***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots- Jesse Winchester’s Yankee Lady –Take Two

A YouTube clip to give some flavor to this subject.

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

…she came like the wind out of Texas, came out of the West Texas winds night, came out of what did she, they, call them, those winds, oh yeah, the blue norther’. Came out spouting Goethe, Schiller, and blessed Holderlin in High German no less, like some holy mantra, like some great metaphysical world historic volk all wrapped up (and truth French mad monk symbolist hero- poets Verlaine and Rimbaud with wispy Villon in reserve in smattering French too). Came out, small town country girl came out, like Gabby the swoony forlorn waitress serving them off the arm in Grandpa’s diner out in the hard rock night in The Petrified Forest (played by Miss [Ms.] Bette Davis of the Bette Davis eyes).

That was part of what she was, part of her, but she also came out like some Larry McMurtry The Last Picture Show hero. They would laugh about it later after he had read the book and they saw the film adaptation in some Boston second-run theater and she told him that dusty old one-horse oil boom town going to seed with the Main Street (only street) diner, corner boy hang-out pool hall and ah gee oil boom rich cowboys, or wanting to, could have been her hometown, could have been her spot on the road hometown, except her town didn’t have a picture show only a drive-in about forty miles to the north heading to big town Odessa. They, Jeff, Timothy, Cybil, Cloris, Sam, Elaine could have been her kindred, her one-way to nowhere kindred rooted to those dusty winds come hell or high water.

Came north with those poems in her head, a book bag and small hand-me-down suitcase in her hand, with that dust still stuck in her throat, with all the boy gas jockeys, oil drillers, and football heroes hankering after her wanting to make her their bride, their brood mother, came north with those kin yapping that that they couldn’t understand for the life of them why anybody on this good earth planet would go north, go north to “find herself.” (Strange too about that “find yourself” since they were all, three or four generations before, nothing but German tinhorns happy to farm a little land and when the smell of oil filled the air, followed the boomtowns west).

Came north to get out of that wind. Came north too to get away, well, away from a lot of stuff that those who looked to the 1960s as a jail-break were trying to get away from. To see what the racket was all about, to see if somebody other than old deaf granny or the night would listen to her plainsong. Came north all blue eyes, all something out of Botticelli’s fevered mind, all long hair, braided, ethereal, simple dress as bespoke the times, all pearls of wisdom (remember those German poet-kings) all, well, fetching if not classically beautiful and all soul. All soul ready for a mate, ready to teach a man a few simple truths if he could stand them.

She came north, came to great cities, came first to hog-butcher to the world Chicago but just then they, the jail-breakers were storming heaven, or trying to and she bewildered could not fathom what was going on, and why. Then came to New York City, the Village naturally, but just that moment the only German they were interested in was a guy named Marx, and stuff like class struggle. They had no time, no good earth time, for metaphysical poet- kings and Texas twang girls spouting ancient poems in high German and so she moved on to Cambridge, Cambridge where they love ancient German poets and give the boot to New York City Marx boys and damn class struggles geeks. One night they met. Or she met him, met him sitting in the old Hayes-Bickford, drinking limp grinded coffee, smoking some left-over cigarette butt, looking like old time pictures of madman/devil Rasputin (she would later draw a picture of him, a mind’s eye picture, and it would look shockingly similar to that beast) poring over some ill-disposed poem by T.S. Eliot.

So they began, began their time together she teaching him about bread-baking, yogurt-producing, sewing, crocheting, crazed German poets, French symbolists, all the manly arts and he eagerly learned them, learned too some wisdom, some wisdom struggled from out in those blue norther’ night, from her plainsong voice. And when Cambridge seemed too stuffy, when they tired of city life, tired of endless Hayes-Bickford nights and no sleep, living off limpid coffee and cigarette butt dreams, they lived by the sea in a primitive cabin.

Lived by the sea off the coast of Maine, Maine with its own winds, gales to make a man wonder, to fear the wrath of Nature, Maine with it ocean swirls flashing foam-flecked white breakers. And she worked, worked serving them off the arm up at Aunt Betty’s Diner, worked at Hobart’s General Store, too, and he worked sometimes, sometimes doing landscaping in the great estates a few miles up the road, but mostly he worked, worked day and night on some coffee and butts-etched piece of writing, a sketch here and there. They walked beaches, climbed craggy nature-chipped rocks, made love before Mother Nature waves drowning out their sighs. Made do, made things from scratch, bartered or did odd jobs for essentials, lived like some pioneer forbears making the western trek (those oil-boom smelling German tinhorns). And she, Texas-born, an orphan, grew to love him, and he her, and the spring birds, the summer bugs, the fall leaves and the winter snows proclaimed that simple fact.

Then one day he got the urge for going like he had, unknown to her, a million times before, a million sleepless Hayes –Bickford nights before. Had what he called his Mexican urge, Mexico of the mind, to head south or west it did not matter, and so he left, left one morning, ruck-sack in hand. Left in a fit of hubris, and she Texas- born, born of prairie stock and sorrows, held back her tears. Later, much later, after many traveled roads, many ash-heap sketches, many dead-end romances, knowing that he had made a mistake, had taken the wrong road, wondered, wondered whether she still sang that plainsong, still lived by that sea, still thrilled the night singing of those German poets into the pounding surf, and still thought kindly of her northern boy …