1. Whenever I visit Eugene, I enjoy walking here again. I used to walk in Eugene a lot, whether in neighborhoods, out at Delta Ponds, downtown, along the river, or for a morning stroll to Cornucopia for breakfast. Late this morning, I took off for a mile and a half walk from Anne's house to Edgewood Shopping Center to eat my first ever bagel at Lox, Stock, and Bagel. To get to my destination, I walked for several blocks on the Amazon Trail that goes along both sides of Amazon Creek. I crossed West Amazon at 44th, walked uphill and over a ways to Fox Hollow where it intersects with 43rd and then walked up a moderate incline for a while until the street became level. I passed Spenser Butte Middle School, turned right at Donald, and walked another block or so to the shopping center.
I am not in good walking condition, but I made it to Lox, Stock, and Bagel. I ordered a sesame bagel toasted with a light spread of cream cheese and drank water. I enjoyed the bagel shop a lot. It's a locally owned business, small, lacking in all fanciness. It's a downscale shop, not upscale, my favorite kind of place. It's run by energetic and friendly young people. It features a wide variety of bagel styles and many options for breakfast and lunch sandwiches and I noted that one customer was eating a bowl of soup, but I didn't catch what the soup of the day was.
I ate.
I sat.
I rested.
I gathered myself and walked the mile and half or so back to Anne's and was very happy to have logged about three miles of walking and to have found another bagel shop in Oregon to enjoy.
2. Around 5:30, I dropped Debbie off in the 5th St Market area and zipped over to Jeff's house. We sat in his back yard and yakked for a while before heading over to 11th and Mill to have dinner at Pandita. For much of the time I lived in Eugene, the building that houses Pandita was the Rose and Thistle, a squat rustic faux Tudor fish and chips place. Pandita is a taqueria with a twist -- the twist being that it's a Mexican restaurant that fuses Mexican with other styles of cooking. Much like the bagel shop I enjoyed this morning, there's nothing upscale, fancy, slick, or contemporary looking about Pandita. It's homey, cozy, with indoor and outdoor seating and an outdoor fireplace. Jeff and I both thoroughly enjoyed our shrimp tacos and tortilla soup and my margarita was tasty and refreshing.
Pandita sponsors Jeff's radio show, Deadish. Jeff has become pals with Amy, a most friendly and lovely owner of Pandita. She came to our table and we had some invigorating conversation.
So did Jeff and I before Amy visited us. We launched right into a lot of Bob Dylan discussion, peppered with some Grateful Dead talk. Amy referred to Jeff as a Dylan/Dead guru and I was happy to have made a pilgrimage from Kellogg to Eugene to sit at the guru's feet and learn more and more and more about this music.
3. Jeff and I hustled back to his house after our dinner. Jeff put KEPW-FM (low power) on his sound system and we listened to an intriguing episode of Hard Rain and Slow Trains. Daniel has been tracking Bob Dylan's comments to his audiences on his current tour. Dylan has been paying homage to musicians who are from the cities he's performing in and providing other informative nuggets. It's almost as if he is giving his audiences a little taste of Theme Time Radio Hour each night. Well, Dan played music tonight by musicians Dylan has mentioned -- he played some Bing Crosby, Dolly Parton, Roy Rogers, among others -- and, much to Jeff's and my surprise, because Dylan made mention of Charles (Charlie) Manson, Dan played a song Manson recorded well over 50 years ago.
Jeff's Deadish show was superb tonight and listening to it with Jeff made this Blissful Thursday especially joyous.
My thought about Jeff's show: if a person wanted to take a couple of hours and listen to a splendid overview of Jerry Garcia's music making from 1961-1995, Jeff's two hours of Deadish tonight would be the perfect show to listen to.
He started out playing about 40 minutes or so of a sublime chunk of the second set of the Grateful Dead's 03-31-73 show performed at the Buffalo Memorial Coliseum. He began by placing us in a jam that grew out of "Truckin'" segued into Drums, which Jeff gave us a taste of, and then the Grateful Dead melted into a stellar jam introducing "The Other One", the playing of "The Other One", and Jeff ended this segment with the band jamming out of "The Other One" into "I Know You Rider".
After such a stirring start to his show, Jeff turned his attention to Jerry Garcia -- we got to hear him perform with Robert Hunter and with different configurations of the Jerry Garcia Band. If a person wanted to experience in a concentrated way Jerry Garcia's versatility, his knowledge of Americana music, his work with a variety of musicians, and his mastery of the acoustic guitar, banjo, and electric guitar, Jeff's show was a master class of Garcia's genius -- Jeff didn't say much in this Garcia seminar. He let the music speak for itself.
For me, this was a Blissful Thursday to the 10th power. Or more!
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