then I will look at my son, healed in body and soul, as he works his way through graduate school and has his eyes on a career in which he could help the orphans of Eastern Europe, through a government agency or other employment.

My daughter, Emily, is in California, where she is just beginning to raise my first grandson. Roman will have, from the very start, a feeling of security that only can come from being lovingly raised from birth by his mother. I'm proud of Emily, and Roman is a happy fellow.

Today, 23 years after we stood in the muddy yard of the orphanage outside Giurgiu, Suzanne and I met Joe -- who lives with us right now -- at one of our favorite Nashville restaurants.

And it is a glorious "Gotcha Day."

I love my children. I was an old dad when I adopted them and am nearly 70 now as they live, happily, as young, American adults, taking their own chances and paying their own dues.

I don't think I did anything really special by going to a third world country and adopting them. It's what they have done for me that counts.

(Apologies if this isn't perfect in grammar. But it is perfect in intent. I love my kids and am proud to be their dad. This is just a quick first draft of my thoughts on this day. The picture is from a Titans game Joe and I attended a few years ago. Love, Tim)

Crossfire hurricane: Not even foul, sweaty drunk dampens joy of seeing The Rolling Stones; What's the matter with you, man? Well, I miss you, Charlie

 If it wasn’t for the sloppy-fat drunken woman who tried to sing over Mick and who yelled incessantly and sometimes incomprehensibly, The Rolling Stones concert at Nissan Stadium a few nights ago would have been perfect. Pretty damn special, even so. Course, I missed Charlie, a lot. More on that later.

Weather was great. Our seats were good, providing a perfect angle to the stage and ramps and the amplified images and sounds from the giant screens and speakers. 

My son, Joe, had been singing “Satisfaction,” “Start Me Up” and his favorite – “Paint it Black” – for a few days. By the way, he also likes to sing Bobby Bare songs, particularly the duets with Skeeter Davis. I have no idea where he’s picked up those nasty habits.  I take tea at 3.

Joe is a 25-year-old graduate student with his future ahead of him. His dad is a relative dinosaur pushing 70 in a month, with the long, dark clouds comin’ down, or at least blowing in from I hope a distant horizon.

I took Joe with me to see my favorite performing outfit.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The Beatles remain my favorite-ever band and most of my music listening here at home comes from that band of geniuses, either in their various band eras (I prefer the late stuff to the Fab stuff) or as individual performers.

All four of them – John’s “Plastic Ono Band” 50^th (a gift from my best friend), George’s “All Things Must Pass” 50^th, Paul’s “McCartney III” (also a gift from same best friend) and even Ringo’s “Beaucoups of Blues” – have become constants in the last few months.

Well, “Plastic Ono” and “All Things” actually have been on my fairly consistent playlist for 50 years now, so I really dig the expanded versions with warts and all.

But, you see, those four guys aren’t performing together as a band anymore. Haven’t for more than a half-century. They were at their performing peak atop the Apple Building, where they bid their performing farewell. Whenever I see footage of that performance, my heart dances, then sinks. And I get a little angry, because that was their final curtain. John and George are dead – victims of assassination by bullet and cigarette – and the other two do perform, albeit usually not together.

I’ve seen them both in their shows and have to admit to butterflies. McCartney’s extravaganzas do push into Rolling Stones-style splendor, and I love his music. Problem is, he doesn’t have Keith Richards there to cheer him on or simply cheer him, as is one of the roles Keef plays for his childhood chum and Glimmer Twin, Mick.

But the thing is that the sue-me blues and deaths among Johnny and The Moonndogs do sometimes turn my soul melancholy. I’m not a man of constant sorrow, but I do think about what could have been.

I intersperse my home listening more often than not with selections from the guys up on the stage at the stadium Saturday night.

Oh, sure, I do play Tom Petty, and he’s dead.  And Traveling Wilburys, and three of them are dead. Johnny Cash, well, he’s dead.  He did like me, though. Dylan recently has displayed some of the grandeur of early Bob, who somehow disappeared about the time he rode his Triumph to near-doom by the time he got to Woodstock.

Occasionally, I’ll play Elvis. He still is releasing some good stuff, even a couple or more years after he died bloated next to his toilet at Graceland. And Grateful Dead, with a long-dead Jerry Garcia and longer-still-dead Pigpen also brighten my days.

And, of course, Waylon gets his time on my record machine. Do you know what I mean?

The Rolling Stones have always been my second-favorite band; although, there were times when they certainly challenged The Beatles for the throne. Unattainable.

The thing is that The Rolling Stones have been, faraway eyes agree, the top performing band when it comes to live shows. And that’s despite the fact that the original lineup of Brian Jones (he’s dead), Bill Wyman (a nice guy I met, but he’s retired 28 years now), Charlie Watts (dead a month ago), Mick Jagger and Keith Richards has changed dramatically.

Those five guys above created “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Paint it Black,” “Gimme Shelter,” “Jumping Jack Flash,” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Well, you get it, the classic stuff that had us pulling memories from the depth of our souls during the 2 hours and 12 minutes we were granted in their audience Saturday night.

Darryl Jones now plays bass with The Stones, instead of Wyman. But he’s not a full-fledged member. He’s a freelancer with a really steady and well-paying gig. My friend, band-leader Chuck Leavell, sometimes coaxes sounds out of the backing band that helps approximate how they sounded with Brian and later Mick Taylor (who did get in on some of the great recordings after Brian died.) That Mick eventually found the spiking pressure of being a Stone too much to bear and he was replaced by Ronnie Wood in 1975.

Ron, of course, is a full-fledged Stone after almost a half-century as Keith’s guitar-mate. He and Keith also always were good to my old friend, the late and great Scotty Moore, who invented rock ‘n’ roll guitar. He was their hero, their professional inspiration.

Steve Jordan, a genius of a drummer, was selected by an ailing Charlie Watts to be his “temporary” replacement until he got better. He didn’t, so Steve is handling the drum duties. Again, like Jones, a really good hire, but not a Stone.

I’ll get the “Steve Jordan is not Charlie Watts” argument out of the way right now. He’s not.

He’s, as my friend Peter Cooper said “the best drummer not named Charlie Watts” for this band.  He played with fire and flourish. It was obvious he was having a blast in the pocket.  The band loves his contributions.

But, if you thought what you saw Saturday night was “the best Stones show of all” or some such hyperbole, you are wrong.

Charlie, Keith long-ago said “is The Rolling Stones.” I relished Steve’s playing and no one who never saw Charlie Watts would notice much difference.

Unless you pull out a live Stones album – “Ya Yas,” “Got Live if You Want it” or “Love you Live” (especially the side from The El Mocambo), for example.

That’s when you can hear what a difference Charlie made in the band. Steve is a genius. Charlie, well, he was original “Rolling Stones Drummer Charlie Watts.”

Among the greatest memories I have of my many times seeing The Stones in person occurred in 1994’s “Voodoo Lounge” tour stop at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama.  I was there with my friend, Jay Orr, a noted music writer back then, and we had good seats that we claimed while the lights were still up and Counting Crows was finishing up its whining set. Sorry, but Adam Duritz, a talented enough fellow who used to have good hair, is not a showman. It almost sounded like elevator music to be heard while we searched for our seats.

Then the lights went down. Total darkness in the heart of town.  And, in the darkness, there was the tom-tom intro of the Buddy Holly classic “Not Fade Away.”  That simple rhythm continued in the darkness for several minutes, spiking up the anticipation that only comes before a Rolling Stones concert (Sorry, Bruce, but it’s the truth), before Jagger stepped into a lonely spotlight and growled “I’m gonna tell you what I’m gonna do….”

The rest of the guys gathered onstage and played the night away.  And the only one who didn’t take any kind of break was Charlie Watts, whose distinctive drumming held the entire show … the whole classic recorded catalogue, for that matter … together.

He had a backbeat you can’t lose it….

Charlie, Brian, Bill, Mick and Keith were the five guys who hatched their sound while living in squalor and on pilfered food and heat in a London apartment.

And when one of them goes, the sound is not the same. I love Ronnie Wood, ever since I saw him as the main personality behind Rod Stewart in Faces, who actually put on a show almost as good as Saturday’s Stones show, but without the modern gizmos.  He perhaps is a better guitar fit with Keith than was Mick Taylor. But he’s not Brian Jones, before he fried his brain and struggled to play tambourine after proving himself a master of all forms of instruments and music.

Losing Charlie Watts at first felt like a death knell to me when it came to my consideration of my favorite performing outfit.

And, yes, I really missed him Saturday night. But there’s no reason Steve Jordan can’t sit there, as a hired hand, I’m sure a well-paid one, like Darryl Jones, and provide the rhythm section behind Mick and Keith – the dual heart of the band – and Ronnie.  

It was a splendid concert, among the best of the five times I’ve seen them. My heart was lifted by the old fellows – what a drag it is getting old, I’d agree – as they staged a concert the likes of which no one else is capable.

Like I noted before, Springsteen is close. But, as my grandfather said every time he raked in a pot when Marc, Jeff, Eric and I – kids aged 7 or 9 or 11, I can’t remember -- played poker at Walnut Lake:  “Close, but no cigar.”

As for Joe, well, it made my heart lift when I looked over at him or when he commented on the actions on the stage. He was the main reason I was there, as I wanted to hand the baton of my music over to him, so he can say to his kid: “Did I ever tell you about the first time my father took me to see The Rolling Stones?”

I say first time, because I hope there will be more. In fact, by the time we got home Saturday, Joe, joyful that such a thing happened in front of his eyes while he was with his father (that’s what he calls me: “Hello mother, hello father,” as Alan Sherman sang, etc.), that his mind was working overtime.

By the time I showered and came back into the living room to watch the highlights of the Alabama, Texas A&M game (sorry, Nick, shit happens), Joe already had a plan in the works.

He was searching the internet to see where The Stones will be next on this tour and comparing it to his grad school calendar and my own work schedule.  “I’m just looking to see where we can see them again,” Joe said. “I’ve never seen such a great show.”

It should be noted that his favorite band is not world-known. That’s Eric Brace, Peter Cooper and Thomm Jutz – three of my own special friends, who, pre-pandemic, staged at least one annual local show that I’d take Joe to for the last several years.

His favorite song is “Hartford’s Bend,” by the way, in case you want to listen to those guys on Spotify or wherever you find your highly and overly compressed music.  

He once went to see Foreigner or Journey (they are the same to me) and he videotaped it for his high school. The guys in the band were good to him, so he has a warm spot for one of those bands.

And I took him to see The Who a couple years ago.  He loved it, particularly the lights and dazzling sounds of the overture from “Tommy.” And he was quite taken with Roger Daltrey’s attempts to sing in a voice that was damaged long ago, perhaps Live at Leeds. And who can’t be taken in by the gentle charm of Pete Townshend, who did his trademark windmills like the geezer he is and made fun of himself when he fell down.

It actually was a wonderful show. But bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon were absent. Moonie for many decades, John more recent. Both substance abuse victims. Life in the fast lane, as a fairly static American band sings, in their jukebox-like shows.

I need to pause here to talk about the sweaty, drunk woman mentioned at the top. I can’t say that as a young man I always observed proper decorum at concerts. I once got on the edge of the stage with Joe Cocker (he didn’t notice, probably wasn’t sure he was on the stage.) And, if it was a regional band playing in Ames, Iowa, I was always more than ready to climb on stage and play tambourine. The bands tolerated me, because they knew me. The Beach Boys one night got a kick out of my offstage behavior, but that’s a long story. Even Brian laughed that night.

But I was 19. And one thing I didn’t do was interfere with others when they were watching a show. If they weren’t up, jumping around, I wasn’t either. If they asked me to sit down, I did. They all had paid to be there as well. I usually paid, too (that’s a reference to The Beach Boys jovial applause directed toward me in a field outside the arena).

A middle-aged person, though, as most of us were the other night – I give myself a decade or two when calling myself that) – generally like to let people enjoy the show.

This woman sang so loudly off-key and danced around so wildly that it was distracting. I did say, quietly to her, that I didn’t pay to hear her sing. Others among the crowd where we sat were similarly upset, especially when she said we should eff ourselves, or whatever. Eventually Nissan’s impotent security were beckoned by different people, only to leave her alone and actually empower her to be more obnoxious.

This is a time when I should add I think alcohol sales should be limited at concerts. A punch-card, limiting a person to two $20 beers or whatever. Drunks are much worse than those who smoke jazz cigarettes, even if the smoke sometimes is bothersome (if reminiscent of misspent youth).

The woman’s friends tried to get her to calm down, but she got worse. Since Joe and I had excellent seats for our price range, we didn’t want to leave them, though we moved slightly a seat or two to get away from her.

I do not fight any more. Not with men. I’m not tough. And certainly not with way too drunk and foul-mouthed 50-year-old women, even as their sweaty, drunken bodies strain every fabric of what is intended to be loose clothing.

So much for my complaint.

As one woman told me, at show’s end: “I don’t envy how she’ll feel tomorrow.” Me, I’m hoping she still feels like shit today.

Now, that said, there were many in the stadium who were obnoxiously drunk. This was just one of them. But she was sitting by me. In front of me.

OK, that’s all on that. I had to say it. It was a Rolling Stones show, and, as pitiful as it sounds, those are sacred to me. Sympathy for this devil, I suppose.

I was texting back and forth with Peter Cooper the day after the show. He’d taken his wonderful son, Baker, 11, to the concert, and a couple of drunks sat behind them as well. Knowing Peter, I’m sure it upset him.

I doubt if Baker went to get security (Joe was one of the several who did that for our section).

Afterward, I did complain to the head of security, who promised me that next time, he’d make sure he got me down onto the floor, into the high-priced seats.

Course, it was an empty promise. If The Stones come again, those expensive seats likely will cost $10K, and I doubt I could trade my few hundred buck seats for those.

And there is a question of whether this is the last time they’ll venture this way.

Peter told me that he probably won’t look at going to another show this time around. And, realistically, unless Mick and Keith or maybe Steve Jordan, host me and Joe, fly us in and give us stagefront seats, I doubt I’ll make it again this time around.

Peter, who is not prone to hyperbole except when he is bragging to people about what a nice guy I am, tells me that we should wait.

“They’ll be back at least two more times,” he texted me. “We’ll catch them then.”

Sure, this could be the last time. I don’t know.

And sometimes an audience member is a fat and ignorant piece of shit, but that doesn’t stop me from reveling in the glory of having seen The Rolling Stones one more time.

I just said to myself, as I watched the fireworks blow up at the end of “Satisfaction,” I hope to see these guys again sometime.

Keith long ago said that he and Mick are like old bluesmen, their original inspirations, fellows who will continue playing music until they drop.

If they play as well as they did Saturday night, I hope they don’t drop until long after I’m unable to make it to concerts again.

Think I’m too optimistic? No one’s ever called me an “optimist” in my life.

 So, get offa my cloud.   

    

Charlie Watts, the heartbeat of "The World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band" (as they used to dub themselves), is gone; It hurts me, but now it really is time for the Rolling Stones to Fade Away

 The tom-tom echoed from the darkness that enveloped Legion Field. Counting Crows had just finished an expectedly whiny set, most of which, fortunately, was lost in the rumble of anticipation in the packed stadium.

"The Rolling Stones are in town, man," yelled a guy with yellow teeth, beer breath and a leather vest he wore bare-chested. He tossed his bucket of popcorn in the air, and it covered me. He didn't apologize.

"Blame it on the Stones," is how my friend, Kris Kristofferson, put it long ago in one of his blistering attacks on Middle America.

The tom-tom gave way to the voice of Mick Jagger, who, with Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood by his side, came out with the best version of "Not Fade Away" since Buddy Holly told us what he was gonna do.

The man who played those drums, Charlie Watts, died today.

I am devastated. I already was not happy that Charlie was not going to be a part of The Rolling Stones upcoming visit to Nissan Stadium. Health woes had sidelined him, and former Letterman drummer Steve Jordan is taking his place.

He was 80, but his death surprised me, even though I had been told that Mr. Charlie really looked pretty ill.

I guess the Jagger-Richards-Wood money machine will continue. But really, no one can take Charlie Watts’ place.

I have been listening to Charlie for six decades, since the 1960s, when I first bought Rolling Stones albums, the favorite of which is “Beggars Banquet,” the last full album with the original quintet.

There was band founder Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman, guitarist Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. And Charlie Watts providing the beating heart.

Of course, that lineup has changed over the years, but the core remained: Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie Wood, who stepped in after Mick Taylor decided being a Rolling Stone would kill him.

It did kill Brian Jones before him, of course.

And Wyman, the only Stone I’ve ever had the opportunity to meet and speak with, retired. Darryl Jones, who is not on center stage, is a role player on bass. And he’s not Wyman, nor would Keith and Mick want him to be or sound anywhere near as powerful. He does not get his quarter of the million-dollar nightly guarantee. He’s on salary.

Hey, hee, get offa my cloud. There were only four real Rolling Stones – including Ronnie, who has more than paid his dues after assuming the guitarist role, to accompany Keef, in 1975.

 I first saw Ronnie when he was co-leader of Faces, with Rod Stewart holding microphone duties, back in the late ‘60s or early-‘70s when Smokin’ Joe Matejka and I hitchhiked through a blizzard to Des Moines (from Ames, Iowa, where we attended school) to catch them at the Iowa Armory. We slept in the back of our “chauffeur’s” station wagon later, because snow had piled up during the show.

But this is not about Faces today: It’s about The Rolling Stones.

Now there really are just three.

And only two of them, the school chums, Keef and Mick, who helped Brian Jones start his band, are still performing. Only three are alive, including Wyman, who enjoys the quiet, artistic life.

Personally, I think it’s time for The Rolling Stones to make a graceful exit.

Course, I’ll still be there if they continue. Which they probably will, until all of them are dead … which really probably isn’t that far into the future. Perhaps they'll keep going until Mick is The Rolling Stone, singular, something he tried for awhile, unsuccessfully. 

I’ll never forget those six decades of drumbeats and the jazzy sound of Charlie’s snare. Perfect counterpoint, a disciplined backbeat to what, when it began, was the music of anarchy. The tom-toms in the darkness of Legion Field are in my mental replay booth continuously, should I ever need to hear them.

Now, of course, it’s just show biz. Big paydays. Vegas-style, flashy clothes, and old men seeking the Satisfaction they found in their youth. Still fetching, of course. I still love this band and would rather see them -- with Charlie on the sticks -- than any other outfit. I'm an old man, and they give me energy, save me from a 20th nervous breakdown when I'm angry or sad and decide The Stones are my afternoon LP or CD (or even 45 rpm) antidote.

But, with the death of Charlie Watts, the heart of The Stones no longer is beating.

R.I.P. to Mr. Watts.

Thanks, old fellow.

Of course, you were only a decade older than me. And I really wanted to see you and hear you one more time.

You can’t always get what you want. From today on, it’s not ever going to be possible to get what you need. Not even if you try sometime.

Paint it black.

 

 

 

The scar on my left leg made Marc smile and talk about poker, bluegill, and Camp Spikehorn and Al Kaline ... memories are dreams in past tense

The Camp Spikehorn gang lost a chunk of its heart and soul at around 1 a.m. Detroit time on August 21, 2021.

Yeah, that’s just a few days ago as I write this. I found out about it on the morning of his death. It was waking hours for me when the note arrived. I was wide awake. It didn’t matter to Marc anymore. They had already taken his body for cremation.

His soul was long gone.

I knew it was going to happen. In fact, I wrote a blog about it last week.

I spoke to Marc Champ’s brother, Jeff, for a long time in the hours before Marc died. Jeff said he figured Marc already was gone, shooting the shit with dead friends and relatives. Maybe, I reckoned, he was playing poker with Grandpa Champ.  Jeff’s a deeply spiritual man, so I don’t think he said “shooting the shit.” That’s just my paraphrase. And Marc doesn’t mind. Still.

Actually, I had called Marc, who I knew was succumbing to a rampaging attack, a massacre caused by liver cancer, when Jeff picked up his cell.  I was overdue for a dream come true, perhaps, but I clung or clinged?? to hope. I’d been calling the last few days.

His wife, Cathy, had let family know a few days before that Marc couldn’t speak much – his mouth was painfully irritated by the disease treatment or the damn cancer itself – but he welcomed calls.

She said just to call his number and leave him a voice mail, and she’d make sure he heard it.

That’s what I did. One night I read him the blog I wrote earlier in the week that focused on our Camp Spikehorn summers. That was a day camp that Marc and Jeff and my brother, Eric, and I attended. It was on a road behind the Grand Rapids Zoo, if I remember correctly. Of course, memories are just dreams in past tense, a semi-wise old man told himself this morning while pounding on this keyboard, after watching the funeral on a live stream.

Every summer, Marc and Jeff spent a lot of time with us, in our house at 507 Elliott Street in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and, before that they summered with us at our house at 1812 Beverly Road in Sylvan Lake, Michigan.

That’s outside Detroit. We lived in basic post-WWII construction there, as my mother and father had purchased their first home outside Pontiac, where dad coached and taught at an all-Black junior high.

That was not long after WWII, and I know the young men who my dad coached always worshiped him, one or two even coming down to visit my dad in his last years down here in Nashville. How my parents got to Nashville is a different story.

In this space, though, I’m talking about Marc and Jeff. How much I love them. How much I hurt now that Marc is dead.

We had such fun as kids. Not just at Camp Spikehorn or at Camp Optimist (we went there one summer as well….) I don’t think it was by the zoo, or maybe it was the one by the zoo… doesn’t matter. Like I said, memories are just dreams in past tense.

I remember my mother, gone 22 years now, as she herded the four of us, skinny little kids, when we walked barefoot from the house on Beverly Road to the end of the street, where it opened up to Sylvan Lake and where the neighborhood beach was located.

If it was hot and if we didn’t whine about it, Mom would allow us to pull off our short pants and go for a swim in our underwear.  I was probably 4 back then. So was Jeff. Marc and Eric would have been 6. I seldom swim in my underwear anymore. Probably not politically correct, anyway.

The boys spent parts of their summers with us because their dad, my beloved Uncle Joe Champ, had been severely injured in the Battle of the Bulge. For you youngsters who think America’s wars were in Afghanistan and Iraq and grandpa talked about Vietnam, as horrible as those pointless wars were, the real hell was in Europe and Asia in the 1940s, thereabouts. And Uncle Joe helped save the world from the Nazis. At a cost. Flamethrower fire burned his lungs. There was a V.A. sanitarium for such-injured soldiers out in Arizona. There also was air that was breathable out there. The air in the Detroit area was flavored by Ford, GM, Chrysler and Packard plants.

I hear Arizona air is pretty damn filthy nowadays, seven-plus decades later. When Grandpa Champ moved down to Nashville in the 1970s to live with my parents, after Grandma died, Nashville’s air was good, too. “Clear and blue as an Arizona morning,’’ Grandpa would say. Wonder how he’d describe it now?

Grandpa Champ, who would take his son, Uncle Joe, and Aunt Florence (Joe’s wife) out to Arizona – along with Grandma Champ – had been a foreman on the line for Nash automobiles. But that’s beside the point. Or as a friend once said to me: Let’s get right to the point. That friend then offers up a great suggestion, but that’s for another day.

Anyway, while Joe, Flo and Grandma and Grandpa Champ were out in Arizona, Marc and Jeff stayed with us. Their big sister, Michelle, must have stayed with friends.

So, that’s where Camp Spikehorn came in. As did dune buggy rides along Lake Michigan and trips to the Drive-In movies to see “The Shaggy Dog” and some stuff by those intellectually challenging Stooges or that wascally wabbit. (Oops, there goes political correctness again). We’d have a bag of 12-cents McDonald’s greaseburgers.

What I’ve not gotten much into so far here today is Walnut Lake, where my grandparents lived in a small house in the hollow, across the swamp and a bog from the Lake.

We’d all meet up there in the summer as well.

Spending summer days and nights at Grandpa and Grandma Champ's house in the hollow by the marsh at Walnut Lake, Michigan, meant that at least half the day was at the lake. And in the evening, Al Kaline and the Detroit Tigers were always on the radio or the old black-and-white TV. Grandpa filled his pipe with Prince Albert in the can.  

And, he’d climb from his old, leather chair, first kicking the footstool out of his way, grab his walking cane, and make it to the round table in the kitchen.  When my grandparents died, my brother, Eric, was supposed to get that table, by the way. Teddy took it, though. The last time I saw him, Eric was holding me back from killing him for being evil to my mother, who helped raise him, as well. He was just a cousin to all of us, an older cousin, Shirley’s offspring. And, as far as we figured, the best thing he offered us was the speedboat he kept at Walnut Lake.

Marc, Jeff, Michelle, Eric and I would take that thing out, usually me at the wheel and throttle, and torture it as the sun rose. I’m sure they all loved us in the houses along the lake.   

Sometimes, we’d all load up in my dad’s car and go down to Briggs Stadium, home of The Detroit Tigers. That’s where the huge scar on my leg was produced. More on that later, if I decide to ramble that way.

But this is a story about Walnut Lake, about Marc, who is dead, and Jeff, who always was a joker. Michelle, who now lives among Kentucky’s Amish, often was around, at least until she married John, who is dead now, but was a helluva good guy. That’s not the direction today, though.

Course, Eric and I almost always were in Walnut Lake when Marc and Jeff were.  

Cigar smoke. Or Prince Albert in the can jammed in a pipe flavored the air in the little, square house Grandpa built with help from my Uncle Les, Shirley’s husband. They are dead long ago, having produced Teddy and Delores. I don’t know whatever became of those two, though I do wish them well.

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 1950s and maybe early 1960s.

I’d love to be able to sleep on my deck here in Nashville, but I don’t have a gun. The worst thing I could do to an intruder would be spray him with skunk repellent or bust him over the head with one of our tomato plants. Skunk repellent smells almost as bad as a skunk, but that’s another story that I’ll likely not ever get around to telling.

Back in the late 1950s, Grandpa once went out into the woods, pounding pieces of timber together in the middle of the night, as we slept on that porch.

Scared the shit out of us, as Marc might say. Well, actually, that’s what I say. We trembled because there was a killer … or perhaps a monster on the loose … in our eager and impressionable minds… and he/she/it might be in those woods, among the black walnut trees and berry bushes.

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.   

I have his pipes and pipe rack here in my office. I don’t smoke any more. But sometimes I’ll smell one of them, and it reminds me of Grandpa Champ. And Marc and Jeff. Grandma. Michelle. Me and Eric at Walnut Lake.

After the sun set, 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..

I’ve told some of this story before, I think after Al Kaline, the Tigers’ slugger died, because his heroics had been the soundtrack when Grandpa taught me, Marc, Jeff and Eric, how to play poker. Grandpa played for keeps. If it was matchsticks, he’d clean us out. Play for pennies, boys? Well, Grandpa taught us how to lose with grace. If one of us occasionally took in a decent pot, though, he’d smile. He would be glad we’d learned enough to beat him. Then he’d redouble his efforts so he wouldn’t lose the next hand to those “Gawd Damn Kids.”

I may already have mentioned this, but in summers, we’d, of course, be barefoot as Huck Finn as we walked along the path through the bog and swamp and across the oiled roads (They used to spray oil on dirt roads back then to keep dust down in the summer. I doubt that they do that anymore. Probably not politically correct.) Our bare soles turned to black shortly after dawn every day and sometimes Grandma would scrub them as we were in the bathtub at night.

Grandpa used to work, checking people in at the beach, as he sat in his chair (he was crippled by arthritis). If we were good, and sometimes the other boys, at least, were, he’d give us each a dime to go into the clubhouse and buy penny candy or an ice cream cone. It was Walnut Lake, so generally I had walnut ice cream. People tell me that it’s pretty exclusive out there at Walnut Lake nowadays.

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.

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.

It was in the time of double-headers, and about halfway through the second game, Grandpa Champ 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. Anyway, we were parked bumper to bumper across that part of Detroit. It was before the chicken man was blown up in Philly while in Detroit they burned the city down and Roger Smith killed GM. (I put the chicken man in here, because Marc liked Springsteen. If you don’t catch the reference, it’s OK. But they blew up the chicken man’s house, too.)

From the stadium, we 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 a couple years ago, the family gathered 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. He asked me if I still had that scar.

I showed it to him. The sight of that 60-year-old scar made Marc happy.

The other day, after Marc’s earthly remains had been removed from his deathbed, I called his number again. His voice perked me up.

“I just wanted to hear your voice again, Marc. I love you.” Hell, I paused a second, hoping, I suppose, that he’d pick up.

We’d talk of Camp Spikehorn and Walnut Lake. Four skinny little boys running across hot oil to get to the berry field or to get into the lake. Or to go fishing, if Grandma felt like taking us.

Evenings losing five-card draw to the old man we all worshiped.

Marc, as far as I can tell, had a regular life, though he fought through tragedy. His war hero dad died early in his life. A first wife died from too much of the poison that comes in bottles, if I remember right. He had a stepson he loved who fell from high-iron while working construction on a Florida skyscraper. A second stepson, child of his wonderful wife, Cathy, who set up the phone and also took such great care of her dying husband, also died.

That tragic fabric, though, never stole Marc’s soul. God, or whatever, took care of that the other night.

Besides that, he found and created happiness, despite the sad. He loved to play golf, sell siding and windows, smoke cigars and taste good Scots whisky.  His brother and sisters loved him.

So did his cousins, who saw him infrequently, but when we did, our hearts turned us into those skinny kids from all those years ago.

And, especially, he had a second wife, Cathy, who gave him all the love he could handle and missed out on earlier in life. And, to see them together, you knew that love was reciprocal.

Cathy’s grandchildren became his, too. And he finally retired simply to spend time babysitting those kids. At the funeral service, one of his stepchildren talked about how Grandpa Marc made sure he could watch, through a window, the kids playing in the backyard when he was confined to bed.

The old scar on my leg sometimes itches. When scratch it, I always think of Marc.

At least I have my memories, my dreams in past tense.

 

A few phone calls with a woman who used to "Dream. Dream-dream-dream" that her son, Donnie, would visit his old, black room

Margaret Everly used to call me, complaining about her sons.

I think Phil was in Los Angeles, hanging out with Warren Zevon, a healthy enough pursuit that I wish I'd been able to enjoy.

But Don was here in Nashville and in Kentucky.

A former confidante of both Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, he was hanging out at Brown's Diner, where he obviously enjoyed the hamburgers. That's the only place, other than on the stage, that I ever saw him.

But, according to Mrs. Everly, either Don or Phil never visited her. She just said "my son hasn't visited" or somesuch.

Since Phil was not around, as he was getting his "shit fucked up," as Zevon would say, or hanging with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers (again, something I'd enjoy), I guess it must have been Don.

Her house was a few blocks from my own, although in a slightly more upscale corner of the neighborhood.

"I just don't know why he doesn't come home," she said. "I kept his room like he had it. It's all painted black..... If he's not coming home, I think I'll get it painted."

Again, it must have been Don's room. According to published stories, he'd enjoyed LSD with Jimi and others. I believe she told me there were posters all over the walls and ceiling of the black room.

The quotes and recollections are hazy and paraphrased, as I wasn't taking notes. She simply was calling to see if I could get her son to visit. And nothing grabs my heart like a distressed mom.

I never accomplished that task, getting little Donnie to go home. I tried, I just couldn't track him down.

But I'm sure Don did, on his own, finally visit his mother..

Actually, now that I think about it, the first time I spoke with her, Nashville Banner icon Bob Battle, who knew everybody, switched her over to me.

"This is the mother of The Everly Brothers,'' Bob said. "Maybe you can help her."

She called several times for nice chats. She did invite me over to see the room, but by the time I decided to do that, the number I had no longer was in service. I imagine the room had been painted and the house sold.

Now both the boys are gone, after Don's death Saturday.

Margaret survives, however.

And man, I loved the music of The Everly Brothers. Bye-Bye Happiness.

Thank you for the phone calls, Mrs. Everly.

Boys, thanks for the tunes.

Tom T. Hall's death really pisses me off, but maybe he's with Miss Dixie now. Thanks for the friendship and love of two great people

 

Tom T. Hall's death pisses me off.

Two of the people who made me feel most at home in Nashville were Tom T. Hall and his wondrous wife, Dixie, aka "Miss Dixie."

Dixie died in 2015. Her heart was mighty and we loved each other.

Tom T. died today at age 85.

He was my friend.

They both welcomed me into their home. Life was lonely for Tom T. in recent years. So much so that on a few occasions, he even invited me up to Fox Hollow for some coffee and bullshitting.

We talked of books -- he liked mine and I cherish his -- and music. His music. His verbal pictures of blue-collar life and yearning and disappointment and occasional triumph are some of the very best words ever put together by a songwriter, country or otherwise.

The last time we shared coffee together was a snowy, early spring day, if I remember correctly.

He told me that he sure liked a book I'd written -- "Shoebox Full of Toads: Farewell to Mom" -- a lot and he asked me to sign it.

"God damn, that's a sad book. Good. Real good. I know you didn't write it to make money. It's just one of those things you wrote just because you had to, wasn't it?" he said. "I know how that goes."

Sometime on our coffee sipping day, he looked over his cup and said "Tim, why don't people write letters anymore?"

I shrugged.

First thing I did when I got home was write him a long letter of thanks, for his hospitality, an apology for taking up so much of his time and a mention of how much I loved and missed his wonderful wife.

If things are as we are taught, then Tom T. and Dixie are together again. That's a great thought for me, as I loved them both.

I don't know what else to say tonight other than I was appalled that the local news stations didn't lead with Tom T.'s death.

It was like the fourth or fifth story, a simple one-minute, easy-way-out piece of so-called journalism.

Tom T. Hall was a damn nice guy who made magic with his words.

Largely forgotten in recent years, he really didn't mind it.

He was a great man, who made a huge impact on country music. I appreciate his friendship.

And his death, as noted earlier, really pisses me off.

"Junior Birdman" plays in my head as I battle sadness with Camp Spikehorn, Scotch with Marc, Topsy and oil-stained feet on a country road

 I learned today that a cousin, who I love like a brother, is in the fight for his life up in the Detroit area. 

I don't need to go into details, other than the fact I left him a slightly profane message on his answering machine, because he is unable to speak clearly because of some irritation in his mouth, apparently caused by his treatments. I'm a newspaperman, so profanity flows naturally.

Since I couldn't talk with him, I talked into the machine about the summers he and his brother spent with Eric, me and my mom and dad. And I said that he better get feeling better because the bus was getting ready to take us out to Camp Spikehorn, outside Grand Rapids. 

I know none of that makes much sense to anyone but me. 

But my Champ cousins and my brother and I grew up together, at Camp Spikehorn or running down the dunes over near Holland, Michigan. Or the one Thanksgiving when we all were outside my grandparents' (George and Bea Champ's) house at Walnut Lake and a deer hunter shot into a tree near me. I survived. In fact, we thought it was kinda cool.   I spoke with my cousin a few weeks ago. The diagnosis was dire, but he was counting on months, years even. Now they are talking about hospice. He'll be 72 in September.  He was baby-sitting his grandchildren when we spoke.

Oh yeah, and then there was the beach at Walnut Lake. We'd walk on the trail through the swamp from the Champ house and across the dirt roads, that had been sprayed with black oil to keep the dust down. 

We spent our summers with black soles on our feet, either from going to the lake or just across Sunnycrest to harvest wild blackberries in the field.  

And the dog, Topsy, my grandparents' old hound, who would follow us through the woods and back. Sometimes, by the time she got home, she smelled of the dead fish she'd rolled on near the beach. We probably didn't smell so good ourselves.

It's been a lot of decades since Camp Spikehorn and the beach at Walnut Lake. But in my life I've never been happier than those days, before life began catching up with me. 

My cousin, Marc, and his brother, Jeff, not only mean everything to me, they are my connections with my early, happier life, my "Wonder Years" or whatever. And their sister, Michelle, too, though she was older and not as much around us as the boys were.

Their dad, my Uncle Joe, had his lungs turned into so much Swiss cheese by Nazi flamethrowers in the Battle of the Bulge. For a long time, my mom, his sister, and their folks didn't even know if he was alive. No officers came to the house to say he was dead. But if he was alive, nobody had kept good track of him.

But he was healing, slowly, in a British hospital. He came home mortally wounded into a decade-long death dance. Yet he laughed and hugged. He was a great and loving man.

When I was a kid, Uncle Joe was my hero. I named my son after him. Uncle Joe also scared me, as on the days of family gatherings out there in the small house in the woods at Walnut Lake, he'd have to go into my grandpa's bedroom, where Grandpa Champ would work the old hand-pump oxygen machine in an attempt to keep Joe alive.

Uncle Joe died long, long ago.  I remember when my mother got the phone call in Grand Rapids, telling her that her beloved brother had finally succumbed to Hitler's war machine.  I never saw her more grief-stricken as she wailed away at the telephone nook, by the reach-through between the stairs landing and the dining room.

She had been vacuuming the dining room when the call came.

I saw him in his casket, but my parents didn't think I was old enough for the funeral. Eric and I waited out the funeral and ate fresh tomatoes. No, that's not really a big deal, but it's true. I would rather eat fresh tomatoes than go to funerals now, but that's not proper death etiquette.

I probably ought to think this through more, turn it into some sort of formed writing. But I'm just typing from my heart right now. And it hurts.

It had been a bad day already, as I dealt with work issues.  My meeting with a boss was interrupted by a phone call I couldn't take, but I recognized the number. It could only be bad news. And I knew it had to be about Marc.

Tears crept into my eyes, which I rubbed, but continued my meeting. Had to. Gotta take care of my family and I love my job.

I focused on my boss and what he had to say to me, but I really didn't feel completely there. I knew that something had gone wrong with Marc in his battle with cancer.

And it had, as I found out when I talked to my own brother, Eric, and to our cousin Michelle.

I laughed a little bit in my soul, though, when I thought of the four of us, like brothers, riding the bus to Camp Spikehorn. Singing the "Junior Birdman" song, complete with the hand-motions. If you never did that, you are supposed to turn your hands upside down, forming upside-down goggles with fingers, as you sing along about the upside-down airman.

Marc and I served as bartenders once at an ill-fated family wedding. No details needed here, other than that the marriage didn't work, but the wine and Scotch really fueled the bartenders. My dad had provided the booze, and he wasn't stingy about quality. Marc and I relished Dad's choices so much that we each took a bottle with us back to Eric's apartment, where we drank the night away. And talked about Camp Spikehorn.  

Because of life, we haven't been together a lot since we were elementary school kids. 

Our parents all moved us around the country. 

There were occasional family get-togethers. Mostly at funerals, though.

I'm rambling here.

I can't say what will happen. It certainly looks bad. But I don't know if I've ever been around a more-upbeat guy than Marc. I'll never forget that smile, the hug, the fact we kissed each other on the lips, Mafia style, when we saw each other.

I've lost a lot of my friends to cancer. My parents are gone to disease and age. A cousin on the Ghianni side of the family, my beloved Ronnie Conte, died long ago because there was a congenital hole in his heart that finally caught up with him. Jim Kelly and some of the Buffalo Bills came to his visitation. But that's another story. 

Other "friends" decided that my politics, ethics and my general sense of fear and loathing mixed with mad laughter wasn't worth putting up with. I didn't need them, anyway. Ah, look at all the lonely people.

But I've kept going, knowing there were people in this world I loved and who loved me. Marc, Jeff, Michelle, Eric, Ronnie's brother Robbie. And, of course, my daughter, son and Suzanne. 

For me, well, this is a sad time. I'll be even more lonely one day, I hope not soon, because of this fucking cancer.

The laughter, the kisses on the lips, the Scotch and the hugs will be missed.

I told Eric, "it's that time in life when this shit begins to happen. We are old, brother."  

I guess we are.

I know that I feel old today when I think about this magnificent cousin who is fighting for his life.

I just hope he takes a moment to think about Walnut Lake. Topsy. Black-oil-covered soles. 

And those musical bus rides to Camp Spikehorn. "Up in the air, the junior birdman; up in the air upside dow-ow-own; up in the air, the junior birdman, keep your noses off the grou-ou-ound."