My grandfather use to sing Row, row, row your boat to get us to sleep when we were children. The words were a bit mixed up in my head and I though it went "Life is butterbeans," rather than "Life is but a dream." Have been working on this for a while now and am about 95% finished. Sort sums up my sentiments about my grandfather in a tangential kind of way. He came from a farming family in Hyde county NC, but had to sell when is father died unexpectedly...he managed hotels for many years, but eventually settled in Tarboro and owned a John Deere dealership. There were hours of fun pretending to drive the tractors and combines as a child. Not a big talker, tall, good dresser had a very calm demeanor that you seldom see in men anymore. About a year before he died we went to Greenville to pick up eye glasses for my grandmother and myself. We waited for my grandmother in the car and he talked about growing up on a farm and his grandfather Harris... was a clear fall day under some long leaf pines and I remember looking at the piles of pinestraw on the ground the coppery color and the blue sky...that is the color of eastern NC to me.
While working on this piece two songs played along in my head. One was
John Prine's "Grandpa was a Carpenter" ...always reminded me of Papa even though he was not a carpenter.... esp the part about wearing a suit to dinner and driving to church on Sunday. The other song was by
The Gourds, "Coppermine" from Stadium Blitzer. The lyrics are as follows:
Coppermine, oh coppermine My great-great grandfolk on my father's side
used to work,in a coppermine - oh yeah
A penny here, a penny there
won't you drop one in my waterwell
The women lived in Maine* my friend
The men they lived underground
Copperwire oh copperwire
clever clever copperwire
Wrapped in black rubber
never knew it was a miner's manner
I loved so well
A penny here, a penny there
won't you drop one in my waterwell
The women lived in Maine my friend
The men they lived underground
Last winter I went to an exhibit of book arts and there was a piece that had an ipod that you listened, was mostly the artist talking. Would love to create something with both these songs playing interchangeably and some stream of concious thought process intermixed.
