Random Memories

I transferred to Appalachian State University in 1992 in an attempt to finish my stunted progress towards and bachelors degree. I moved to Boone by myself, 24 years old and eager to get things done. This new found motivation found me taking care of business in ways never evident in my previous years. Surprisingly, I found a town apartment, moved with my dog, completed a semester, moved to a cabin in Ashe County, and nothing fell apart. Once I was settled in the A-frame cabin deep in Binghe Gap, a real mountain holler populated by actual mountain folk, I needed to get a job to make it through the summer. Notoriously, Boone has very few jobs considering how many college students are desperate to work. So I hustled down to the university work study office and put in an open application for the first campus job available. The next day ASU hired me to work in the dining hall dish room. My first day of work saw me being trained in loading and unloading a massive conveyor belt dishwasher that...

 In the early 1980s I attended summer camp in the North Carolina mountains. Each year we were assigned to cabins with a counselor in charge of our well-being. The best counselors made cabin life fun. The superstar of all counselors was Skeet, a mustached, shaggy hair ex-basketball player who loved Linda Ronstadt and Jimmy Buffet. He named us the Landsharks and had me make a sign to hang above the cabin door. Skeet loved to play pranks on other counselors and often roped us into the hijinks. Once we snuck down to the lake at night and released all the canoes and kayaks into the pond because he didn't get along with the canoe counselors. Another time he pushed the limits and had us help him steal the extra deflated Blob, a massive inflatable pillow that could be anchored in the lake for kids to jump onto from a 2 story tower. He pilfered the air compressor inflation machine and we blew up the second Blob at 3 in the morning so that it looked like the original Blob had a partner. When...

In 1985, I went with my high school buddies to see the Beach Boys and Three Dog Night at the old steel-top coliseum in Charlotte, NC. Since I grew up near the arena, I showed by friends where we could drink beer in the woods on a trail that kids from my old junior high used to use to skip class. We carried a modest beer buzz into the venue and sat in the nosebleeds for Three Dog Night set. I recognized the two classic radio songs but was eager for the Beach Boys, one of my favorite old time rock groups. When Mike Love and the crew hit the stage we ran down to the general admission floor to dance with girls and old folks that were equally moved by the nostalgic Beach Blanket Bingo meets Chuck Berry sound. No sooner had we began to boogie than the police offers started ordering everyone to take a seat. There were in fact floor seats but they only filled about half the space, making it seem ridiculous that our dancing could pose a fire hazard. As the cops kept yelling at us, I quipped, ...

In late November 1994, I was playing bass in a reggae band that had a 2 night gig in Knoxville, Tennessee at this college dive called Bull Frogs. This road gig had the benefit of a free flea bag apartment to sleep in that was a block away in an old brownstone. As the first show came to a close, we packed up and worked the crowd to sell our recently released cassette album. All of the sudden this scruffy white dude with a cocked baseball cap starting talking to me and asking if we were partying back at the gig apartment. I instantly recognized Ty the hitchhiker from summer of 92. He clearly didn't recognize me. I told him we didn't party. He moved on to talk to our bandleader with the same jive. I found a moment to warn my buddy not to let Ty follow us to the apartment. We made it to the second story gig apartment without Ty and started cooking a meal. Just as we were all cozied up to the kitchen table there was a knock on the door and nobody had to say a word. We all knew who i...

Back 1992 I picked up hitchhikers in West Virginia and drove them to our common destination of Soldier Field, Chicago, the site of the next Grateful Dead show. I used our deadhead code to drain gas money from them which instantly gave me a leg up on the scheming dude Ty and his girlfriend. They had been off the tour while he worked as a cook on the Ringling Brothers circus train. She has been a circus dancer but was fired for drinking on the job. Later in Chicago they bummed my camping stove to make and sell grilled cheeses with supplies procured from one of Ty's tour rat buddies. I figured they were trying to get up some cash for tickets. Instead they shot heroin in my car while I was in the show. I made them find a ride and found some friends from home to take their seats. Whenever Ty would see me in a Dead lot that summer he would sneak up and surprise me or pull my hair, real annoying little things scammers do to push your buttons and test the zone. I stayed friendly, the tour ...