Three Beautiful Things 10/11/14: Never a Harrier, Radio On, Ring Ring Leo

1.  It was raining, but lightly, so I drove the corgis to Greenbelt Lake and the rain never picked up -- if anything, it slacked off, and we enjoyed a fine sniff and walk around the lake.  I didn't sniff, by the way -- I just walked and stopped.  University of Maryland cross country runners were working out at the lake and they helped me remember back to my college days when I was never in that kind of shape and never ran cross country.  But these kids were impressive.

2.  The Deke took off for Alexandria to visit Molly and Hiram and do some late night child care and I was going to read Dickens, but, instead, I got hooked, happily, into an afternoon of radio listening.  WAMU is a superb public radio station and, its Saturday afternoon programming includes This American Life, Studio 360, The Splendid Table and Day 6.  So many fine segments:  the fascinating Frances McDormand talking about her new HBO project, Olive Kitteridge;  I got a little choked up listening to the piece on the fifty year anniversary of Fiddler on the Roof and had vivid feelings of how much I enjoyed singing songs from it in choir at North Idaho College; I laughed as food guy Andrew Zimmern rhapsodized about the tastiness of grilled porcupine fat; and I was intrigued by an episode on the resurgence of MSG.  It was a great way to spend an afternoon while trying to keep the corgis quiet.

3.  Quite a few years ago, I pretty much had had my fill of Prairie Home Companion, but this evening I caught the opening of it and Garrison Keillor announced that Leo Kottke would be coming on, so I kept the program on, hoping that Kottke would not only play, which he did, but that he would sing his fine love song, "Ring, Ring" and he did and I was transported back to one of my favorite evenings of my life when, in August of 1992, on my way to my KHS twenty year reunion, I spent a night in Bozeman, MT and discovered that Leo Kottke and David Lindley were giving a concert and it was one of the best shows I had ever been to and few have been as good since.  (What was I doing in Bozeman?  I drove from Eugene to Kellogg via western Montana that summer and visited town after town and spot after spot featured in the poetry of Richard Hugo and Bozeman seemed like a good town to spend the night.)