In It for the Long Run: A Musical Odyssey

A New Life

A NEW LIFE Since our amazing trip to Louisiana, Carol and I had been doing our besttoweaveourlivestogether.WhenIcameintothepictureSarahwas nineteen, living in Boston, and getting ready to go to Indiana University to study recorder and early music. Matthew was fifteen and Sonya was thirteen. They were in the local schools and lived part of the time at Carol’sandpartofthetimeattheirdad’s.Carolandherformerhusband Peterhadbeendivorcedforaboutfiveyearsandshehadhadtwoorthree relationships during that time, so it was no surprise that my arrival was not greeted with any great enthusiasm by the kids. As I have often said aboutthetimeSonyafirstlaideyesonme,“Iflookscouldkill,I’dbedead.” I had my work cut out for me. If I couldn’t gain the acceptance of these threepeople,CarolandIwouldhavetorespectthat.AllIcoulddowould be to get to know them, help them if I could, and have them accept me for who I was. It would have to come naturally over time. This was a big change for me. I’d been getting used to the idea that I might be a bachelor like Uncle Jim or Bob Webster. I’d given up chasing the girls (pretty much). Instead, there were annual trips to Spring 238 THE LONG RUN traininginFloridawithWebster,PatAlger,andwhoeverelseshowedup; trips to Keeneland, Churchill Downs, and Ellis Park to watch the horses run; baseball junkets to Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee (for NolanRyan’s300thwin),theBaseballHallofFameinCooperstown(the year Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski, and Harry Caray were inducted). I could do as I pleased. Come and go when I wanted. So why would I want to change all this and complicate my life at this late date? Because Iknewinstinctively,downdeepinside,thatitwouldbeworthit.Itwould requiremetothinkaboutpeopleotherthanmyself.Itwouldstretchme. It would challenge me. It would make me grow. GoingwithCarolmeantquiteachangeinlifestyle.I’dbeenanapartment dweller for fifteen years. Carol lived in a 200-year-old farmhouse with woodstoves for cooking and heating. The wood had to be stacked and split. She had a big vegetable garden, which had to be dug, weeded, and watered. In the summer she lived in a tepee out by her pond. It was allverypicturesque,butitwasalotofchangetodealwith.Astimewent by, though, we began to work things out between us. There was another mestillaliveunderthe“bachelor”me.Therewasthekidwhohelpedhis dad saw down big trees with a two-man crosscut saw and then bucksawed the branches into firewood. There was the kid who’d worked on thefarmpickingberriesinthesummer.Therewasthekidwhooiledthe porch and painted all the trim on the house in Green Harbor. There was the young man who bought the WholeEarthCataloguewhen he moved to Woodstock, and, with his wife Sheila, planted a vegetable garden and transformed their cottage in the three years they lived in it. Gradually, thisother“Jim”begantosurface.Hedidn’tliketoexercise,buthelikedto work.HelikedtheZenofdiggingthegardenrowbyroworstackingwood piecebypiece.Carolmadesomeadjustmentstoo.WhenIexplainedthat I was too tall to hunker down and sit cross-legged all the time and that the smoke and mosquitoes and dampness in the tepee were too much for me, we settled on an L. L. Bean tent with air mattresses. We built an outdoor pantry and stone circle campfire with a round iron grill on it. I couldgetupinthemorning,startafire,cookbreakfastandlaterontake a swim in the pond. I was living a new life. One way I had to connect with Sonya and Matthew was through the music I was bringing into their lives. Right away, Sonya loved Iris DeMent .IhadbroughtupacassetteofInfamousAngelbeforeitcameout,and InfamousAngelbeforeitcameout,and InfamousAngel 239 ANewLife Sonya and Carol nearly wore it out playing it in the car every time they wenttotown.MatthewlovedRobertEarlKeen’sWestTexturesalbum.He WestTexturesalbum.He WestTextures had a beat-up old pickup truck and was just breaking into the Strafford VolunteerFireDepartment,andRobertEarl’smusicspoketohim.They alreadyknewaboutNanci.Carolhadheard“OnceinaVeryBlueMoon” and “Goin’ Gone” on a local folk radio show long before she knew I had anythingtodowiththem.Eventually,CarolbroughtthekidstoNashville andtheygottomeetIris,Nanci,JohnPrine,PatAlger,andHalKetchum. Atoneofmymany“50th”birthdayparties,SonyaandMatthewshowed off their swing dancing skills, Matthew recited a poem, Sarah played a recorder/gambapiecewithherfriendTimMerton,andCarolsangoneof Jean Ritchie’s songs. I felt that they were happy to come into my world. My friends were also happy to see the new me—the family man. Itwasn’tallroses.OnceortwiceIbumpedheadswithMatthewwhen I’dgetbetweenhimandCarol.IlostitwithSonyaandoneofherfriends one day when they were acting up and I told them to “shut the fuck up.” I had to apologize, which I did right away, but I heard about it from Sarah, whowasgoingtoprotectherlittlesister.CarolwouldcallmeoutwhenI dominatedtheconversationtoomuchorwouldgetpissedoffand“bully” her. I was used to having my own way and to running things the way I wanted to run them. If I wanted this to work, I’d have to learn to listen more and to communicate better. I hadn’t been ready to...