The Wonderful Gift of An Early Fall

DUKES FANS: Gift of an Early Fall Week The weather last week was a wonderful relief from the intense weather we have had for so much of this summer. It seemed as if we either had extreme heat and humidity, or we had torrential rains. Few people were out of the house on those days, and most of those that were out were generally not in very good moods. We grumbled, turned up the AC, moaned about climate change, and missed the summers of our youth. It has been a rough summer weatherwise. But last week was different. The temperatures were in the normal range-mid 70’s to low 80’s. The humidity was low for the whole week, and there were nice, easy breezes accompanying us when we were waking. The sun was out, and the sky put on marvelous shows of thick and curvy clouds seeming to dance in the bright skies. It was wonderful. Wednesday of last week I was looking for a book I had read several years ago, and I went online to see which Free Library branches had it. There were two copies available for circulation, one at a library near me and one at the Central Library Main Branch of the Free Library in Center City. I suddenly realized that, somehow, I had been to the Main Branch only once or twice this year, and not at all this summer. So I decided to do that, and I am so glad that I did. I trained into Center City and walked from City Hall to the library on 19th street, going most of the way along the Ben Franklin Parkway, a route I have taken literally thousands of times in my life. It was glorious: folks of all ages were out strolling, and many of them were friendly, smiling, saying, “Hi,” and waving. I walked The Parkway past the library down to 22nd Street, reveling in the beautiful weather and the vibes. There were tourists in front of The Barnes Foundation, The Academy of Natural Sciences and The Franklin Institute. There were folks sitting and eating lunch and playing with kids in Logan Circle. And as I walked, I had that wonderful downtown experience of seeing people from a variety of ethnic groups and nationalities and hearing a variety of languages being spoken freely and loudly. It was a great walk. And then I went into the library itself. I have always thought of libraries as sacred places. The 52nd and Sansom Branch and the Haverford Avenue Branch were places that I went to as a kid, and the librarians were so helpful. They answered my questions, helped me find books, and in a very real way, helped me become the ever-curious and questioning person that I am today. And when I went to junior high at Masterman and discovered that I only had to walk a few blocks to get to the Main Branch, that was all taken to a whole other level. It was truly wondrous and magical. Frist off, I loved the design of the building. It was both grand and welcoming at the same time. And I loved the size of the place: the rooms, the stairs, the high ceilings. It was clear that this was a place of honor and significance; a cathedral to learning and to the possibilities it could help bring into being. I spent some time in some of my favorite sections of the building: the Social Science and History Department, the Main Lending Room, where I found the book I was looking for, and the Music Listening Room. The Listening Room was where I spent hours as a high schooler listening to tons of records I could not afford to buy. It is where I heard Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins, Miles Davis, and The Alan Lomax Southern Folk Heritage Series, among many, many more. The room has changed over the years, of course; there are now videos, CDs, DVDs, and cassettes in addition to LP’s. And you can now borrow instruments! There were guitars to borrow, of course, but there were also violins, tablas, steel drums, kalimbas, mandolins, and ukuleles all available for folks who maybe wanted to play an instrument but could not afford to buy one. It was wonderful and powerful being back in that room and seeing how it is continuing to find ways to engage people in learning and growing. I will go back to the Main Branch in a week or two. There is an amazing celebration of the life and works of James Baldwin outside the Social Science & History Department, and he is one of my favorite authors and thinkers. On the 100th anniversary of his birth, this exhibit examines how his ideas and messages are having an impact on political, cultural, and literary life today. I did not have time to fully explore it last week, but I will be back before it leaves at the end of September. It was wonderful being back in a place that has given so much to me and provided me with so much in the way of curiosity, questions, amazement, and wonder. And it was all made possible last week by the unexpected gift of an early fall. (The history of the Main Branch of the library is intriguing. Here is a link to a site that looks at some of that: https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/feature/75th/history/ )

Farewell To Limestone City

DUKES FANS: It is the third week in August, and for more than half of my life this has been a special time. As a long-time teacher, it meant the rapidly approaching end to summer vacation and time to start planning for the new school year. I had always started making some plans before and throughout the summer-reading some new things I wanted to bring to the curriculum, seeing some films I would like to use, visiting some sites I could take students to either actually or virtually, and more. But this third week made it clear that school was only a few weeks away. There would soon be a week of teacher’s meetings, room setup, and professional development followed by orientation of new students, and then, right after Labor Day, the official start of a new school year. I liked that routine; it was known and comfortable. But what I enjoyed most about the third week in August was that for nearly 20 years it meant spending a week with my wife attending the amazing Limestone City Blues Festival in Kingston, Ontario. That was always joyous. Penny and I happened to see a newspaper article in 1998 about the 2nd Limestone City Festival while we were camping in upstate New York, so we booked a motel for the weekend in nearby Kingston just to hear a couple of my favorite artists who had been mentioned in the newspaper article. I was also curious about what a Canadian blues festival was like. We had a beautiful drive there across some lovely bridges and along The Thousand Islands, looking at Lake Ontario. We arrived in Kingston, and instantly fell in love with both the festival and the city. and the festival. We were hooked. It was a great city with an amazing array of restaurants, bookstores, galleries and museums. We stayed in motels in Kingston the first two years, and then we found Ivy Lea Provincial Park, some 30 miles outside of Kingston, where we camped for the ensuing years. With the exception of two years, every third week in August from 1998 to 2018 found us enjoying the natural beauty and urban life in and around Kingston and absolutely loving the festival. I had not realized that there was such a lively and talented blues scene throughout Canada, and I got to hear some wonderful performers who had gotten no airplay in the US. I also got to see some great US performers as well. And I really loved the way the entire city embraced the festival. There were free concerts on weekend afternoons, great paid evening concerts featuring three or four artists in the evening, and then all of the clubs and hotels in downtown Kingston featured blues and blues-based acts after the evening concerts for that entire weekend. It was a blues lover’s treasure of delights, and we were always excited to go. I went up to Kingston for two years after Penny died in 2018, and while it was hard, it was still a time of great music and great people. But the pandemic meant no travel there in 2021, so I have not been back since 2020. And sadly, I can go no more. The festival producers announced that the 2023 festival would be the last Limestone City Blues Festtival. A new festival is slated to begin in 2025, and it will be more of a world music festival, celebrating the ethnic and cultural diversity of The Limestone City. That makes sense, of course, and I sincerely hope the new festival can do for the city what The Limestone City Blues Fest did. And I may well visit in 2025. But right now I am both a little sad and grateful to be remembering the incredible times I had at The Limestone City Blues Festival in the wonderful little city of Kingston, Ontario. Thank you, Kingston. You provided me with so many experiences and helped keep my ears open. Thank you! (Here is a link to a piece I wrote several years ago about four of my favorite Canadian blues performers: http://dukesofdestiny.blogspot.com/2017/09/o-canada.html)

The Immense Power of That Little Cell Phone

DUKES FANS: I love coffee, and I love meeting with folks and talking over coffee. I have some folks I do that with fairly regularly, and a couple of them have had cell phone problems over the past month or so. One person lost their phone, and another one had a phone that died, and they had to wait a few days to get a new one. And one friend left her phone home and was amazed at how uncomfortable she felt about not having her phone with her. Clearly the cell phone has become a ubiquitous and super-powerful part of our lives, and it seems to have happened without us realizing it. Sharing the tales of cell phone woes of my friends reminded me of a piece I wrote in 2017 about my own cell phone problems. Here it is 12 Days Without a Cell Phone “The cell phone has become the adult's transitional object, replacing the toddler's teddy bear for comfort and a sense of belonging.” Margaret Heffernan “People have no memory of phone numbers or directions now because of the cell phone - their address book and their maps are all in a cell phone.” Gordon Bell I got a new cell phone and I upgraded. That is a normal occurrence for most people, and it is not a big deal; I have done it several times before. This time, though there were complications that I neither expected nor had experienced before, and they led me to some interesting realizations. These realizations have helped me look at my relationship with this bit of technology in a deeper, and I hope, healthier way. The first problem with the process of upgrading was a technical one. The SIM card my carrier sent me turned out to be defective, but we didn’t discover that until I had spent the better part of two hours talking with a tech person trying to activate the new phone, taking a trip to STAPLES to see if their tech people could help, and being back on the phone again with another techie from my carrier. My carrier finally agreed to send me a new SIM card. The catch was that it was going to be delivered in five days, when I would be in Ohio birding. So I would have to wait even longer before I could have my new cell. Oh well-disappointing, but no problem; I still had my old model to use. Except that I didn’t have my old model to use. Somehow in trying to activate the new phone my old account stopped working. So I again had to call my carrier. We tried everything to get my account up, but for some reason my account from the old phone wasn’t working. Then the phone itself stopped connecting with the carrier. We tried a variety of things; taking out and putting back in the SIM card; going through what the ICIS number was and trying to synch with the carrier, turning off the phone, leaving it alone for half an hour and then trying to restart it. Nothing worked. And then the final indignity: the phone just died. Expired. Passed on. Bit the dust.I was suddenly cell phoneless for the first time in some 20 years. That meant I was to spend over week without a cellphone, some of it while I was away in Ohio. When I first started using the computer I quickly realized how dependent I was becoming on that technology. Many of my contact with friends, family, clubs, booking agents and more became e-mail contacts and not phone calls and actual conversations. I have not handwritten a letter in ages aside from some birthday, sympathy and other greeting cards. And I rarely receive them. My school before I retired had become very computer centered-every student had and was encouraged to use a device of some kind-laptop, tablet, etc.. I knew there were some social losses connected with that, and I think I have made my peace with that. It was simply the way of the world I was in, and I needed to get along in that world. But when I got a cell phone (and later a smart phone), I was determined I was not going to be become overly dependent on it. I would not be one of those people having loud conversations on my phone in a restaurant or on a bus, constantly looking at a screen rather than around me and at the sky on mornings at the train station, or sitting with someone in a coffeeshop and spending more time texting and checking e-mail than paying attention to my companion. I did not go to those extremes, but I realize now that I had only partially limited my ties-and my dependency-on the phone. Unconsciously I gave over a lot of things that I used to do over to my device, and over the next twelve days I came to realize that very quickly and very suddenly. Before the days of cell phones I knew what time of day it was within 5 minutes-I just knew it. I realized after a couple of days without the phone, though, that I had lost that ability-I gave it away to my phone. I also used to know by heart the schedules for the Chestnut Hill West rail line, the general times for H, 23, and L buses in the morning and in the evening, and the addresses and phone numbers of family members and close friends. I just knew this. But just like the people in the Gordon Bell quote above, I had forgotten most of that because I put them on my phone or used apps. I now had to try to recall those things, and it panicked me for a day or two. I did eventually recall most of the public transit schedules; the info had been dormant, but it was still there. That was a relief. But I still do not remember most of my family’s numbers, and addresses, and that disappoints me. There were other realizations I had as well. Some were physical ones. I usually carried my cell in my front left pants pocket. That side of my body now felt strange-unusual. No phone. It took me days to get used to not feeling it in my pocket. I would often check my e-mail and text when I was in the bathroom, and I found myself for several days, unconsciously reaching for the phone that wasn’t there when I was in the john. I had not been aware of how much that was now a part of what I did automatically. When I was on the bus or train I realized I was now actually reading more of a book-I wasn’t interrupting the reading to respond to a text or a call. And when I was in Ohio, I felt lighter-less pressured. Part of that was due to the birding, of course. But part of it also had to do with not having a cell phone. The band, my family and a few close friends have my landline number, and if someone really wanted to talk with me they had to call my landline, leave a message and wait for me to get back to them. I would call in to my home once in the morning and once in the evening. If you left a message for me, I got back to you within 24 hours. And no catastrophe happened. Another good thing was that there were no texts while I was phoneless in Oho; none! I found it a great freedom to not be “on call” all the time or feeling that I had to get back to someone right away. I could spend more time being in the moment of where I was. That was so refreshing;-I was with myself where I was.. I do have my new cell phone as of a few weeks ago and it is working. I am glad to have it; I have sent some texts, checked my e-mail a few times, and learned how to synch my computer calendar with my phone calendar. I have a transit app, Google maps for directions, a calendar, and a search engine on it. And I also have a new commitment to be more aware of how I allow the phone to be a part of my life-what I give over to it and what I don’t. There have been some changes, and I think they are changes for the better. I am not necessarily responding immediately to a text, call or e-mail. Yes, if it is expected or important I do. But the vast majority of calls, texts and e-mails are really not so important that they need an immediate response. Most things can wait until I have finished my book, finished hiking, finished eating or whatever it is I am up to when the contact comes in. From the experience of those 12 days I know that I do not have to give huge chunks of myself over to my device. It can respond to me rather than the other way around. I do not have to give it control, and that gives me relief and peace. I can spend more time with myself. And that is a good thing. (Of course, as I re-read that I realized that I have given more of my life over to my phone than the last paragraph above seems to indicate. I have to consciously stop myself at the bus stop, for example, from looking at the phone beyond seeing when the next bus is coming. I have to remind myself that there is sky up there, birds around, and other things going on that I can focus on...The struggle continues )

The Great Plains

DUKES FANS: I was idly flipping through channels a week or so ago when I came upon an interview with one of my favorite filmmakers, documentarian Ken Burns. A hallmark of public television, he is to me the quintessential, wide-eyed, questioning American, exploring things social and cultural about us in a wide-ranging manner that focuses on the people involved in the midst of great events and cultural changes. I have seen and loved many of his films: The Civil War, Jazz, Baseball, Country Music, The Viet Nam War, and many, many more. As I watched the interview, I was thinking about the heat waves we have been endlessly experiencing for the last three months, and I suddenly thought about the Mid-West and The Great Plains. I first traveled through some of the Plains States in the late 1970’s playing with a great bluesman by the name of Sparky Rucker. We played the National Folk Festival , which one year was in city of Winfield, Kansas. We also visited Tulsa, Oklahoma and several places in Missouri. It was eye-opening for this East Coast city kid. The skies went on forever, there were few mountains, and what ones we saw were way off in the distance. The motels we stopped at showed us how to get to the storm cellars. We saw storms brewing some 30-40 miles off and witnessed great ground-to-sky lightning strikes. It hit me then that the Mid-West, year in and year out, probably had the most extreme weather in the country. And that is true today. While the heatwaves here have been tough, parts of the Plains have been in drought conditions since May. And those conditions have been interrupted by tornadoes and torrential rains that have led to floods. Extreme conditions, indeed. Thinking about that and the Ken Burns interview led me to pull up a newsletter piece I had written in 2020 about one of Ken Burns ‘films, The Dust Bowl, and one of the books that helped inspire that film; The Worst Hard Times by Timothy Egan. Here, slightly edited, is that piece: The Great American Dust Bowl “…history is that old woman Sitting in a doorstep, eating lemons” Le Roi Jones I don’t know exactly when I fell in love with history, but it has been a major interest of mine for decades. I do remember memorizing the Presidents AND Vice-Presidents of the United States in order in third grade and knowing the start and end dates of a ton of wars. I was a reader and super-curious; I asked a lot of, “How “and “Why” questions that drove my parents and teachers crazy. So it seems inevitable that I would love and later teach US and World History. By junior high I was beyond just the dates and famous people. I was looking for connections and cause and effect that linked events. I was growing in the depth of both my questions and my reading, And then, somewhere in junior high school, what history meant really hit me: HIS- STORY. STORY! That was what made it all come together for me. I was most interested in the stories of the interactions between people and history. Yes, big events and theories were important. Major players in the historical arena matter, of course. But what really drew me in were the personal stories of real people who were there. How did big events affect common people? How did common people affect events? What did it mean to be a ‘worker” at a certain time and in a certain place? What was it like to be a 12-year-old girl in a certain part of the world at a certain time? What do farmers really do?? Was it like to be in a war? I needed to know those stories and more. I say all of this because I am thoroughly engrossed in a wonderfully written and moving book called, The Worst Hard Time; The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl.” Written by journalist Timothy Egan, it is an in-depth look at the people who stayed in the Great Plains even as nature seemed to turn on the human species. I knew a little about the Dust Bowl and I knew some factual things about the Great Depression: I have read several historical books and historical novels about that time period. Many of us who were “folkies” in the 60’s are familiar with the songs and stories about the traveling hoboes of the Depression: Woody Guthrie wrote many great songs about “Okies” and families always on the road and desperately looking for a place to work and to settle. Many of us are also familiar with the book and the film, The Grapes of Wrath. All of those were largely about people who left the Dust Bowl and wandered. Egan’s work, though, is about those who stayed behind. The ones who tried to live through the Dust Bowl. I always meant to see Ken Burns’ film, “The Dust Bowl,” but I never got around to it. I do know now that I will see it as soon as I finish this book. The power and beauty of this book for me is that it looks at more than just the historical events and science of what led to the dust storms that devastated an area larger than the state of Pennsylvania: an area that stretched from half of Kansas to parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and 1/3 of Texas. Egan tells the stories of the people in that area at that time. People who stayed throughout the storms and what their lives were like. He gives detailed looks at individual people of different ages and backgrounds and what it was like to live in a sod house or an underground dugout. Or what it was like to shake someone’s hand and be knocked down by the static electricity contained within the dust. What it meant to plant a crop of wheat and have no rain for two years. How some families had to rotate the days of the week on which each of their children could eat in an attempt to make their meager food supplies last. How towns had to deal with invasions of hundreds of rabbits, grasshoppers, tarantulas and black widow spiders. What it was like to take a breath and have your throat fill with tiny particles of dust. And what it was like when the dust repeatedly flew so heavily that it blotted out the sun. The Plains had a surprising mix of people, and Egan also gives us backstories of the different people there and how they got to the Plains. Why so many German-Russians came from the Volga River area across thousands of miles to settle. How Jews wound up in the Oklahoma panhandle. How the Homestead Acts of the mid 1800’s led to a flood of people of all types-Welsh, Irish, African-American and more, trying to find work or make a claim and get rich planting wheat during a “wheat boom” that suddenly went bust. And what about the Naive Americans who had settled there first? Egan ties all of this together in a way that is involving and compelling. He transports us there, and we don’t just read about it. We feel it through and through. He takes a part of our history that most would rather forget and brings it back to life. The book has plenty to teach us, especially in light of our now near desperate climate crisis. Maybe, just maybe, we can learn something from it in time to help us reverse our own human-made environmental disaster. I certainly hope so (Here is a link to Ken Burns’ PBS film, The Dust Bowl. Timothy Egan was a consultant: (https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/ ) (I have since seen the film and was blown away by it. Here is a link to a list of all of Ken Burns’ Films: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/films/ ) Sparky Rucker’s site: https://sparkyandrhonda.com