I RODE MY BIKE TODAY.....

What a treat, I actually got home early enough to ride my bike around Eagle for a while. I rode around the Highlands of Eagle Ranch a couple of loops before it got dusky and cold and I headed home. I thought as I rode these loops, "what an odd and lonely place to live" up there in the Highlands, especially if you are a kid. The houses are really big and obnoxious out there, and there is zero feeling of a neighborhood, and it's just sitting up there. New Jersey was so very cool as a kid because there were neighborhoods, with lots of kids, who could just go do shit. Like walk to the school yard and play ball, any kind of ball, and we were out there everyday, and there were always a bunch of kids to play with. This place has none of that, and it's sad. 

Last night I pulled out my guitar for a rare time, and started scanning the internet and Youtube for songs to screw around with. I pulled up some Randy Travis, because I like Randy Travis, and I like that he got in a drunken fist fight in a church parking lot and also was found laying naked and drunk on the side of the highway a couple of years ago. THAT is what a true country western star is supposed to do. All of this lead to some videos from the funeral and tribute to George Jones. Vince Gill and Patty Loveless did this stunning version of "Go Rest High on the Mountain". Vince Gill, who toured with George years ago lost it, which is something you would never expect from the mostly jovial and quick witted superstar. Patty Loveless shows the strength of an Oak Tree at his most vulnerable moment and carries it.

This reminded me of a time many years ago just after my own father had passed. I once played country music professionally, for quite a long time, and I was asked to play at a lodge at dinner outside of Meeker called Elk Creek Lodge which competed with the lodge I was a guide for. During that show, one of the guests asked me to play one of my favorite songs, which was a song that reminded me of my very recently passed father. I cried tears of pain while I sang that evening, and I was not ashamed. This video brings back that memory vividly for me, and I shed a tear while I watched it. You should watch it as well.