View From the Front Porch- August 10, 2012

Late nights and short sleeps are the remnants of a pickers life. We never got to live regular hours like most folks, and if you do it long enough...it becomes entrenched in your lifestyle and physical routine. But, it is kinda pleasant, being up in the old farm house, long after the house and all others in it have dropped off to restful slumber. Trouble is, staying up late still doesn't change the fact that the first light that breaks over that mountain is my wakeup call. When we were all traveling from town to town, whether it was in my old gospel music days or after I was on the country music trail, the long nights were times of reflection, deep talks, warm emotions left over from the performances....just a closeness with the other members of your group of traveling gypsy musicians that only members of some military unit or some other highly Adrenaline connected pursuit gives to those who have shared the experience. I've always loved the after show times with the other members, the feeling that you hooked it pretty dang good this time, and talking about some funny things that might have happened back stage or off camera. In some groups different habits develop...on Ernest Tubb's bus, after shows and going to shows, it was an endless poker game that never stopped....in others it might be sharing a songwriting session...of course in some it was fun and games time...Johnny Cash's show, when traveling in the early days was into very involved pranks and practical jokes. Every group has some special storyteller, which prompts all the rest to divulge their innermost secrets and happenings on other musical journeys. It's a very select society of music and musicians that travel in such close proximity to one another. Of course, in the old days, the main concern was not how to enjoy yourself...it was how do I get a place to stretch out my leg for awhile...sitting three to the front seat, three to the back, and in bad weather you might be sharing the back seat with the big stand up bass with the neck sticking across the front seat. Entertainment is full of funny things happening, it's just the nature of the life....you can't travel and go at brake neck speed for long periods of time, sleep deprived and emotionally spent most of the time without funny things happening. The time in my band when Vic Thomas, the drummer, thought it would be funny, in the middle of our show, to reach up in the very quiet part of one of my songs, and stick one of his drum sticks in my guitar picker, Bruce Osbon's ribs, thereby causing Bruce who was extremely goosey...to jump and swing his guitar neck into my back end with such force that it knocked me winding out into the middle of the dance floor, where I landed with all the grace and dignity of a turtle turned over on his back, gasping for breath and still trying to finish that last note on the song I was singing. That same night, after the last song was sung, we all trooped back to the dressing room to find that someone had broken in, while we were on stage, and stole everything of value that we had, jewelry, money, tuners, personal items....heck, we didn't have much, just the flotsam of a pickers life on the road, but we kinda liked it and did not greet the breakin with much appreciation. Yeah, late night pickers, all night truck drivers, late shift factory workers, all night cafe waitresses and cooks, police on late night duty.....it's not a natural lifestyle....and it will cause you to forever be a lone duck on a strange pond. Yawnnnnn......hmmm....reckon my good sense just kicked in and said, Hitch....go to bed. Nite y'all.         -Stan