Redemption

I rake leaves today?  That's a very sad time for me? You?  Here we have this enthralling array of color that we celebrate for a couple of months? And we rake it up and hide it in SHINY BLACK PLASTIC BAGS just as soon as it hits the ground. We often color average as we put all the leaves in Orange bags and let them stick around for Halloween.

I think I include some posey I write a long time ago about leaves last year?  I'll have to go back and look.  If not, I'll have to include it this week sometime.

We go to hear my neighbor sing last night. His name is Todd Helvig.  You can say, "oh yeah, I heard of him when he just got going as a solo act."

He is struggling to define his genre and it is so excting to see that  struggle once again going on in a coffee house.  Amplifiers and Starbucks just about ruin that concept?  But I am now hearing students come back to class on Mondays saying, "heard some great poetry read this weekend."  "Wow you should have heard that accoustical set at the Coffee Pot Saturday night."

"Anybody catch that funky soul country gospel folk blend act down at the Cat Gut?"

Anyway, Todd has a fantastic Baritone voice with some midrange that perpendiculates your arm hair when he decides to kick it in.

And he is finding lyrics sucked from  his soul that ignore Iambic Pentameter. Some phrases I remember? "I swim until I drown," "I get rich from your hand I can hold," "I still need redemption."

Let me talk about the last phrase?  And that's because you have to be there to catch the subltlety. Any of you who have Scandanavian roots will understand.  You see in the riff right before that phrase? Todd's vocal bands are stretched to the max...a huge thoracic breath is carrying the anguished message blocks away?  But when he gets to the redemption phrase? His voice drops to a high energy softness. The Scandanavians invent the understatement.

I recall my Dad coming home from fighting a grocery store fire? He is limping slightly and still smells of burning carrots and cauliflower?

"Are you okay Dad?"

"Yep!"

"Weren't you scared?"

"Nope. Get to sleep."

"Are you hurt?"

"Nah. See you in the morning. Did you get that lumber picked up behind the garage like I asked?"

"No!!!!"

"Well get it done before you go to school tommorrow."

I'm watching a large grocery store totally go up in flame?  I'm hearing constant explosions? I later discover it's aerosol cans along the aisles giving in to the heat.

What I see are flames leaping from the roof like you see when they top trees in a forest fire?  Huge plumes of black smoke are rising into the air with each explosion.

What I also see? I see my Dad up on the roof  holding the end of a fire hose. I see one of those explosions?  Then I don't see my Dad.? He is gone. He falls down  in to the rafters below and somehow makes his way to the ground floor and out of the fire and calmly jumps back into the battle.

And what is it I ask him again?

"Are you okay?"

" Yep."

Actually? That's pretty communicative for my Dad.

He doesn't even have the courtesy to say, "guess I need some redemption." 

This clearly limits my readership. Most of you are scratching your scalps, saying, "Eh?"

Every Scandanavian, or son or daughter of a  Scandanavian, is saying, "OH YEAH!"

Or you're saying, "YAH!"

So, it's Sunday again.  And the BullyDozers just sit there stoically looking down on us.  They are being SO Scandanavian. I doubt if we ask them, "you guys okay?"

I doubt we'd even get a "Yep"or a "Nope" out of them.

[They also have these great baritone voices that carry for miles.]

You know if a bunch of Scandanavians caught me emoting about fall leaves? Or Dads? Or music?  I'm pretty sure they'd kick me out of Minnesota.  So let's just keep this between us, yah?