Getting around crashes

 YOU WOULD THINK being a courier for a big hospital would mean having a sense of direction and not getting lost. You would think.

For a short time when I was a Whig guy we did a series of stories about really small towns in Illinois and Missouri. We visited some fascinating places and learned a lot about the history of our area. I have a vague memory of me and the late Whig photographer Mike Kipley taking a wrong turn near Spalding, Mo., and being very, very afraid. 

Getting turned around and lost is hereditary. My mother, Virginia Hart, was very good at getting lost. All the time. We'd dread trips in the massive station wagon when she drove. One time when we lived in Montreal we nearly ended up in Toronto coming home from somewhere.

Times change. You say, "Just use your map app on your phone." The only apps I really know about are the ones you get before dinner - they aren't very big and usually are very expensive. But they get you ready.

Yesterday I was running late in the afternoon and drove through a pouring rain across the bridge in Quincy. I had stuff for our Palmyra clinic and had to pick up Blessing Health Hannibal labs. It was about 3:45 and I was a few miles north of Doyle Manufacturing on U.S. 61 when I noticed a sign that said, "Incident Ahead."

The only thing that makes my stomach drop as much is a roller coaster. Sure enough, just past Doyle, where the road dips down and then goes back up, there was a line of traffic. Stopped. As in, not moving. In both lanes.

I was in a bind. I had no idea where the crash was, how long we'd be stuck, or how to take a shortcut. I really couldn't turn around on a divided highway.

Just ahead was a dirt road going off to the right. A few cars were taking the road. Maybe they knew something. So I made an executive decision, knowing full well my penchant for getting lost - I turned off the highway, onto a dirt road called Marion County Road 320.

The vehicles in front of me kept going, but there was a road going south called 361. It started as gravel and turned into pavement (sort of). The terrain was rolling and quite lovely, with a few farmhouses here and there. I could see the highway to my left with vehicles still not moving. A couple of miles later, the road came out past the UPS facility and back to U.S. 61, about 100 yards short of the crash site.

Workers were removing pieces of a huge semi that had crashed and was blocking the right lane. The road had just opened back up and traffic was starting to move, and I eased my way onto the highway in front of a lumbering truck. Boom. I was through. And I probably saved myself at least 45 minutes to an hour, because on the way back the truck was still there and workers were trying to free up the right lane.

It looked horrific and I hope everybody involved was OK. I only saw the semi and don't know if anybody else was involved.

Who knew that just shy of turning 60, my sense of direction is getting better? Or maybe I was just lucky. 

Next month I'm visiting Emily in Rochester, N.Y. I'm flying and renting a car. Dear Lord, please help me to not get lost and end up in Toronto.

Maybe I'll order one of those appetizer things for my phone.

 

Angus turns 10!

 A VERY HAPPY birthday to Angus The Young, the former Second String Music Cattledog Corgi of doom, turns 10 today. He's still spry and active because of his daily cemetery strolls. He's also still ornery and demanding of scritches. 

Angus was born the same time Lucy, Sheryl's beloved Border Collie, passed away. So there's a special connection. Angus was a big draw at Second String Music for many years, as was his nephew, Malcolm.

 Five years ago today, I remember being in the store and trying to figure out why Angus wasn't around. I walked into the adjoining EFB coffee space, and there he was, happily splayed out on the carpet in the old safe area, getting tons of birthday love from EFB employee Brianne Campbell Blaine. Bri put a silly hat on Angus and probably got him some good coffee. 

If it was up to Bri and the EFB crew, they'd have kept him in there all day. But Angus had specific greeter duties in Second String Music so he probably shuttled back and forth.

To prove it's a small world, Bri now works at Blessing's 48th Street campus. When I take stuff to her office we often laugh about the dogs and those days at Fifth and Maine. Maybe I'll stop by there today to make sure she knows her old work buddy turns 10.

And, as you can see, I care a lot more about dogs and birthdays than I do about humans and birthdays.

 

Concerts In The Plaza are back

 I HUNG OUT with new District Executive Director Brianna Rivera yesterday. She's planned some amazing Concerts in the Plaza and we needed to find the District PA. Most of it was in the District office basement, and we found speaker stands and microphone stands in a back room. 

Not sure how long ago it was - 10 years maybe? I had an idea to have noon shows at the plaza, which belongs to the First Mid Illinois Bank on Maine Street just west of 7th. I went to Bruce Guthrie, then in charge of the District, and he was all about it. It became a May staple in downtown Quincy, first on Thursdays, then on Fridays. 

When the weather was nice and we had a food truck, we'd get big crowds enjoying music in a beautiful park setting. Frank Haxel and I would get the District PA from Bruce's office and lug it over to the plaza. There were times I'd drag it over there from Fifth and Maine in a rickety wagon that eventually fell apart.

Brianna has done a great job getting sponsors and lining up the music. Allison Hutson and I are doing the May 17 show. Jared Holbrook, Brittany Griffin-Vogt, Katie Smith and Steve Rees are also featured.

Thank you, Brianna and the District, for supporting live and local music in downtown Quincy!

Stickers on pants

 I DID SOMETHING the other day I never do - buy clothes. Ugh. I'd rather stick needles in my eyes or watch Downtown Abbey on repeat all day. When shirts and pants start falling apart, well, even a cheap Dutchman knows it's time.

It's very hard to find pants that fit because I'm 5-foot-19. Thanks to Sheryl and Amazon, I purchased two pairs of jeans. Did I throw the old ones away? Never! What else will I wear while mowing the lawn or playing a show at the Weed Violence Festival? No offense to my new friends Continued Without A Finding, who are playing at said show later this month.

So I wore them to work the other day and I was quite proud of myself and they felt good and I was happy. I walked into the Blessing Hospital Pharmacy, and the first thing I heard was, "Hey Rodney. Bend over!"

Just generally speaking, hearing "bend over" while walking into any office or area at Blessing is NOT a good thing.

I won't mention any names, but the initials of the person who asked me to bend over are Kelly. She said, "You have a sticker on your butt."

Kelly, not her real name, was wrong. The clear sticker showing the size of the jeans was actually on the back of the leg. In my defense, it was very hard to see. But it was there.

This caused massive amounts of giggling and commotion among the very professional and serious Pharmacy employees. There were other comments made but I don't want Human Resources to call me, or even know I'm alive and work at Blessing. 

The huge advantage to being RFO (Really Old) is that I simply don't care anymore. If it was the worst thing to happen, then I had another great day going around in circles as a lab courier. And I was laughing as much as anybody. What can you do? I'm a dumb youknowwhat. Hardy earth-shaking news, Holmes.

Now I'm sticker free and no longer have holy jeans. Or holey jeans. Wait. Holey Jeans would be a great name for a band!

I'm just gonna cue up this song and make sure nothing is hanging from my new clothers while going around in circles, and it will be a great day.

 

Brad Fletcher's excellent grind sludge metal adventure

 BRAD FLETCHER IS living proof you can go back in time. You can reconnect. You can be true to yourself in music. You can tour your old haunts and tour Iceland. Music, no matter what form, can take you back and propel you into the now.

Wait a second. Tour Iceland?

Brad lives in Quincy. He moved here in 2008, a year after his band in Weymouth, Mass., disbanded. They were called Continued Without A Finding. Brad works for Kohl Wholesale in IT. He plays bass and drums in a couple of area cover bands and loves it.

But his original music and his friends from back home are his true love.

Brad Fletcher (top) and his CWAF brothers.

"We all grew up in garages, playing crazy music," he says. "I just love playing originals. It's a totally different animal from doing the cover band thing. You need a tablet and the tabs to play all those songs. The originals? I know every word and every note. And it's like exposing yourself, the way you are creating something from the ground up."

CWAF includes guitarist Tom Walsh and drummer John Gillis. Eric Yetman joined as a guitar player last year - he was the lead singer way back in 2002. They describe their music as crushing grind sludge metal - really, really heavy.

In the 2000s, the band kicked around the Boston area and played weekend tours, and playing heavy originals was a tough road to sled. They got onto bills and tours and played wherever and whenever they could. Brad and his band learned from friends and other bands about professionalism - showing up on time for gigs, knowing the material, playing their hearts out no matter how many people showed up.

Tom and John moved to California is 2007. Before they left the band recorded seven songs for a self-titled debut album. It was cheaply done in a basement. Tom and John wrote the music, Brad the lyrics, and Brad sang. The project was long forgotten when Brad reconnected with his old friends last year. 

"Tom somehow got my number and he called me. I hadn't talked to him in 10 years," Brad says. "He asked about the songs we did. I told him I still had the recordings. And off we went."

Walsh founded 1635 Records to support heavy original music and to put out CWAF's album. The band got friend Chris Leamy to clean up the recording. Another friend, Karl Dahmer, did the artwork for the CDs and album (yes, album, as in record). Last July Brad went home for a visit and met up with his bandmates for the first time in a decade, and in October they had a practice.

"Just like riding a bike," Brad says.

Now they have a four-city tour planned April 18-21 in Massachusetts, Maine and Rhode Island. In October the band plays at a festival in Reykjavik, Iceland, and hopes to play a few other Iceland shows "in cities with names starting with an R," as Brad puts it. CWAF also has a June show in Weymouth, and the band is recording cover songs for another album. More original material is being created for yet another album, hopefully later this year.

Brad hopes to bring to the band to Quincy and the Midwest in about a year.

They even have a new single, mixed by Quincy's Jim Percy, and on April 17 they will play it on a livestream from the "home studio in Dorchester."

Song titles include Copulate, Lunghammer, Arm Of The Pig and Just Another Day In The Orifice. Brad has the Spinal Tap sense of humor - when asked about the Orifice song, he says, "Oh. That one? That's an instrumental."

Going home to play with his old friends is important to Brad, as is family. Last May, his parents and family came to Quincy to watch Brad's daughter, Alexis, graduate from Quincy University. That afternoon Brad's band, The Second Stringers, had a show at Mayfest in front of Dick Brothers Brewery. Brad's parents had only seen him play once - his first show, in 1993. They just weren't into the heavy stuff Brad was playing.

"But they were very supportive. They'd watch the kids so I could get out and play, things like that," Brad says.

"It felt great to look out there and see them all singing along," Brad recalls. "My dad was blown away. He said, 'I had no idea you could sing!'" 

The show became even more special when Brad's father passed away at home a few months later. "It meant a lot they could see it," Brad says.

So the excellent music adventure continues, heavy grind sludge style, bashing away in the bars and venues just like the old days. Brad and Continued Without A Finding are back, for the aptly named Prodigal Tour 2024.

"So much fun," Brad says. "It's hitting the ground running, non-stop, 100 miles per hour."

 

 

Rest In Peace, Fast Eddie

 MANY SECOND STRING Music patrons will remember Fast Eddie, our cat who graced the original Eighth and Washington store and later the Fifth and Maine space. We got the sad news last week from Eddie's owner that he'd passed on to that great catnip patch in the sky.

When we opened SSM in 2011, we inherited the late Pat Cornwell's cat, Lucky Cat Vegas. Lucky had her own Facebook page and was a huge draw to Pat's Vegas Music store on Broadway. So when Pat passed away and Sheryl announced we were opening a music store, it was only natural Lucky follow us to Eighth and Washington.

Not long after we were running around on East Broadway and Sheryl insisted on stopping at a pet store by the mall. There were two cats in cages with hungry eyes and pitiful mews, Eddie and Fuster. They were brothers. Sheryl pleaded to take one of them home. I told her Lucky was enough.

Then I showed up at the store the next day on my lunch break and heard the mewing and looked down and there was Eddie, happier than a pig in poop. Couldn't really take him back, right?

Fast Eddie loved people and demanded attention at all times. He became a huge draw at the store - people would come in just to see him and the dogs. Lucky passed away a few years after we moved to Fifth and Maine, and after a while Fast Eddie grew tired of the long hours he was alone in the store.

The story of how Fast Eddie found his new home is chronicled here. Suffice it to say Fast Eddie was much happier in a home environment, and he especially bonded with his new owner's young daughter. They became inseparable and best of friends. 

I'm guessing Fast Eddie was about 12 when he passed away peacefully in his sleep last week. He lived a full and happy life with some  big adventures. What else can you ask for? I miss him to this day and we are grateful he spent his sunset years in a loving home.

Maybe I should tell Fast Eddie's humans about the three cats living in my garage ....