Allman Was the Guitarist

Oh wow.  I’d been warned.  I haven’t the time this weekend to binge read.  But the first thirty pages or so I’ve read of Hellen McDonald’s “H is for Hawk” have surpassed my expectations and justified the hype.  Of course I’m on to Google images looking at dozens of pictures of goshawks.  Yes, I’ve gone to Wiki and tried to discern more about just who T. H. White was and I’m marveling at the language in her descent into just a bit of madness and think about the “Bell Jar” assignment my daughter had me read and of the way Robert Musil leads Clarissa off beyond the safety of the pages four corners.  She writes so fearlessly.  I’m looking forward to this. 

We’ve got a guest over from this morning.  A friend of my daughter’s from school, who’s home is back in Guangzhou.  School’s closed early.  His sister in NYC just had a baby.  Coulda gone all the way back to the Pearl River but was doing his college applications and was hoping to stay Stateside or the next few weeks.  We’re glad to have him, but it does of course mean changes.  I for one, no longer have a study. 

 

This morning I plodded around.  All my essentials had been moved to my closet.  So I got dressed in there and decided not to put on contacts in the closet.  Out in the dining room, I had my comfy desk chair.  This was the one thing I insisted on being able to maintain.  I swiveled around, the chord just a bit too short to comfortably reach any side of this dining table.  I used the bathroom.  Should that now be his bathroom?  I can’t remember if we decided about that.  I go inside and close the door.   He appears to be a late sleeper.  I read another ten pages of Mrs. McDonald. 

I wanted to get a turkey today up at Adams.  My wife wanted me to get three or four flagstones or her at Kalleco Nursery.  The ride up there on 213, through Rifton is really lovely.  The Roundout and the Wallkill come together by that lake.  There are some remarkable buildings along the road from hundreds of years ago and it is consistently interesting to then run into Kingston with all the abandoned industry and refurbished houses that make me feel I’ve gone through a mirror into an alternate Poughkeepsie.  Adams is a fine place to shop.  You have to resist buying so many wonderful things you don’t really need.  On the way home the Vassar radio station DJ announced he would be playing a series of tracks from the Mussel Shoals studio wherein Duane Allman was the guitarist at the session.  How is it I have never heard these things?  Glorious!  Wonderful tracks.  Wilson Picket playing “Hey Jude” with Duane on lead?  For real?   Unfortunately that Kalleco Nursery was closed at 4:15PM.  But I had a very nice drive over Marcotte Road from 209 which sure was pretty, anointed as it was, by Skydog.

 

 

 

Saturday, 11/21/20