Last night the band (Stranger Creek) played at the American Legion. There was a good crowed (inspite of the Cotton Bowl Game) with lots of dancing and a good time was had by all. Before the festivities started they had a moment of silence for all the troops who were in harms way. I started thinking about how many times we’ve had to send young men out to fight for freedom during just my life time. How many times old men stood in silence for young men in harms way. I never had to serve and I consider that just dumb luck. I had two kids and a wife when the Veitnam war broke out so I guess I didn’t make the cut and I’m not sad about that. I’ve seen news footage of war and it looked bad but you don’t see the reality of war on TV they can’t show that. What we see is the cleaned up version. But you can read about it; there are books that try to tell it for what it is, but unless you’ve been there I susect you can’t know. I got a book at Christmas called Fly Boys by James Bradley. It’s about eight Navy and Marine pilots that were shot down and held prisoner on a small island called Chichi Jima not far from Iwo Jima in the Pacific in WW II. The mental state of the Japanese soldier at that time was that they had a divine right to treat the enemy any way they saw fit to advance their cause. I always wandered how humans could act the way they did (and i’m shure there were attrocaties on both sides) and I guess I understand it better now, but I think first place would have to go to the Japanese soldiers of WWII, and these young Fly Boys were right in the middle of them with no way out but death by torture. But after all this time after all the wars and all the people that think they have the divine right to do as they see fit……..well you know the rest of the story.
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In 2005 I decided to make a CD so I went to a store and bought a small Tascam tape recorder. I had read that it was possible to get four tracks of music on a small stereo tape recorder so I took a few instructions on-line to get started and in a few weeks I had 5 or 6 tapes with 3 songs on each. Since I had no way of mixing them down and adding the effects I wanted, I got the phone book out and found a recording studio in town that had the right ad and I punched in the numbers. The voice on the other end said Markosa Studios. After we introduced our selfs I told the voice Mark Thies what I wanted to do. He said bring the tapes and the recorder and he would give it a try. He said the studio is in his basement and to come through the Garage door. When I pulled in the drive I noticed what looked like a normal house on a tree-lined street had a huge room added to the back of the house. As it turned out he said they weren’t bad for the first try and went about mixing them down and put them on a CD. It took three or four sessions to get 12 decent songs from the 18 or so that I had and one day sitting in his studio which was the only one I had ever seen, with a mass of control boards switches and knobs and meters and wire running here and there. I asked about the big room on the back of his house. He said oh that’s my new studio, would you like to see it. I said I would, so he took me up the stairs through the house to a large hall way that led to a big room with three small rooms on the west side and two larger rooms for recording. He told me what each room was for and that he was kinda stuck because he had these special windows between each room and he didn’t know how to go about installing them. I said I can do that I was a Glazier and had installed every kind of window there was. We made a deal on the spot and he told me what he needed. He had all the lumber to make the frames, so the next day I set up shop in one of the rooms, made the frames ordered the glass and put it in. All of this took a week or so to complete and in a short time the new studio was up and running and it was beautiful. Since then Mark an I have made five more CDs. So if your into music and need a studio take a look at Markosa Studios you won’t find a better one between here and Abby Road. http://www.markosa.com/Studio.htm
My brother-in-law Ron is an outdoors man, and he’d rather hunt than anything else and that includes drinking beer and he loves his beer. He had an ex son-in-law that lived near by, there in Kingman Arizona, and every year they’d go to the Hualapai (pronounced walapie) Mountains and go bow hunting for game. They had hunted all day with no luck except for a small Doe that ran up a narrow trail between some rocks. Ron was getting tired so he told the younger man to go up the trail and see if he could get a shot; and if something came back down his direction Ron might get a shot. It sounded like a plan and ‘sides I was wore out. He said I leaned up against a big rock resting and enjoying the break, when I heard what sounded like my partner yelling and a woman scream. I froze and waited a few seconds then yelled to see if my partner was alright but got no answer. So with nothing but a bow and arrows I took off up the trail and calling for him. When I got to the top where there were some scrub brush and pine trees I looked around and found him leaning with his back to a huge boulder. His eyes were big as saucers and I saw blood on the ground. My first thought was he had some how fallen on his arrow or something. He looked at me and said “Mountain Lion“……When he had gathered his breath he said a female lion had taken the small deer down and her and two half-grown cubs were feasting on it under some low hanging evergreens when he arrived on the scene. She immediately came after him in a very low crouch. He drew his bow and started backing up till he hit the boulder and was trapped. He said I yelled to scare her away but she just kept coming so I had to shoot and hit her in the chest head on, that’s where the blood came from. Then she took off over there under some brush… let’s go finish her off. Ron said wait a minute we don’t have a tag for lion and that could be very expensive. Lets go get a tag and then go get her. He said OK but first I’m going to make sure she don’t crawl off some place we can’t find. So with bows at ready and there hearts in their mouths they followed the blood trail back to some brush where she was hiding. They both shot and ran for cover.Ron ‘s son-in-law went into town got the tag, came back and found the lion dead under a tree. He capped it out and had it mounted. He felt bad about the kill but thought the cubs would be alright since they were at least half-grown. That’s when Ron gave up bow hunting and went to black powder………
The story I’m about to tell is true and is what I remember about the incident. I don’t know who was right or wrong, or how many were hurt but it happened about 4 years ago south of Yuma Arizona at a border crossing into Mexico. We were on Vacation and were going to camp at a place called Quartzite in Arizona. We had planned to meet up with a cousin of mine from California in Yuma. After a day of site seeing my cousin said he knew of a great restaurant just across the border. He said we leave our car parked in a huge parking lot on this side and just walk over; people do it all the time and it was a lot of fun. We agreed and drove the 20 miles or so to the very nice parking area made of asphalt with a guard house and Mexican /American attendant. We turned off the black top road leading in and out of the border crossing and into the lot while the road continued down hill to the crossing. Since the parking lot was level there was about an eight foot bank down to the road where there was a landing and concrete steps to a sidewalk that lead to the border about 100 yards away. The attendant stopped us along with about five or six other people at the landing and told us to stay put that we couldn’t cross right now. He said that a Van had crossed into the American side and and an unmarked car was tailing it towards Yuma when it suddenly made a u turn on the highway and was coming back down the border road being shadowed by ATF agents. As we waited I saw the border patrol come out of their offices with plenty of fire power. So I’m thinking this could get real serious since the coyote (as they are called) are not stopping and there is no way out for a car headed in this direction. Suddenly a small car came down the road slammed on the breaks and a man jumps out with his gun ready and joins the American border guards. I figure he must be ATF and was one of the tails. A minute later here comes an old Dodge Mini Van slowing down as they see what awaits them in the middle of the road. The Van came to a full stop as the guards raise there weapons from about eight feet away, and began shouting in Spanish and English to get out with there hands up. I didn’t see it, so I might have diverted my attention for a second, but some of the witnesses said the van lurched forward. The American Guards opened fire knocking out all of the glass in the right door and shattering the wind shield. This all took place maybe 50 yards from us almost in front of the Guards office quarters. The Van started rolling slowly down the slight incline as the guards stepped out of the way with guns drawn, rolling towards the Mexican crossing where there was about four small guard shacks with steel and concrete posts in front of each shack. It bumped into one of the posts. A few minutes later a Mexican Ambulance (Med Act type) pulled up to the van and we could see them loading people into the van though we couldn’t see there condition or how many, as we were too far away. One of the Guards came over to where we were and took our names and addresses in case there was an inquiry. We all left as the border was closed and we no longer had an appetite. The next day we heard nothing on the TV news, but there was a small article on the back page of the local paper that said there was a shooting at the crossing but no one was hurt; just some glass broken…….There were about five armed men standing six to eight feet around the front of that van and no one was hurt?
Bill on stage with The Stranger Creek Band
His name was Bill Craven and he had a cattle ranch in NE where he “rode herd on ‘em every day”. I met him at a music festival many years ago and as we got to know each other better he would give me advice on what to do and not do on stage. He had a voice that sounded a lot like Hank Snow (A country singer who had many hits in the ’50s). I always admired his voice but he’d say ” you don’t have to take a back seat to anybody” and that would give me a little more confidence to get up there and try again. I guess I could have called him Wild Bill because when he was off stage he liked to “sip a little tea,” and then he would get a little testy you might say and it got him in trouble more than once. But he was a religious man too and he would thank God for all his blessings and all the help he received from the bible in this life and start talking about all the friends he had met and lost and some who had done him wrong as well. We would pass the guitar back and forth and try out songs on one another. One night I sang a song called ” Baby That’s Cold” recorded by Vern Gosdin and for some reason he liked it so much every time I saw him he’d make me sing that song …… He had an old 50 passenger school bus he had fixed up to travel between Nebraska and South Texas and it had everything he needed to live year round if he had to, I’d knock on his door and we’d drink a little bourbon laugh and cuss about this and that many nights till we ran low on fuel. He was proud of his station in life and very independent. He rigged up a patio on the side of his old bus that could be lowered down with chains and he would sit and relax suspended about three feet in the air after the shows were over and watch the firefly’s in the night air . He was a poet and had some pretty good poetry to go with his singing. He liked our little Stranger Creek Band and we backed him on stage many times and he was always grateful. He loved to sing gospel songs and would really let the spirit flow through him and pull out a handkerchief, wipe his eyes and “thank you Jesus” quietly. He didn’t like jammin’ off stage with a bunch of other musicians or performing for free, it was how he made his living and his only support except for a very small social security check and wood working on ranches like out buildings and signs carved out in wood. It was a business with him and he would say ” The workman is worthy of his hire” so don’t give it away. He was very proud of his wood work and kept a scrap book of photos to show anyone interested. I’ll miss him, he was one of a dieing breed that won’t be back any time soon. So sometime this summer I’ll be sittin’ and watchin’ the firefly’s (God willing) and I’ll pour me a glass of “ol’ loud mouth” and raise a toast to my old side kick Wild Bill Craven…..
In the early 60s Rosie and I, while on vacation, looked on a map that said Pea Ridge National Park. Since it wasn’t far we headed in that direction. As we pulled into town we saw a sign that said civil war museum 50 cents. I thought that was odd it was in someones garage. Then a few more blocks and there was another. We stopped at the third or fourth garage and went inside and the owner took our money. There were weapons of every kind from that era including some Indian war clubs and bows and arrows including the quiver for the arrows, uniforms both northern and southern. small cannons and cannon balls stacked here and there. Some of my relatives had found Civil War artifacts at Wilson’s Creek Battlefield in MO. but nothing like this. We left and went a short way out of town to the park; the museum building was not built yet but you could go on a self guided tour of the park so we followed the signs. It was early in the morning and there was still some mist lying low in the fields here and there and fading fast. a black top road meandered around the fields with a sign here and there explaining what happened there or how many were killed here. In the distance you could see a large rock cliff with trees on top we past the Elk Horn Tavern that was a hospital for the wounded and served as head quarters for both sides as the battle raged on around it. On the side of the wall of the Tavern there was a button you could push to hear the story of the struggle there. As the booming voice came over the speakers loud and clear I realized we were there all alone not a soul anywhere just the ghosts of all the men that died while trying to stay alive. We left and went up the road to the top of the cliff and you could look out over the fields below. There on the cliff pointing out toward the battle was a huge Cannon that changed hands at least twice or more in the battle. It was so quite you could hear your own heart beat. A sign said that you could walk across the field below with out touching the ground by stepping on the dead and dieing. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I turned around to look at my wife and two little kids….Lets go I said I don’t feel like we belong here. After the battle was over and bodies had been removed the farmers who owned the ground picked up wagon loads of rifles, bayonets, swords, bows and arrows clubs and cannon balls, and dumped them in ravines and the creeks beds so they could plant their crops and go on about the task of living……this fall we went through there again but we didn’t stop…. I had seen enough…
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