Redwoods In The Spring-Part One

Left Sunday morning to make a solitary backpacking trip to the Redwoods north of San Francisco. The plan had included a stop overnight at a camp ground just outside SF but I got there about three in the afternoon and decided to drive on. Got to Ordick about five thirty. The place to get the wilderness permit was closed but they had a nice parking lot and restrooms not locked so I decided it was ok for the night. I had taken the back seat out of the van so I could just lay out the sleeping bag and pass out without the bother of the real camping thing. Went to eat dinner at Ordick's only restaurant. Ok food except for the salad bar which was a assortment of those funky mayo based things that some aunt would bring to a picnic when you were a kid forty years ago.
The owner found out what I was doing and told me to see Fern Valley if I got a chance. It was where the Ewok planet scenes in the Star Wars movie was filmed. I went back and parked in the lot by the Visitor Permit place and slept in my van. I was up early and cleaned up and ate breakfast and was still a couple of hours away from the place opening, so I got out my folding chair and my plastic banjo I take on camping trips and played until the folks came to open. A tourist came over, curious about what I was doing. He was dumbfounded and wanted to know all about backpacking. And did I carry the banjo on the trip?
The family and friends were all concerned about me making the trip alone. My wife said that if I died she would never forgive me. A lady I knew started into a whole harangue about what if I was injured. I said that I would drag myself out. I have been backpacking about ten years now. I told them all, well...I did hitchhike across country by myself when young and I didn't die or get hurt.
The tourist wanted to know what I would do with a bear? Or a mountain lion? I didn't think any we're going to be here.
The place finally opened. I had a bunch of different routes and after talking them over, I opted for Pigeon Prairie Park. I was on the trail about ten. The first day was just five miles through some old growth Redwoods and then down to the beach to a backpackers camp. The old growth groves are these very quiet places where you seldom hear a bird and there were no bugs. It was very serene. Very lush. There were donor benches along the trail, where you could sit and just enjoy. They all had plaques with the donor names on them. I got down to the beach pretty easily and set up camp and took a little nap.
There were two other guys that came into camp. One was a PhD candidate from Miami and the other was a UN intern from Austria. I had rum and they both were drinking whiskey. We gathered firewood and sat up late, talking music and soccer and literature and girls. They both seemed fine with my crazy attitudes and that I was their father's age. I had a great time.
The next day I did a day hike over to Fern Valley. It looked just like it did in the movie. Very very lush overgrown giant ferns and beds of clover and wild strawberry bushes and poison oak. Everything is lush and very moist and the ground in long stretches was spongy and gooey. No mosquitoes at all. Ran into my Miami friend coming the other way.

Onward

Goodnight Jack

Visiting with my inner craziness tonight. How dare I work to harness my soul to the formula of music? Measures? Counting? Bah- Uniform pitch and chords progressions that belong and make sense? Stifle the soul and spoil the rod? (That's not right.) I once spent twenty years trying to perfect and understand the seemless paragraph. It has to be done. Ah to be a Van Gogh and not Picasso, Kerouac- not Hemingway. Balzac - not Flaubert. But its not to be. I learn and dream of flying free. I will learn this foreign thing. Goodnight Jack.

Nice to Have Things That Still Work

Heading north in the car tomorrow morning to go backpacking in the Redwoods. The body still works and the soul is still willing. Hoping to find some quiet time in the tall ancient trees. Be back next weekend to continue on. A gig next Sunday morning and recording another song in the afternoon. I'm rehearsing with a drumer these days. Its making me work even harder.

Song At 11:00

The newest song, Even got a chorus, but you don't get to see it yet, Got to muscle these words into a standard uniform meter. I wanted to include the real singer of the family into the new Cd, but she got a big big voice, so I thought I'd write the song and let her sing it, maybe with a little banjo behind. I was telling a friend, the secret to song writing is to figure out the chord progression and sing it over and over to yourself until a melody appears.
I'll keep you posted.
(there's already three verses here -all of seven lines)
Really, if you want to write songs read Thomas Wolfe, he wrote millions of sentences all in Iambic pentameter.
.
LAYING FLOOR

for my Alexandra at three



She’s learned a new word,

After a week of wood laying and barricades.

Swollen hands have lifted her beyond

Mastic, the tongue and groove of patterns

Undone, and the machines that growl and grind,

To set her again upon her feet

In a further room.

She knows, even now, she doesn’t like it,

Dangling head and arms over the gate,

She howls like a hungry saw

At the ill-fitting pieces.

“Soon enough,” I tell her,

And then again, “Soon enough.”

But she has little time.

When the barricades come down,

She races from room to room

To catch up with herself,

Before beginning to tiptoe over the finished wood.

She has some sense, I know,

If asked how she likes her new floor,

She will squat and point and smile.

Things I Love

Just ordered this for myself