If ever I’m asked why the scots are beguiled
I’ll raise up my glass and I’ll say with a smile
“Fortune dealt Scotland the wildest of cards”
Oh the roving dies hard — Battlefield band
I’ll see if I can find the song later and add it in here somewhere, though some of you will not make it through the song.
Seeing how Me and Bobby McGee got so much traction here I have a few more words on it from a few different angles.
Freedom is not another word for nothing left to lose. Ok, sure, maybe, in a limited way for an off night. There are guys sharing an eight by ten downstate with bars on the doors and windows. They have nothing left lose and they aren’t free either, and that’s just a mild local example that doesn’t need to go to, say, Bosnia or Rwanda. It’s also a kind of odd way of looking at hitchhiking. I spent years hitching all over this continent without more than the contents of my pack. I had all kinds of shit, I just didn’t travel with it. There’s an old Chinese proverb; A mans wealth may be judged by what he can do without.
The other thing is a sappy Sunny memory. We went to visit her mom and her moms current, then fifth, husband. She was running events at the Shiloh Resort in Ocean Shores and he was running the bar and kitchen. We had food and drinks and there was this folk duo who, I assume, played the circuit on nights resorts couldn’t get a real band. Because Husband Five had hired them for a mostly empty bar, our table got a lot of attention. The guy brought me and husband five up to do some joke ballad with him. The girl asked sunny up and asked her to name a song to do a duet. Sunny was shrugging and being shy and coy (if it was a full room she would have taken over the gig). The woman suggested me and bobby Mcgee.
I’m not sure what she expected to happen. Halfway through Sunny stepped away from the mike because the speakers were rattling on the wall. She did Janis only more Janis-y and much more alive and also went all Joe Cocker. Although I’m not sure Sunny has a soul of her own, on stage she has at least three powerful souls (probably demonic) and loses all her vast vanity, stomping and snorting like holding back her voice from eating the world and losing. The woman part of duo was crying at the end. I guess husband five hadn’t really heard sunny sing before, him and Mr. Duo were too shocked and took a minute before applauding. I was just smiling and her mom said “Oh honey, why can’t you be nice?” Because that’s the kind of bitch she was/is.
Oh here is the song you’ll have trouble listening to
It was surprising that Sunny and I had so much in common. My GF and I have even more in common. With the exception of questionable taste in husbands/BF’s they have very little in common with one another. I think that’s me though. I’m the guy that hitchs all over broke and dirty with a Mustang in a garage back in Michigan and two bank accounts. I didn’t want to travel; I wanted to hitch-hike. Um, It’d take a lot longer than baton rouge to new Orleans to sing every song I know. I kind of did that once from Jacksonville to San Diego. I just mean when you do things sideways for so long common ground gets pretty broad.
The only time I traveled with two other people, one had brought a boombox and a bunch of cassettes. All but one was ruined in a deluge in Lake Geneva (Wisconsin, I realize a lot of people might not know there’s a Lake Geneva Wisconsin. There is. ). One side was Cheech and Chongs Big Bambu the other side was Live Bob Seegar and the Silver Bullet band. We were going to anchorage. By Fargo we just started singing other things, any other things, though none of us could sing and everything started to sound like “… on a lone and lonesome highway east of Omaha … on the road again …” which is a strange tune for, say, sweet afton. Heh. Another excuse. You should listen whether you want to or not. Classic Bobby Burns poem.
Yesterday the GF and I were in a Petco looking at the poor choice in bones and this guy overhears me saying how my dogs wouldn’t touch nylon bones. So he comes over with a handful of bully sticks (I’m not going to blow your buzz, you’ll either have to look them or you already know what they are or you are probably better off not knowing. Hint, it’s a treat for a dog, not a way to bully them.) and starts talking about his dog leading in with how his dog doesn’t like nylon bones either.
I think he was mostly talking to GF, she is striking, when we could get a word in edgewise he was definitely talking to her because I didn’t want to encourage his dumb ass. GF thought she was being witheringly sarcastic. It was not apparent to dude. He had, according to him, a rare red German Shepard (he met mr and mrs dog) and showed us a bunch of pictures on his phone of what looked a lot like a cross between a Doberman and an Irish Setter. If he had kept things short I would have kind of liked him, he was very proud of his dog. GF is very much involved with German Shepards. And if the guy was anything beyond a pet lover he might have understood how badly she was razzing him. I sheparded her away as she was getting less subtle, not really out of embarrassment but the guy made me weary.
The shelter was there too showing off dogs for adoption. They had this smiley red pit, a bit overweight and short. Very friendly. They were very quick to correct me when I said I love pits and she was such a pretty girl (though her shoulder was fucked up, looked like an old burn, and she was showing signs of hip dysplasia, probably from an injury). The guy quickly said she was a mix, mostly terrier. It’s funny because I haven’t noticed any pit prejudice here. I’m sure a guy from the pound knows that pitbulls are all terrier.
Oh, the guy with the irish dobie German Shepard kept looking for pictures he claimed made her look like a woof. The first couple of times he said that I thought he was trying to be cute. No. I guess in Jackson the L not only is silent but becomes a second O. She looked as much like a woof as she did a German Shepard. DNA wise all dogs have some woof to ‘em, even the fat little smiley terrier who looked much more like a pitbull than a woof. For some reason a senior black and white mutt and a cat were the only shelter adopt a pet critters that stayed caged. Maybe they were woofs.
Yeah, I’m rambling. Sorry. Sort of.
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