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Country Roads, Happy Easter, and Sally Lives On
by Cousin Geoff:
I hope you all had a nice holiday weekend. I spent mine in northern Michigan, all day out in the woods on snowshoes, shot some guns, found the best walking stick ever off a downed oak branch, and spent time with family. I also gave away one of my dogs. Sally the hound, gone, too much for me and my wife now with baby Ella. Despite her bad behavior (constant nervous energy, getting up on the couch, in the garbage, that old coon-hound howl at all the wrong times) I was sad to see ol’ Sally go. We’ve had a lot of good times in the past four years, but she’s just an up north dog, and not an Ypsilanti dog, and that’s just the truth. My other dog Zoe we’re keeping, but she’s feeling down and out because Sally was her constant companion. A sad story, but they are afterall, just dogs.
Driving home today, I heard Toots and The Maytals sing Country Road on XM, and I realized that a good song is a good song, and a good friend is a good friend, even if it ain’t nothing but a hound dog. Ann Arbor’s The RFD Boys (been meaning to write about these guys for a long time, and I will eventually) do a great version of this, more true to John Denver’s original, and very different than Toots and The Maytals, but still the same song.
The RFD Boys version:
Toots version:
It’s Easter and I missed church today but I haven’t been in forever anyway. So I’ll make up for it by including a few Jesus songs in this sermon. More proof that a good song is a good song - Jesus is a Soul Man. One of the Cousins’ favorites is the version by the Pathway Quartet - I compared it to the Otis Williams version in a previous post.
As for Sally, I think she’ll be happy up north. For some reason the Harry McClintock, Hallelujah I’m a Bum song pops in my head. Hallelujah, I’m a bum. Hallelujah, bum again. HalleluJAH, give us a handout, to revive us again. Well, as Bunny Wailer says, Time Will Tell. Good luck Sally, may Jesus and St. Patrick lead you down a good Country Road to help you be Reborn. Maybe there’s hope for you afterall. Then again, maybe Elvis was right.
This has nothing to do with music but that’s OK. It’s close to deer hunting season and this is partly a deer hunting story so it’s OK.
My roommate back in college was this British guy named Neil. We met when we were both on the cross country and track team at Eastern Michigan University. I quit after one year but Neil stayed because he was on scholorship.
So we were roommates and good friends and I invited him to go deer hunting with me, since he had never even seen a real gun before, let alone gone hunting, being from England and everything. We went up to Northern Michigan to the family farmhouse and hunting land, and Neil was with me out in the blind when I bagged a pretty good sized deer.
We took the deer back to the farmhouse and sat down in the kitchen with my dad and Uncle Steve. We were drinking some beers and talking about the hunt and then Neil pulls out his crumpled pack of cigarettes, or “20 pack of Marlboro Lights”, as he always asked for ‘em at the gas station, and lights one up. My dad looked at Neil a little funny and said in sort of shock, “Neil, you smoke?” “Sure do mate,” Neil responded with a grin. “Goes well the beer, doe’n't it?” Well, we kept on drinking beers into the night, maybe a little bit of scotch, and Neil kept smoking away those cigarettes, like he always did when he got to drinking, which he did about 3 or 4 nights out of the week, and we had a great old time.
So, a few weeks later, Neil goes out and wins the Mid American Conference indoor championship in the mile run, and not only that, but he sets the all time MAC championship record in the indoor mile. My dad laughed - he couldn’t believe it.
Neil sure was the greatest.
Bob Dylan is now the greatest DJ ever. Gerard and I listened to his XM show all weekend at the farm Up North by the campfire. Bob spoke the Truth, and played songs that were the Truth. Some of the hour themes were Time, School, Mothers, Baseball, and The Bible. The last song we heard was Halleluia, I’m a Bum.
Ol’ Bob plays records from his own collection. He even talked about the thrill of going into someone’s basement and buying a box of records. I’m with you Bob! I wonder if he’s ever bought a record from us?
Well, Mr. Dylan, have you?
