Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise
It must have been a case of the ‘hungries’ (as my Dad used to say) that made today’s batch of Irish Stew wind up as a photo. If it wasn’t so early in the morning, more than likely I’d be sampling a bowlful instead of writing about it.
Fresh russet potatoes, carrots, celery, roast beef, onions and spices – ready to ladle into a bowl and serve up with slices of bread.
Breakfast of champions. The Irish ones, anyway.
It seems as though music stars are at a much higher risk than the rest of us, after boarding an airplane. As far back as the big band era’s Glenn Miller, who went down on a flight from England to France in December 1944, entertainers have had their lives cut tragically short in aviation accidents.
Singer Don McLean honored the memory of singer Buddy Holly and others who died when the small plane carrying them to their next performance crashed in Iowa in 1959.
The rock era lost Stevie Ray Vaughn, most of the band Lynard Skynard, and Jim Croce in airplane accidents.
Jenni Rivera is the latest.
I was surprised to see a mention on the 10pm local newscasts, assuming the Latina singer would not be recognized by the general US populace. She no doubt would have been in the coming year, having signed a deal with ABC to star in a situation comedy.
She told an interviewer a couple of years ago that she wanted to be the Latina Oprah. She had a reality show and a satellite radio show. She toured extensively and was among the biggest selling of the Spanish language artists.
Rivera was born in California and favored Banda and other border-music styles that she delivered in a powerful voice that made her a superstar with over twelve CDs to her credit. She struggled with marriage difficulties and life crises, and her acknowledgement through her songs endeared her to fans on both sides of the border.
She was the first to sell out back-to-back concerts in Los Angeles’ Nokia Theater, singing to packed houses in 2010.
They called her the Diva of Banda, and from that sprang Divina cosmetics, Divina Realty, and Divina Music, to go along with Jenni Jeans, Jenni Rivera fragrance and the Jenni Rivera Love Foundation that aided unwed mothers.
Saturday night, after finishing a concert in Monterrey, Mexico, Jenni Rivera finished a press conference and boarded a charter Learjet to travel to her next concert near Mexico City. Ten minutes into the flight, traffic controllers lost contact. The wreckage was found Sunday scattered over an area the length of several football fields.
She was 43 years old, but could have been much older for all the life she experienced in that time.
Another tragic loss for the music world.
We were on the Barren River in Kentucky. It was Thanksgiving Day and it was snowing lightly.
I was standing astride a steel-and-concrete mushroom-shaped anchor, balanced atop a rectangle of Styrofoam the size of a king-sized bed. There were two of us riding anchors, pulled by a johnboat into the deepest area of water.
The thick steel cable attached to the anchor would allow the boat marina to be winched in or out according to the river level. Our crew had a single wetsuit. I had ridden an anchor before, my coworker hadn’t. He got the protective suit.
There wasn’t much wind, but the steady pace of the boat made the cold air feel breezy enough. I was in a tee shirt, swimming suit, and tennis shoes – which would protect me from the elements only if I went in the water. No bulky warm coat to get waterlogged and drag me to the river bottom.
Once the boat had pulled the cable taut, I was to count to three and the two of us were to simultaneously roll our anchors off the Styrofoam, then leap down on the rafts as they popped up from the release of the weight. I sounded off: ONE! TWO!
At which point my buddy pushed his anchor.
Before the word ‘three’ could get out of my mouth, the weight of his sinking anchor began to drag my raft backward. Between the two mushrooms was perhaps twenty-five feet of steel cable. His anchor reached that depth in nothing flat and began dragging mine down, jerking it free of the Styrofoam, which shot into the air like a missile. I went the other direction.
When I surfaced, I looked back, expecting my coworker to be in the frigid water with me. He was kneeling on his flotation, reaching out to drag me from the water.
Me: Could have used that wet suit…
Him: Should have stayed on your foam.
The marina anchors were not set exactly according to the blueprints, but they tested fine later. I got the rest of Thanksgiving off, to try to get warm again.
That weekend, one of the locals let it slip that he was driving in to Bowling Green, a sixty mile beer-run from the dry-county forest in which we were working.
I hitched a ride and persuaded the driver to find a music store, where I bought a guitar to keep me company in the evenings. I was eighteen and had not developed any sort of taste for beer at all.
Today, a customer asked about the guitar, which is propped on a stand near the cash register. He wanted to know the story behind it and I just explained I’d had it for years and – although I have several other guitars – it is the most comfortable. He left and I did the math out of curiosity.
It was forty years ago at Thanksgiving I took a brief swim in the Barren River, and came away from that weekend with a long-term musical friend.
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