I think I was in the fifth grade when we got a student weekly reader magazine. In it was an article on Ayers Rock. For some reason this Monolith grabbed my imagination. It was sort of like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." I just had to go see it. It took me almost fifty years, but I did it! It was everything I thought it would be . Went we rounded the corner and it came into view, I heard the music from of the "Close Encounters" playing in my brain. It was as close to having a spiritual awaking as I've ever had. Much better than my visit to St. Peters in Rome. This was the essence of life. It was so primordial.
I knew before we left for Australia that the Aborigines were struggling to be given equal rights. The Australian government had finally returned the land that contained Ayers Rock back to Aboriginal control, sort of. These lands and the Rock are considered sacred to the Aborigines. The Rock was changed back to its Aboriginal name, "Uluru." The lands surrounding it are now Uluru National Park.
I'll tell you more about Uluru and our trek across the Outback of Australia in a later blog.
I think it's time to shift gears. I understand I have some new Followers, so I thought we'd talk about Uncle Louie. Uncle Louie was actually my great-uncle. He was my grandmother's brother. Louie lived just across the Alabama border in Mississippi. All I knew about Louie was hear-say. What I'd been told was that Louie was a "Moonshiner." That is , he made "White Lightning."
This was in the summer of '63. My brothers and I were all sitting around the Sunday table enjoying fresh fried chicken. We'll discuss later why I called it fresh fried chicken. We had home-grown mashed potatoes and green beans, with gravy made from the drippings of the fried chicken. Heart attack, here I come! Back then, it was delicious. Especially the bacon in the green beans.
Anyway, after Sunday dinner you did one of two things: go fishing or go visiting. That Sunday we went visiting. With my Aunt Mary at the wheel and grandmaw riding shotgun, we proceeded into Mississippi. Once we crossed the state line, grandmaw turned to us and said, "Don't make eye contact with these folks." Being naive to the reason for this statement, I asked why? The answer came quick out of grandmaw's mouth. "They'll shoot you, that's why!" For the rest of the trip, it was eyes forward. Although, I've got to admit, I took a few quick glances out the side windows.
When we arrived at Uncle Louie's house, it was a sight to behold. On the front porch was a refrigerator and a washing machine. You might ask why these appliances were placed here? Okay, back then, and in some places today, displaying your appliances on your front porch is a status symbol. I kid you not! This is the God's honest truth. So the appliances on the porch wasn't all that unusual. But what really caught my attention was all the chicken heads in the front yard. All those dead chickens' eyes staring up at you. Talk about creepy!
As we exited the car, Uncle Louie came from the back of the house to greet us. Louie was this skinny rail of a man, wearing bib overalls and a pointed hat. Louie seemed very pleased to see his sister and niece. My grandmother greeted her bother and then turned and introduced us, her grandsons, to him. We all smiled and shook his hand. My grandmother then exchanged pleasantries with him. As she was talking to her brother, I glanced up at the house. There I saw a woman in a bed at the entry of the front door. This was Louie's wife, Ida Mae. She was bedridden. So that she could see outside, the bed was positioned in the front entryway. After the shock or realization wore off, I began to talk to uncle Louie.
I think you know the first question I asked him. I said, "Uncle Louie, do you have any moonshine?" Louie let out a high squeal laugh, slapped his knee and did a little jig. He said, "No, boy, I gave that up a long time ago." I saw the twinkle in his eyes that said "that ain't so." Louie had two children. One was a girl, the other a boy. He named them, Girl and Boy. There's a very interesting story about Girl, but that's for a another time.
"Louie, Louie, Louie, Lou Eye!"
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| Altar Boys |
Yeah, Jimmy Buffett was a childhood friend of my brother, Tony, and me. In the alter boy picture, I'm in the second row at the end right. I'm the one with his vestment top hanging off to one side. My brother is the first one in the third row left. Okay, you my say, where is Mr. Buffett? Jimmy is in the fourth row about dead center peeking around the guy in front of him. He's sporting a flattop, which was the "Do" of the day.
Jimmy and his family lived just up the road from us. We all attended St. Ignatius Catholic School. Back then, if you were Catholic, it was mandatory that you attend a Catholic school. We all rode the bus to and from school together. Jimmy, you know, has two younger sisters, Laura and Lucy. So my brother and I got to know Jimmy pretty well. We played baseball or went to the movies on weekends. During the summer, Jimmy's house was the place to hang out. Both his parents worked and they had a housekeeper to care for the two girls and Jimmy. So there was never a problem for us to show up at his house.
Jimmy had a prize possession of a 45 rpm record player. Plus, he had all the current records of the day: Elvis, the Everly Bros., Buddy Holly and, of course, "the one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater." We spent many hours listening to those records.
The last time my brother and I saw Jimmy was in the summer of 1963. Our family was on vacation from California. So my brother and I were allowed to use the car to visit our friends. When we arrived at Jimmy's house, his mom invited us in and told us Jimmy was getting dressed. Sitting across from us were Jimmy's two sisters. They both had become attractive young ladies. They smiled and we smiled back and exchanged small talk while waiting for Jimmy.
When Jimmy came out of his room, he signalled us to come outside with him. He told us that he was headed to a motel to meet up with some buddies, that they had started a band. He showed us he had a bottle of rum that he was taking to the gig. He said that he had just gotten back from Key West, where he had been doing some scuba diving and how he had speared a giant sea bass that dragged him through the water. Jimmy said his air was running out and he had to cut it loose.
He invited us to come along, but we had to decline. We were driving our parent's car and had to be getting back. With that, we all said our goodbye's and Jimmy jumped into to his Ford Pinto. That was the last time we talked to Mr. Buffett.
The next time I heard about Jimmy, I was living in Southern California and driving down I-10. A song came on the radio. Some guy was singing about come Monday and about the L.A. smog. I related to this right away. So I listened to the rest of the song. It sounded good. Then came the surprise of my life. The DJ said that it was sung by Jimmy Buffett. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Jimmy Buffett! Our Jimmy Buffett?
I took the first exit I could find and looked for a record store. When I found one, I went right to the counter and told the dude I had just heard a song on the radio and did he know who the singer was. He confirmed his name was Jimmy Buffett and he thought he lived in Key West. That's when I knew it had to be Jimmy.
We'll talk more about Mr. Buffett later and I'll share my thoughts on how Jimmy became a superstar.
Coming from the deep South you might assume we would be Baptists. Wrong! We were "Southern Catholics." Well, you might think a Catholic is a Catholic, no matter what region of the country they come from. Wrong! My family practiced a form of Catholicism that hearkened back to the Dark Ages of Europe.
Remember, I'm a grandson of German immigrants on my father's side. Now on my mother's side of the family, her father was also a son of an immigrant. But his father just so happened to be a French priest. Not sure what made him quit the priesthood and journey to the new land, but I'm sure he was escaping from something or someone that was very unpleasant. Like burning at the stake or having your head chopped off. The family never talked much about my grandfather, John Henry's, side of the family.
Now my grandmother, on my mother's side, was a convert. See, grandma was raised a deep-woods Southern Baptist. How my grandfather, this French Catholic Yankee, ever convinced my grandmother and her family to let him marry her and make her a Catholic had to be a true miracle of the first degree. But he did, and the two religious beliefs sort of merged with my father's Black Forest type of Catholicism and that's how we ended up being what I call "Southern Fried Catholics." A least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Yeah, we made the move West, again. It was in the summer of '59. I was in my early teens by then. I was more aware of why we had decided to move. My father was getting itchy feet. I remember every Saturday he would go down to the local tobacco & newspaper store and buy a copy of the Los Angeles Times. It was huge newspaper. It would take forever to read it. I remember how my dad would go through it and recite, like a litany, the wonders of living in California.
My mother was strictly a Southern girl. Although her father had immigrated to the South from Indiana, on her mother's side of the family they went "back to dirt." A Southern term meaning they were here since the beginning of America. Family was very important to my mother, especially her father. But my father was persistent and it just so happened, my mother had gotten into a big argument with her family and decided it was time to go. So we packed up and away we went.
After a fairly uneventful trip we ended up in Southern California. Pomona, to be exact. Why? My mother said it rhymed with Ramona. Ramona was my oldest sister's first name. That's when I had an epiphany. These people I called my parents were not playing with a full deck.
