One More Down
I usually wake up fairly early in the morning. If not, Billie, the poodle, will lay his head on the bed with sad eyes until I do get up. This starts about two minutes after my usual wake-up time. There is no sleeping in with a dog in the house. As Jag, the terrier, is sleeping in the garage, I let both dogs out through the garage door and come back in to grab a cup of coffee. Unless the temperature is well below zero, I take my coffee to the porch and enjoy the sights and sounds of nature while working at getting my body fully awake.
Following my normal routine this morning, I was watching the hillside across the lake for deer to come out. Each morning, there are anywhere from two to ten deer that wander down to the food plot and eat clover for a while.
The air was warm and sticky, even at this early hour. A haze of humidity hung over the lake. I saw what I thought was a small deer come out of the timber and start down the road from the top gate. It moved with a different gait than most deer. I thought it was unusual for a fawn to be out in the open by itself as they are usually accompanied by one or more does. Curiosity finally got the best of me, and I went back inside to check it out through the spotting scope. I was surprised to discover that it was a coyote rather than a deer.
Jag thinks of himself as a great hunting dog. When he sees a gun of any type, he takes off barking and running in the direction it is pointed. Though the coyote was almost a quarter of a mile away, I knew Jag would spook it if he took off barking and running toward it. I grabbed a rifle and sneaked out the kitchen door on the opposite side of the house from the dogs. The coyote was crossing the hill above the lake on the mowed and maintained path that runs parallel to the house. The range to the path is right at 350 yards. I pulled up
a chair and propped the rifle on the porch rail. There is usually only one good shot in a situation like this. If a person misses the first shot, it is difficult to get the scope back on target before the quarry disappears. Knowing my rifle scope is sighted in for zero at two hundred yards, I held the crosshairs about twelve inches high. There was no need to compensate for the wind as it was a dead calm morning. The coyote was moving at a walk from left to right, so I led it by a couple of inches. When I fired, the coyote flinched and jumped into the tall grass next to the trail. Jag exploded into barking and running around. He was not sure which way I had shot so he just ran in large circles, barking all the way. Billie wanted to go back inside. He is not fond of gunshots or other loud noises. Fortunately for me, my wife came out of the bedroom about the time I fired the shot. It is not a good thing to wake one’s wife with early morning gunfire. I waited and watched to see if the coyote came out of the grass. If it came running out, there was always a remote chance
of getting another shot. I did not see any activity in the area so after about fifteen minutes, Jag and I went to see if we could find it. I let Jag out of the Ranger near where I thought the coyote had been and he found it almost immediately. The
jump it made into the tall grass was its last movement.
Jag was proud of himself for finding the coyote and I was happy to have one less predator attacking the turkey poults and fawns.
“Turn that noise down!”
Did you ever hear that growing up? Nearly every parent through the generations has hollered that phrase at a bedroom door or into a stairwell when the kids were playing their music too loudly. It causes me to wonder, how do we define what is music and what is noise?
My all-time favorite artists are John Denver and Neil Diamond, but I like almost all types of music. I recently asked a guy in his early thirties if he liked John Denver. He questioned, “Who is John Denver?”
When I told him, the guy said he’d never heard of John Denver.
“Get away from me, kid; you’re making me feel old,” I teased. With dozens of genres and more being created, music is not one-sizefits-all. Even trying to define a specific genre can be a challenge.
When I was in the radio business, one of our stations played Top-40 music, but what is Top-40? It’s constantly changing. Top-40 is the popular music of the day with the younger generations, and it continually changes.
As with the changes in sound, we changed our station call letters and moniker. Starting as KLEE-FM, then K-98, we changed the call letters to KOTM, and
eventually TOM-FM. To be clear, we identified our format as Today’s Best Music, which kept us current with everchanging sounds. The changes in popular music were not necessarily popular with everyone. A person’s individual taste in music also changes.
Many people jumped genres as Top-40 changed; some didn’t like the disco, rap, hiphop, or techno music sound. Still, our station stayed true to the Top-40 format. These music changes created many conversations about music.
Our stations had a very successful Dj service. We played at weddings and all kinds of family and business events.
Some of my favorite gigs were junior and high school dances. Older teachers and parents often expressed their opinions about “music these days.” I’d be rich if I had a dollar for every time I heard a head shake, “The music these kids are listening to today…” I heard this frequently, especially when Michael Jackson changed his sound to disco and busted the
industry loose with a new style of dancing.
“It’s disgusting how Michael Jackson wears those tight pants and contorts his body. It’s just not right,” one older teacher told me. So, I asked if he liked Elvis Presley. “Elvis was the King of rock and roll,” he said. “He didn’t do all those dirty moves like Jackson does.”
“Are you kidding me?” I laughed, “Your parents labeled Presley ‘Elvis the Pelvis’ because he thrust his hips forward provocatively.” Elvis revolutionized popular music in the fifties, and many parents didn’t like it – Michael Jackson redefined popular mu-
sic again in the eighties, and some people didn’t like that either. This same teacher told me how off-color the lyrics were in modern music. “They promote illicit behavior.” He declared.
“Do you like country music,” I asked him. The teacher said that he did. “Listen carefully to the lyrics,” I said. “Country music isn’t exactly free of suggestive messages, either.”
Parents need to listen to their kids’ music. As long they are not promoting self-destruction, what is the harm? And
if the lyrics are destructive, then it’s time for a whole different conversation with your kid. Parents may not like the beat or the sound, but it’s important to respect that it is ‘their music.’
Open-mindedness to music can keep open communications between kids and the rents. For example, at a young age, my nephews took up the guitar; they were primarily self-taught. I was excited for them. Soon they would learn John Denver songs, and we could sing around the campfire. But John Denver was my music – not theirs. My nephews became heavy metal musicians, and they are good – it’s just not my style of music.
I was surprised years ago when I found out my sister and her husband frequently attended their boy’s concerts. But that aligns with my theory on appreciation of your kid’s music opening and strengthening relationships. Robb went on to become an accomplished heavy metal bass player.
For more than twenty years, he’s played in several bands. I’d like to see him play someday, and Robb has invited me to several shows, but it’s just not my style of music. As a matter of fact, I used to say metal was about the only music I didn’t like. But that wasn’t exactly true either.
I got tickets to a Poison and Warrant concert in Los Angeles in the early nineties. Both bands
were heavy metal in their day. My brother Dan lived in L.A., so I headed west and went to the show. There’s a big difference between going to a concert in L.A. and the Midwest.
It was the first concert I’d attended where we were run through cattle chutes and metal detectors, then patted down before going inside. The show was loud (really loud), but we had a great time! A few months later, I went to a Metallica concert. Poison and Warrant seemed relatively tame by comparison. I won’t be going to any more Metallica concerts, but what a thrill to have had that experience.
Last week I was in Texas. Robb told me he was playing Friday night with a band at a venue in downtown Houston. He invited me to come to their show, but. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. On the one hand, I wanted to see Robb play, but on the other, I also wanted to save what was left of my hearing.
I had been to metal concerts before, and they were loud (really loud) shows, and that was over thirty years ago. Could my ears still handle a metal concert today? I also wondered if I would feel out of place; after all, I am thirty years older than I was thirty years ago.
I told my sister Patti about the invitation, and we decided to go.
We drove downtown to Warehouse Live, a popular venue for local and visiting live talent. The building looked like an old movie theatre, which I thought was
cool. The man at the gate asked, “Are you on the list?” We were not.
Robb had offered to get us on the list, which basically meant getting in free. Still, Patti said, “These venues have to have revenue to support local talent.” So, we didn’t mind paying the admission. (Especially since my sister was buying.)
Next, the man at the gate wanted to put a band on my wrist. I hardly thought I would need one. “They’ll send you back out here if you try to order a drink without a wristband,”
he said. So we each get a band.
Robb’s band went on stage at nine. We arrived about twenty minutes early – just in time for the sound check. It was loud, which did not surprise me. What surprised me was that we were not the oldest people in the room. I felt very comfortable, age-wise.
After the sound check, Robb came down from the stage and opened a small jar. “You might want these,” he said, offering us earplugs. The plugs were just the right thing to make the show very enjoyable. Although I didn’t go up front with the headbangers on the railing (do they still call it headbanging), it was fun watching Robb and the band perform. I enjoyed their original music so much that it seemed they had barely started playing when their set was over.
Afterward, my sister and I talked with people around us while the band broke down their equipment, clearing the stage for the next band coming on.
One of the ladies was there to watch her son play in the next set.
“He’s forty-one years old today,” she said. I could see the pride she had for her son in her eyes. The same gleam my sister had watching her boy on stage. I may have had the same look while watching my nephew play the bass, dance, jump around the stage, and have a grand ole time.
Robb came to the floor and had Patti,
and I followed him. We went thru a door leading to the backstage and dressing rooms. “Wait a minute,” Penny stopped us. “You have to have one of these to be back here.” Penny put a wristband on each of us. I asked her what it was for. “You’re a V.I.P. now; you’ve got to be dressed like one.” We shared a good laugh about that, but I wanted to get back out front to see the next band.
Patti and I watched the next band for about twenty minutes, then went to a sports bar across the street that served food.
The following day, Robb said, “You guys left too early.” Then he shared a video of the band following his. One of the players put down his guitar and took up the saxophone. I was shocked.
“A saxophone in a heavy metal band?” I was shocked. What is up with these kids and their music today? “A sax player in a heavy metal band. Whoever woulda thunk it?”
After showing us the video, Robb took his acoustic guitar from the case and started strumming out a familiar tune. “Hey,” I said. “That’s John Denver, Country Roads.”
Appreciation of one another’s music is an awesome and powerful thing. If it wasn’t for the current burning ban in Texas, I would have gone out to light a little campfire.