November 2003 - A New Guitar And A Broke Down Fiddle
Saturday, November 22
Today, the Iowa fog hovers from horizon to horizon. Barn roofs disappear into the grey sky, and distant water towers seem to float like hot air balloons. Hawks hunt from their perch on barbed wire fence between the road and fields. It’s November and the corn stubble is newly turned under the earth, soon to be covered with a predicted first snow. Tonight we play the last gig of our fall tour, after which, we begin the drive fourteen hours home in a southeast line to Asheville.
One enduring image of this tour were the couple of days spent holed up in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. Lava Hot Springs is a ramshackle resort town past its 1920’s heyday where people came for cures in the mineral waters. The town closes up for the winter leaving only a skeleton of businesses offering the basics. When our hotel clerk found out we were musicians she became excited and suggested a CD swap for two passes to the hot springs. It was a good swap as we soon found that the springs were in fact, incredible: five deep, gravel bottomed pools, and hot as the dickens. That night, a freight train screeched through the cold, thin mountain air above, the moon was faintly visible through the shifting steam rising from the hot springs pool. This was Idaho.
A couple of days later in Laramie I had an accident with my handmade Richard Varnes guitar. While unpacking it from the van, it slipped and hit the sidewalk within its soft-shell case. My old friend of 22 years; companion to Carnegie Hall, hitchhiking trips across the country and busking in Europe in my twenties, and origin of all of my songs, shattered. The past two weeks of dry cold had made the wood vulnerable and brittle, so when it hit, it was as if a button was pressed and the wood cellulose simply let go.
Strangely enough, three days earlier at the Old Boise Guitar Company, I had been perusing through, and casually playing Johnny’s superb selection of guitars. That afternoon in Laramie I remembered a Martin I liked. I never thought I’d actually buy it, but before I knew it I was on the phone telling Johnny to ship it overnight to meet me in Omaha. So there – I never thought I’d own a Martin. The sound of a mahogany body after listening to rosewood for so many years is taking some getting used to. But she’s roadworthy, stands up well under my fingers, and cuts a fine chord.
The next couple of days we spent near Winona, Minnesota visiting friends. Arriving in this corner of southeast Minnesota, we made the transition out of the vast west and into the east. We were still west of the Mississippi, but this area, which also encompasses part of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, is known as the “driftless” region. It is the most westerly finger of eastern hardwood forest, full of steep hills and lush valleys that escaped the advance and retreat of the many glaciers throughout the ages. We felt like we had walked through the mirror; that we had blinked our eyes and had traveled from Idaho to Vermont in one breath.
Our last week of the tour was spent wholly in Iowa, which was welcome, as there was not as much driving required. We got to know Cedar Rapids. I had my first IMAX experience (Lewis & Clark), spent time in the public library working, found a great walking path, and I picked up an old broken down fiddle that needs rehabilitation and a home.
During this final week, the magnet in our bellies began tugging us homeward. Images of the front porch, kitchen sink, the music room, or my desk began to appear like premonitions. It’s always my desire to return home a changed person in one-way or another. I rely upon my observations to move me. I store up images, and I hope that writing about it later will release them. I like to remember what the sunset looked like driving to Davenport that Thursday. We were driving east, and viewing only the effects of the sunset upon the stubble fields on either side of I-80. Lemony light, we agreed, and marveled at it. Minutes later, when the sun had shifted lower, we said, “strawberry light.” So it was.
Thanks again for reading. I hope you all had a restful Thanksgiving holiday. Keep in touch with the guestbook, and check out the schedule page. See you next month!
- Dana