ROSCOE HOLCOMB

by john cohen

Clear sky, full sun, temperature in the 60s, short sleeve weather for a day. Earlier, I saw a photograph of Roscoe Holcomb, banjo and guitar picker, singer of old time music from Daisy, Kentucky, a suburb of Hazard, where mountain music is very much alive. Judy Carmichael had stopped by to see Jr and Vonda is here. We were sitting at the table talking about gospel singing. I had a 2cd set of music from East Kentucky, most of it from all around Hazard, and played them a singing of Great Speckled Bird by an unidentified woman in a Holiness church there. It's sung so beautifully in the mountain way I feel it in my soul.

I remembered the time these two guys dressed like mechanics came into the store I had in Sparta, Backwoods Beat Music. We talked some. They were brothers living in Wilkes, originally from Hazard. It turned out they were both musicians in a gospel band. They browsed around and we talked. One of then said to the other, pointing at a b&w picture I had on the wall in a frame of Roscoe Holcomb, 'Look! It's Uncle Roscoe!' 'Why it shore is!' 'Where'd you get that picture of Uncle Roscoe?' more a statement of awe than a question. They had to know how I had a picture of their uncle in my store in Sparta. It was a photograph in a poster for a Roscoe Holcomb album, the photo by John Cohen of New Lost City Ramblers, who played banjo and did a lot of field recording in these mountains, emphasis on banjo pickers, plus photographing and filming in b&w.

They brought up the b&w film John Cohen made called HIGH LONESOME SOUND. I had a copy at home. One said, Remember the little girl carrying the cat? I said, Yeah. That was Aunt something whose name I don't remember. When we go into a coal miner's house in the film when he's getting home from work, the miner was their grandpa, and the boy sitting at the able who looked do be 12-14 was their daddy. There was a picture in the book of their grandpa playing a guitar in a Holiness church. Several pictures of in and around Hazard. Several pictures of Uncle Roscoe. They told me about a banjo picker Lee Sexton who lived down the road from Uncle Roscoe. They showed me the house in the book. He's another old time banjo legend from there. Coal miners.

One doesn't tend to think of coal miners as musicians, but many of them are and they're really good. It seems the harder a man's life the more dynamic his music. Like Morgan Sexton, Lee's cousin. Looking at the pictures of him, he looks like a man who is built of solid muscle, the kind of man that you know a handshake would feel a hand rock hard. And he plays such a lyrical banjo and sings a good song, a man who worked in the mines all his life. Lee Sexton has the same look of a man who worked like a workhorse all his life, was paid next to nothing, but can pick a banjo with artistry.

We talked quite awhile and they told me a lot about Uncle Roscoe, so I now feel almost like I know him. They didn't know Uncle Roscoe had 2 albums on Rounder label and is in about every collection of Kentucky old time music, and many of old time music. I had in the store a book of John Cohen's b&w photographs for half price. When they were telling me about Uncle Roscoe, I took the picture down from the wall and handed it to them. I couldn't do otherwise. They bought the book.

Some 4 or 5 years ago I was at Jr's and we were listening to WBRF playing bluegrass in the evening. For an unknown reason the dj put on Roscoe Holcomb playing banjo and singing Little Birdie. He has a really high voice from way up in a holler. I was loving it. After about a minute Jr said, He cain't sing for shit. Cain't pick for shit neither. Then the dj turned it off in the middle and started playing something else. I wanted to go on hearing Roscoe Holcomb, but Jr already had the remote in his hand ready to gong him when the dj beat him to it.

I wanted to go on hearing it, but if the dj hadn't turned it off when he did, Jr would have in the next second or two, so I'd missed the song either way. That's ok. It was just funny, like the dj heard Jr. Maybe he got some phone calls. Turn that shit off! His voice isn't pretty, but it's real. It's no where near as beautiful as Ralph Stanley's. Ralph and Carter Stanley made Little Birdie their own. Nobody else can do it and it sound right. I tend to like Roscoe's singing of The Hills of Mexico. Among others.

In the film, HIGH LONESOME SOUND, Roscoe talks quite a lot telling bits of his life. He said he was a coal miner and when the mines shut down, he and everybody else were out of work. Hard times. He prayed to God to give him something he could do to make a living. He picked up banjo and played guitar at square dances. He can make a square dance go with solo guitar, he's that powerful a picker. Same with a banjo. He made his living ever since making music. That doesn't mean he lives high and mighty, but it gets him along, and that's good enough. Probably means he has a new refrigerator and washer and dryer, and maybe a car that doesn't break down all the time.

Roscoe is one of the many gems of old time music. He plays in church too. Roscoe is one of the many reasons I love playing mountain music to mountain people. Hillbilly music good as it gets. Pure, raw hillbilly with no trimmings, no concessions to money, art for art's sake by artists of the real. Constantine Brancusi, abstract sculptor of the 20th Century, said Art is reality itself. Old time music is the art form of these mountains. In this way it is the living spirit of these mountains.

A BEAUTIFUL DAY

dance of autumn



It's unknown what happened to yesterday's entry. It didn't happen because the character in my mind that is me stepped through a door into what he thought was a room and it was a closet, but he closed the door and it locked. That's it, cat shit. On the phone with Carole this morning she said there was no entry today. I believed I'd written one. I went to the house while Jr was sleeping for a 30min round trip to see if it got stuck in drafts or some other place. Maybe I'd forgotten to click the publish button. There wasn't a trace of an entry anywhere, not even the recycle bin. All I can figure is I totally forgot, and I do mean totally.



Hospice volunteer Jane came by during the day to give me some time. I went home and watched INDOCHINE with Catherine Deneuve, a woman beautiful in the way only French women can be beautiful. I'd seen it several years ago when it was new and all I remembered was I loved it and would like to see it again. Vietnam before it became Vietnam, when it was a French colony, Indochina, when Saigon was the Paris of the East. It was a film so beautifully made in every way, it pulled me all the way into it, no thoughts of anything else. 2 1/2 hours of art from the archives of the most beautiful films ever made. Not that it's the only one, but it's among the very finest. Another in its league of a near perfect French film might be Nellie et Monsieur Arnaud. The 2 are only related in the feeling they leave behind in the heart.



I watched the film, entered some pictures from camera into computer, and came back here to Jr's. Hospice nurse came by and worked on Jr quite a bit. When I settled, I read in the Audacity of Hope. Evidently my tired mind associated that time at the house, feeding the cats, entering pictures into the computer, and the habits of what I do there like make a cup of tea, with writing the day's entry. When it came time to go to the house in the evening to make the entry, I sat here reading Obama with the same fascination as watching the film. I slept on the floor last night with only a pillow from the couch, none of the blankets I put down to lie on. Keeping the house at 8o there's no need for a blanket. It was just as comfortable as usual and no fuss. Toss the pillow back to the couch when I get up. May do that more often.



I've an idea that if I were to make a deep examination of what I'm feeling, it would most likely say tired, real tired. The kind of tired women know about. It's not that I do much or that I miss any sleep. I only miss naps for the telephone that rings every time I attempt one. Tired is what it is. The stress doesn't bother me much any more, but I also know I do feel it on some level. There is a longing to sleep on my own bed with one or more cats piled on. Also the weariness of continual concern for Jr's comfort. It might even be said I'm emotionally wrung out. Several times a day a tear glides down the side of my nose.



Harold Hayes, bass player for the Green Mountain Boys, came by with Betty, his wife. Both were moved to tears by what they saw. They stayed awhile, talking to him. Betty was so tender with him tears popped out of my eyes seeing it. She put her hand on the side of face and said to him, 'Jesus loves you, Jr.' I lost about a half a pint of tears over that one. She asked me how his soul was. I said his soul is fine. She was meaning has his soul been saved. I assured her it was. She was happy to hear it, like she cared about Jr so much she hoped he was headed upward, and now can relax that concern. I was thinking at the moment that I don't believe any kid who grew up at Liberty Baptist in Whitehead in the 1920s and 30s got out of there unsaved. I didn't think at the time to tell Betty he'd told me he was baptized in the Little River by the bridge, that is now the new bridge. The Little River Boys was the name of his first band. I'll tell her next time I see her about the baptism. Harold had a hard time. After awhile, he had to go outside and be by himself.



Earlier in the day, 9:30, Johnny Miller came by with his boy Walter, who is about my age. Johnny is now 80. Johnny is a bluegrass fiddler who played quite a lot with the Green Mountain Boys. He and Jr are friends as good as friends get. Johnny has a lot of first place ribbons and trophies from fiddlers conventions. Jr was sound asleep when they came in, but I knew he wanted waking with Johnny there. He'd raise hell with me if I didn't wake him when I told him later Johnny had been by. It took him a little while to come around, but we finally got it to him Johnny was here and he made the connection. He couldn't talk or anything. He wanted water, so I gave him the little sponges with water on them, several. Jr and Johnny weren't able to talk about anything like music making in the past or anything. Johnny talked to him some. He knew it was Johnny. I called Johnny yesterday and asked him to come see Jr because he's getting close and I knew Johnny would want to see him.



I told Johnny I have a cd of Ola Belle Reed recorded at Brandywine with him playing fiddle. He lit up remembering Ola Belle. He said his brother Sonny played banjo with her, which answered my question after seeing Sonny Miller named in the recently released cd of Ola Belle's radio shows, wondering if Johnny and Sonny were kin. He said he made an album with Ola Belle in 1972. I'll be looking for that now. I didn't have the Ola Belle recordings with me, but I had one from the Field Recorders Collective, the same place the Ola Belle came from, to show him what kind of thing it is. He looked at the picture on the cover and said, 'Why there's Dale Poe. And Wade Ward. And Charlie Higgins.' These were older master musicians in Grayson County when Johnny was coming along as a young fiddler.



My heart has been overflowing all day so far. I'm feeling tremendous love from all the people who love Jr. Being thanked in tears from the heart. I'm feeling weepy all morning today and into the afternoon. The 2 o'clock chickadee just sang on Jr's birdsong clock Joe Blum gave him. Since I've been writing this, tears have dropped off my cheeks to the floor in a steady stream. I feel like I felt at Tom Pruitt's funeral when the dam broke and I left a puddle of tears on the floor between my feet. Some of it might be sorrow, and some might be stress, but what it feels like is my heart with a love feeling in it bigger than the heart can hold. My cup runneth over. The love and gratitude I receive from Jr's friends is what it is. They fill me up with so much love it runs down my face in tears. They tell me, you're going to get a blessing. I don't know that anything can make me feel more blessed than all the loving feelings that have come to me from so many wonderful people, people who are my friends now.

WAITING FOR IT

cosmic chagall #3

In the night last night Jr called to me. He was barely able to speak. Actually unable to speak. He made attempts at words on breaths, not quite whispers. He took hold of the neck of his sweatshirt that was tight on his neck, because the shirt was pulled down in back. He said, knife. I found some good scissors and cut about 10" down the front to open it for him. Another time he called and woke me wanting to go pee. It was the old way of having to lift him from bed to wheelchair, wheelchair to pottie chair, pottie chair to wheelchair, wheelchair to bed.

This morning I found him crossways on the bed with legs hanging over the side. Barely conscious. I went to lift his legs to the bed and his face scrunched up like a raisin from the pain. I asked if he was comfortable with legs hanging over the edge. He said he was. OK. He lay on the bed all day like his soul was leaving he body, mouth hanging open, asleep most of he time. A couple of phone calls he couldn't function with.

Dean Richardson dropped in and I took him to show him Jr's condition. Later, John came in. John was deeply moved. Jr has always been a part of their lives. I don't know how close as friends, but he was always there, and John and Ross knew him since they were children and he was grown. I know that to a child in his world, Jr was the coolest one of all the adults.

I can see that for a child he would be somebody you'd look up to all your life.

Dean was telling me Jr was older than him in school by 7 years, so he was one of the big kids. He said Jr liked to put boxing gloves on the kids and teach them about boxing. Dean never wanted to box. I told him Jr picked up something from his attention on boxing when he was a kid. In boxing like a martial art, being able to take it is as important as giving it. Jr does know how to take it. He has taken enough to bring a rhino to its knees several times.

I've been on the verge of tears all day long. This morning I sat on the bed beside Jr and looked at him awhile, either asleep or far away, and my heart started welling up and eyes turning wet, feeling a tear creep down my cheek, knowing that if I let go it might go on a half hour to an hour. I didn't want to do that, so I got up and left the room thinking it probably would have been best to go ahead and bawl every bit of it out, yet at the same time, it felt artificial. It was self-conscious by then, determining whether or not to let it go took the spontaneity out of it, so I decided to save it for a time when it's more spontaneous, when I can't help but. It may be tomorrow.

Had to call Hospice nurse in the evening to ask her to come over. I'd called in the morning, but there didn't seem to be any urgency about it. He was comfortable, just different in that he couldn't move. That's all. I asked her to please come and look at him, because I'd been sitting with him all day in the same position, only moving a hand now and then. Breathing so shallow I couldn't see it. To tell if he was living I'd wait to see a finger or hand move. Today, seeing his profile on the pillow, I saw my grandpa Brink, my mother's dad, in his old age. I hadn't realized they favored each other so much. Similar noses and and face structure, as well as hair. It wasn't a perfect likeness, just enough to bring grandpa to mind. That made it all the sadder.

I went about the house today doing what I do, read, wash dishes, do laundry, feed the crows, with a heart running over, seeing Jr with not very much time left and really showing it, wanting to put my face on his shoulder and cry, but couldn't allow it, it would have been more than a shoulder could handle. Even now, a tear meanders down my cheek, one side, then the other. It's a welling up in the heart that overflows through the eyes.

I've been taking care of him because I believe his soul is valuable on the earth and valuable in my small world. I see it fading away like a candle down to the last bit of wax, the flame weakening and going on weakening until the tiniest little blue line around the top of the wick vanishes and a line of white smoke ascends.

Nurse came by, found he had a temperature of 100. She crushed a tylenol and mixed it with a teaspoon of apple juice, put it in a syringe and put it on his tongue a drop at a time, then with a sponge swab on the end of a stick like a smaller tootsie pop soaked with apple juice to get some moisture in his mouth despite being unwilling to drink something.

We pulled him around lengthwise on the bed using the pads under him to keep from having to handle him, which hurt. She got his temperature down to 98 before she left. She said his empty stomach helped the tylenol go to work fast. We covered him with a sheet and let him drift off to sleep again.

JR'S FRIENDS

the blue tractor #2

We're back to near lifelessness after a short burst of a few days of energy when Jr's plumbing was empty and had been empty. He slept all day today. Rose around 6. Major effort to get to pottie chair to pee. Major effort back to the bed. While he was still in the wheelchair, I sat on the side of the bed and said, 'Thought I'd have an ensure. Would you like one with me?' He thought about it a moment and accepted. This is the 3rd day in a row I've got him to drink an ensure by offering to drink one with him. Make it social, like having a drink of white liquor. Might be able to turn this into a comfortable habit, a drink of ensure together. If I'd just offered him one, he'd have declined.

Feeling uplifted today within. Not in a big way, but a nice way. Feeling support and gratitude from Jr's relatives and friends. It seems the buzzards have sailed away to someplace else, and all that's left are the ones that really care about Jr, himself, not the detritus of his life. I do, I feel uplifted within by all their support. I've been at it so long now with Jr, they all know I wasn't kidding at the start, that I've really been through it, and I'm not quitting until the last breath. I'm here for whatever it takes. Yesterday Jr apologized again for being a bother, wanting a sip of some water, but not wanting to bother me with asking me to get it. I told him this is why I'm with him. I want to fetch for him.

I use the time he gets up to go to the pottie chair to straighten up his bed, put the pads under his midsection back in order, the sheets and blanket ready to receive him when he returns. I know how he likes his pillows, so I set up the bed to receive him as he naturally falls into it. Today I put eyedrops in his eyes. They're about stuck shut from dehydration, needing some lubrication to get them open. Plus, they're closed so much now, open is an unusual state for them.

Ross told me today that Jr told him yesterday when I left the house to go to town that I only let him have an ensure a day for 9 days and wouldn't let him have any water for four days. Ross was appalled he'd say such a thing. I just laughed. It's like the time he told me Ross was keeping his money and not letting him have any. He didn't know what he was going to do. He didn't have any money and Ross wouldn't let him have any. I knew better, of course. I told him Ross is not ripping him off, that Ross is being honest with his money, and he can have any amount he wants just by saying so. I told him he has nothing to worry about. He smiled and said, 'I have to think about something.' Seems like his mind is a meandering creek. No telling where it's going at any given moment. Sounds like my own.

Yesterday he told me he wanted to go home. That alarms me when he says that, it being such a metaphor for Heavenly Home, but I've found he has never yet meant it like that. He thought he was in a hospital room. I said, This is your home. It is? This is your bed. It is? He looks all around the room and it's like nothing looks familiar to him. Like when he was in the nursing homes, when he wanted to go home, he wanted to go back to the house where he lives, that home.

We haven't had any conversations about dying. It seems artificial to me to bring up the subject, when it's so obvious. I don't see that he needs any religious or spiritual talking to. The artificial doesn't work with him. Jr has a firm spiritual foundation and has never been one to give his life over the the restrictions church membership requires. He is not, by nature, a sheep. If you insist he's a sheep, then he's the black sheep, like me. Jr is not one to have somebody else make his decisions. He likes to make his own. He's ready. But he's in no hurry.

Today while holding him up from the wheelchair so he could twist around to sit on the bed, get him situated, he says, 'Turn me loose,' and sits on the side of the bed. I was looking at his face up close in the half light, noting how he had developed the look of old, old age, that old age that is just old. It seems odd to see Jr Maxwell in such a state. He's been knocked down plenty, but he always gets back up.

I'm glad that the song I picked for the theme song of the radio show, a kind of seeing-what-happens picking on bluegrass banjo of Billy In The Lowground by Jr, has him laughing at the very start. He laughs and starts picking. He hasn't been able to laugh like that it awhile, maybe 3 or 5 years. When I start the show every Saturday morning, it gives me a kick to hear Jr laugh again, then lay it to it on his banjer.

Back to Jr's friends and relatives. They've been receiving me lately as one of them. I knew about all of them before, and some were suspicious in the beginning that I might be another taker on the scene. By now they see my motivation is the same as theirs, caring for Jr. I'm the only one with plenty of time to spend with him, when all the others have family and work. Seems to me it's only natural that I be the one that stays with him. The support I have is phenomenal from all directions. I tell you more about the Hospice support, but the support of Jr's friends and relatives is the equal of it. For anything, all I have to do is get on the phone and ask.

But I have the same disease Jr has, can't allow myself to trouble somebody unless it's really necessary. Also, I believe necessary is the only reason to make a call for help from one of them. That way I'm never crying wolf. What I've found is the people who are Jr's friends and relatives have become my friends for life, people I can always count on, who can always count on me. I've had to make a few calls. Not only do I appreciate all the support, I really like all the people concerned, more as time goes by. Caught myself dripping a tear today thinking about them.