Crow Chronicles

  1– Death of a Friend

Five years ago one of my Crow friends died.

He was a large bird and the Alpha of the local family that I had befriended a few years earlier.  While the smaller family members would dash in and out hoping for favor, he would confidently walk up within a few feet and stare at me with the knowledge that I would find something for him to eat.  I had named him “The Other”.

I hadn’t seen him for a while but on this day as I was working in the yard he appeared out of nowhere and walked up very close to me.  Closer than normal.  None of the other family members were around, which was odd.  I went into the garage to get the piece of bread I had been saving for him and when I did, I had to step over him as he didn’t move.  Very odd.  I sat on the porch and he walked up and stood between my feet. That was much closer than ever before.  As I dropped pieces of bread it was clear that he was locating them by smell and sound.  My friend had lost his sight. 

My neighbor and long-time friend, Daniel, came over to chat and was surprised to see the crow at my feet.  “What’s up with that?” he asked.  I told him what I thought was going on but hoped I was wrong.

The Other stayed close to me as I continued to work and followed me around the yard.  I guess he felt safe.  Then he went about five feet into the garage, which I had never seen him do before, and sat facing out.  His entire family suddenly showed up and watched from the fence that abuts the garage,   One by one they flew down to sit with him one last time and when done each bird flew across the street and sat silently on the power line.  When the last bird’s visit was over, they all took flight and flew north.  No calling, just the sound of their wings and they were gone.  He walked out of the garage and awkwardly hopped up onto the porch, something else I had never seen him do before, and sat very close beside me. 

Eventually he hopped down and walked over to the lilac bush and sat in the grass.  I took him some water and a few small treats which he picked at. 

He’s gone now.  Going to miss him.

Didn't Date Much

 

I suppose that before Seniors got to write their own yearbook quotes, they were provided by other students and faculty.  Folks on the yearbook committee maybe?  The school newspaper?  I never knew how that worked.  Like who came up with “Most Likely to Succeed” or ”Will Cure Cancer” or “Best Sense of Humor” or “A Natural Leader”?

 

Like, did they pull that stuff out of the “Book of 1000 Memorable Yearbook Quotes” or something?  And some students ARE pretty remarkable and it’s easy to sum up their high school careers in 3 or 4 powerful, complimentary words.  But what about the rest of us?  How did they pick quotes for us?  What 3 or 4 words did we get?  I mean, were students asked to provide their own or did the committee just start reaching into a fishbowl of quotes and you got what you got?

 

Lucky for me, I guess, that I graduated before the “Committee for Inspiring Character Quotes” came into being because the sum of my high school days was obvious to all and would have been summed up in 3 words that wouldn’t have been “Totally awesome, Dude!”

 

I’m pretty sure my three words would have been “Didn’t Date Much”.

 

James A. Garfield High School – Class of 1967

Package Grab

  

On the eve of my birthday I thought I would share a photo with you of me celebrating my 3rd trip around the sun in the public housing authority projects of Planeview, Kansas where I openly wore my “gun outside my pants; for all the honest world to feel” while perfecting the “package grab” that I would eventually teach to Marshawn Lynch to use on his signature end zone dives with the Seattle Seahawks.

 

That’s right.  I taught him that.  Oh yeah, I’m bad.  Uh huh!  Uh huh!

Rainy as Fuck

It has been raining like stink in Seattle for the past 24 or so hours and the stinkage looks to continue for another 24 hours. This phenomenon is euphemistically referred to as “An Atmospheric River” or artfully called “The Pineapple Express”. Whatever you want to call it it’s a bloody fucking deluge. It’s the kind of rain that falls in LA in the 1982 release of “Blade Runner”. The kind of rain that my Dad would have described as “A cow pissing on a flat rock”.

The kind of rain that gets Seattleites, who have never met each other and who are accustomed to rain, striking up conversations at the gas station about the weather. Like the conservative looking woman driving an SUV with bumper stickers touting “Make America Great Again”, “Trump is God’s Chosen One” and “We Visited the Ark Encounter, Williamstown KY” asking me at the gas pump “What the Fuck is with this rain?” Sadly, I have no answers for any of her life’s questions.

Ultimately it is the kind of rain that makes my sump pump kick on every 2 minutes.

LOST and FOUND

 

Prologue

Otto Lang was a pioneer of modern skiing.  In the mid-30’s he traveled from Europe to New Hampshire and then to the Pacific Northwest where he brought technique and style to west coast skiers by founding ski schools on Mount Rainier, Mount Baker and Mount Hood.  Soon he became the Director of the Sun Valley Ski School where he hob-knobbed with the stars of the silver screen and went on to write and produce movies.  He was often referred to as “The Grand Old Man of Skiing”. 

Before he passed away at age 97 he said “I know it is a broad statement, but it is true; skiing is responsible for everything in my life.  It connected everything.”

Otto Lang

That quote resonated with me and it got me to wondering if all of us were directed by some "one-thing" like skiing that connects all the dots and shapes the course of our lives.  Some event or experience that sends us along a path that we don't recognize as a path at all.  Something that nudges us along unaware as to why we choose A instead of B.  A gentle touch here and there that keeps us on course but sometimes a 2 x 4 across the head to get our attention and keep us focused on something we didn't know we were even supposed to be paying attention to.

I got to wondering what my “one-thing” was. 

JAJ

 I grew up in a house with a piano.  Everybody sang, some better than others, and most of us played that piano.  Some of us could even read music.  As a kid it wasn’t unusual for us to gather at the piano while one played and the rest of us sang.  Old school, I suppose.  I played the French horn and could read music but couldn’t play the piano reading sheet music.  I played by ear and was maybe just below average at best.  I could hear it in my head but struggled to recreate it.  Many of my friends shared my disease but didn’t have pianos in their homes so they often gathered at our house to work out how to play popular tunes.  It was probably painful to listen to.  My parents were saints, though, and tolerated us repeating the same phrases over and over, ad nauseum, until we got it right without telling us to “Stop it already!”.  Not sure any of us ever got it right.  Kept us off the streets. 

There were many local bands that played dances.  They included Tiny Tony and the Statics, The Sonics, The Wailers, The Kingsmen, The Dynamics and others.  Some enjoyed a bit of recording success.  The Dynamics were a Central District favorite and had recorded a few tunes that received radio play.  The drummer, Ron Woods, was a well-known figure and one night when he was over visiting he taught my friend, Bobby Melvin, and I to play JAJ.  We got good at it and it probably drove my parents to the edge. 

The Dynamics

Turns out that Ron taught many local kids how to play it and we taught others.  Soon it was the most-played piano tune in central Seattle by young boys out to impress their friends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpTNB357xeY

The song was originally written by Dave Lewis (The Godfather of Northwest Rock) on the Hammond B3 and he had a number of good recordings that established a distinctive organ-driven Northwest Sound.  Anyone who had an organ at home was very popular as “friends” would gather from far and wide to work on their renditions of Dave’s many songs.

Dave Lewis

One of his partners lived two houses away at the corner of 24th and Calhoun with their kids, Venus and Ronald.  Both were stellar kids.  Venus favored he Mom and Ronald was the miniature spitting image of his Dad minus the thin mustache.  Venus was the sweetest kid ever and Ronald would often come to the door, mitt in hand, to ask me to play catch and show him how to play baseball.  He wasn’t a natural.  I would try to impress him with my ability to play his Dad’s songs on the piano but he just laughed and let me know that my attempts to replicate his Dad’s work were covered with flies. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZDvRYzSyXE

The piano thing has continued for me.  I have been married for over 30 years to Jean who got her degree in piano performance, taught music at a private school, performed live many times and ran a piano studio out of our home for nearly 20 years.  Our daughter, Kasie, studied piano for 13 years, performed at the Seattle Art Museum on Vladimir Horwitz’s piano, played at several public events including on KING FM (Live by George) where she blew George Shangrow and everyone else in the room away.  My shining accomplishment is that early in Kasie’s piano career I taught her how to play JAJ.  A father’s legacy. 

I’m still living with a piano and today, when nobody is around I sit down at our Steinway and play JAJ which Ronald would laugh at and Kasie played better than me on her first attempt 30 years ago. 

 

LOOK! But Don't Look Up.........

 

I can’t recall the exact year that this occurred but here are a few clues that may jog your memory.  Big Jim Whittaker was the guy in charge at REI, bright green was the latest and greatest color in ski fashion and “Anti-Friction” was the new phrase being bantered around the ski industry.  Lawsuits involving ski related injuries were on the rise and findings were overwhelmingly in favor of the plaintiffs.  With a mixture of acknowledged guilt and a “not-my-fault” strategy the binding companies began designing in favor of release over retention.  Since favoring release over retention by reducing friction was a relatively new concept in binding technology few of the manufacturers had gotten it right. 

I was employed as a ski mechanic at the Seattle REI store on Capitol Hill and my employee discount had allowed me to afford that set of Look Nevada bindings that I had coveted for so long.  I soon learned, however, that Look, through the use of copious quantities of Teflon, had reduced friction to the point that retention in the real world was impossible.  “Anti-friction” had taken on a whole new meaning.  They tested fine in the shop but they simply didn’t work on the hill.  They made this troublesome “click-click” sound that resulted in an immediate separation from your skis and a severe physical pummeling, the memory of which haunts me to this day.