Believe in Music

With a Little Bit of Love and Luck

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“Everybody needs a little good luck charm
A little gris-gris keeps you safe from harm
Rub yours on me and I’ll rub mine on you
Luckiest couple on the avenue” Jimmy Buffett, Love and Luck

I’m trying not to focus on bad luck. I’m waiting on Linda to ready herself for an unexpected trip to the hospital for an ultrasound. Her foot and leg are swollen and while swelling can be a byproduct of chemotherapy, the oncologist is sending us just in case. Don’t need a nasty blood clot…sometimes you get what you don’t need.

It would be easy to wallow in self-pity and rue the hand Linda and I have been dealt. It is hard to go with the flow when you worry the flow might be circling the toilet. As I question the direction of my flow a lyric from a Jimmy Buffett tune plays from my earbuds, “Mysteries, don’t ever try to solve them. We’re just players in this game and no one’s keepin’ score.“

Life is mysterious and not only is no one keeping score, no one knows the rules of the game.

Buffett left for “one particular harbor” Friday, luckily his music is still around to provide soothing anodynes when needed. He wasn’t the best singer or guitar player but there always seemed to be a message that rang loudly…even if it was a party tune. When not singing sea stories, or party songs, he shared his poetic philosophy set to his music. I felt profoundly uplifted when Love and Luck came up on my play list and it has been playing in my head for the last few days.

The first time that I heard of Buffett was from the juke box in a “ne’er-do-well”, hole in the wall bar in the mid-Seventies. It was a perfect Buffett venue. Low lights, a small bandstand, and the smell of beer and cigarettes…maybe “funny” cigarettes hung in the air. We were loud, at best tipsy, and laughed at Let’s Get Drunk and Screw.

Still, he didn’t speak to me until I was walking past a now closed record store in a now closed shopping mall. I had no intention of purchasing an album but after standing and listening to A Woman Gone Crazy on Caroline Street followed by My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don’t Love Jesus being piped through the speakers, I was hooked and walked out with the album Havana Daydreaming. Several more albums followed.

“Better days are in the cards I feel, I feel it in the changing winds, I feel it when I fly. So, talk to me, I’ll listen to your story, I’ve been around enough to know there’s more than meets the eye.”

Linda has had a hard week and I’m trying to believe there will be better days. I really am. I’m trying to believe we’ll get to act like the crazy teenagers we never got to be once we get this craziness under control. Even if it is just in our heads. Boat Drinks and Gumbo in New Orleans again…but my knees won’t let me chase the street cars or fast dance to Freeway of Love. Walks along Fort Walton Beach…any beach. Any little seacoast town will do, the seedier the better.

So many sweet memories embrace me…am I retreating into the past too much with the ghost of Buffett riding as my navigator? We’ve had a good life. Am I wrong to want more?

“So have your fun, go ahead and tell your story. Find yourself a lover who will glue you to the floor.”

Life is a mystery and the near future even more so. There must be time for a story or two and a little bit of fun, a little bit of luck, a little bit of love.

I’ve found my lover but at my age, I’m not sure I could get up off the floor, glued or not.

Update

Monday’s ultrasound found a “nonoccluded” blood clot. Nonoccluded means that it is not obstructing blood flow but is still concerning. Linda received a shot of anticoagulant and we both received instructions on how to give the shot which must be administered daily, in the stomach, for a yet to be determined period. So far, I have administered two of them.

Tuesday, we had a surgical biopsy that we probably won’t know the outcome of until Wednesday.

Another battery of labs is scheduled for Thursday. We began the week with only the biopsy scheduled but that fell apart quickly.

Next week we have our second round of chemo.

My bride is still in good spirits through it all…well most of the time. I must remind myself that my fear is only surpassed by hers and sometimes frustrations get the best of us both. I’ll do my best to remember:

“With a little love and luck, you will get by
With a little love and luck, we’ll take the sky
In this megalo-modern world, you’ve got to try
Try a little love and luck and you’ll get by”

This post was written before the news of Jimmy Buffett’s passing on Friday September 1. It had to undergo some verb changes. I feel I have lost an old and dear friend. Jimmy has accompanied me on many long runs and walks, on trips, during backyard cookouts, and a party or five. His “drunken Caribbean rock and roll” coming to me through earbuds or speakers. So glad I got to see him in concert. His spirit and philosophy will continue to live on. “But there’s one particular harbor/ So far yet so near/ Where I see the days as they fade away/ And finally disappear.”

Image of Buffett from the New York Post September 14, 2018. https://nypost.com/2018/09/14/jimmy-buffett-went-surfing-just-before-hurricane-florence/

Love and Luck by Jimmy Buffett
Track eleven on Boats Beaches Bars & Ballads produced by Michael Utley & Russ Kunkel

Don Miller writes at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

BELIEVE….

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BELIEVE IN MUSIC, BELIEVE IN BALTIMORE…AND BELIEVE IN OPPORTUNITIES

I recently watched Meredith Vieira. Ordinarily this is something I rarely do, much less admit to doing. I was not really paying attention until my wife forced me to watch a segment. I am an old, set-in-his-ways, white guy and am rarely moved by anything other than my bowels…AND young people doing well. It is likely to be the retired teacher in me. I was moved this morning as I watched a group of young people of color singing about their belief in Baltimore and their white teacher explaining how they had managed to rise above the fear and hatred derived from the riots which occurred in the Baltimore Protest this past April. Their manner of elevation? Music…and opportunity.

To quote from their web site, “’Believe in Music’ is a Living Classroom’s program that aims to uplift underprivileged Baltimore City students academically, culturally, and spiritually, while promoting self-expression and community awareness through music education. Through the program, students will foster a deep connection with music in their own lives, and gain the tools to be able express their culture, struggles, and triumphs through music. It is our hope that students will come away from the program seeing music as a way to uplift themselves as well as their community.” This program began with seven students in a closet and has grown to over seventy-five per day…no longer in a closet. Someone is doing something right.

These kids are the same “thugs, savages and killers” TO BE who are maligned by racist trolls on social media and quite possibly by certain presidential candidates. These particular children were simply looking for an “opportunity.” This is something that those of us with “white privilege” believe they, the students, already have.

The word “opportunity” continues to resonate in my mind. I had opportunities. Those opportunities were part of my “white privilege.” Before you attack me, my grandparents began their married lives as famers “on the lien” and my parents were textile mill workers. My father actually drew his last breath on a weave room floor. I had a very humble upbringing and had to work to help put myself through college. No one gave me anything other than an “opportunity.” Despite my lack of privilege, I do understand white privilege has nothing to do with wealth…and lack of wealth and hard work does not eradicate it. White privilege has more to do with “opportunity” than with poverty and hard work. I doubt seriously a black kid with my grades or upbringing would have been given the time of day…much less an “opportunity.” According to the Oxford on Line Dictionary: privilege is “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.” White people take their privilege of being white for granted. Being able to take it for granted IS white privilege. We take it SO for granted we ignore the fact our white privilege actually exists. Because of ignorance we believe that all children have the same opportunities when in fact, many don’t. We further invoke all types of aging stereotypes to explain it away instead of working together to provide “opportunities” for all.

Being an old, set-in-his-ways, white man, I also believe that you can’t solve problems by throwing money at something hoping it will go away or by ignoring that a problem exists. I have had plenty of practice ignoring problems and they do not go away, they only get worse. I would ask the question, “What opportunities are we providing?” What opportunities actually help people rise above whatever holds us back, whether it be social, economic, racial or cultural? If some program doesn’t provide for those opportunities maybe we should re-think it and quit throwing money at it in favor of something that does.

We can pay now or we can pay later. There is going to be a price tag on good or bad government, good choices or bad. Investing “good money” in our youth and providing opportunities now may make it possible to invest less “bad money” in the future. I would rather our government invest our tax monies in opportunities that programs such as “Believe in Music” provide rather than investing in new prisons to house those who fall through the cracks because they have no opportunities. But everyone has equal opportunities, our government says so. No that is just our white privilege showing its racist petticoats.