“Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets comin’ out of my ears
Buckets of moonbeams in my hand
I got all the love, honey baby
You can stand
I been meek
And hard like an oak
I seen pretty people disappear like smoke
Friends will arrive, friends will disappear
If you want me, honey baby
I’ll be here …”
— Bob Dylan, “Buckets of Rain”
The Monday Morning Milers hiking group had scheduled to hike upper Butterfly trail to Novio Falls, which I had done Friday with the SCVN group. I like this trail because it is both a beautiful and challenging hike. It was a sunny morning on the mountain when we arrived at the trailhead. The faster hikers had already started down the trail, so I set out to catchup with them and was making pretty good time till I started stopping to take photos. I was trying to take advantage of the sunlight we didn’t have on the Friday hike.
Before leaving the parking lot to car-pool up Catalina Highway, some of the hikers indicated they would only be hiking to the Crystal Spring trail. But, when I reached the Crystal Springs cutoff, no one was there. Not seeing them on the trail, I assumed they had continued on to Novio Falls. As I got closer to Novio Falls (The area to the right of the big rock in the above image.) I could see clouds beginning to cover the higher elevations.
When I got to the falls no one was there, so I decided to continue to where a F-86 airplane had crashed in 1957. Once I got there, the rain began, so after taking a few photos, I started back toward the falls when I met a couple sitting under a large ponderosa pine. There didn’t have rain gear, but the tree was keeping them dry, at least for a while. (Unlike my earlier hikes in the rain, there was no lightning.) As I left them behind the rain began to come down heavier.
This is when I learned that my wind-breaker was not waterproof. I had already placed my camera in a plastic bag, but unlike my previous hikes in the rain, I decided to remove it now and then to capture some rainy images. Since the rain was still pretty heavy, I tried keeping as much of the bag over the camera after removing it in order to still keep it as dry a possible — then back in the bag.
The higher elevation in this view shows the direction in which I was headed returning to the upper Butterfly trailhead. I wasn’t sure how the images were turning out, since I wasn’t taking the time to view them, nor check how much rain was on the lens.
As I got further down the trail from the falls, I turned around and took this image toward where I had been.
As you can see in this image, see the clouds were beginning to break up over one of the last ridges I would be hiking to the trailhead.
At this point in my return the rain began to diminish.
This image is a view not far from the trailhead. The rain was now a sprinkle as the clouds continue to break up.
Remember I mention that we carpooled up the mountain, so those in my carpool had to wait for me — at least I was hoping they would. Based on where the others had turned around on the trail, and the distance I had gone, they had to wait one hour — man, did I blow it! I was very apologetic and pleased that they had not reported my failure to return after an hour to the Forest Service.
As we rode down the mountain they shared the various scenarios discussed while waiting, if I had not returned in more than an hour. They knew I’m a capable hiker, but . . .!
With all the rain I’ve experienced this month, while hiking on Mount Lemmon, I decided to start this blog posting with the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s song, “Buckets of Rain” and included a YouTube video for those of you interested in listening to this Dylan song — with buckets of moonbeams in your hand.
I love the music of Tom Russell, he is a singer-songwriter who is in touch with those who ramble the earth. In the introduction to his 2012 book, “120 Songs” Russell writes about how songs beckon you to move a little closer, “Let me tell you a story.”
“They beguile us with their sing-song rhyme and tinkle-down melodies, yet they are imbued with trued feel for human history, poetry, emotion and cold hard facts of life, than a thousand dusty tomes from social scientists, poets, politicians, theologians and academic historians. Songs travel.”
Russell’s songs are about real people, their suffering and survival, and times when whiskey needs to be drank like wine — songs for as long as forever is.
GUADALUPE
There are ghosts out in the rain tonight, high up in those ancient trees Lord, I’ve given up without a fight, another blind fool on his knees and all the Gods that I’d abandoned, begin to speak in simple tongue and suddenly I’ve come to know, there are no roads left to run
Now it’s the hour of dogs a barking, that’s what the old ones used to say It’s first light or it’s sundown, before the children cease their play when the mountains glow like mission wine, then turn gray like a Spanish roan ten thousand eyes will stop to worship, then turn away and head on home
She is reaching out her arms tonight, lord, my poverty is real I pray roses shall rain down again, from Guadalupe on her hill and who am I to doubt these mysteries? Cured in centuries of blood and candle smoke I am the least of all your children here, but I am most in need of hope
She appeared to Juan Diego, she left her image on his cape five hundred years of sorrow, cannot destroy their deepest faith so here I am, your ragged disbeliever, old doubting Thomas drowns in tears as I watch your church sink through the earth, like a heart worn down through fear
She is reaching out her arms tonight. . .
When you read the words in Russell’s songs, you can see the influence of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Federico Garcia Lorca and Charles Broskoski. The words and songs, “. . . suck us in, slap us around, kick us in the belly and heart, and then push us back out into the world with a memory we’ll never purge from our blood.”
Look at us, we look alike — similar lines, curves, colors, so much in common.
We came together seeking to be one, a symmetry of differences reflected in the other
as a circle of one.
Connected by the rhythm
of wave lines, slowly becoming lost in amoving maze — drowning in a sea of Self-indifference.
Look again, our eyes looking beyond the other — connections weakening in our once upon a time circle of one.
Our circle of one,
now a reflection, a hurtful delusion
of what was, leaving only
a few lines connecting the symmetry of pleasure and pain, vanished as a whole.
Fabric
of the whole lost, no longer a balance between
pleasure and pain, now a distant Dylan sound, “Behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain.”
“The real issue is not talent as an independent element, but talent in relationship to will, desire, and persistence. Talent without these things vanishes, and even modest talent with those characteristics grows.” — Milton Glaser
Tuesday evening, we went to see Bob Dylan at the Casino Del Sol AVA Amphitheater. When I listen to Dylan’s music, many images come to mind. One such image is the Dylan poster by Milton Glaser, which in turn reminds me of a line from the Chronicle’s Rick Mitchell’s review several years ago of Bob Dylan’s CD, “Time Out of Mind,” in which Mitchell said the title should have been, “Mind Out of Time!” I felt like writing the Houston Chronicle to express my disagreement, but I didn’t. However, in Dylan’s live performance, there are times when I began to think Rick was correct.
If you, like I, appreciate the work of Milton Glaser, then you will enjoy the 2008 documentary Milton Glaser: To Inform & Delight, which is now out on DVD.
“I [internalized] this idea that it didn’t matter whether I was called an artist or a designer or an illustrator or whatever else it was. The core value was always the act of making things, and the transformation of an idea that you hold in your mind that becomes real or material. That, to me, still is the glory of any creative activity.” ~ Milton Glaser
Glaser and Dylan are both real artists, regardless of what each may be called. Each in their own way is making things that inform and delight.
I am a child of the forties, a rebel of the fifties, becoming a native of the sixties. Each decade saw the influence of art; not as the creator, but in me, the person is listening and seeing what the creator sent along.
Together we have traveled as companions, moving along and being moved. Now, in my driftwood seventh wind-turned age,* “I am of the old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise.”** An age whose troubadour companions have included: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Paul Simon, George Clinton, Paul McCartney, Aretha Franklin, Carole King, Brian Wilson, Lou Reed, Jimi Hendrix, and Jerry Garcia.
Whether a mere coincidence with others, I am ever grateful — each having moved me to thought in the course of my daily life. Often alone with my thoughts, each shaped by others in a sea of music, I picture an image, one I might take with my camera. Knowing the words and images don’t come out of nowhere, but are the result of shared paths for my feet to use, I always keep an eye on my traveling companions, and people down the road who might bring a fresh breath of air, making me younger than I am now – he said, pausing with reflection.
“May you stay forever young, Forever young, forever young, May you stay forever young.” ***
— kenne
(This posting is deticated to all those born in 1941. We are traveling companions.)
*Dylan Thomas — Poem On His Birthday
** Walt Whitman — Leaves of Grass *** Bob Dylan — Forever Young
This past weekend another “In Performance at the White House” took place. This one was “A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement” and one of the performers was Bob Dylan singing “The Times, They are a Changing,” in his first performance at the White House.
Bob Dylan turned 68 two weeks ago, a great time to be a 68 wind turned age. Even more so since his latest CD, Together Through Life hit number one on the album charts, displacing Miley Cyrus – yes, there is still hope for the music world.
For those seeking real-time links on Dylan, go to the Expecting Rain site.
When I got to the falls no one was there, so I decided to continue to where a F-86 airplane had crashed in 1957. Once I got there, the rain began, so after taking a few photos, I started back toward the falls when I met a couple sitting under a large ponderosa pine. There didn’t have rain gear, but the tree was keeping them dry, at least for a while. (Unlike my earlier hikes in the rain, there was no lightning.) As I left them behind the rain began to come down heavier.
This is when I learned that my wind-breaker was not waterproof. I had already placed my camera in a plastic bag, but unlike my previous hikes in the rain, I decided to remove it now and then to capture some rainy images. Since the rain was still pretty heavy, I tried keeping as much of the bag over the camera after removing it in order to still keep it as dry a possible — then back in the bag.
The higher elevation in this view shows the direction in which I was headed returning to the upper Butterfly trailhead. I wasn’t sure how the images were turning out, since I wasn’t taking the time to view them, nor check how much rain was on the lens. 
As I got further down the trail from the falls, I turned around and took this image toward where I had been.
As you can see in this image, see the clouds were beginning to break up over one of the last ridges I would be hiking to the trailhead.
At this point in my return the rain began to diminish.
This image is a view not far from the trailhead. The rain was now a sprinkle as the clouds continue to break up.
