Signs of Something 2020

  My great, great grandfather – Perry Melton -- was hung for murder.      That trauma and disgrace was such a burden that his son – Clay Melton, who was 13 when it happened – buried the story with his father.     He never let his children or grandchildren know that they were descended from a man who had been found guilty in a court of law and sentenced, along with his oldest son, to death.    

The Green Green Grass of Home             I was born in 1952.   It seems to me that I have lived with one foot in the 19th century and one in the 21st.   My earliest memories are of my great-grandparents -- Dad and Granny -- who are the fulcrum of this story.   Dad was born in 1872; Granny in 1882.  My mother and I lived with them while my father was stationed in the Phillipines in 1953 and 54. This was in Roby, the small west Texas farm town where both my parents were born and raised.  Dad and Granny      Dad and Granny were not still living on the farm, then.   They lived in town. They had moved into a two-bedroom red brick house a block off main street the year before I was born.   Granny was tired of how hard it was on the farm, and so they left the Victorian farmhouse on the homeplace west of town. It stood empty all of my life -- never to be occupied by family and children again -- but it was full...

Open mics in general are incredibly friendly. Humble. Supportive. Everyone wants everyone else to do well. Players who are strangers talk to each other and pat each other on the back. In Paris it’s the same. Except there are players from all over the world.   In the summer of 2017, I was in Paris for several weeks, and one Sunday night I went to the open mic at Café Klein which is hosted by Riyad Sanford and Robin Ood who are particularly welcoming. I was sitting at the bar waiting for my turn and I got to talking to a young Australian man who was there to watch his girlfriend play. For some reason we started talking about Barrack Obama. We both loved him. I was telling the Australian that when President Obama was first elected I watched his every move. I couldn’t bear to take my eyes off him. I was on the edge of my seat for every cabinet appointment, every press conference, every appearance. The Australian said he was the same way. We were having a good time compa...