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djingodjango |
djingodjango added a blog entry 'Short Term/Long Term' 19 days
I named the basement room where I spent many of my formidable years, "The Hole." Even my parents referred to it as "The Hole."
I was always in "The Hole".
Back from school in the afternoon. Down to "The Hole."
After supper at night. Down to "The Hole". Homework lurked within unfeeling books of algebraic equations and Latin declentions..
"Where's George?" Down in "The Hole".
Off the kitchen and down the stairs into the basement, where the furnace hummed and grumbled in warm indifference. Hang a left and through a door and you were in "The Hole."
Before I entered the Army at the ripe old age of seventeen, I shared a bedroom upstairs with my little brother in what formerly had been a front-parlor in the Victorian style house my parents rented. It just didn't feel comfortable, especially since I had my own 'garrett' style room back in a house where we had previously lived in Vermont.
I forget who suggested it. Perhaps my parents. But someone said, "Hey, if you want a place of your own to study, you can clean up that little junk filled room in the basement and use it."
I was so excited at the prospect that I practically jumped backwards through a very small opening in my body. Once more, I could have a place of my own.
I went down and surveyed what could only be described as the room from the mind of Dr. Jekyll
There were more dusty bottles containing more unknown elements then the third floor lab of a 19th century British medical school. And boxes filled with undefinable assemblies that James Whale would have pounced on to use in any of his movies. To this day, I honestly don't know what some of those mishapen, tortured peices of metal I found were used for.
I probably don't want to know.
So I cleaned it up as best I could. I swept. I dusted. I swept again. I stuffed things away in closets and under stairs. Occasionally my father would come across these boxes of odd objects and I would hear his, "What the hell is this crap?" echoing through the house.
The room was paneled with birdseye maple, crusted thick with smoke residue and soot from the turn of the last century. The back wall was directly against a dirt bank of some sort that periodically oozed dust and grime from the floor trim boards, I swept it up quickly and tossed it out., not wishing to know what it was.
My folks gave me an old wooden chair that had once belonged to my grandparents, and which I lounged in from time to time, assuming what I hoped were accurate representations of Zen-like bodily contortions, smoking a pipe filled with odd sorts of tobacco from the local town tobacionist.
Strange weed, with names such as "Christian Peepers", or "Black Brandy". Just touched with enough romance to make me feel, and here is the optiman word.....cool.
Many things happened in this room. Some were cool. Some were decidedly not.
It had one window that was inches from ground level and a door just at the bottom of the stairs that led outside. I could come and go as I pleased and no one would be the wiser. Except my mother, who always knew where and what I was doing.
How do they do that?
Now the house number was 11 Walnut St., but I wanted something cooler and at this time, Warner Brothers had flooded the TV networks with, seemingly dozens of formulatic shows, "Bourbon Street Beat", "Surfside Six", "Hawain Eye" and "77 Sunset Strip"
I sprinted to the hardware store and soon two gold metal sevens were on the back door.
I also dragged a roll-away bed down there and a gazillion pound oak desk and chair. I hung several bookcases from the walls, and filled them with dozens of books, some of which I had read and some of which I told people I had read. They included original Tom Swifts and a first edition of Greys Anatomy, which I studied with sophmoric abandon, especially the female innards
.I strung up my WW1 Monogram and Lindbergh airplane models. Richtoffen and the rest patroled the skies over no-mans land again.
And plugged in my record player. Mono. And a green plastic Philco portable radio, which, on a good night might bring in WBZ out of Boston and Dick Summers.
And a goose-neck lamp. Homework, watch out.
This was my kingdom as a young man, and from "The Hole" would come many stories. I will share a few in the days to come.
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djingodjango has 50 friends. View entire friends list.
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Genre: Folk
Playing Style: Unknown/None Chosen
Genre: Folk
Playing Style: Unknown/None Chosen
Genre: Unknown/None Chosen
Playing Style: Unknown/None Chosen
Genre: Folk
Playing Style: Other
Experience Level: Novice
djingodjango has made 1 recent addition to Banjo Hangout
Interests:
[Jamming] [Socializing]
Occupation: Curmudgeon
Gender: Male
Age: 83
My Instruments:
Dana Fligg "George Locke Model" Vega Long Neck
Yamaha acoustic/electric 12 string
Epiphone solid body electric
Washburn D10SCE
Oscar Schmidt 21 Chord Autoharp
and an odd guitar with no name that lurks quietly under the stairs.
Favorite Bands/Musicians:
Richard Thompson, Earl Scruggs, Mike Seeger, Don Reno, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Seeger, Joe Pass, Django Reinhardt, Herb Ellis, Charlie Byrd, Charlie Parker, Four Freshmen, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Lady Day, Bessie Smith, Mel Torme, The Roches, Phil Ochs,Bob Dylan, Dave VanRonk, Toots Theilman, Art VanDamme, Chet Baker,Mose Alison, Hank Williams, Brian Setzer, The Beatles, Hank Thompson, Steve Goodman, Benny Goodman, Beethoven, Tchikovsky, Alexander Borodin, Eric Satie, Arron Copeland, The Gershwins (George and Ira), Leonard Bernstein, Steven Sondheim, Henry Mancini and so on
Classified Rating: not rated
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Profile Info:
Visible to: Public
Created 10/29/2008
Last Visit 9/23/2026
It was 1960 and I was fresh out of high school. I had left rock and roll behind for a while after Dave Guard and the Kingston Trio crept up to whack me with a "Tom Dooley"-stick in 1957. Then came "The Brothers Four", "The Highway Men" and "The New Christie ." and I was hooked. I joined the Army because Uncle Sam promised he would send me to Public Information School to learn journalism, photography and a smattering of radio broadcasting. Hootenany was in the air. I followed my favorites, including the heart-breaking clear voice of Joan Baez to Korea while I wrote for "The Cavalier" and "The Stars and Stripe". I was a correspondent and photographer. Then it was on to New Mexico where I found "Peter, Paul and Mary", early" Bob Dylan" and some scratchy "Jimmy Rodgers"('The Singing Brakeman'). I bought my first guitar while I was producing radio programs for "White Sands Missile Range" and learned a few chords. I recorded a few live concerts, using purloined equipment in Coffee houses through the Southwest. Places like "The Don Quixote" in El Paso, Texas. And I listened to performers, gaining knowledge along the way. When I got out, the 60's and ?'s came hurtling at me, dressed with songs from new writers and performers. I went to broadcasting and drama school for a season in Boston and began to listen to the likes of Dylan, Tom Rush, Dave Van Ronk, Donovan, Mark Spoelstra, Patrick Skye, Jim Kweskin and Phil Ochs. I traded my $30 red and black Stella for a Gibson and began haunting places like the "Unicorn" plus "Club 47" in Cambridge and numerous clubs in New Hampshire. Then a group called "The Beatles" changed my view on everything. I became lead singer and rhythm guitarist in a band called, "The Notables". I bought a more expensive Gibson and an electric 12 string. We did 'Stone's' covers and 'Lovin' Spoonful'. I plunged into James Brown. A 22 year old white kid doing James Brown. I was nothing if not audacious. I went into commercial radio in a small market station back in NH. I wrote news, sports, rip and read weather off the teletype and interviewed everyone from William Shatner to Eugene McCarthy.and George Gobel. I got another twelve string. I got married. I acquired 4 children, and lost everything in the war. And I stopped playing for awhile. Then I met my passion. The love of my life. We married. We produced 5 children together. I was writing in earnest, after I began a spriritual journey. I started telling stories. Childrens tales, Anansi, Coyote and all the worlds mythical characters were part of a woven tapestry I still am adding to today. A friend gave me a Martin D35. Another gave me a Yamaha acoustic/electric 12 string. A few months back I sort of 'retired'. That's another way of saying I was let go. It was then I received my 'Dana Fligg' long neck banjo and am now writing for a local literary mag. I sold the Martin. I bought a Washburn acoustic/electric. My wife gave me a fire-engine red solid body Epiphone electric. I have five beautiful grandchildren. There is much more to say and much more to sing about, but I am glad to have found this place.
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