Big Yellow Taxi—an ear worm with meaning

I’ve never been annoyed by “ear worms” (having a song and its lyrics stuck in my head).I sorta love ‘em.Recently I’ve been experiencing a repetitive ear worm: “Don’t it always seem to go, That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone…”It happened again this morning. Joni Mitchell’s 1970 “Big yellow taxi” is more…

My Musical Epiphany

epiphany [ih-pif-uh-nee] a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience I could call the conversation in my head in early March a couple of years ago an epiphany. (More on that internal dialogue in a minute….) ….

We’re all gonna die

Sometime in the late 90’s I started looking at the online edition of the St. Francois County Daily Journal several times a week. Mostly I just look at the obituaries. The D.J. is the only daily in the county where I was born, where my 92-year old dad lives today and where he has lived…

Bucket List Update

Man-oh-man do I need to get busy or what?? I have been a total sluggard since I posted my bucket list just a bit short of two years ago, mid-march of ’17. Yet somehow I was diagnosed with fatigue on my birthday last September and advised to slow down… And I had TOTALLY forgotten about…

2018 Christmas Letter & JibJab

The dreaded letter (reproduced below if you dare) will get sent to some folks via e-mail.  They’ll also get this link to the JibJab: https://www.jibjab.com/view/make/disco_christmas/b079887c-1399-46b3-99d9-734253cdf3e0 -=-==–=-= Hope your 2018 has been a good year. Mine was a dandy. Saw more live music than ever. It was Awesome. Crossed several artists off my “bucket list”…a bunch of…

The Righteous Path

I’ve seen the Truckers several times in the past few years. I had never listened to them before I moved into The Abbey in fall of 2011. I’m sure glad that I took a friend’s recommendation and gave them a listen. (Thanks Gray!!) The Truckers can be profound & loud. I like that. Loud is…