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12-31-07 New Years Eve.

I'm writing this story about New Years Eve in Joshua Tree seven days later in the comfort of my living room, but to simplify the pronouns and past/present tenses I'm going to write it as if I was sitting at my laptop in my tent the evening of the party. We finished climbing early today, knowing we were headed for an epic party, and leaving the next day.

Amy and Jessica wandered down to our site after dinner to see what was up, but Tucker wasn't with them so I went looking for him, hoping to play some blues. I found him next door at the drummer camp where they were warming up the drums as early arrivals began arriving in groups of one or two. I asked him if he wanted to jam and he said where. I told him that site 16 would have a big crowd, but he said he wanted to get into the percussion for a while so I wandered off hoping to find another guitar player.

I wasn't likely to find anyone as good as Tucker, but I guess I've always been a dreamer. Site 16 was pretty tame, mostly the same crowd of climbers hitting the bottle and telling stories, but no guitar players. By the time I got back to the drummers site Tucker had moved on and only about 10 people were hanging around.

I heard one of the drummers playing the guitar so I walked into the firelight. He recognized me immediately as *the* harmonica player and asked me to take a seat. We tried to play some blues, but he didn't know the progression and we kind of stalled out. They kept asking me to play something so I offered to play an old folk song called Scarborough fair by Simon and Garfunkel.

I've been playing that melody for close on forty years and have it wired. When I get into those old songs, I'm instantly in the zone and all my thoughts empty out until it just me,the harp and the melody. It's as if a higher power takes over my body and soul, and I simply let it shine.

When I lowered my harp several of the women jumped up and wanted to shake my hand, telling me I played beautifully, who was I, and how long had I been playing? Next I played Wayfarin Stranger, another very old fold song, and again they were very kind to this crusty old harp player. The oldest guy there picked up his guitar and said, kind of sheepishly, "Well, I can't offer you anything nearly as nice as those harp solos, but this is an old song you might enjoy, sing it with me Beth." He sang an old song about broken hearts and traveling...it was quiet, but good.

I walked next door to our site after that and found Austin talking quietly with the ranger. The ranger was a cool dude. He had been rangering for at least ten years all over the country and was also a climber. He had the worst possible duty that night: telling his fellow climbers not to party too hard on New Years eve, what a thankless task.

After a couple minutes of quiet conversation the topic turned to music and Austin asked the ranger if he'd heard me play the harmonica yet.

"No, I've not heard you play yet."

"I was just playing next door, you weren't able to hear it?"

"No, I haven't heard a thing, I'd love to hear you play something!"

"This is Scarborough Fair," I said, and I began to play. I knew I was playing to the police, and I wanted to show him that not all of us were drunk and stoned out of our minds. I wanted to let him know that there were a few of us who were (almost) totally sober and simply intrested in enjoying the purity of this particular moment in time, and the beauty of spending just one more night living the dream here in the amazingly beautiful desert night of Joshua Tree.

I doubt if I've ever played any better than that, and when I lowered my harp the ranger had kind of a stunned look on his face, as if he couldn't beleive a smelly, grizzled old has been climber could create something so starkly beautiful from thin air.

"That was awesome, you play really well!"

"Thanks," I said. "You know, it's kind of weird being up here on New Years like this. I'd really like to just play some music with my friends as the night goes on, but I know you are hear to enforce this quiet hour. You have your job to do, and we want to play our music and celebrate the new year."

"Well, you know, it's not an easy job to do, but I'll see what I can do."

He left after that, off on his rounds I assume. Still, I have to wonder if my playing might have had an effect on him. We didn't see any rangers again until half past midnight when they showed up to bust the big party at the drummers camp next door.

I'd given up on jamming with the band by then, and, not having the energy to do the fire dance I'd taken myself off to bed. The partiers were only 30 feet away on the other side of a boulder so I wasn't getting any sleep, but I heard the rangers trying to break up the party.

"Happy New Years everybody!" the rangers shouted over the drums.

Big drunken cheers.

"Is everyone having a good time?" More drunken cheers.

"Now we know this is New Years, but the party does have to stop soon as it's past midnight and there are people trying to sleep."

"Screw 'em!" several drunken climbers yelled. This inevitable confrontation between the drunken climbers and the sober rangers was the primary reason I'd hit the sack at midnight. I didn't want to be a part of it. I consider myself a law abiding citizen, and I didn't want to make the rangers job any harder than it was already. Sadly though, my fellow climbers felt they had to give the rangers a bunch of grief and they proceeded to do so. The rangers took it pretty well. They were clearly not expecting to win a debate with that many drunks, especially considering there were probably only two rangers, though I was inside my tent by then and not counting faces.

The rangers left, and the drums started up again, though without as much abandon as before and the party continued. I tried to sleep as I knew I had to hitch to town at dawn to get out car from coyote junction and drive home in the afternoon but the party was too loud. I remember hearing Amy start to sing one of her country songs, and thought breifly about getting up, but it seemed like too much trouble. They are all so much younger than I am...us old guys need our beauty sleep. I was sad to hear in the morning that Tucker had picked up the guitar again...I really wanted to do one more jam with him.

Once I warm up on my guitar I'm determined to find someone locally with whom I can start jamming with. I may be old, but I still have some music left in me.

12-29-07

We've been in Joshua Tree for 12 days climbing on the harsh desert granite. We are camped beside Andrew (Pink) , Monty and Dave. This morning we were drinking coffee waiting for the air to heat up when two great looking gals walked up and asked if we knew Andrew. They knew him from an online forum and had promised to look him up. I was still glowing from my last jam session with Smith and asked if they played any instruments. Amy said she had a guitar, and Jessica had a violin. I asked Amy if she could play three chord rythm and blues and she thought she could figure it out.

When I told them that I could also play traditional folk songs, Jessica asked me if I had the sheet music for violin.

"No, I don't have any sheet music with me"

"Not a problem," Jessica said. "I can play by ear".

"That's awesome!" I said. "We can make some beautiful music...hmmm, that sounds like a pick up line: Hey baby, we can make some beautiful music together!"

Jessica gave me a mischievous wink, shimmied her hips (a motion we women starved men would soon come to love) and sang: "yeah baby, we'll see you later!"

We hadn't seen any women close up for almost two weeks so when Jessica and Amy showed up that night at nine oclock we were psyched. Andrew (who knew I was happily married) had been kidding me about the "big date" for several hours, asking me if I'd put clean sheets in my sleeping bag.

Trailing along behind Amy and Jessica came a young man who was soon to become my new best friend. His name was Tucker and he is a 25 year old piano tuner/restorer from Portland, Oregon. In addition to playing the piano, Tucker is a phenomenally talented guitar player. He can play every thing from Brazilian swing jazz through rythm and blues, Frank Sinatra and even 1930's Missippi delta blues. We were soon rocking around the campfire like a couple of kids in a candy store. Music is such a perfect gift and an awesome way to stay warm as the frosty night air settles around the campfire.

Jessica, Amy and Tucker soon became part of our climbing party both on and off the rock. I took Tucker and Jessica up Bat Crack in a scary climb that ended up with a night rappel off intersection rock. It was Tucker's first multi-pitch route, his third pitch ever outside, and definitely his most scary rappel.

Jessica was the first off the edge. She didn't want to take the time to anchor with her daisy despite the 50 meter drop off, the rapidly darkening twilight and the 40 degree temperatures. I was anchored safely with my daisy so I grabbed a sling hanging from her harness, hoping I could stop her if she lost her balance and tripped over the edge.

We were very concious of the need to hurry and get off before pitch dark, but we were moving a little too fast. Jessica passed the rope though her belay plate, clipped the belay plate dangle wire to her harness and started to lean back. "Stop! Stop!" I yelled and she quickly stepped back up to the anchor and away from the edge. She had forgotten to clip the double ropes though her locking biner. We looked at each other in horror as we realized how close she had come to the "big rappel in the sky".

During all this Tucker had been sitting on the top of the rock, unanchored in the deepening twilight. I asked him to slide over toward the edge where I would be able clip his daisy into the anchor. He was very hesitant to do so because the closer he got to the anchor and safety, the closer he got to the monstrous black drop off. I watched as his whole body trembled with terror while he took deep, shakey breaths, desperately trying to master his fear of heights. I stayed calm, reassuring him that is was totally ok to be nervous.

After the close call with Jessica I decided to not take a chance on Tucker and told him I'd set up his rap. He gladly assented, and I soon had him rapping down the cliff toward the safey of the walk off ledge. When the three of us walked up to the campfire where Austin, Amy, James, Monty, Robin, Richard, Dave and Andrew were cooking dinner, they treated us like shipwreck victims, rescued from the surf. Cameras appeared from everwhere and we vamped for a group hug.

Later that night we took our guitars, violin and harmonicas down to site 16 where we'd heard there was a big party with 20 bundles of wood and a sweat lodge. There were at least 40 people milling around a supersized firepit, listening to a small boom box and drinking beer and wine. Off to the side there was a sweat lodge built from the rain flys of several tents draped over a large fiberglass pole structure. When we told the head guy that we were a band, he pointed us toward a shelf of rock 3 feet above the fire big enough to hold Tucker, Amy, Jessica and I plus room for our instruments and hard cases.

He walked over and turned off the boom box and the crowd looked at us expectantly. Tucker got out his guitar, did a quick tune to my A harp and began playing the blues riff we'd practiced the night before. I was soon soaring back in time to the hippie days and playing the John Mayhall style harmonica blues I've become known for. When I get in that zone with my harp, I'm completely lost to the music. All I can see in my head is the beauty of the moment. My only concern is where Tucker was in the chord progression. Time seems to stretch out indefinitely as I sore up and down the blues riffs.

Tucker wound down after a ten minute session and the crowd started cheering, whooping and screaming for an encore. Amy took over then and sang her poignant original melody about a trip to Mexico, sung completely in Spanish. She is a very talented singer/songwriter and the crowd loved it.

We had them in our hands after that and Jessica and I did two duets: violin and harmonica. First we did Scarborough Fair together. We'd practiced the night before and had it down to a tee. The violin has no frets and it amazes me how she can play in perfect pitch to my harmonica.

We'd learned the night before that we had to stand nose to nose, headlamp to headlamp so that I could watch her fingers on the neck and the movements of here violin bow. As I played and watched for clues to when she was changing notes, I'd occasionally become distracted by the beauty of her expression as she lost herself in the moment. She played with her eyes closed, and an expression of perfect peace on her face. We were both entirely swept away by the beauty of the music we were creating together.

The crowd had become perfectly quiet as we played, but exploded into raucous applause when we finished, shouting: "More! More!" I looked into her lovely face, alive with the joy of the moment and gave her a big hug for the crowd and the perfection of the moment.

Later that night as I stood around the campfire I watched the high blinking lights of a plane passing overhead, hoping desperately that Sue had broken down and bought a plane ticket to join me, despite the cost. If only my lovely wife were with me, I missed her terribly.

When we left them at the end of the trip, I said "These crusty bastards are ok, but when you guys showed up, you brought the love...group hug everybody!"

Austin and James met a guy named Smith Curry and his lovely wife early in the trip and invited them over for dinner. Smith at first seemed like just another rowdy, noisy party animal, drinking too much and telling bawdy stories in an overly loud voice. What stopped me from judging him too harshly was the stellar beauty and character of his wife. She was a lovely southern bell with a face to lose your heart in. They were clearly deeply in love and she would gently chide him when he got off on an expecially abrasive story.

Apparently the bunch of them had spent the day over on chimney rock with a young hotty and her newby boyfriend. It was Smiths opinion that my partner Austin was the better man for the young hottie, and he so proclaimed at the top of his voice that Nate had no chance at all of satisfying Kaitlin (the young hottie) because his member was too small. He said it would be like trying to fill a hallway with a hotdog. He wasn't just commenting lightly, he was shouting this illuminating statement at full volume.

Still, something about the guy, and his obvious love for his beautiful wife kept me at the campfire talking with him. Finally Smith got up to take a pee and his wife mentioned that he was a working professional musician, making a good living as a session musician in Nashville. She also said he had toured for several years with Kid Rock as the dobro, steel guitar player. She said he was an awesome musician, but would never talk about it as it wasn't his nature. She told us to put a guitar in his hands and we would be stunned.

When Smith came back Brett got out his guitar and played for a while but Smith seemed like just another happy drinker around the campfire, listening to Brett play while he told more stories and drank beer. I was beginning to wonder if he would ever play for us. Brett had put his guitar away when Smiths wife asked him if he would play the guitar. He looked at her kind of strange, like, what?

"Play the guitar Smith," she said gently, as if to a child. "Play us some music."

"Oh, sure," he said. "Break that puppy out!"

As soon as he touched it he began doing some very advanced tuning, things I'd never even known were possible like strumming the b and e keys together and tuning them based on how they sound together.

In very short order his fingers were flying across the keyboard picking out fluid melodies faster than seemed humanly possible. The guy was definitely a working professional musician as advertised.

He played for a while and then I asked him if he knew how to play the three chord rythm and blues progression that I specialize in. He asked me some complicated questions about keys, cross chord harmonics and music theory before I simply took the guitar and started playing the progression of chords I needed.

Smith instantly recognized it, picked up the guitar and played the best damn blues progression I'll probably ever hear outside of the Paramount Theatre. When I'm served up a smorgasborg of sound like that I can really take off and run with it.

His timing and progression was very creative, while simultaneously so reliable that I was able to take risks with my riff, knowing I could always find my way back if I got lost. He was a stunning guitarist, the best I've ever heard.

When I ran out of breath a few minutes later, everyone was on their feet around the campfire grooving to the music. Smiths wife was looking at me with huge eyes.

"You should come to Nashville, you might be able to make a living with that harmonica."

I'll write more later. I just arrived home and have been up for 30 hours straight. We drove straight through from Joshua Tree in 22 hours. I have 3 gigs of pictures to boil down.

12-13-07

Halfway through the month and I've only written twice. As usual, most of my writing has been going into online forums since almost no one can read this. I've been looking for people to climb with during the break and have found three other people. I taught Dreamweaver and web principles to two different classes this quarter. The first class was mostly graphic design students and they seem to struggle with web design more than the regular media students. I think it's because in graphic design, they just spent a year focusing on one software program at a time, whereas in web design, we commonly use up to 6 programs at a time, and within dreamweaver, we can have 10 html pages open at once, coordinating between them. It's no wonder they get confused.

Oddly, the very students who get the most confused, are often the ones who end up with the best web sites. Perhaps it is because they are simply biting off more than they can chew. Because they want to learn it, they ask lots of questions, I walk them through it and they end up with a great looking website.

I have other students for whom it comes very easy, yet they don't have that same drive, and they end up with a website that isn't nearly as good as the student who struggled with web. This teaching is a strange business.

As I write this I am experiencing my second light dizzy spell in two weeks.These are the first dizzy spells I've had in 5 years. I don't have any unusually loud ringing, just a light dizzyness as I walk around the house. It's not bad, but I can't stand on one foot, and turn my head at the same time as there is a light spinning sensation. It's really frustrating as I am hoping to do some climbing soon, maybe even tonight at the gym.

It could be lack of food. I was trying to fast today as I will be sitting all day grading finals, but I've decided to have a light breakfast in case that is the trouble. The dizzyness might also be work related stress. This has been a brutal quarter. I had many more students than usual asking a lot of questions.

My dizzy spell got pretty bad. I took myself off to the garage with my barf bucket. I sat there and stared at the table. It looked like it was slowly spinning up and down, or left and right based on what movement my head had most recently done. It was most disconcerting and I lost my breakfast. This disease is baffling. Why me? Why now? Anyone with a serious illness has probably asked themselves that question. I think of my friend Paul, in the grave now for 7 years after stomach cancer. I should consider myself lucky to have such a minor disease. I may not have another attack for years, or it could be next week. It came and was gone within about 3 hours.

12-1-07

We have an inch of snow, on this, a Sunday on the first day of December. Sue drove the 1991 Corolla up the driveway so Lisa could have a car to get to work in case it continued to snow. I got up as they were leaving and tried to put the truck up there, but the snow was already too slick so I'm stranded here. They are forecasting rain later today.

I've been writing a lot in a couple different online forums instead of here. Writing here is like writing in a vacuum because it's not public. Maybe two people at most read this as no one else cares or remembers the passwords. When I write in forums, people respond within minutes, so it feels much more like a conversation with the "greater mind", which was what online journals were supposed to be back when I started this one in 1997.

This one is locked off because my first boss at the college where I work didn't like one of my 1999 journal entries where I was talking frankly about the disease that led to my deaf left ear.

This week I climbed at the gym 4 days out of 5. Monday I had to belay, and climbed for half an hour with Austin...I think...who happened to be there. Tuesday I dropped by and Nick and Ciara were there and we climbed for a couple hours. Thursday I dropped by to meet Austin who was belaying, and James H., who wanted to meet Austin and I about a possible upcoming climbing trip.

Marty was also there, though he was climbing with Dave from the Hardies. Later James showed up, and Austin, James and I climbed together for a couple hours until around 8:30, leading and falling off a bunch of low tens. It's great fun to fall there, though some of the new hangars are on wall that aren't as steep as the normal lead routes, so the potential for snagging an ankle on the way down are higher. I need to be very cautious and selective about what I fall off.

We went down to baby sit mom yesterday while dad went to choir rehearsals. Her dementia is depressing to watch. The poor girl is just a shadow of her former self, and to think I could end up in that situation in 30 years is scary. My aunt Mary Ellen pegged it pretty well when she commented: "Getting old isn't for sissies".

My weight has ballooned up to 170 again. I watched myself snack all day at dad's house, knowing it was going to bite me in the rear. I seem to have no will power. So for 24 hours I'm determined not to eat anything but tea, though my tea is half milk and half water. The last time I did this I couldn't sleep well because of hunger pains, so I might have a yogurt for dinner, or maybe a small salad.

This is a poem my uncle Richard wrote. He broke his hip, sold his house and moved into a managed care home down in California. Of the four siblings from that generation, he is the only one who isn't religious. Despite this, he writes poetry very similar to his father (my grandfather) who was a missionary and a Presbyterian minister.

Reflection
backward, backward, o time in thy flight
make me young again, just for tonight!
take away my walker, my wheel chair,
yes, and my tousled head of grey hair.
Though I won't be going very far,
I'll have to have returned my old car.

Dominoes and bingo don't appeal to me,
nor does lingering over a cup of tea.
I want to run again, climb a tree again;
even work in my old garden once again.

Poems like these are quite simple to compose;
yet all they can do is tell you of my woes.
By Richard Webster

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