House on the hill

As I flip through the calendar pages of 1996, there’s not a lot to choose from between the piano and violin lessons, kid sleepovers, dentist and doctor appointments, and trips to the park until we come to June 25, which has MOVING DAY scrawled across it. Lock, stock, and barrel, we were picking up and moving up the coast, to Massachusetts, about an hour north of Boston, which, if nothing else, meant we were still going to be in Van territory. It’s not that I would choose where to live based solely on how frequently Van comes to play, but by the same token, I don’t see me moving to Montana or Missouri anytime soon either. Continue reading →

Don’t let me break down

Into each life a little change must come. I was game. Now that the kids had graduated from the diaper stage, had passed toilet training with flying colors, could dress themselves, and eat with a knife and fork, we were ready to take on the world. It’s 1996. Continue reading →

To answer Haji’s question: Yes, we are ready to party. It’s Canada Day for Dennis and me, reason to celebrate, and what better way than a night of Van. Jones Beach is in the middle of nowhere, Long Island, New York, with a parking lot the size of Singapore. Which meant only one thing: tailgate party, just like the football fans do. Not being a serious football fan, this was going to be my first. And you know me, always game to do something once. Dennis and I had brought enough alcohol for a carload, but it was just we two. A 40-oz J&B and a 40-oz Southern Comfort. Which we did our level best to demolish. Continue reading →

Hello, New York

“Are you ready to parr-tee with us tonight?” Haji, doing the MC duties

This is as good a time as any to stop, look around, and take stock of the situation. The Van fan situation. At this point I had been listening to his music for twenty-six years, had been to a total of seven concerts. By definition, the concerts were the icing on the cake, a thin veneer of icing, but it was what it was and it never occurred to me that I was missing something, that I should do more, want more; I just did what I did, listen to the music, at times exclusively, and saw the odd show – that was my life as far as Van’s music was concerned. Contained. Nothing rocking any boats here. I never talked to anybody about Van, I never met anybody at any cocktail party or whatever who knew who I was talking about. Or if they did, they couldn’t have cared less. Not that I was out giving that theory a test all that much; if we were partying at someone else’s house, I’d more likely as not have gone off to wherever they kept their books and be sitting there with my head in a book I’d not seen before. It was like a book previewing service supplied by my hosts. I wasn’t beneath ranking these parties based on the host’s book collection. The world has enough social butterflies. And that’s OK. I love books. Continue reading →

Homeschooling was a great way to get to know my kids – having them home, watching them grow up, doing stuff with them, learning along with them, finding out what really makes them tick, what they love, what they hate. When there was a problem, there was always enough time to sort it out; and whenever something good was going on, there was no bell to tell us we had to stop. We just kept on going. And along the way, I encouraged them to always follow their dreams, that if they didn’t, no one else would do it for them; to challenge authority; and above all else to be responsible, to think, for themselves. I’m afraid I was a bit of your peace, love, and understanding kind of mentor; but I figured they’d meet enough other people in the course of their lives who might be more the ballistic missile types, not that there’s anything wrong with that, just I was looking to get my piece in while I had the chance. And in the meantime, we all had a good time: they got a chauffeur and I got to relive my childhood, this time with no gold stars being handed out. Continue reading →

Good morning little schoolgirl

In American society there are certain ties that bind, and some places they bind you tight. Coming from the bright lights big city of Toronto to suburban New England, the first round peg in a square hole was religion. It seemed that everyone had one here. Except we had come from a place where mostly everyone didn’t have one. We sure didn’t have one. Continue reading →

We’ve got seats in the left orchestra, not terribly close to the stage, but not so far either. I have a couple of distinct memories of this show, neither of them particularly memorable, but there you go. The first is watching what seems like a constant rotation up on stage. First Jimmie Witherspoon was on, then he was off and Van was on, then he’s off and Junior Wells is on and then Van’s on, then they are both off and Witherspoon is back on and then off and Van is back. All this off an’ on and back and forth, it was enough to make me go for a bromo. Just stand in one spot. Don’t move. Continue reading →

I got my karma from here right to New York

By 1994, we’d moved from the house with the half court to a house in the next town over, inching ourselves closer to New York by eight miles, shaving two exits off the Merritt Parkway, heading in the New York direction. You’d have to know the Merritt to really appreciate just what a good feeling that is. It’s a beautiful highway. Wall to wall trees the length of that stretch – in midsummer it is a sea of green. That is its best feature by far: its sheer loveliness. Its worst feature is everything else. A divided four-lane highway, where the right driving lane doubles as the exit lane and exits came up rather frequently. The fewer of those exits you have to face when two or more cars are gathered together on the Merritt is directly proportional to the joy in your life. Continue reading →

The venue was an amphitheater at Lake Compounce – a theme park about twenty miles outside of Hartford, which claims to be the site of the oldest continuously running amusement park in North America. It was built in 1846 and has been in business to a greater or lesser extent ever since. During one of the lesser-extent years, they built the amphitheater to attract the crowds with acts like Neil Young, the Allman Brothers, and Bob Dylan. But its major claim to fame is that this is the stage in 1989 where Milli Vanilli got caught lip-synching – the record skips, the record skips. Continue reading →

Lost dreams and found dreams in America

The countless stories of America welcoming the downtrodden, the poor, the detritus, the fleers, all looking for freedom and the chance to make a buck, if they just put their nose to the grindstone, are the newsreel footage of the immigrant. That’s the white story at least. The black footage – well, not a lot of Statue of Liberty stories there. Continue reading →