Boyhood Slumber

"July [Johnson] wondered if perhaps the sleep of death would be as good, as comforting and warming, as his boyhood slumber. He had a rifle and a pistol -- one pull of the trigger would bring him all the sleep he wanted. In his five years as a lawman he had never shot anyone, though he had a reputation as a dangerous fighter. It would be a joke on everyone if the only person he ever killed was himself. He had always assumed that people who killed themselves were cowards. His own uncle had done it in a painful way, by drinking lye. His uncle had been deep in debt.

Now, as he sat and watched the moon, killing himself merely seemed sensible. His life had been ruined -- surprisingly, inexplicably, swiftly, but ruined for sure. He had made wrong choices all along, and it had cost three lives. Killing himself would put him at once with Roscoe, Janey, Joe -- and the horse. They had started travelling together; it would be fitting that they all ended in the same place."

- Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“Winter tightened its grip on Alaska. The vastness of the landscape dwindled down to the confines of their cabin. The sun rose at quarter past ten in the morning and set only fifteen minutes after the end of the school day. Less than six hours of light a day. Snow fell endlessly, blanketed everything. It piled up in drifts and spun its lace across windowpanes, leaving them nothing to see except themselves. In the few daylight hours, the sky stretched gray overhead; some days there was merely the memory of light rather than any real glow. Wind scoured the landscape, cried out as if in pain. The fireweed froze, turned into intricate ice sculptures that stuck up from the snow. In the freezing cold, everything stuck -- car doors froze, windows cracked, engines refused to start. The ham radio filled with warnings of bad weather and listed the deaths that were as common in Alaska in the winter as frozen eyelashes. People died for the smallest mistake -- car keys dropped in a river, a gas tank gone dry, a snow machine breaking down, a turn taken too fast. Leni couldn't go anywhere or do anything without a warning. Already the winter seemed to have gone on forever. Shore ice seized the coastline, glazed the shells and stones until the beach looked like a silver-sequined collar. Wind roared across the homestead, as it had all winter, transforming the white landscape with every breath. Trees cowered in the face of it, animals built dens and burrowed in holes and went into hiding. Not so different from the humans, who hunkered down in this cold, took special care.”

Kristin Hannah, The Great Alone

Oklahoma Outlaws

"You ever bring that old goddamned tongue of yours north of the Canadian [River] I'll cut it out and feed it to my wolf pups. That and your nuts, too. " - Bluford "Blue" Duck, Cherokee outlaw

Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

Super Bowl LII

Eagles 41

Patriots 33

Frankly sick of the yoopers calling it a mild winter. Mild winter my ass. Snows three inches on a bi-nightly basis and it's permanently 3 degrees. Kindergartener's puking left and right at school.

Listened to some really bizarre stations driving out of the U.P. and below the bridge late Friday night: IUPUI basketball; Sharks--Bluejackets Columbus broadcast; high school hockey galore; the London Knights(!) broadcast from Ontario; ESPN Cincinatti; Chicago sports radio; and a neverending loop of Rush Limbaugh zealots while scanning the radio dial, on which today's buzz word is "memo". Can personally guarantee that I was the only one on the Mackinaw Bridge to catch Ken Kal's trademark "Scores!" for Trevor Daley's second period Red Wings game winner. Not a car in sight. Saw lots of snowmobiles headed East across the U.P., clustering for untold events in yooper towns like Munising, Seney, Christmas, and Manistique, but in total no more than ten cars travelling in my direction towards St. Ignace and the bridge.

Arrived in Farmington Hills circa 1:00 a.m., jittery from coffee and the road. Alone in the dark, watched "All Eyez on Me," the moving Tupac biopic, and in the unsettling dawn I'm forced to face bitter truths about my sheltered childhood -- how my opinions about all rappers as artists were subconsciously molded by teachers, nuns, Reagan parents. Tupac was vulgar, sure, but I have a new respect for him as an artist. Maybe that's why I'm so outraged at society. A sheltered upbringing plus a mercurial personality.

Spent Saturday morning home alone at Frank's. Slept only about five hours but drank two large cups of dark coffee and had some wedding cake while watching "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: the Long Haul," listening to Shooter Jennings and Jason Isbell, and editing, for the hundredth time, chapter one of Visions of Yzerman. Serenity starting to take hold. Played some Alligator Jackson and the Wrinkle Neck Mules.

Later, drove home through the snow listening to the beginning of the Michigan-Minnesota basketball game, which started as slow as the traffic in Livonia-Westland. Met up with the parents and the three of us ventured out to Depot Town in Ypsilanti, where we joined Pat, Colette, Kate, and Kris for an early dinner at Maiz. Patrick looking more like Jesus -- or Johnny Damon, take your pick -- every time I see him. We're a pretty progressive bunch. Ate tacos and enchiladas while I shuffled back and forth to catch the end of the basketball game, an overtime Wolverines win sealed by Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman. Mom, Dad and I bitched about Trump the whole ride home (Dad's come a long way). Driving through Ypsi and Wayne, face unpleasant flashbacks to that summer I worked at the Washtenaw County PD Office, that summer my alcoholism started spiraling out of control.

Good times with the guys Saturday night at Frank's condo -- Adam, Bryan, Frank. Watched the Doc Ellis documentary. Goofballs left me to go out to "dinner," came back roaring drunk. Bryan got socked point blank with an indoor snowball. He and Frank engaged in a roughhouse game of tackle football wrestling. They're all passed out by eleven at the latest, after Taco Bell. Hockey Night in Canada and jams for me, please. We're mostly a progressive and hedonistic crew. "Mama, It's just my Medicine" blasts in the background.

Tampa Bay killing it under Steve Yzerman -- they're up 3-0 in the second period on HNIC from Vancouver. Come home, Stevie Y. "Sweet home Alabama, play that dead band's song. Turn those speakers up full blast, play it all night long."

Super Bowl Sunday

It's a dreary, snowy Super Bowl Sunday in metro Detroit. Jet-lagged (jeep-lagged?), I rose slowly before venturing outside to shovel the driveway for my parents. The woods hanging over Millwood Village were snow-capped like I remembered them. The smell of chimney smoke cut the cold air, and I found serenity again, for a time, remembering childhood snow days in those woods -- sledding down the banks of the Rouge River, or down Dead Man's Hill at the Nankin Mill. Lost serenity driving back over to Frank's, courtesy of impatient suburbanites racing each other to the grave.

Found Frank's condo deserted, again. Goofballs out getting drunk again, I presume. Winter weather advisory in effect for Wayne and Oakland counties. Aint no different here than in the Upper Peninsula. Reminds me of why I haven't quite run off to Alaska, yet. In an alternate life I should have went to law school in Baton Rouge, after all.

Bryan and I met up with our old friend Trey. We're a very progressive but multifarious group. Laughed harder with them than any other point of the weekend. When we returned, "the super bowl accident" heard 'round the condo cleared the place out pretty quick. Super Bowl more or less ruined by drunken debauchery and a short-temper -- an intra-cousin argument. Surprised to find myself feeling quite out of place, indeed, at the suburban super bowl parties.

Downright depressed Monday morning hitting the road North again. Lasted through Fenton, Mt. Morris, and Birch Run. Mood starting to lift past Saginaw and Flint, typical whitewash through No. Michigan -- West Branch, Gaylord, Indian River -- and massive ice glaciers beneath the Mighty Mac. Found some sort of serenity, again -- however fleeting -- at the 449 mile marker, a scenic pullout along Lake Superior that looks west to the pier-like town of Marquette, its city lights flickering under a brilliant pink, orange, and merlot sunset. The lake is frozen over clear across the Marquette Bay, rows of diagonal whitecaps frozen mid-crest as if stopped in time. A year to the day since I was in the psych hospital, again, so I guess I can say I'm doin' okay.

LET THERE BE ROCK!

Dropped acid, Blue Oyster Cult concert, fourteen years old
and I thought them lasers were a spider chasing me
On my way home, got pulled over in Rogersville, Alabama
With a half ounce of weed and a case of Sterling Big Mouth
My buddy Gene was driving, he just barely turned sixteen
And I'd like to say, "I'm sorry," but we lived to tell about it
And we lived to do a whole lot more crazy, stupid shit

And I never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd, but I sure saw Molly Hatchet
With a .38 special and the Johnny Van Zant Band

One night, when I was seventeen, I drank a fifth of vodka
On an empty stomach, then drove over to a friend's house
And I backed my car between his parents' Cadillacs without a scratch
Then crawled to the back door and slithered through the key hole
And sneaked up the stairs, and puked in the toilet
I passed out and nearly drowned, but his sister, Deedee, pulled me out

And I never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd but I sure saw Molly Hatchet
And the band I was in played "The Boys are Back in Town"

Skynyrd was set to play Huntsville, Alabama
In the spring of '77, I had a ticket but it got cancelled
So, the show, it was rescheduled for the "Street Survivors Tour"
And the rest, as they say, was history

So I never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd, but I sure saw Ozzy Osbourne
With Randy Rhoads in '82 right before that plane crash
And I never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd but I sure saw AC/DC
With Bon Scott singing, "Let There Be Rock Tour"
With Bon Scott singing, "LET THERE BE ROCK!"

- Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley
Drive By Truckers
"Let There Be Rock"