It’s a day in 1991 and I am wandering with my good friend (now passed away) through a music store (long gone) in a small town mall (survival hanging by a thread). It was then and there that I encountered the album Living With The Law.
Chris Whitley’s music fit exactly into a bare and raggedy-assed niche in my musical soul that I hadn’t known existed.
Whitley himself died in 2005. So the friend, the record store, the performer, and the mall (nearly) are gone. It’s just myself and the album left from that day.
The music sounded brand-new yesterday, even though I’ve heard it scores of times..
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Robin and I spent Christmas in Durango this year. The weather was mild but there were enough icy patches that it took us three hours to cover the first 120 miles. While we basically have no snow on the ground here in Paradise, there was a thin layer on the other side of the southern passes.
I had a long talk with my friend Bill H. yesterday, who reminded me of times when my acrophobia caused some awkwardness in our travels together.
Going up into the clouds on a two-lane road with a sheer rock face on one side and eternity on the other was definitely not my preference in travel. I folded many times and timidly backed on down.
These days I am much more … I was going to say “comfortable” but that’s not quite right. I can now drive across the Red Mountain Road (also known as the Million Dollar Highway or Forty Miles of Abject Terror) in either direction without freezing at the wheel in a panic. I can even appreciate some of the scenery as I motor along.
This didn’t happen by accident. When we moved to Paradise, I found a small book on “curing” oneself of acrophobia entitled Overcoming Fear of Heights, and followed its instructions. Basically, they went like this:Walk out as far on the path as you can go until you just barely begin to feel distress, then stop and just stand there. Wait. If panic rises, go back two steps and pause there.
[Clicking on the link above will take you to a downloadable PDF of the entire book, if you know someone who might benefit from reading it.]
The advice has worked, although progress was by millimeters and not miles. There are places I cannot and probably never will be able to go, and I accept that. But I am not nearly the prisoner of geography and topography that I was when I first came to this country.
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Our pets have adapted to winter pretty well so far. It’s been mild enough that they can make short forays outside without too much inconvenience.
But Robin said something astounding this past week: “I miss cold weather!” were her exact words. “I miss standing there seeing my breath, bundled up and walking around with the chills.”
It was obvious that she needed emergency psychiatric help, so I tapped her just behind the right ear with the sap I carry for special occasions and self-defense. Gently loading her into the Subaru I took her to see Dr. Hermione Crock, who we keep on retainer. She’s not an MD, but a practitioner of ayurvedic socialistic humanistic opportunistic fairy dust quackalism.
Listening to my story, her august brow became so deeply furrowed that it began to trap lint from the atmosphere. She then raised a single finger and I was quickly subdued by two large and white-suited orderlies and whisked away to a comfortable room with the softest walls you’ll find anywhere.
“You can’t keep bringing your wife in whenever you disagree with her,” she said to me. “It’s just not done.”
It’s really not too bad here. Robin comes to visit every day, I was allowed to keep a crayon and some writing paper, and my only real complaint is that because I don’t have a belt my pants keep falling down. But they tell me that if I behave myself, I’ll be out in a fortnight.
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Little Home In The Valley 
I’ve never heard of Chris Whitley before, but I’m going to have to get hold of some. And that Tim Buckley is one of my favourites! First heard it about fifty years ago.
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I think you might like Whitley. Even though he died fairly young, there’s quite a lot that he recorded. He’s unique.
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Quackalism 😁
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Yeah…Quackalism.
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