Please Hold For Aunt Jo

 

The German Zeppelin bombing of England began in 1915. Jess Willard knocked Jack Johnson out in the 26th round of a championship brawl in Havana, thrilling white folks around the globe. Babe Ruth hit his first home run. Henry Ford rolled his 1 millionth car off the assembly line in Detroit and my Aunt Jo was born.

One day last week I finally got to talk to her on the phone. First time since the pandemic began. Of course this isn't her first. 

She had lunch with Eleanor Roosevelt in the white house and she sat up with me all night in the emergency room on New Year's eve, 1966, in Birmingham. Same hospital I was born in. Pretty sure she knew I hadn't "walked into a door."

She says "I love you," a lot. Always did.

I Don't Mean To Intrude

 

Here we are. After nearly ten years and over twenty five hundred blogs, I feel like I have burdened you with this babble. Maybe I should have thought of that nine and a half years and twenty four hundred blogs back.

Of course I feel the same way about my music. I haven't been doing much writing because I feel like I have forced it on a defenseless public for fifty six years. Now, in fairness, it has been a pretty small public.

Surely self-promotion is the lowest form of communication. I've told you before of the nice folks who have decided to "manage" my career. To a person, they have all concluded, with time, that I can't be managed. I'm pretty sure that none of them meant it as a compliment.

Now, I don't worry about how I will pass time. I figure that time passes pretty well on its own. I may keep pasting my head on other bodies because I have found that an inexpensive, safe way to travel. I just didn't want you to think that I had forgotten about you. I love you.

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.