Waiting For The Sun
Happy solstice to all you out there--I for one will be looking forward to our sun god’s return to the heavens, as these long nights are killing me.
Christmas is almost upon us and yes, I’ve been able to get most of the things shopped for that I was looking to shop for. Next up is some wrapping and cooking and then eating and drinking and THEN, we can call this season a done deal.
Actually that’s not quite true, before the wrapping is yet another funeral.
A friend and fellow Tacoma area musician passed away on Monday a week after going into the hospital for Pancreatic surgery to remove a cancerous mass. The surgery resulted in an infection, which then resulted in liver failure and though he hung on for as long as he could it was a losing battle.
I liked Pat and had known him somewhat for more than twenty years. In those early days I was playing in Natural Causes and he, being somewhat older had moved to LA with some other Tacoma musicians playing in a band called The Cutouts. They had a homecoming out in Ponders where they asked us to open up for them.
Pat and I weren’t close, he wasn’t someone I would ask to help me move, or pick me up if I ran out of gas, but he was someone I might buy a beer for if he wasn’t already so drunk he couldn’t stand up.
For many years he played in Mr. Blackwatch—my friend and fellow band mate Doug Mackey’s band and after that I would see him either performing solo or coming out to support other musicians, myself included. He was large and solid with a personality that matched his physique and the bars will seem a lot emptier without him being around.
This will be my fourth funeral this year, not including our cat Zane, whose ashes are sitting next to Batty’s on a shelf in the living room, and whom we have not yet had a service. That seems to be an inordinate amount of mourning for just one year—at least to me it does. But when I look back upon this year it doesn’t feel like it was all about death. We moved, put in a garden, went to Disneyland, went to the ocean, turned 40…we took what fun we could and spent more time laughing than crying, but any way you cut it, that’s a pretty full year.
I’ll miss Pat. It won't be an everyday thing, but more the kind of feeling that this world—my world, has become a quieter place.
Christmas is almost upon us and yes, I’ve been able to get most of the things shopped for that I was looking to shop for. Next up is some wrapping and cooking and then eating and drinking and THEN, we can call this season a done deal.
Actually that’s not quite true, before the wrapping is yet another funeral.
A friend and fellow Tacoma area musician passed away on Monday a week after going into the hospital for Pancreatic surgery to remove a cancerous mass. The surgery resulted in an infection, which then resulted in liver failure and though he hung on for as long as he could it was a losing battle.
I liked Pat and had known him somewhat for more than twenty years. In those early days I was playing in Natural Causes and he, being somewhat older had moved to LA with some other Tacoma musicians playing in a band called The Cutouts. They had a homecoming out in Ponders where they asked us to open up for them.
Pat and I weren’t close, he wasn’t someone I would ask to help me move, or pick me up if I ran out of gas, but he was someone I might buy a beer for if he wasn’t already so drunk he couldn’t stand up.
For many years he played in Mr. Blackwatch—my friend and fellow band mate Doug Mackey’s band and after that I would see him either performing solo or coming out to support other musicians, myself included. He was large and solid with a personality that matched his physique and the bars will seem a lot emptier without him being around.
This will be my fourth funeral this year, not including our cat Zane, whose ashes are sitting next to Batty’s on a shelf in the living room, and whom we have not yet had a service. That seems to be an inordinate amount of mourning for just one year—at least to me it does. But when I look back upon this year it doesn’t feel like it was all about death. We moved, put in a garden, went to Disneyland, went to the ocean, turned 40…we took what fun we could and spent more time laughing than crying, but any way you cut it, that’s a pretty full year.
I’ll miss Pat. It won't be an everyday thing, but more the kind of feeling that this world—my world, has become a quieter place.
You know I worry about that sometimes. That the voids left from old friends and relations passing, will at some point be louder than the voices of those who are left
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