Mount Shasta: We’ve been seeing neighbors up and down the hill preparing vasty stacks of firewood. In the early AM, still dark, we see boats towed by pickups containing duck-hunters in camo suits and rifles. Sundown comes earlier and the dawn is tardy. The air has a chill. Winter is coming.

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!

— Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

A hotel near the airport, Burbank, Fall 1991: Yesterday I attended a conference. I don’t remember exactly why. I’d been setting up my first 800-number voicemail company, and noticing that quite a few MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) people signed up, I’d decided to try offering a MLM resellers program. I’d flown down from San Francisco yesterday to visit this little conference, to learn more about how MLM worked.

Although I don’t now recall much about the conference, I sharply remember the morning after. On my way to breakfast, I learned that Miles Davis had died. The newspaper didn’t say why; later reports said pneumonia and a stroke. At the time, I assumed drugs.

Miles had called me one night.

Years before in 1969, at 3 am in Beverly Hills, all was quiet in the lobby of the Bevery Rodeo Hyatt House, where I was the night auditor. Miles’ wife — whom I was sure was the woman pictured on the cover of his ‘Porgy and Bess’ album — was staying in the hotel, and the night bellman was complaining that she kept calling him, wanting this, wanting that, fussing, acting oddly, he said.

When the switchboard rang, I answered and it was Miles.

Gravelly-voiced, he asked my name. He knew the hotel well. He frequently stayed there. I’d not seen him, but our highly-crispy morning bellman Roger, had reported in detail their many arguments. Roger, a young and zippy white kid with a full head of steam and vast assurance, was certain that white basketball players were clearly superior. Miles, never known for tact or modesty, was certain that black basketball players were superior.

I’m glad I wasn’t there and was never asked, for I knew nothing about basketball. Disappinted though that I’d not met Miles, for I’d been a fan ever since my friend Lefevre gave me that Porgy and Bess album as a birthday present during high school years. I’d played it over and over in the basement of our home.

In this basement, I’d painted three walls pale blue and one wall burnt orange, and with an intricate speaker-cabinet planned from Mechanics Illustrated and with materials salvaged from my award-winning and bogus science fair exhibit, the sound was magnificent in this basement, with Miles’ pinched tone sounding now and again in little short phrases.

Jerry described that sound as playing through fishnets, but that wasn’t it. I’ve heard that once Miles was asked why he liked the trumpet; he said that it sounded like the human voice. But that wasn’t what it sounded like, either. What it sounded like, was Miles.

So. Beverly Hills at 3 am, and the switchboard rings, and Miles’ gravel-voice asks my name. My name was then Richard, and I told him.

“Richard,” he said. “My wife’s there.” I agreed; she was. In room such-a-number. He thought a while.

“She’s upset,” he said. I agreed; she was. About something. Or about nothing. Who knows? We didn’t know. “She’s upset,” he said. “See if you can’t calm her down, OK?”

How the hell was I supposed to do that? Or, expressed differently, what would be the best approach for a 24-year-old white boy with acne, completely inept with women, an employee of the hotel, to deal with a lushiously beautiful black woman possibly strung-out and cranky on drugs in one of our rooms, to calm her down as a favor to the most famous horn player in the world, calling in from New York?

“Gee, Mr. Davis,” I stuttered, “I don’t know what to do.” He brushed my objection aside.

“Just talk to her,” he said. “Calm her down, OK? Just try, OK?”

OK, I said. I did call her, and asked if everything was OK. She told me off, and then, apparently, everybody was happy.

And now, years later, standing shocked and blocking the line to the breakfast buffet in this Burbank hotel, I read that Miles is dead. He’s gone. I don’t know the guy, but it hurt.

Why did it hit me so?

Recently, Johnny Cash died. It seemed like a part of my life had gone. Adrienne had rushed into my Mount Shasta office to tell me; she’d heard it on the radio. The next day, we were talking about trains, and she asked me what was the Johnny Cash song about the train. “Folson Prison Blues,” I told her, and started to sing the first verse. She burst into tears.

“Don’t!” she said. “Don’t, please.”

Why does it hit us so?

I think it’s this. Most of us have heard a trumpet. But we’d never heard that trumpet. Most of us have heard a freight train. But maybe we’d never fully heard the lonliness in that late-night whistle. In songs, the singer brings us something, and it becomes a part of our lives.

Miles gave us a trumpet, and a sound. Johnny Cash gave us freight trains.

Somewhere I’ve read about an old Chinese view about how a man’s life should unfold:

As a child, one plays.
As a youth, one studies.
As a young man, you join the army.
As a grown man, you engage in commerce.
As an established man, you marry.
As a married man, you raise children.
As an older man, you retire and engage in community service.

This seems like a pretty good plan to me.

Every part of a person is represented in this scheme. For example, in the army you learn important basics of operating your body, being orderly, operating in teams, focusing on tasks, and keeping your head when all about you …

Just about everything you’d like to do in your life is represented in this scheme: Study, adventure, romance, family life, and let us not forget loafing and playing.

If this scheme were widespread, the culture would at any one time have plenty of play, study, adventure, business, romance, family life, and wisdom. Because there would be citizens in every one of these categories.

A culture can become unbalanced. North Korea has way too much army, and so they suffer the financial drain. They could use their army to provide other functions, but then they wouldn’t really be army, would they?

Our own culture probably has far too little army. I never served. At the time, our nation was sending us off to be killed in Viet Nam. This did not seem the path of wisdom to me at the time.

However, it means I missed a special part of life. And I think our culture shows the general lack of the learning that comes from the army. Sure, we can laugh about some of the clumsy ways the army can operate. But in college, I noticed that my student friends who were ex-army, ex-navy, ex-marine were some of the most focussed students. Their heads were on straight. More than I could say for myself and lotso my friends.

What do you think. Is the Chinese Ages of Man concept a good one?

(No cussing, please.)

Henrietta, Texas (Special): Preparations for the 72nd annual Clay County Pioneer Reunion starting next week, September 18th, in Henrietta have started.

The rodeo office at the Pioneer Grounds opens at 9 a.m. Box seat ticket holders may pick up their tickets or call the office for delivery at (940) 538-5111. Rodeo will feature bull and bronc riding, calf roping, bulldogging, clowns, a greased pig contest, ladies fancy riding, music and comedy. A dance will follow the festivities.

Riders who plan to participate in the Pioneer Rodeo grand entries or parades need to have up-to-date Coggins test papers on their horses.

Float building has been under way for several weeks at the Pioneer Hall. To register float themes, call Sherri Halsell at the Clay County extension office at (940) 538-5042. After the parades on Saturday and Sunday morning, stick around for the fiddling contest and art show on the courthouse grounds.

The theme for this year’s float parades is “Pick 3, Any 3, in 2003.” The annual reunion gets under way with the cowboy kickoff parade Sept. 18 and continues through Sept. 20.