Someone just sent me this link, which reminds me one more time to say thanks to all the friends and neighbors who turned out for this. You did a bunch of good. And my brother’s barbershopper quartet opened for us! What fun, and they also gave us a gorgeous national anthem.
And as always, thank you to the Long Beds. Chuck, Chris, Billy, Molly. Can’t adequately express what a comfort and privilege it is to look up from my International guitar and see them working away…
My hometown. Gonna be up there with the Long Beds Sunday. Benefit for the food pantry. Canned goods and non-perishables welcome, but also they can really use plain ol’ checks and dollars as this allows them more flexibility in providing folks with bulk items and items that aren’t so frequently donated or don’t stand up to long-term storage.
After me and them Long Beds finished up at Phoenix Park the other night, we set up and played loud at the Mousetrap. Mike O’Brien shot some photos and now they’re viewable over on the Volume One site.
Man, it was hot in there. Thank goodness I brought not one but two New Auburn Area Fire Department sleeveless t-shirts!
As the photo below reveals, I am a singer of great sensitivity:
In 2008, after twelve years as a resident of New Auburn, Wisconsin, I wound up moving to a new place with my little family. We were headed to a farm in some beautiful country, but as I wrote on my old website at the time, it wasn’t easy to leave that old house on Main Street:
A couple of bittersweet days. We’ve been moving the last of our things out of the house in New Auburn. It’s been for sale since we moved to the farm, and the nice news is, a young family is about to move in. I like to think of those rooms giving someone else a whole new set of stories. But I’ll miss the place, too. So much changed for me when I moved there. I was privileged to serve a dozen years with the New Auburn Area Fire Department – easily the most important and meaningful “job” I’ve ever held. I sat in a little bedroom overlooking Main Street and wrote this book. I wore a path across my backyard that led to the fire hall one way and the Post Office the other. I dug in the garden with the little girl who would become my daughter. On and on, more than I can say. When the last room was empty and swept, I took one last walk through, listening to the walls. But I didn’t stay too long because I’m working on this idea that to the extent it serves honor and reflection, elegy is essential — but if the elegy exceeds a certain length it serves only to cheat the possibility of the present.
One warm evening in June shortly before moving day, my friends Billy, Chuck, John and Justin (and my brother John) (all past or present members of the Long Beds) came over to help me bottle some of the spirit I felt within those beloved walls. I’ve just come across some photos we took that day.
Click on the photos for the story.
Listen to one of the songs we recorded that day: 01-sweet-edge-of-time-new-auburn-fa1
WQOW Interview
This is the uncut version.
Thank you to everyone who showed up for the recent Long Beds shows (some people drove a stunning distance). We really enjoyed blowing the dust off our strings after all this time. Thank you also for the deli tray (yes, it’s the Big Time), the dressing room complete with prop Santa, and the hospitality of CVTG. And a special thank you to the contingent who showed up from the Class of ’83. You know who you are.
Videographer (and author) Steve Betchkal came by the farm recently and asked me about writing, New Auburn, and why it’s funny when someone gets hit in the head with a wrench.
The piece includes footage of my beloved hometown, and Steve even tracked down two of my high school teachers. He also interviewed Jay Moore, the host of the Moose Country morning show. I’ve written about Jay and Moose Country radio in Population 485 and Truck: A Love Story.
The full length, uncut interview is also available. I yap about my dad’s first milk cow, more about why I love New Auburn, the emergency service I run with now that I’m in a new township, and what my childhood neighbor Ramona said about me using big words. You can see one of my most cherished possessions – the genuine “Population 485″ sign – in the background. At the end there is also footage of me performing two Long Beds songs, Unplugged style. By the end, the sound and image aren’t quite in sync, but you’ll get the idea. I myself am not in sync.
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