A (real life) visit with a banjo player. :)

"Bill’s Banjo"

         On Tues, August 30, 2011, I had the honor, and pleasure, of having a friend phone and ask if I was busy. He was downtown and had his banjo in hand.

        “Of course come over!” I replied. I set aside a pile of paperwork and books. Studying could continue later in the day and the next appointment with a client was in an hour. This was an opportunity I delighted in.

  

         Below is what I felt when Bill was present and playing his 1890’s banjo he had just finished restringing:

            He sat in my old grandmother’s chair. It hadn’t been used like this ever---well maybe, I’ll never know. She would be about 100 if she were still alive. I can’t ask Grandfather this either—he would have been about 102 by now.

            Bill held on his lap and in his tan hands, an instrument from the 1890’s—a banjo. With Mother of Pearl and abalone, the shiny green and blue within ivory-like inlays, glistened and marked frets, in the dark stained maple neck. His short-nailed fingers on his left hand traveled over the four newly strung gut (not metal) strings on the upper neck’s notes, and his right hand danced its magic stroking the strings over the round banjo’s pot.

            The muscles in his forearm pulsed, and moved with the strumming. The rhythm of his head matched to the excreting joy and tenderness of the moments.

            He played Chicken in the Barnyard. This one could have made anyone smile. J

            Next, it was Wild Horses. This tune reminded me of wagon wheels, canvas covered, night fires and long grassy fields.

            He labeled and pointed out parts to educate me. The bridge, neck, and new calf skin frets. He noted, goat skin could also be used; it was usually animal skin in those days. Plastic strings were more recent.

            The 5^th string began later down the neck. He said it was more of a drone note/not an octave. The frets, were marked by the shiny Mother of Pearl and abalone, at 3, 5,7, 9 and 12. This is typical, yet sometimes may be different. The twelfth, he said, is always octave. (I’m not sure what that means.)

            Bill said someone playing a banjo, plays higher if playing with a fiddler.  

            Back to another tune. The Big Scioty. This had lyrics, although unsung, he told me it was a story about the underground railroad in Ohio.

            I asked why is the neck dark; what kind of wood is it? Bill explained it was maple, stained, and he noted, they usually did this until 1901…then the whyte ladyie was made. This banjo had unstained maple and therefore was lighter. If I remember correctly, he also said this banjo had thicker wood at the pot, under the pulled skin and rim. The thicker wood made the banjo louder. They wanted it louder, so larger crowds could hear the music.

          Another tune is played, Jack-of-All-Trades. By hearing the music, I imagined a laughing card player, cigar smoke and women in wistful scarlet red and blue silk dresses. (I suppose my memory banks went into childhood television I watched---lots of western movies and shows seen.)

          “Hammering on and pulling off” Bill said was the official language for the playing.

          A little history on banjos: In the 1890s  W.A. Cole in Boston had a banjo company. He worked beside, or with,  A.C. Fairbanks. As relationships sometimes go, these two eventually parted.

          The fret boards had ebony over them that the inlays were put in.

In the back of the pot,  a Dowel was put in. (Or was Bill talking about the neck put through the wooden circle/ that the dowel rod was next to….

           I may not have followed this part accurately:  This old banjo Bill played on, he had to restore. He is a banjo enthusiast, to say the least. He can play them and has rebuilt many in his day. Anyway, he said usually he could take the dowel rod out (relatively) easy---and pointed to a bolt or screw and plate. On this old banjo, however, the dowel rod was put into a drilled slot (this is usual) yet instead of being able to drip hot water to loosen the (gluey) substance to extract it, this particular dowel was in put in using a different technique. Apparently, the builder used a rod cloth with pine tree resin to anchor the neck into the pot. Who knew. …  Bill did. It was not so easy to get pliable.

          Used to, designers used single spun metal to encase the wood. Nickel silver. When they wanted it louder, they double spun the metal around both edges, top and bottom. To get it even louder, they figured out to thicken the wood, and shoe attach to the band above and below without the wood screws. (metal screws were in the wood at even intervals on this one aound the pot. I think.)
           As noted above, the Whyte ladyie was very loud…it had the thicker wood design.

           

            Oh play another tune!

            And Bill did. This time, it was Sallie Ann.

            It didn’t take long before another image immerged within my mind. I saw a lady in white, dancing in a daffodil field, yellow and green colors blurred, twirling, holding a parasol to keep the sun’s heat at bay, only now, she could care less, as she was twirling it around over head and down to the waist with a swoop. She danced with the late summer breeze. A nearby man resting on a blanket smiled.

          It was a lovely visit. My studies had a beautiful intermission.  Thank you, Bill.

Prompt: Words given: Stew glutton desert colony philosophy elixir savvy nirvana

From a group meeting, Jan. 14, 2010. It's words given to us this time. "20 minutes, use as many as you may...write." :)

   Of all the places on earth, the biplane had to crash land in the desert. Walking was not an option in a day of 120 degrees heat. The night at 98 felt like nirvana for this Scottish man. His white skin began matching his face's growing rusty bristles. Usually soft, the beard now felt like thorns. Thorns of a cactus he lusted to see, as perhaps water or meat under its skin could be had.
 
  His mind began to drift, looking for palms and an oasis heard within stories of youth. His mind questioned to remember--were they fables or truths? Could there be hope or was it certain death? How far off course had the sand storm put him?

  The first night was frightful. Feeling decreasing sanity and bewilderment, he thought of squeezing his socks to drink his own perspiration--something else he had heard stories about. He sipped from his canteen, each spoonful measured and received as an elixir from the Gods.

  "You're a glutton for punishment. This serves your death, sir." He heard words ring in his ears.  Yes, this is what she would say in her madness to him if she could see him now.

  However, the Scot genteelly spoke, quietly and precisely to the illusion of his lover clearly envisioned in his mind. "My lady, my philosophy has always been and always will be that life is an adventure to be lived deeply through each season, with passion and salt. Salt to season, as within the most delicious stew from lambs meat, fresh garden carrots the color of the setting sun, potatoes infused by the earth's calming nutrients, and onions where in the core is the pearl." By the end, he muttered to himself with a slight smile.

  The man, now lost of his savvy presences of surrounding riches, sat under the plane's wing, looking at his reserve canteen and dried beef. He spoke up. "Not the combination I need nor want now. Not salt to make me more thirsty, not toughness to make me chew harder, ah, but a dreary reminder-- Instead of salt of the earth to nourish myself, it is but salt in my wounds I feel, cut open from this treacherous twist of fate. I will not to win at crossing the desert, yet lose the prize, lose the game, and perhaps my life.... and Rebecca.

prompt: The only seat left was next to a strange old woman 5/12/11

  The only seat left was next to a strange old woman, but I had to take it. What else was I gonna do? I had to get out of here. So I tucked my head low and chin tight and wiggled my way past her knobby knees.

  “’Cuse me” I said. I put my tattered book into the seat. Its cracked binding long ago showing white like her hair and its pages were not staying together…kinda like her knobby knees. I tried not to look. That’s not where a man like me wanted to go.

  Her eyes were more gray than blue. I wondered what she went thru in her living.

Unlike most little old ladies, she didn’t look up. Didn’t say hello son, how are you? She didn’t smile and show her dentures, or even grin. I’m certain she has dentures.

  Well, honestly, how many on this stinkin’ bus are going to grin? Maybe they’re gettin’ out of town like I am. Had enough. And enough is enough.

  

  I put my bowling bag in the overhead. Its worn out leather looked like I felt. Guess I scraped it too many times … after too many beers. It made me smile. Didn’t have my lucky bowling ball in it now though. How I managed to roll two days of clothes in it, I’ll not know either.

  Of course, my ball’s not so lucky. How I cracked it last night, I can’t remember. This morning, it looked like a geode split in two.

  And Gracie. Hm. She ain’t had no patience for me lately. No woman of Grace these days.

  “Every one sit down please,” the driver said.

  

  “Geez…how long have I been standin’?” I shook my head’s fog and closed the hatch.

  “Three minutes,” the old woman said. Or at least that’s the sound of words that came from below and beside me.

  I sat and straightened my jeans. Patted off a splotch of dirt. Must have gotten it from somewhere last night. Probably in the alley. Yeah… Behind the bowling alley…in the dark alley. I let out a small laugh and noticed the old woman’s head tilted my way. Her eyes were closed. And her mouth. A woman’s mouth closed. Now that’s a sight to see. I laughed again. I saw a fold begin in her eyelids and one cheek crunched upward in her wrinkles. She was peeking my way.

  The bus rocked once as the emergency brake was released and it was put into low gear.

Outside the window, I saw the fog lifting.

  Concrete bus station. Empty already. People couldn’t wait to get whomever on the bus for out of town and pull out to leave.

  "This is the last I’ll see of this town."

  I must have spoken out loud. The old woman turned my way and looked right into me. I mean she looked right into me.

  

  “Leaving huh? Hope it’s for the better.”

  Me too, I thought. I didn’t say anything to her, just nodded. I softened and I didn’t know exactly why. There was something familiar in her eyes. I had seen eyes like that somewhere else. Somewhere…

I turned to look out the window. Oddly, my chest felt tight and my throat felt strangled.

I rubbed my palms on my jeans. They were so damp I almost made mud where the dirt was.

I took a breath in and turned to the woman.

  “You goin’ and coming back….or just goin?” she said.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Don’t know huh?” She said without judgment; it was as if the unknown was somewhere.

  “That’s right.”

  She turned away and looked straight.  I picked up my book from beside me.

  “Walt Whitman?” She asked, turning my way again.

  “Yeah.”

  

  “Like him?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said.

  “Hm” was all she said back. And then, “Why you leaving son?”

  “No reason to stay.”

  “Reason waiting for you wherever you going?” She asked

  “Not really. Dunno.”

  “Hm.” She took out a tangerine, peeled it without saying a word. Tore her napkin in half and

offered me some plugs.

  I took it—it smelled fresh.

  “Well,” she said. “I’ve traveled near and far. There’s always something waiting wherever we go.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “There’s something left behind too.” I felt myself open up and started thinking of Gracie. Don’t know why we fussed. Don’t now know why I left in such a hurry.

  “I like buses,” the old woman said with a smile. “They give us plenty of time to think.”

  She opened her satchel and pulled out a book. It was Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman. “He’s good.” She said, and she bit into a plug.

  The juice sprayed onto her finger and she wiped it off.

Prompt: Her letter lay on the table unopened

   Alexandria paced the floor as the fire crackled in the background. She followed the burgundy circular pattern on the rug.

    "Enough!" she cried. She looked at the letter on the dark mahogany table. Flames' reflections danced around the rectangular envelope.

   "I'm not burning this one."

   She watched the unopened letter as if it were threatening to her presence. It was the third she had received. The first was five days ago after their heated arguments. Her flames of fury from that night were now smoldering. She attempted to write letters in response, yet had torn them in anger. Sadness then led them, joined with his, to be kindling to the pine.

   Being drawn to the fire, she moved toward it and sat cross legged on the creamy long-haired sheepskin rug. She pressed her hands into the softness.

    A lone tear made a trail along her cheek and down toward her chin.

   She felt cold, abandoned and weak.

   Weakness was an unfamiliar feeling. This is why she felt the anger. The anger was her internal fire still prodding her to make a decision.

   "I should never have to do this," she said to herself. "It doesn't feel fair and has pain written all over it."

   She looked behind her. Beside the unopened letter, a red candle burned half way down, showing time's passing. Alexandria sat alone in the house, darkened by all but the fires around her.

   She felt darkened within herself.

   "I have half a candle left to make my final decision," she said as she turned back to look into the fireplace's flames.

   What am I going to do?


   Her chest rose as she took a slow deep breath. She exhaled as long as she could and felt some tension release as other choices came to her mind.


  

Prompt: Something was poised to attack

    The lizard was perched on top of the concrete wall. The sun-heated stone didn't seem to bother the small reptile. Its dorsal side had thick skin compared to the white and softer underbelly.

    The lizard did two quick push ups and from under its throat extended out semi-circular red flesh that retreated again.

   I have wondered if these precise actions were a mating ritual, territorial marking, or just haphazard movements from these small creatures.

   I took the moment to look around at nature for a clue. I looked for a temporary mate or rival lizard. I didn't see any. I looked for a bug--a meal, in the vicinity. I didn't see one either. My experience with lizard watching didn't expect this. I've seen lizards get insects. They are poised still until the attack and capture. I've also wondered before about those half-hanging-out-of-the-mouth bugs in lizards' mouths...are they dead or alive?...You know, with the head down the throat, like a shark devouring people in Jaws. (What movies do to the minds!)

   A flash of movement breaks my thoughts. It broke the stillness I was resting in. I jumped. The lizard is history. Apparently, a cat behind me was poised to attack.

Prompt: (From a picture of a bare room, teady bear on the floor, on a rug

On one evening, sometime in 2009, Chuck, our writers' meeting leader, gave us a picture to look at. It was a picture of a bare room, it had a window with no curtains, ... on the floor was an oriental rug and a teddy bear. There were 2 pictures on the wall.     Of course, as usual, he said we had 20 minutes.... go!    :)

Below is pretty much what came out.... cleaned up about 5% later.

S. Palmerton
  
     It was a night of rage, not long ago. Outside, a violent storm broke the blackness with streaks of lightning. Rolls of thunder shook the home.

    Inside, the electrical movement of a mother's protection.....
  
    "He can't find us here," the mother anxiously said to her child, as she tightly embraced the toddler to her chest.

    Like a strobe light, flashes of lightning minutes before, through a window without curtains, showed a mother run into the room--bend down--sweep the child into her arms, his teddy bear fell to the oriental rug--her silhouette move away--and then the room bare.

    Amid the simultaneous rolls of thunder, the night had heard her call out, the brief cry of the boy, the closing of a makeshift door, and the slamming of a distant door.

    Now she was secluded and laid her sleepy son next to her legs.

   Soon after, a flash of light streamed into the room--its path focused, searching quickly back and forth. From the door to each wall and covering the floor...over the lone teddy bear, light came and proceeded to move erratically. The rage had entered.

    The light dropped to the carrier's feet as the door to the room shut, and a locking of it was heard.

    Sounds of rushing footsteps moved into the hallway. The next room examined. Again, a locking of the door and more footsteps heard, farther away.

    The woman sat crouched in the hidden closet-size room. Three inner deadbolts double-checked were on her secret door. She heard his footsteps above, climbing the staircase, it seemed two at a time.

     Rolling thunder and the pelting of rain continued.

    She hoped the storm inside the house would go away. Her heart beat against her ribs. She looked down at her child with blond curls, asleep on his favorite sheet laid over a thick lambskin rug. A dim nightlight glowed onto them. She looked up to the base of the stairs that was now her angled ceiling. To her right, on the secret door, she looked at her taped picture of her and her child. A quote of Einstein's was paper clipped on it.

    At the speed of light I'll get away sometime, she thought and began to feel thinning of her chest's fear. She took a sip from a water bottle, screwed the top and set it beside a few more non-perishable foods. For now, this is my safe place, she thought and rested her head on a feather pillow. She'd figure out what to say in the morning.

Prompt: When papa laughed like that, I was at once reminded of the past.

Aug. 2009
S. Palmerton

     Although the years had slowed his gait, his height enveloped him vertically into looking like a lanky giraffe.  Bold crimson red walls with cinnamon trim framed his presence tonight. He sat in the firm chocolate leather chair and his grandson plopped himself right onto his lap.

     Pulling on his snow white beard, young Johnny pronounced, "Grams, it's your turn to tell a story."

     "It is, isn't it." I heard my father state. I looked around. Tonight it was the three of us.I sat at the hearth and stoked the burning logs to bring them closer. After adding a fresh one to burn, and I chose one that would take a long time, I turned to give my father attention. Seeing my son nestled in his lap, stretched my chest forward. I took a deep breath in.

     I don't remember him doing that with me, I thought. In my time, for him, work was from dawn to dusk. My scanning mind couldn't locate any memories of sitting in my grandfathers' laps either.

     Yet there Johnny sat, perched quiet and still.  That's unusual, I thought and inwardly laughed.

     Time was lovingly expressing itself within three generations present, and was as tangible to me as the warmth from the fire behind me. I moved to the couch and stretch out, laying a blanket across my legs that were longer than my son.

     "Yes, go ahead dad. Tell us all a story," I said as I interlaced my fingers behind my head and crossed my ankles. The couch always fit me perfectly. Tonight I'd try to listen and not fall asleep within a half hour.

     I basked in the sight of my father, my papa, holding my son.

     The tale he told was spun like threads from a golden spider. It was natural and intricate, a piece of artwork.

     When did he learn this? I wondered. I could tell he was improvising anew, as we noticed Johnny beginning to drift off, even though he was trying to stay awake.

    By the end, he began to close his imagination's journey with a  joker's bells and a steam train riding on rails, to a land of butterflies, lizards and baseball games... all of Johnny's favorites. Father laughed. Oh, did he laugh. He tried to keep from hooting and gently rolled out soft laughter. His open heart washed over us with glory.

     Oh..., my mind alerted me. When papa laughed like that, I was at once reminded of the past, back to a time I now remembered... when I was no taller than his legs.