all you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin

last night, around midnight, behind my building, behind the racecar garage, by the rear of CC Cafe and Deano's Tavern, just across the state line in indiana, i heard rhonda cover the curtis mayfield song, people get ready. right by the railroad tracks. she was summoned onto the stage by snapper mitchell. her husband, the mayor, played harmonica. jayjessejohnson played guitar. bill played the drums. some other guy in a hard rock cafe t-shirt played the bass.

as one given to hyperbole, i am mindful of the veracity of this claim....but i think rhonda has the most beautiful voice in southwestern ohio southeastern indiana for sure and likely way way beyond.

last night, like most here, was an evening of juxtapositions. i dragged myself out of my solitude and slumber to hitch a ride with mel and jeff to friends' home in springwood, our local modernist enclave. bernadette and jim built this home; it pivots 11 degrees at critical points. that is, it is not an orthogonal building. so, i stood around there and chatted over a feast and drank too much wine. it was sort of a potluck dinner, and our pots were mostly lucky and mostly local. bernadette is the doyenne of the fledgling co-op. i was nervous about taking a watermelon feta red onion salad (inspired by jose andrés) because the ingredients were imported from beyond a 100 mile radius. bernadette assured me it would be okay. then the party packed up and headed to my hometown, college corner for an evening of blues music.

people in my community are suffering. two in particular are confronting staggering medical bills. lynne wood is surviving breast cancer and needs help. ken glidwell was in a motorcycle accident. he lived for 12 hours after he laid down his bike. his family now has $500K in bills. for 12 hours.

and many families in my neighborhood are hungry. (we live amid corn and soybean fields and people are hungry)

so rhonda and jimmy and deano decided to host a fundraiser last night. the proceeds are to be split 1/3 to lynne wood, 1/3 to glidwell and 1/3 to our new food pantry. jimmy invited some of his friends including snapper to come from chicago to take the stage and offer us the blues. somehow -- maybe because the mayor and first lady were hosting the party -- the local bars opened their backdoors and encircled the parking lot with two strips of yellow CAUTION tape. a makeshift beergarden.

it was incredible. word on the street in college corner had it that we were to bring lawn chairs and sidedishes. in my estimation, probably 250 people turned out. i rolled in through the narrow bar and past the vinyl booths of Deano's bar. i waded through the smoke with a passel of professors, a pair of dogtrainers, and a homesteading zambian honey importer former peace corps volunteer. many of the people i arrived with are anthropologists and ethnographers so they are adept at participant observation. some went and stood in solidarity with a small knot of queer kids. (rhonda is the advisor for the LGBT group on campus so tucked into one "corner" was a group a super skinny and rolypoly polyamourous undergrads.) when we arrived, the bands were between sets and john mellencamp was crooning over the p.a. his lyrics and music take on new resonance and poignancy when listening in indiana.

i cannot fully and accurately describe the rest of the audience because here words fail me. unless you stood with me last night, i fear that anything i type here will seem derisive and condescending. i am really in the heartland.

our fireworks were canceled the night before because of rain. so as night fell, i was sandwiched between fireworks and the blues. pyrotechnics exploded in the sky above the grove and snapper's guitar exploded on the stage. susan paulson and i swiveled between the two attractions and exclaimed and squealed with delight.

unless i have been traveling abroad or 1992 when i was in talkeetna, i have been inside the beltway for fireworks. college corner's display rivaled the capitol mall -- and didn't include any corporate logos! perhaps it is because of the close proximity to grandmas' fireworks and inflatables?

eventually snapper's younger brother climbed the steps and gave his older brother a break (only 14 kids and 25 years separated these two in birth order). the younger brother launched into solid a cappella versions of prince songs. i suspected we were in trouble when he began nikki. i just knew that my neighbors would not stand for a black man standing on stage crooning about darling nikki's activities in a hotel lobby. sure enough, he got the hook. but it could have been worse.



last night, the freight train didn't blow through until about 5 am. right on schedule. but for sure i could hear it coming long before.