Little Towns We Do Not Know

 

Eads, Colorado

Demographics[edit]

As of the census[13] of 2000, there were 747 people, 320 households, and 193 families residing in the town. The population density was 1,579.7 people per square mile (613.7/km²). There were 389 housing units at an average density of 822.6 per square mile (319.6/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 95.85% White, 0.67% African American, 0.80% Native American, 1.47% from other races, and 1.20% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.95% of the population.

There were 320 households out of which 25.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.0% were married couples living together, 7.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.4% were non-families. 35.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 20.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.26 and the average family size was 2.93.

In the town, the population was spread out with 23.4% under the age of 18, 7.5% from 18 to 24, 24.1% from 25 to 44, 23.2% from 45 to 64, and 21.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41 years. For every 100 females there were 99.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.2 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $27,024, and the median income for a family was $35,625. Males had a median income of $29,375 versus $19,792 for females. The per capita income for the town was $16,944. About 7.0% of families and 12.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.8% of those under age 18 and 13.5% of those age 65 or over.

We blew through this little town, and now that I see the demographics off of Wikipedia I do mean “little”.  We have been having this problem with the rear tailgate on the Ford Escape we are driving.  It suddenly comes up with an error message (yes, just like your computer), an alarm starts beeping and you either have to have a stronger will than I do or else you stop, wherever you are, go to the back of the car and re-latch the rear tailgate.  That’s how I ended up stopping in Eads.  I don’t think we were there for more than ten minutes.  I did take a couple of pictures, but really, we keep moving when we have it in mind to get someplace.

It was February.  That means that there were not a lot of people outside their houses anyplace that we went unless we went to town center in the middle of the day, and even then people could be kinda sparse.  I was impressed by the lack of finish on the buildings.  They had allowed the wind (which I understand can be considerable and long), and the snow, and the rain, and the relentless sun to weather the boards on the houses.  I always wondered what “weathered” meant and now I know.

Haswell, CO

I don’t think I have a picture of Haswell, but it was a similar kind of town:

Demographics:

"As of the census[11] of 2000, there were 84 people, 31 households, and 24 families residing in the town. The population density was 99.8 people per square mile (38.6/km²). There were 41 housing units at an average density of 48.7 per square mile (18.8/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 90.48% White, 2.38% African American, 5.95% Native American, and 1.19% from two or more races.  

There were 31 households out of which 41.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 61.3% were married couples living together, 16.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 19.4% were non-families. 19.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.71 and the average family size was 3.04.  

In the town, the population was spread out with 33.3% under the age of 18, 8.3% from 18 to 24, 28.6% from 25 to 44, 16.7% from 45 to 64, and 13.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 127.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 124.0 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $30,938, and the median income for a family was $32,500. Males had a median income of $31,875 versus $9,750 for females. The per capita income for the town was $15,638. There were 25.0% of families and 27.3% of the population living below the poverty line, including 34.6% of under eighteens and none of those over 64.

Notable facilities[edit]"

Haswell is believed to have the United States' smallest jail.[12] The Jail is approximately 12 feet by 14 feet (Exterior Dimensions), which makes it several feet smaller in each dimension than that of Randsburg, California's jail.

Also, the Paul Plishner Radio Astronomy and Space Sciences Center is located a few miles from Haswell in a remote, radio-quiet area. The center includes a 60-foot parabolic dish antenna used for radio astronomy research.

I couldn’t help but notice “Paul Plishner Radio Astronomy and Space Sciences Center” as we drove past.  I thought that maybe it was a place where a reason for Haswell being might be.  Once again the town looked less than prosperous as I think the demographics off of Wikipedia suggest.  There is a lot of land in this country that is virtually unpopulated, and maybe even more that is literally unpopulated.

My hometown is Arlington, Washington.  There is an Arlington, Colorado.  I didn't even see a real building there as we drove through.  "The town of Arlington was established by the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1887. The Arlington Post Office opened on August 16, 1887."

I got a look at “badlands” in New Mexico.  I’m not following any timeline here, just jacking my jaws with my fingers improvising my thoughts.  There was more than one place, and believe me these lands are “bad”.  There’s nothing growing on them, which to my mind defines what “badlands” are.  I had to think that there had to be some kind of chemical reaction going on in the soil as the lands that surrounded these “badlands” had sage brush, tumbleweeds, grass, etc growing on it.  I have seen this in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, and New Mexico.  If there is any land like that in Washington state it is much more limited and I haven’t seen it (or don’t remember).  When I looked up “badlands” on Wikipedia I found their explanation much less than what I had hoped for.

We stayed in Bloomfield, NM for a couple of days.  Actually we arrived on a Tuesday after driving all day and left on Friday at 8 am.  We were doing our own thing there, using it as a base to visit Chaco Canyon, an Anasazi Indian archeological site.  We had been driving through almost all little towns.  We spent Monday night in Pueblo, CO which is a considerable town, having a population of over 100,000 and fully drenched in American monoculture, which is one positive with the small towns.  They don’t have big box stores, and so I have to assume that most of the money made there stays there as little cash as it may be. 

Between Pueblo and Bloomfield we drove through a lot of mountains, and stopped in Wickenburg, CO to visit our old friend, Will Dudley.  We actually got out of the car, visited Will’s house in Wickenburg, and walked around town – got a pretty good look at what life is like in Wickenburg, CO.  That doesn’t mean that we actually know that much about life in Wickenburg, but we have a strong visual impression of what life is like there.  Once again – no big box stores.  It is all local business, and I’m sure they all go into Pueblo if they need anything from the monsters who dominate this country’s economy.

After we left Wickenburg we drove west.  The mountains around there are amazing.  The towns are between 5-6000 feet in elevation, and higher.  I think we hit 10,000 feet in elevation that day.  The largest town we went through was Alamosa, which has a population of about 8,000.  We stopped for gas there.  It seemed like a pretty nice town just driving through.  The rest were all smaller towns.  Antonito, which I don’t really remember but then we came to Chama after driving through some really high mountains with a lot of snow by the road (road was bare and dry).  It looked like spring was coming there.  We stopped in Chama because I remembered it from a J.W. Sparrow song that we used to play with him.  Chama has a narrow gauge railroad with steam engines and the entire railroad adventure package so I took a few pictures there.  It looked like if you could get someone to come to Chama, you might get them to stop and ride the railroad.  It was a very nice looking place but I’m betting that the residents are challenged to make a good living there.

“Chama is the western terminus of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, a steam-driven, narrow gauge heritage railway which carries visitors to and from Osier, Colorado, and Antonito, Colorado, during the summer months. It is the remaining 64 mile portion of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad's San Juan Extension built in the 1880s between Alamosa, Colorado, and Durango, Colorado. The route was abandoned in the late 1960s and the tracks from Chama westward to Durango were torn up soon afterwards.”

From Chama we drove through more mountains into increasingly rugged country.  After Dulce we began to see a lot of fracking stations. 

“Dulce was founded by the Gomez family as a ranching operation. The original name was "Agua Dulce," Spanish for "sweet water," because of the presence of natural springs that provided good drinking water for the people and their animals. The original homestead was gounded in 1877 by Jose Eugenio Gomez. The Jicarilla Apache reservation was established in 1887 when the Apache people were forced into a reservation. The Gomez Ranch is currently kept under Manuel Gomez ownership, though surrounded by reservation land.”

This bit from Wikipedia is interesting as I remember that there was a grocery store that boasted to be the Gomez grocery.  We saw a restaurant on the outskirts of the town and both of us were thinking that it might be difficult for them to get enough business.  We did not see a lot of trucks or other cars on this route to Bloomfield.  Wikipedia gives Dulce a population of around 2600. 

“The median income for a household in the CDP was $26,818, and the median income for a family was $29,402. Males had a median income of $26,055 versus $21,623 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $10,108. About 24.8% of families and 29.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 34.6% of those under age 18 and 41.4% of those age 65 or over.”

Next stop was Bloomfield.  As I said before we were there for a few days.  There were more and more fracking stations in the rocks and hills as we neared Bloomfield.  The lady who checked us into our motel told me that the jobs that used to be there had all gone to Texas, I’m assuming for the next big oil rush.  I had a feeling that the people there were just a little oppressed, and as the days moved on we had a better, and better look at what the town really consisted of.

Demographics[edit]  -  Bloomfield, New Mexico

"As of the census[7] of 2000, there were 6,417 people, 2,222 households, and 1,708 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,280.7 people per square mile (494.5/km²). There were 2,446 housing units at an average density of 488.2 per square mile (188.5/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 62.38% White, 0.33% African American, 16.71% Native American, 0.34% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 15.96% from other races, and 4.22% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 27.51% of the population.

There were 2,222 households out of which 42.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.9% were married couples living together, 15.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 23.1% were non-families. 19.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.85 and the average family size was 3.26.

In the city, the population was spread out with 32.4% under the age of 18, 9.7% from 18 to 24, 27.0% from 25 to 44, 20.9% from 45 to 64, and 10.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 91.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.5 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $32,905, and the median income for a family was $34,760. Males had a median income of $29,144 versus $19,203 for females. The per capita income for the city was $14,424. About 15.2% of families and 14.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 18.5% of those under age 18 and 13.6% of those age 65 or over."

We became increasingly curious about Bloomfield, especially after visiting Aztec, which is about 10 miles away.  Aztec had an artsy feel to it.  It had a lot of boutique businesses and the advantage of a serious archeological dig with a complete restoration of a Kiva informing our investigation of Chaco Canyon considerably.  The people we met were more upbeat, and optimistic about the future of their little town.  It was a contrast to Bloomfield.  When we returned to Bloomfield after our last day at Chaco Canyon we decided to take a drive around town.

I kept thinking that there must be a part of town where the more well heeled citizens live.  After driving around for a bit we kept commenting on how almost all of the houses were prefabricated, relatively inexpensive.  Kristi looked up prices of real estate in Bloomfield and it turned out that the houses would have been overpriced in Tacoma.  In short, it is a humble town.  It looks like people work really hard there and don’t have much to show at the end of the day for their labors.

“In April 2007, Bloomfield attracted attention and some controversy when the city council voted unanimously to erect a stone monument of the Ten Commandments at the city hall.[2] In August 2014, a federal judge ruled the monument must be removed.”

Sign by house in Bloomfield

Kristi and I have both concluded that life is very good in the far west, better than most places in the Midwest and Rocky Mt. states.  That said, we saw some really nice houses in Kansas City.  If I was going to choose a place to move to from here to one of the places we visited, it might be Bozeman,Montana. 

Downtown Bozeman, MT

One final observation before I post this on our blog.  In 2016 we drove down through the Rosebud Indian Reservation from Rapid City, SD.  This year we drove I-90 over to Souix Falls, SD before heading south.  The route we took this year was through much more prosperous towns than the route that went due south from Rapid City.  I suppose this should be obvious that more robust transportation routes bring more prosperity to the towns through which they pass.  There is a lot of this country that doesn’t share in whatever prosperity comes here.  We just happen to be born and raised in a part of the country that has always gotten its’ share of the wealth coming into the US. 

I can understand the desires of people to live in the wilds of Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, or Colorado.  There is often something magnificent in the geographic features of those states.  I also remember the beauty of living in a small community detached from the rest of humanity dependent only on the creativity, and ambition of the population who lives there from our time in Nome, Alaska, and other Alaskan towns like Cordova.  I absolutely love Alaska and the days we spent there are a treasure trove of memories for Kristi and me.  We left Alaska because of the isolation from the outside world and the difficulties of taking my music anywhere from there.  I need to remember those days and the beauty of that life when I travel. 

Lotsa mud in winter driving in NM (apparently)

Graffitti on wall of old Holbrook, AZ Jail

On the other hand we must remember that just because life is good for us doesn’t mean that we should forget the rest of the people in our hard working, beautiful country for whom no matter how hard they work, or how much they desire it will never see great wealth.  When you think about the current politic in this country remember that it isn’t just about you and yours.  I am not a patriot, and I am not a nationalist.  I am, however, an American.  I speak the language, I know the people here, and wherever I go in the world as much as I might want to deny it sometimes, I cannot escape from the fact that I grew up here, and have lived in this country for most of my life.  I am a humanist who believes that we must care for our natural world.  It has been proven time, and time again that we can ruin the land that we live on.  We are already responsible for mass extinctions, and our population on this big blue ball is growing by leaps and bounds. I have seen the enemy, and it is us.  We, as a people may have the option to save ourselves and the planet.  It is worth a few sacrifices in lifestyle, and perhaps opportunity to do so.

Steve Nebel, March 2, 2017   

Revisionist History

We’re  home again after 6,267 miles of driving since leaving January 30th.  We changed plans in Arizona while visiting Steve’s sister.  We took a look at the weather and decided not to drive home via Utah and Idaho to visit my friend Becky.  She was in agreement with our assessment of the snow factor on that route, being deluged yet again by another deep snowfall that was coming on as we spoke.  So we drove the warmer route north via Los Angeles.  We took the coastal route on the first day, enjoying a spectacular sunset as we passed Santa Barbara and then moved inland to spend the night in San Luis Obispo.  Steve remarked that the scenery seemed to look like photos we’ve seen of Hawaii, with green mountains dropping to the sea.  I don’t suppose they are always green but everything on the Pacific coast is green and soggy right now.   In fact we changed our plans, avoiding the rest of the coastal Route 101 due to mudslides.  And as we made our way north on I-5 we observed the Shasta Lake canyon of the Sacramento River was full of water this time as opposed to last year when it was nearly empty.  So we’re not complaining about our lovely green sogginess back here in Tacoma.  As Steve says, it has to rain in order for paradise to be green. And the drought in California is officially over at long last.

We made a trip last week to one of my “bucket list” destinations, Chaco Canyon.  It wasn’t too far from Steve’s sister’s home in Arizona so we had earlier made the decision to go both places before heading home.  Don't ask me why but I get annoyed by being swindled of my meager memories of history by revisionists.  I'm not a serious history buff like my dad was.  I can recall him getting furious with my textbook in ninth grade Washington State History class.  He retained what he voluminously read and even wrote essays which were published  based on his sources.  Unlike me he was a true scholar.  I'm mildly curious about cultural history when I visit a new place and have a chance to stay awhile.  I read an occasional book about my travels.   When we  were in Alaska, I was curious about the widespread cultural connections that seemed odd to me regarding Athabascans, Navajos, and Apaches.  I recall reading that the first language is the same between them all, as well as the historic custom of putting vertical lines of beauty tattoos on the chins of women.  So when I looked into it I found that Athabascans who later evolved to become Navajos and Apaches, made their way from the sub-arctic areas to the southwest at the same time as the Spaniards.  That far-flung Jungian coincidence stuck in my mind for a good long time.   I think I was kind of proud of myself for remembering it all twenty years later.  I visited a museum in Phoenix in 2003 and found, much to my surprise, that the Navajo, and Apache were both claiming to have been in the area forever.  The museum, as I recall, empowered each tribe to separately represent it’s own version of its history.  I got strangely enraged by that.  I'm still not sure what difference it should make to me what's true and what's not about what happened five hundred years ago.  Then this year I ran into it again.  We got to Chaco Canyon, Arizona and I found the same nonsense disseminated by the National Park Service.  Chaco Canyon is a marvelous place.  I kept finding similarities to the remains of the cradle of Anglo-Saxon civilization, Roman ruins I visited in England.  Here they seemed comparable as the similarly constructed remains of the cradle of the civilizations that emerged and fanned out from this area, with tribal links to the ruins of sophisticated communities in surrounding regions of the Four Corners.  But I wasn't expecting another big lie about who came first and when.  I guess I need to chill out a bit about it.  When does religion become lie?  The archaeologists found DNA from the predecessors of the Pueblos,  Hopis, Zunis, and Navajos on the site.  The thorny part is who came first.  Of course I know the answer.  The ruins date back to 800 AD and the site was abandoned in around 1350 AD.  Here's what I found from the Archaeology Archive website, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America, in an article by Keith Kloor:

The scientific consensus is that the Navajo belong to the Athabascan language group, whose members are found mainly in Alaska and Canada (the Apache are also Athabascan). It's thought that the ancestors of the modern Navajo didn't even enter the Four Corners until about the 1500s, almost 300 years after Chaco was abandoned. The NPS (National Park Service), for its part, has been forced to walk a tightrope between science and respect for Navajo traditions, whatever their origins may be.   Archaeological evidence for the Navajo's prehistoric ties to Chaco was cited in the decision. Rather, the NPS relied largely on Navajo oral history. The story of the Gambler, and its significance in Navajo culture, was cited specifically.  Richard Wilshusen, now an adjunct curator at the University of Colorado's Natural History Museum in Boulder, was part of a research team investigating hundreds of these sites in the 1990s.   In a forthcoming study, he argues that a wealth of new archaeological data, combined with other lines of evidence, show that the Navajo didn't emerge as a distinct cultural group until between 1600 and 1650, at least 100 years after scholars once thought.  As Wilshusen delicately points out, they're missing one piece of crucial evidence. "I'd be very interested to see the archaeology," he says. "There just isn't evidence that Athabascans were there."

Native Americans have many not-so-ancient bones to pick with Eurocentric historians .   A lot of it still makes me livid and who knows how much more angry the Navajos remain today.  When I consider all that was stolen from Chaco Canyon by looters calling themselves archaeologists and how they felt entitled to cut holes in the walls of these ruins to get to the “antiquities”, I feel morally soiled by walking in their footsteps.  So I can get over it.  Have your way with your history/religious beliefs, Navajos.  It’s not hard to get to the truth if one is really interested.  It’s all over the internet with ample websites showing studies documented with carbon-dating.

This is a cross section of the beam construction of a ceiling for one of the floors in a great house.

There are petroglyphs here.  Can you find them?

KC to . . .

OK then.  We have left Kansas City far behind us by this time.  The first day out of KC we drove to Pueblo, CO.  That involved driving across Kansas which always annoys me a little bit.  I could go on a bit about Kansas, but I might bore you.  Suffice to say that they have their socio-political proclivities on billboards across the state.  I can assure you that if I had my socio-political proclivities on billboards almost any place in the United States I might risk being burned at the stake.  I’m pretty sure that’s the direction we’re headed.  Other than that, it’s a boring place so maybe it’s good that they raise my blood pressure a bit with their pre 20^th century slogans and imagery.

We burned right on into Colorado from Kansas.  We stopped at one of those tourist displays alongside the road to Kit Carson, CO where we were going to stay for the night.  While we were there we decided that we had enough energy to press on to Pueblo, CO.  It wasn’t long before we were rolling through these little towns in Eastern Colorado that looked pretty impoverished to me.  Once again I didn’t really get a good look at the towns, just the part that the highway ran through.  They all seemed to have poorly maintained small houses along the highway.  It is February and I think that people haven’t started to come outdoors a lot yet. 

When you are just blowing right through a town you kind of make up stories about the people who live there based upon how you are feeling that day and what you see, which may look different to you on a different day.  It is an anecdotal experience.  You are the blind man and they are the elephant.  We have a hatchback door that keeps coming open while we are driving.  The car sets off an alarm whenever the door comes unlatched and we stop not long after we hear the alarm beeping.  We stopped in a little town in Colorado to latch the door.  There was a rundown building right adjacent to where we stopped.  There was an animal’s nose peeping out from under the door which had about a 3”, or 4” space.  I still don’t think it was a cat, although that was Kristi’s assessment of the situation.

One of the high points of our stay in Kansas City was a visit with Jim Page.  I have known Jim casually for years.  I remember the first real conversation I had with him, probably in the mid-80s at the Ruston Inn when we were at a Victory Open Mike.  We had a discussion about socialism.  I remember that compared to Jim I am a bit wishy washy.  There is something about Jim Page that makes me remember almost every time I am around him, and many times it has been to watch him perform.  I’m not sure it was a “nice” conversation this time as we were discussing the horror of the D.T. presidency.  Kristi and I also had the pleasure of seeing one of Jim’s showcases.  He was in fine form and quite conversational about the subject matter in his songs.  The crowd there loved him and he had a full room.

Meanwhile driving into Colorado we were driving into the sun, mountains in the distance.  We move all of our gear out of the car every night which is sometimes a daunting task after a day of driving.  We spent the night at a motel in Pueblo.  The next day we drove to Walsenburg, CO and stopped for a visit with our old friend, Will Dudley.  Will gave us a brief tour of the town and we got to see firsthand where he lives.  He had shown us pictures of his place before and they looked just like the pictures in person.

Will Dudley 2/2017

Walsenburg, unlike the other little towns we had drifted through, looked to be somewhat more prosperous although Will said that there is no major industry there people seem to be employed to a large extent.  After staying for a couple of hours we got back in the car and drove into serious mountains.  I turned the driving over to Kristi just a little bit out of Walsenburg and she drove us all the way to Bloomfield, New Mexico where we are right now.  On the drive we drove into snowy heights which at one point was over 10,000 feet, pretty high for a major highway to be especially if you are from the the PNW where there aren’t any roads at 10,000 feet. 

We stopped in the little town of Chama, CO.  The main reason we stopped is that we saw a sign for the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad.  We were familiar with that railroad because JW Sparrow had put it in one of his songs that we used to sing with him.  We stopped, took pictures, drove through lots of snowy landscape which became more and more rugged until finally we came to  stop in Bloomfield, NM, our goal for the day.  Today we went to Chaco Canyon and spent the day kicking around the remains of the Chacoan civilization.  We go back tomorrow for a tour.  There was five miles of the worst road I’ve ever driven.  Maybe I have found myself temporarily on a short piece of bad road, but never 5 miles of it.  I’ll have more to say about this later.

Mono Culture then Kansas City, MO

Traveling across the country through the same states for what I think is a third time is interesting as my impressions are different each time with the slightly different routes we follow, and slightly different towns we are in.   Bozeman was interesting for the obvious growth that it is experiencing.  All of the towns that we have been in are experiencing American monoculture in one way or another, possibly with the exception of Cascade, Idaho which I suspect has too low a population to interest the captains of monoculture.  The same big box stores are commanding commerce in almost all of the significant population areas these days.  You see Office Depot, Home Depot, Staples, McDonalds, Wendy’s, Lowes, Safeway, Walmart, Walgreen’s – you get the picture – everywhere you go.

Missoula and Bozeman Montana however are fully monocultural towns, although both of them have downtown areas with homegrown businesses that are still very much active.  I don’t know how much longer that will last.  They do have some charm in their downtowns though, and those parts of town seem to be the center of entertainment and culture that is unique to their area.  We thought that Bozeman in particular seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds.  There is much new construction happening, and there are mega malls galore done with an architecture that seems to reflect how Bozeman wants to see itself.

Unlike cities on the coasts these small cities have wide open spaces between them.  Missoula is the larger of the two at 69,000.  Bozeman has a population of around 39,000.  I would say that Bozeman is growing the fastest but that is an anecdotal opinion based upon driving around and seeing all of the new construction.  Both towns are college towns and have a lot of bars and entertainment.  We have always lived in the shadow of the megalopolis, with the exception of the years we lived in Alaska.  These towns probably have a little in common with Alaskan towns, the main difference being that you can just drive on out to a major city in a day or so from any of them whereas in Alaska there are many towns that require a plane ticket to get to anyplace significant (not that there are any destinations on earth that are truly insignificant)

.

The other notable thought about our travel this time is that we followed I-90 to Sioux Falls, then turned right and took I-29 pretty much the rest of the way south to Kansas City.  The last time we made this trip we drove down through Kadoka, Valentine, Broken Bow straight south.  We drove through a much different part of the state of South Dakota this time.  Following I-90 looked a good deal more prosperous with large agro-farms, and tourist industry all along the route.

I know that this is all anecdotal and I wonder how much of my impressions are driven by weather, road conditions, what I ate the day we traveled, who is driving etc.  I know that when I’m driving I don’t see as much.  I am focused on the road ahead of me and arriving at my destination in one piece.  Last year we had Gen Obata with us who was quite willing to drive, and we were quite willing to allow him to do this.  That meant that I saw a lot more of what is alongside the road than I did this time, although for this last stretch Kristi and I traded off approximately every four hours.

Some years when we have had more time we have stopped at the tourist attractions (traps) along the way.  We have been to Wall Drugs, Mitchell’s Corn Palace (would love to see that again), and I’m not sure what else but surely there was something else along the way.   Mostly we have been rushing through from destination to destination.  Yesterday we drove out of the snow  completely.  It was the longest drive all the way from Rapid City, SD to Kansas City,  MO.  By the time we got to KC we were truly exhausted having played a two hour set the night before and getting out of Rapid City around 8:30 am.  We are at an America Extended Stay motel in KC.

We played at a couple of retirement homes while staying out in Red Bridge Extended Stay.  They were enthused about us, and it’s nice to get a little bit of money to augment our travel funds.  We have also gotten used to the grocery stores here and have kind of gotten a routine together.  It is interesting walking around in a neighborhood and not having any idea who lives in the houses, or if there is a difference between life in KC, or life in Tacoma, WA. 

Extended Stay America

Extended Stay America doesn’t provide maid service, so it’s a little different from the average motel.  Also the continental breakfast is truly as continental as you can get.  In the Red Bridge neighborhood the muffins were almost always gone, and if not gone there were few of them left  by the time I got to them, which wasn’t really all that late.  They always had lots of coffee though and they have these little packets of oatmeal that you just pour hot water in.  The first time I took the garbage out I was down by the front desk and I asked the receptionist where to put the garbage.  She said, “Put it in the trash room”.  I asked “where’s that?” and she pointed.  When I moved in the direction she pointed she said, no over there, I changed course and, “no over there” stress growing in her voice.  Then it was “see the sign?  Over there.”  I finally found it.  There was a closet with two garbage cans.  I brought towels down one day and the washer was on the fritz and they had no replacement wash cloths.  She said they’d have them later, but it was only about the fourth time we inquired, and late at night before we actually replaced our wash cloths.  We had never stayed at a “self-service” motel before.  They have kitchenettes with a hot plate and a microwave.  They usually have a regular sized refrigerator too, which is nice.  In order to get eating, and cooking utensils you have to ask at the front desk.  They’ll give you all the basic stuff you need to cook a meat and consume it.  Not any more than that though.  When we had more room when we traveled (in the “big white van”) we carried a full set of cooking implements and eating utensils.  We just don’t have the room to do that anymore, but we still improvise out cooking techniques to the equipment available to accomplish what we set out to do.

For the Folk Alliance International Conference we moved into an Extended Stay America just a couple of miles from Westin Crown Center.  The room has a bigger bed and a slightly different layout.  Everything else seems basically the same though.  It is reasonably quiet given the location (throbbing heart of the metropolis).  We had negotiated Westin Crown Center last year and so were fairly used to the layout.  We had gotten lost in the bowels of the parking garage early in the morning.  We simply couldn’t find the car and I think we walked a mile in the garage and were in a state of pure panic before we did find it.  We had some help in the end.  The help was semi-competent.  Kristi was absolutely terrified this year that we would lose the car again.  They close the mall off from the hotel late at night and when they do the most convenient access is also lost so you end up entering the parking area from a different location.  I really still don’t know how to exactly explain it, but it’s like a puzzle especially at 3 am when you are totally tired out from a day of doing FAI.

Billy Bragg at KC Folk Festival

I can tell you that everything worked out fine this year, but Kristi didn’t really want to stay around any later than she felt she had to each day.  I did it her way.  We did see a lot of great music.

Tom Paxton

Tom Paxton with Kristi Nebel

                                                                                 

We're at day five of Folk Alliance International Conference in Kansas City.  I don't expect to be forgiven for name-dropping nor for getting all gooey over my folk idols.  I have not led a life blessed by near-encounters with the famous, possibly because I'm from Spokane, not San Franciso, Nashville, New York, or Los Angeles, nor have I lived anywhere near those places.  Nor have I gone chasing after such experiences.  I do know people who can regale with the best of raconteurs of their experiences with famous people.  If you frequently find yourself in certain places you can have a reasonable expectation of a life like Forest Gump, I figure.  I just have to record this little incident for myself so I can look back on it as it's remarkable to me.  I'm a big fan of Tom Paxton.  I've sung along with his songs for much of my life and even played one of them dozens of times onstage.  "Wasn't that a Party" was a barrom hit for bands such as ours to play for drunks on a nightly basis.  "Here's to You, My Rambling Boy" is one I loved early on in my adolescence.  More recently in our tours of British folk clubs his songs pop up frequently among singers because he has earned legions of admirers everywhere we go there.   "Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound", and "The Last Thing on My Mind" live on yet after all these years among lovers of folksinging.  So last year I was thrilled to spot him at Folk Alliance International and had my photo taken with him to shamelesslly show off to my friends on Facebook (many of whom are British).  Tonight we were watching Iain Matthews (formerly of Fairport Convention fame), and someone behind us tapped Steve on the shoulder and said familiarly, "You're not the kind of guy to wear that big black cowboy hat.  Seems like you should have a white one!"  I know Steve was floored to see it was Tom Paxton.  Tom in the past year announced his 63rd recording “Boat In The Water,” and recently hit the road with special guests Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer in the UK in January 2017.  We aren't actually pals with him, but had exactly one conversation in our lives with him, last year at Folk Alliance International.  This wasn't a good chance to talk because the concert was about to begin.  I had just enough time to lean over my seat and ask him if he still remembered Rob Folsom, a mutual friend who was his concert promoter in Tacoma.  He said "Of course!  Rob Folsom, yes!"  I told him that we'd seen Rob at an open mic last year, had a really nice time with him, and Rob played the most perfect set of music I'd ever seen from him.  Then Rob went home and died in his sleep.  Tom took that in.  Then he said, "That's how I'd like to go."  Then the concert started and after a few songs from "Plainsong", Tom disappeared.  I'm still scratching my head over how he managed to remember us at all, and decided to seek out Steve in a crowd for some familiar gentle joking.  But I'm tickled pink.  And the concert was great.

Here I am tonight with Tish Hinojosa directly after her concert.

Andy Roberts and Ian Matthews started Plainsong in 1972 before fanning out into their own careers with Pink Floyd and Fairport Convention, then reunited recently.  This concert was part of a project to rearrange and revive the songwriting of Richard Farina.  They breathed new life into Farina's songs with their tight harmonies and new grooves and with predictably expert guitar work on tunes that seemed to predict the violent death of this fine creative spirit.  The songs took me back to a place in my life when his poetic lyrics touched my rebellious youthfulness.  I was hoping to get a photo with Iain Matthews but haven't had the nerve to interrupt him in the halls here while he chats with others.  Tonight he sat next to Steve at the concert we attended of Tish Hinojosa, but I was unable to catch him before he darted away.  I did catch Tish though as you can see.  She played a lovely concert all by herself, featuring her appealingly melodic songwriting.  She proudly announced that her CD, "Culture Swing" has been named one of the 50 greatest Texas singer-songwriter albums by the Houston Chronicle.

Here's Steve today waiting outside the room for our interview with KC Cafe Radio.

We had an information table at the event all four days, allowing us to meet and mingle with folk deejays, some of whom we've known now for many years from airplay given to our previous recordings.  We gave away plenty of our promotional materials and met a couple of concert presenters who expressed interest in our music; one Scotsman, Rob Ellen, is familiar with our folk musician friends in Fife, Davey and Mary Stewart. And we had fun "chilling" with our friends from Seattle, Rick Ruskin and Jim Page.  We all compared notes from the late-night guerilla showcases that left everyone red-eyed from lack of sleep.  Today we had an interview on KC Cafe Radio with deejay Kathy Forste, who has by now crossed paths with us several times from Folk Alliances and become a friend.  Her interest is in singer songwriters and her programming reflects this. Folk Alliance shamelessly promotes the idea of developing relationships in the world of folk music, and this works out to be an enjoyable aspect of the experience for us.

Vance Gilbert

Here's someone you should catch if ever you can: Vance Gilbert, a truly great singer with some razor-sharp humor routines between his songs.

The event ends tomorrow with a "Folk Festival" featuring among others, the music of Billy Bragg.  His political messages are particularly germaine to the theme of this year, "Forbidden Folk", which Sonny Ochs still openly calls protest music.  The theme was chosen before the election, but many are saying this is the perfect time for creative juices to flow and for the music of protest to find a new audience.  Of course we couldn't be happier about that in spite of all this new administration is doing to make us unhappy.


                                                                           

Tom Paxton @ Phil Ochs tribute
We did finally on the last day of FAI run into him again and he did indeed perform.  This was part of a Phil Ochs tribute during which he shared a story of his friendship with Ochs and sang (still in fine form) "There But For Fortune" by Phil Ochs.