Silver Wings...Slowly Fading Out of Sight

I stopped for the light, and began flipping through channels on my radio when my ears caught the first few notes of a song from somewhere deep in my past... Silver Wings. 

Silver wings shining in the sunlight;

Roaring engines headed somewhere in flight.

It transported me to my usual table at the Rhein-Main NCO Club with a live band performing the song. It could have been one of many nights I was in the club having a last hurrah with someone who was getting ready to leave for good or maybe just departing for an extended vacation back in the States. Either way, the song always paused the good-time being had and replaced it with the depth of what was happening-- someone was about to get on a plane and leave the rest of us behind.

They’re taking you away, leaving me lonely;

Silver wings slowly fading out of sight.

When you’re doing a military overseas tour, everyone usually comes and goes via an airplane, which leads to it becoming a weighty symbol of eventual departure. I knew many folks who had countdown calendars on their wall that prominently featured an aircraft taking off. It served as the last element of your tour–the plane hitting the sky.

People flowing in and out of an overseas base is constant, resulting in a string of gatherings to say hello and goodbye. The hellos were mostly just functionary — trying to get to know someone new. The farewells take an emotional toll as someone you’d grown to rely on was going to vanish. It’s hard to understand an environment that lacked social media and instant email unless you actually lived in it. The only means of communication we had were very expensive phone calls or writing letters that took both time and effort.

“Don’t leave me,” I cry;

Don’t take that airplane ride.

But you locked me out of your mind;

Left me standing here behind.

How Silver Wings became a tradition at farewell parties is easily understandable. The lyrics are simple and the music too -- one verse, one musical bridge, and a chorus that repeats three times. It would pierce the psyche, then burrow deep. The song would momentarily pause the joy and leave nothing but raw emotion as you said goodbye to somebody you cared about, someone whose presence you came to rely on. In the end, the only thing left was watching their plane fading away in the sky the next morning. 

Luckily, the song is short enough that it ends before the emotion of the moment overcomes you but it’s long enough to hear a few whispered words from the person leaving that you’ll never forget. Perfect.

Hearing Silver Wings now brings back those memories along with a sting of the blues, as I think about the people I bid farewell. Except for one person, who ended up transferring into my last duty station during my last year of service, I never ran into any of those people again. But who knows what tomorrow holds? Besides, melancholy over the past is proof that you lived a full life rather than one that was emotionless.

Slowly fading out of sight.

There was one other song I vividly remember as a tradition from those days, but Waitress, Oh Waitress brings more laughs than introspection.

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Squiggly Lines On a Page -- NOW

When I finished my ramblings about the Lynyrd Skynyrd Memorial Project in November, I  jumped into a short story that had been playing through my mind.  The story, entitled Words Ever Unspoken, is the tale of two former lovers who meet to exchange some property which one had left with the other when they broke up years before. Eventually, it will become part of a short story collection to be released later this year.  Creating that single-story took an emotional toll as I worked my way through both characters creating the conversation they were having with each other as well as the one taking place internally. After extensive editing, and finally declaring the missive done, I found myself needing to get away from putting words on paper.

The timing was good because with family goings-on during the holidays, it would've been challenging to find time alone to write. Now, after the first of the year, I find myself creating and conniving reasons not to sit down at a keyboard. The constant flow of story ideas which I have been blessed with has not stopped, just the desire to make them more concrete than a wisp of smoke in the wind. The only positive thing about this is that other activities I had procrastinated about are finally getting done.

For those of you playing armchair psychiatrist, this is not the winter blues. I usually discover creativity hidden somewhere within the blues. Overall, my mood is excellent. I don't want to do the writing thing at the moment.

To snap out of it, I opened a document and wrote almost 3000 words describing the stuff sitting upon my desk. It may seem like an odd exercise, but I was hoping I would burst into a story about one of the action figures or something else in the bizarre collection of memorabilia with which I surround myself. After all, I keep all of these things around to inspire creativity. No such luck, although I now have a detailed inventory of the items on my desk should I ever need one for insurance purposes.

I know that this will pass. I want it to pass more quickly. Just like I know my lack of production will pass so will the availability of time to create. I hate to lose the opportunity I have right now.

In interviews, I say I've never had Writer's Block. I've never been without words or lacking a story to tell. That is still true even now. I have an entire humorous story in my head, the beginning of my next book about Evan Davis, and the next three chapters of my crime novel about stealing a dictator's treasure. What I lack is the motivation to put squiggly lines on a piece of paper.

Ack.

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BB King, Master Bluesman

 

About three years ago, I had the pleasure of sitting in the audience and watching a true bluesman at work. BB King was doing a concert in Kalamazoo and even though he was in his 80s it was one of the finest live performances I had ever seen. He sat in a chair at center stage with Lucille across his lap then sang and played for a solid two and half hours. He took breaks often to tell stories, and even spoke about his diabetes and how it had affected him over the years. Even though I was sitting in a sell-out crowd the performance was still intimate.

 

His voice was still as strong as it had been in every recording I'd ever heard and his guitar licks were intricate and one-of-a-kind. He talked briefly about the Gibson plant that used to be in Kalamazoo, and his love for that brand of guitar. He talked about his daughters and several different times during his performance he gave away various bits of bling to women in the audience. It was an awesome night.

 

On May 14, 2015, BB King is passed on and with him a special kind of blues that can never be replicated. I’ve played the guitar since I was 14 and have always included the blues as part of my repertoire – – but I never tried to copy anything that BB King ever did. It was sacrosanct to me and knowing I could never replicate the sounds and feel what he expressed through his music I never attempted to do it myself. It just would've been wrong.  BB King was meant to be enjoyed only from the master.

 

But the performance I saw of him in Kalamazoo was not the first time I saw BB King live. In the late 80s, I was in New Orleans for temporary duty with the Air Force Reserve and found myself on Bourbon Street with several friends enjoying the hospitality the city had to offer. After having several hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's and drinking more than a few $6 beers at the various venues as we walked down the street, I heard a sound coming from another bar a bit further on.

 

It was 1 or 2 AM and my friends were ready to turn around and head back to the car to call it a night but something told me we needed to make time for one more bar.  I motioned for my friends to follow me and walked down to the open door of the bar from which the sound of blues was pouring forth.  We walked in without paying a cover, and took a seat in the nearly empty bar. Up on stage was a small five-piece band, which featured at its center large black man holding a Gibson guitar.  I knew immediately who it was but couldn't believe he was performing in such a small venue and that we had lucked into the performance.  

 

We stayed for the rest of the set, and heard some of the most amazing music. I had never heard of guitar cry before that night; but BB King could draw that sound out of an instrument in a way I never heard anyone ever do before or since. His performance was energetic and fueled by the intimacy of the environment and the crowd around him who was enthralled and mystified by the music he was making.  I still have no idea why he was there,  but was glad I was able to be part of it.

 

Now that he is gone, I will still enjoy the music he left us with and the fond memories of seeing him performing live. When I close my eyes I will see him standing there in that small bar in New Orleans, with his guitar in hand, and rocking side to side as his fingers moved up and down the neck of the instrument drawing from it sounds that only he could. RIP BB King.

 

 

 

 

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Every Now and Then Take a Dive into the Delicious Deep Blue Melancholy

Saturday night I got off work and for some reason I happened to walk out of the building right when it was time to take down the flag for the day.  If you have not been on a military base when flags are raised and lowered, it happens without fail twice a day it is always preceded by a bugle call which alerts you that is about to happen. When the bugle starts the world on the base, at least the world outside the buildings, pauses.

Vehicles stop where they are on the streets, quite often the driver will get out of the vehicle and face the flag or the direction of the music. Pedestrians and workers who are outside will stop, turn to face the music, and bring themselves to attention. At this point either Reveille or Retreat will be played and those in uniform are salute the flag. Since I am a retiree now, and thanks to an act by Congress about seven years ago, I have the option of saluting as well. Then while the music is played, the flag is raised or lowered and at the last note of music you drop your salute and continue on about your business.

The unique thing to me is the fact that everybody stops during those two times a day and has a chance to take a pause to remember why we are here, wherever here happens to be. Ever since I put on a uniform, seeing the flag raised and lowered has taken on a special meaning. It is not that I did not know symbolism of those actions before, as a Boy Scout I participated in many flag ceremonies, it just took on a different meaning when I was the person in uniform charged with protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States of America.

More so than just patriotic feeling, or the remembrances that I have during those few moments when the world is paused.  I think about those I have known in uniform who served faithfully with me and are no longer here for one reason or another. I think about all the places that I have served that were outside of the United States ---  those places that for some reason we as a people decided were worthy of our protection and worth the risk of spilling the blood of our sons. I think about all the times that I've spent far away from home doing something that I have always felt was justified and worthwhile. Even though there were times I questioned the wisdom of what we were involved in, I never doubted that in the end some righteous cause was being served.

It is easy at these times to open myself and allow my spirit to be taken to a place that is not happy or joyous but tends to be rather blue or melancholy. I've never been one of those who feels that we were ever supposed to be happy all the time, there are events in life that will always get us down but even if we bring ourselves down by remembering things and events in our life that were less than joyful this is not a bad thing. To me it is how you keep in touch with the root feeling of who you are – – it reminds you that there are things of value that were part of your life that are no longer there for one reason or another.  You must allow yourself to wallow in times that were lonely or sad and therefore caress the human side of your spirit. I think that Americans spend too much time trying to ensure they are continually happy when allowing themselves to indulge in a blue mood now and then would actually make them appreciate happiness more and make them well-rounded individuals. All those blues songs were written for a reason – – listen to the lyrics, allow the music to bathe you, and enjoy the down feeling for a moment or two. 

After Retreat was over I continued my walk to my car and upon climbing in whipped out my iTouch and played a Merle Haggard song from long ago that was always filled with deep emotion for me. Silver Wings has never matched up with anything that ever occurred in my life, but when I was a young Airman in Germany it was a song that was always played at going away parties.  It became one of those happy to be blue songs that somehow work themselves into your collective consciousness even though the lyrics of the song in no way match the event that you pair with it. There was also another song about waitresses, originally by The Popes covered by every bar band in Europe, that holds a lot of memories as well but of a totally different kind.

So with that start of the evening, I went home and walked Falkor and then sank into my recliner and watched several old movies that allowed me to deeply sink into the funk that had started a few hours earlier. I pondered memories of other times and other places allowing them to gently dance across my psyche.

  

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