Shut Up and Sing

I’ve long be a fan of the Dixie Chicks having all of their CDs plus a much loved DVD of their Top of the World concert. I wanted to see the documentary Shut Up and Sing but didn’t catch it when it was at the local art theater. Tonight I watched it and was terribly moved by seeing the whole story. I knew about most of it from news accounts and actually bought the Top of the Word DVD in support of them when the CD burnings started. But even so, I didn’t really understand just how amazing these women are.

I was so pleased when they released Taking the Long Way and could hardly believe that they had managed to write an entire CD of their own songs based on their life experiences and that it was actually better than their previous wonderful work on Top of the World.

If you haven’t seen the documentary I highly recommend it. You don’t have to be a fan of the Chicks to appreciate their story and their bravery. Let’s hope they continue to speak out against senseless violence while writing and performing their very relevant brand of music that is now far out of the country music box in which they were trapped earlier in their careers.

Note: I was not able to rent this documentary at my local Blockbuster but was able to check it out at my library. If you are like me you will probably want to buy a copy after you see it. Or you can watch if for free on the web at http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=163 Enjoy!

Politics, it's not pretty

A friend emailed me a column and asked for my thoughts. You can read the article by following the link. My take on the column follows:

Would You Like Change With That? - Doug Henwood

http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Obama.html

To say I was not impressed with this piece would be a bit of an understatement. I will say up front that I support Obama in the Democratic primary so you can take my opinion with a gain of salt if you like. And I will admit that I think the very title of the column, Would You Like Change With That? An Analysis of Obamamania, did little to contribute to any expectation of a balanced piece. If you support Obama you are indulging in some kind of mania? I don’t think so!

Henwood’s first charge is that Obama is inspiring. So at least we can agree on one point. He then goes on to the oft repeated claim that Obama’s inspirational rhetoric are empty promises and basically meaningless. He looks to Obama’s voting record to try and demonstrate this. But anyone who has been paying the least attention to this race knows that the differences between Clinton and Obama on issues of policy are minuet.

Clinton and Obama both have voting records and it is hard to find all that much difference based on how they voted on various issues. And most people who actually look at a candidates voting record should understand that any given vote may or may not reflect the candidates support or opposition to the issue supposedly being voted on. Without knowing what amendments were added to bill, whose support would be lost on a bigger issue and myriad other things that make up the bigger political picture a vote on a single issue is easy to misrepresent.

So the only way to judge a candidate is by their overall voting record and policy positions, not by any one vote. Based on their overall records I could and will happily vote for either Clinton or Obama, whoever wins the primary.

What Henwood seems to miss is that I will be voting in the Kentucky primary for Obama precisely because he takes nearly the same positions as Clinton on issues important to me but that he also has the added ability to inspire me and so many others. Inspiration may be the deciding factor in this election and its importance, in my opinion, is tremendous. Remember George the Senior deriding, “that inspiration thing?”

This single item that I find most disturbing in this column is having a middle 50s white man suggesting that somehow Obama’s racial politics are suspect. Hey, Henwood, you are of the wrong generation and are the wrong color for this, it’s obviously way over your head!

As a 57 year old gay white man, I can demonstrate even if I am not able to articulate it terribly well. I live in a society where homophobia is pervasive and have endured hetrosexism since I was old enough to understand that I was “different.” While intellectually I know progress has been made over the last 40 years, homophobia still exists everywhere. From my perspective it still feels like it did in the 60s when I was a teenager.

My son, born of an early marriage before I came out, is 30 years old and is also gay. The world he lives in and his perception of it is totally different than mine. He expects that he will be able to marry some day, he expects to be accepted at work and in the community, he expects that he will be treated fairly even in a world he knows is homophobic. His is the new generation we can look to with hope and pride precisely because they understand that we are changing, even if too slowly, as a people and a nation.

We need Obama to inspire a new generation of voters. We need Obama to provide a younger generation’s perspective on our world and how its leaders should approach issues that my generation has failed to overcome.

What we don’t need are people on the left like Henwood attacking our greatest hope.

Spring

Spring has officially arrived and for once, the first two days of spring were beautiful! Sunny and warm following deep snow and days of heavy, constant rain. Lots of flooding and high water with total ground saturation, any more rain in the next few days will simply run off so hopefully the flood waters will have a chance to subside before more rain.

Spring in Kentucky can be so beautiful, I hope the weather cooperates and we don’t have any hard freezes that might destroy the pear, dogwood and magnolia blossoms. Crocuses are blooming and buds are forming on the daffodils. It will be so good to open the windows! And the Derby is only weeks away.

Ignorance, Hypocrisy and Politicians

You know people, even elected politicians, say these things. You know there is a great deal of ignorance about the subject. You know that many people who call themselves Christian have no understanding and little interest in living by Christ’s teachings. Never the less, actually hearing it shocks and hurts you. Knowing it and hearing it said in a public meeting just aren’t the same. Listen to what Oklahoma Representative Sally Kern has to say.

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/ok_rep_sally_kern_cen/iwe55g84p7bewkjj

Surviving the Blizzard

Lots of snow this weekend but much more panic! All day Friday and all day Saturday the news was the winter storm. It moved up the Ohio River valley and dropped 10 ½” of snow on Northern Kentucky, mostly late Friday night on through the morning on Saturday. By late Saturday afternoon it had moved through and news moved to the digging out. Friday night all three local network TV stations dropped their scheduled prime time programs to broadcast local weather for an hour before their regular 11:00 PM newscast. The local newspaper had a link on their website so you could tell them “how the snow affected you.”

Good grief! It’s early March and we had snow. That’s news?! I must admit it was quite a contrast to last weekend when I was able to go hiking in the woods but I can’t help but wonder what people in Minnesota or New England think when we go into instant panic mode because a snow storm is moving through.

Today is white, sunny and beautiful. And it looks like the snow will melt quickly with warmer weather in the next few days reaching the mid 50s by Wednesday.

And soon, spring!

The Haunted House

Although spring doesn’t officially arrive for another three weeks today felt like the first day of spring with sunny skies and temperatures in the low sixties. A friend and I went hiking in the woods and hills of my boyhood for a last look at an abandoned landmark that will no longer exist in a few months time. The old stone farmhouse I’ve been visiting off and on over the last 48 years will soon be gone as a new housing development reshapes the long valley behind the home where I grew up. I was surprised how much the area had grown up in trees and brush in the last 10 years since the cattle that used to graze on the hills have been removed as the old farms have been sold for the development of shopping centers and car dealers.

Areas that I knew so well were barely recognizable and indeed I wasn’t sure we were going to find the remains of the house since I lost track of the old roadway that led to it. I climbed about as far up the hill as I estimated the level above the creek bed the house stood and then tried to stay parallel to the water. We stumbled through the brush and kind of blundered on. Just as I was convinced I had somehow missed it I looked up and there it was, barely visible through the growth, only yards away. What follows is an essay I wrote last year when I heard that the valley was going to be developed.

The Haunted House

Soon it will be gone, that place I’ve visited so many times. The newspaper article describes the housing, lakes and parks that will be built as a great boon to a town that is in need of new developments. I’m not opposed to progress or growth. Having studied architecture and worked construction for many years I appreciate well designed buildings and communities. So why the empty feeling and great sadness when I realize what the newspaper article means for that very special site? Has any other place had such a strong attraction for me? Perhaps, but for some reason not in the same way this one has. What draws me to this ancient house time and again?

My brother, cousin and I discovered the house when I was about 10 years old. While following the creek at the bottom of the steep hill behind the new house my parents had built in what was then a small farming community 12 miles south of the city, I found a wide, low stone dam that seemed to have no purpose. I studied it for some time before I realized that the gently sloping ramps of meadow grass at each end of the dam had once been a road. The dam created a crossing for horse draw buggies and wagons. Of course I had to follow and led the others on through the woods as what was left of the road continued along the creek and past an ancient barn. After perhaps half a mile the road turned slightly and began to ascend the hill. On up the hill the road took a final turn through a stand of trees and there it ended at a farm house that must have been 100 years old even then, in 1960.

Windows, doors and parts of the roof had disappeared long ago but the stone steps to the porch and the house’s wooden floors remained intact. The stone walls were a least two feet thick with weathered plaster inside, carved nearly everywhere with names and initials. We weren’t the first to find it, obviously. Still, I was surprised when I told friends at school about the mysterious house. They said, “Oh, you went to the haunted house.”

For more than 45 years now I have gone back to the haunted house time and again. I’ve never known who built it, why it was abandoned or who owned the land. What tremendous labor went into building the miles of road down into the valley, across the stream and on up the hill to the site of house? Who dragged the stones up from the creek to build the thick stone walls? How long did it take to haul the wooden beams and planking for the floors and roof to the isolated site in horse drawn wagons? I’ve certainly wondered, but it has never been important enough to research it. It is enough that they did and that the evidence of their labor stands. Until now.

I’ve taken all of my lovers there over the years. Did I hope they would help me understand what this tumbled down homestead meant to me? Did I expect them to intuit my feelings? To share them? I always wanted to share my passion with them while we explored the ruins. I wanted to make love on the scarred wooden floor under the open roof rafters while the sun poured through the peeled away metal roofing. None of them found this appealing and none of them came close to seeing what I saw or feeling what I felt. We would leave with me feeling disappointed and them wondering why I had insisted on taking them hiking through the meadows and woods for 45 minutes to reach this pile of stones.

I can see the haunted house in my mind’s eye. I have no photos of it. Perhaps it’s better that way. If I had a picture I might see what my lovers saw, a ruined house at the end of an overgrown trail through pastures and woods that was a refuge for wild life and insects, dirty and unpleasant. For them it didn’t represent someone’s dream, a labor of love and perseverance. Maybe I would see the same story of folly they seemed to see. One man’s romantic story is another person’s tale of failure and despair.

From the back yard of the house where I grew up, high on a Kentucky hill, I can see a new car dealership where the huge white dairy barn with the silver metal roof and silo stood. Across the highway where the big frame farmhouse was is a fast food restaurant. The malt shop across from my old high school is gone, replaced by a video store. And a couple of miles closer to the city the twin red and white barns with the red shingle roofs have also disappeared, now a department store. Lights from the Wal-Mart parking lot at the end of the street pollute the night sky. Change is everywhere.

So why mourn a pile of rocks that used to be someone’s home? It’s been abandoned and forgotten for 75 years or more. It’s being replaced by someone else’s vision, their dream for this once remote valley and the surrounding hills. One family’s house gives way to make it possible for 500 families to live where many years ago there was a farm.

American service men and women are dying in Iraq. Global warming is changing weather patterns around the world with disastrous effects. Crime is rampant in the inner cities and homelessness is on the rise. School shootings happen in even the most bucolic small towns. In the bigger picture few people would consider the destruction of a ruined farmhouse of any consequence. But I’m not sure I’ll want to drive though this new community of upscale homes with lakes and parks, the American dream. Someday many households will call this place home, the home of their dreams. I wonder if any of them will know that another family, in another time, lived in their dream home in the same lovely valley in the gentle green Kentucky hills.

More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/barry.grossheim

Sunny Winter Saturday

Yesterday was one of those days that make winter seem not so bad. Today it’s back to cold, grey and rainy. Saturday was sunny and even though only in the mid 40s it seemed downright balmy. One of those days that everyone wants to take advantage of, playing sports, walking or driving around. The river is a little high and very brown and muddy as it tends to be in the winter months. Still it was a great day to walk along the river and enjoy the view.

I was drawn back to the cottage on the river that my family owned as our summer residence when I was very young. I hadn’t seen the house in many years and as I drove back the long private gravel road that leads from the highway down to the river I was shocked at how run down many of the cabins seemed to be. And the summer house that holds so many memories for me is so much smaller than I remembered. And it is so much closer to the water than I remember. As a child a local farmer planted corn on the shelf of land between hill that the house was built into and the top of the river bank. My memory is of the tall corn and the narrow path to the beach. The path seemed to go on forever between the rows of corn and was a little frightening.

What I saw yesterday was actually a narrow flat between the river and the house that is now grass. The steep, high banks of honeysuckle on either end of the patio that faced the river are gone and the banks are not high at all. The big field behind the cottage that was a lighted bad mitten court or ball field or pony riding area now has another cottage built on it and a mobile home at one end.

It’s a strange thing when clear memories are challenged by the physical facts. I remember dozens of people visiting every weekend with lots of kids and cars and boats and games being played. The place just doesn’t look large enough to support everything I remember. Grape arbors and trees are gone along with the corn field and the honeysuckle. Nothing I see brings back any sense of nostalgia, it just challenges those memories from long ago.

An even greater sense of dismay greets me when I drive a few miles to see the summer place that belonged to one of my close friend’s family. The converted barn where we spent so many hours is abandoned and partially collapsed. This is just too sad. Memory lane isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, apparently. All and all an interesting afternoon even if not particularly comforting!