1. Between twenty and twenty-five years ago, I drove from Eugene to Seattle to visit Bill Davie and listen to him open at the Back Door -- I think that was the name of the venue -- I'd seen Garnet Rogers there a few years earlier. Bill Davie opened for another singer-songwriter, Peter Himmelman. I loved Bill's set and enjoyed the time we spent together. It was a great weekend.
As of that night, I'd never heard Peter Himmelman, but I'd heard stories about him performing at the WOW Hall in Eugene and doing stuff like having the audience file with him outside and gather somewhere -- maybe around the front porch of the hall? -- maybe in the back parking lot? -- and he performed unmiked where it wasn't so stuffy. I'd also heard Himmelman brought audience members on stage to sit on couches, provide musical accompaniment (whether they were musicians or not), or do other things and often he would improvise a song on the spot about individuals who were watching his shows.
In the early spring of 1997, two Eugene guys, Dave Veldhuizen and another guy named Dave, and I went to the Aladdin Theater in Portland together to see Peter Himmelman. I didn't say anything on the way up, but, within myself, I had promised myself to volunteer to go on stage when Peter Himmelman was sure to ask for a volunteer. Sure enough, several songs into the show, he started talking about it being lonely up on the stage and he had these couches and before he could make an invitation, I sprung out of my seat and started walking to the stage and joined him. Not long afterward, the two Daves came up, too, and he called us something like Dave and the Beards or the Two Daves and the Beards (we all sported beards).
At one point, Peter Himmelman turned to me and said, "Do you do interpretive dance?" Lying, but game for anything that night, I told him I did. "You're Bill, right?" I nodded. He then turned to the mike and announced, "For this next song, my friend, Bill, is going to help me out with an interpretive dance." I'd never heard the song, "Wrapped Up in Cellophane" that he played, but I listened closely and performed a dance to the lyrics. Peter Himmelman hugged me and after the show, and, as the audience filed out, several people shook my hand and congratulated me for my performance.
This all came back to me today because I discovered that Alexa has Peter Himmelman songs available on the Echo Dot and I listened to some of my old favorites like "Woman with the Strength of 10,000 Men" and "Flown this Acid World" and "Impermanent Things" and "Mission of My Soul" among others. I remembered the day I drove to Yachats to check out the Adobe Inn before we had a family vacation there and I stopped in a record store somewhere on my way home and Peter Himmelman's From Strength to Strength was available on cassette tape and I played it while driving the Honda Civic Hatchback on Highway 126, over the Coast Range, and on into Eugene.
I hadn't listened to these Peter Himmelman's songs for a long, long time. But, today, while I was cleaning up the kitchen, his voice suddenly popped into my head and, with Alexa's help, had quite an hour or so, playing songs and remembering those two shows in Seattle and Portland. Suddenly feelings rushed in. Some of the loss and heartache I experienced back in the 1990s was attached to these songs. I'd forgotten that and I felt that heartache again as if it were new. Then, before long, it washed away.
2. While I was grocery shopping at Yoke's, Ed called me and wondered if I'd be interested in having a drink in about an hour at the Inland Lounge. Well, that offer fit right into my busy Saturday schedule. I got there a little early and shot the breeze with Cas and John for a while and Ed sauntered in and we made the acquaintance of a couple at the bar. Brian had just moved to Smelterville and is a civil engineer and Laura was visiting him for a week or so. It was fun getting to know them a little bit and to share some local knowledge. I also had fun talking with Cas and John and Rosie and got a kick out of hearing about the time many years ago that Rosie was working the bar and physically threw Smoky Joe out of the Kopper Keg and broke his arm. He'd passed out at the bar and when she woke him up, he poked her with a live cigarette.
3. The Deke had spent the day in Spokane with knitting friends. She arrived home happy for having had a good day. At Yoke's, I bought a couple of hamburger patties seasoned with Montreal seasoning at Yoke's, but only cooked one of them since the Deke had food on the road. I enjoyed my patty with a side of roasted Brussel sprouts, carrots, and yellow zucchini and a bowl of butter lettuce, carrot, and celery salad.
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