Thanking My Blessings

This has been a delightful week.  My life is generally delightful, but this week is special.

Early in the week I noticed a notification from Facebook Messenger that I had not noticed before.  I’m usually pretty good about staying on top of those things, however, this one caught me by surprise on many levels.  I’m not sure when it arrived, but whatever, the bigger surprise was who it was from…..my long, lost friend, Kevin Corr!!

Kevin and I met in Fairbanks during the two years I lived there – 1973-1975.  That was also a ‘Special’ time.  Special because of the fact that it is no doubt the most fun, adventuresome, awesome era of my life.  I moved to Fairbanks on a whim, no pre-planning, I knew nothing about Alaska except that it was way North and very cold.  Whatever….it was another adventure for me.  I happen to arrive there just as the pipeline was starting construction and the tiny, little village of Fairbanks was booming.

Without all the details, suffice it to say, that it was very easy to make friends and have lots of fun.  Most people arriving were planning for employment on the pipeline.  I on the other hand had a dog and 2 cats and there was no way I could leave them for several weeks at a time, so I ended up with a job in the Law Enforcement Office of US Fish & Wildlife Service….that my friends is a whole other story. 

Very quickly I met lots of people, one of whom was Karen, my dearest friend, and she had the idea to rent a 3-bedroom apartment thinking to rent out the bedrooms to folks as they rotated on and off the pipeline.  That turned out to be a brilliant idea. 

Somewhere in that endeavor Kevin showed up.  Not sure how he landed on Willow Street, but he quickly became a regular and was a really awesome person.  He had his own place in Fairbanks so was like me, not actually renting from Karen, but just hanging out for the good times. 

We dated for a few weeks, but that didn’t really turn out so instead we just became good friends.  So many adventures.  Snow machining in the middle of the night watching the northern lights, helping Karen build her cabin down on the Chatinika River, party after party at Willow Street.  

                                                               Halloween 1974

At the end of two years, Jerry, my Cincinnati boyfriend, arrived from Guam and convinced me to join him there.  So off I went.  But Kevin was still a presence.  One day Jerry came home from work and found me in tears.  I had received a letter from Karen, telling me, among other things, that Kevin was married.  Don’t ask, I don’t know why I got so upset, but Jerry wasn’t happy with me crying for some other guy because he got married!

I lasted 10 months on Guam before a typhoon convinced me to head home to Cincinnati.  The following year Dad and I drove up to Alaska to pick up my belongings I left behind when I headed to Guam.  I was in touch with Kevin and he offered Dad and I his ‘shack’ as a place to stay while in town.  Not fancy, but very accommodating.

                                                                   Kevin's Shack 

The next time I saw him was 1980 when Karen and I traveled up the inland passage by Alaska Marine Highway, taking the train from Skagway to Whitehorse and then hitch hiking from Whitehorse to Fairbanks, landing at Kevin’s house with his wife offering us their spare bedroom for our stay.  That was the visit where Kevin radically altered my life by convincing me that I needed to break up with Jerry.  I did so when I returned to Cincy.  

                                    Our bedroom on the Alaska Marine Ferry

 

                                                 Hitchhiking the Alcan Highway 1980

It was a couple of years after that that Kevin was traveling cross country and landed in Cincinnati for a night or two.  By that time, I was living with my soon to be husband and we had a nice visit.  That would have been about 1989 and was the last time I had any contact with Kevin, until this week, 35 years later!!!

So, to say I am thrilled is a major understatement.  I have learned this week that Kevin is now 18 years into his second marriage, retired, and living in Thailand.  He looks and sounds healthy and happy. 

There is something so special about long term friends, especially now as we age and are losing some of those special people. 

I’m thanking my blessings this week.

 

ANCIENT MEMORIES

 

A daily habit of mine is watching the evening local and national news.  I find it interesting that it seems that most of my friends pay no attention to the news, or, maybe their sources are different, but in any case, that’s my habit and I’m glad it is.  This past week there was a local news story that swept me back to many, many, many ancient memories.

The local news was announcing the passing of a local icon by the name of Eddie Sheppard.   Wow…. did a waterfall of memories come welling up and not for obvious reasons.  I didn’t actually know Ed, we weren’t friends, I have no memory of ever actually talking to him, but he was a well-established presence on Mt. Adams.

Between 1968 – 1973, when I lived and worked on Mt. Adams, it was the Height-Ashbury of Cincinnati during the Hippy Era.  It was the coolest place in all of Cincinnati at that time.  There were 5 bars within a 3-block area of each other: Mahogany Hall, Crowley’s Pub, Dilly’s Pub, another, whose name I cannot remember, and The Blind Lemon, Ed owned The Blind Lemon.  These were the bars that were the only places to be on Wednesday and Friday nights.  Other nights were good too…. but they weren’t Wednesday and Friday!!!

My first time on Mt. Adams was shortly after I had moved to Cincinnati.  I had landed a job at Ohio National Life Insurance Co. and some of the girls I worked with invited me to go out with them on Wednesday night to the ‘Hill’.  I had heard of the place but had no idea what I was in for.  Keep in mind, I was still a very naive, dumb kid.  The Hill was a labyrinth of tiny streets, put together like a jigsaw puzzle.  I drove myself up, met up with the girls, joined them in their car while they drank a little and then pulled a bag of weed from under the dash…. before we ever left the car!!!  I was definitely in over my head.

By the end of the evening, I had no idea where my car was parked, had gotten separated from my group, found my car, found one of the girls who was so drunk/stoned she almost couldn’t walk.  She begged me for a ride home.  I obliged.  As I pulled into her driveway she grabbed her purse, pulled it open and puked into it…. thank God it was a big purse!!!  Then I had to find my way home.

Eventually it became a crazy time for me.  I was working 3 jobs and going to school 2 nights a week.  When the weekends came, I tended to collapse on Saturday and sleep all day Sunday.  But I was having the time of my life.  Waiting tables at Dilly’s was so much fun.  It was a 2-level bar.  First floor was a sit-down bar with a small stage where I first heard Pure Prairie League play.  On Wednesday and Fridays it was standing room only.  I worked that floor on Wednesday and Fridays.  Basement was a stand-up bar with pin ball machines.   I came close to beating Jimmy Smith one night, he was our own Pin Ball Wizard.  Any night I wasn’t working or at school I tended to hang out either at Mahogany Hall or The Blind Lemon…where it wasn’t unusual to see a local celebrity, like Johnny Bench hanging out.   

The bar workers had an informal club where someone would organize events after the bars closed (2:30 am) and we would head to Northern Kentucky to go ice skating or to a dirt bike race course to party until the sun came up.  Don’t even ask how I managed to get to my 9-5 job….I have no idea. 

I moved to Alaska in 1973 and by the time I returned to Cincinnati in 1976 times had changed.  The Hill was no longer THE place to be.  It was much quieter, bars had come and gone, but the Blind Lemon was still there….and is still there.  Pete and I were up there a while back and Walter Brown was still the bar manager, has been for 50 years. 

There is so much more to the story, but you get the picture. 

All I can say to Eddie, is thanks for resurrecting the memories. 

I Agree

 

One of my favorite TV shows is Sunday Morning on CBS with Jane Pauley.  Last Sunday (6/9) they did a segment on the making of the song “We Are the World” that raised over $63 million for African hunger relief.  I remember that song so well and anytime I saw a video clip of the gang of artists who made it happen, I got a warm fuzzy feeling.

The segment last Sunday was about the fact that Netflix has recently released a documentary they produced on the story behind that story.  I was intrigued, so that evening I pulled up my Netflix account and sat down to watch the video. 

I am so glad I did.  The documentary was a little long and there were a few times it drug out a little much, but overall, it was an excellent story to produce and share.  Hearing Lionel Richey open up the story and share how Harry Belefonte started the ball rolling, bringing in Quincy Jones and then trying to figure out how to get all those top artists together at the same time, how Lionel and Michael Jackson created the song in such a short window and then divided up all the parts, dealing with all the egos involved (a sign hung over the door of the studio where the recording was held saying “Leave Your Egos Outside”) seemed to work (for the most part.)  Only one artist left the recording in frustration (Waylon Jennings) and one artist never showed up (Prince was too much of an introvert to deal with the crowd). 

The recording session started after the American Music Awards program (Jan 28, 1985), when the majority of those participating would be attending the awards ceremony in LA. One exception was Bruce Springsteen, who was performing in concert in Buffalo, NY, but who immediately jumped in a plane and made it to LA in time to participate. 

By 7AM most of the artists had left, but one film clip showed Diana Ross hanging around.  When asked, she said she didn’t want it all to end. 

I agree!!!