PROMOTE AMERICAN FUTURE WITH AN AXE

Without getting into the details, I’ve somehow collected about fifteen axes.

I’ve become an axe repository.

Along with axes for wood, I’ve found six guitars around the house. I claim one.

‘Why the axes,’ I wonder when I add them all up.

Then it came to me. America was built with an axe of one kind or another.

I learned the how and why recently.

Like every good American I listen to my wife. I think I’m her sounding board. She has lots of ideas to sound out.

And like good citizens, we believe exercise is very important, so we walk. Our walks have taken us near and far.

This is about the near.

A few blocks from our house is a beautiful park. More than beautiful, it has a National Park vibe, the feel of untouched wilderness to enjoy when a treadmill doesn’t sound so exciting.

Up and over, round and round, we’ve followed the trails out and back. It’s a wonderful thing.

One thing led to another and my wife volunteered me to help in the park, as in help eradicate invasive species. Ivy, holly, and a few others are on the list.

You’ve seen holly? Saturday was holly day. On a steep hillside off the trails. Holly tree stumps with stringers growing out of them.

It was muddy, but in man versus nature, it’s never a clean match.

While I was on the crew pulling holly, I decided to get after the stumps, about four inches in diameter. They felt like fence post sunk in cement. Not a lot of give.

Since a brought an axe to what was supposed to be a digging and clipping job, I applied it to roots and anything between the roots and the stumps. I was a chopping machine.

That’s when it hit me. An axe is a basic took. I live in Oregon so even saying I have a new feeling for an axe seems weird, like doesn’t everyone know about an axe?

There hours of chopping and hauling later I felt a special bond. I also felt drained by noon on a Saturday. Chopping and hauling on a steep, slippery, hillside does it.

I went home, cleaned up, and took a nap. Good plan, too. Just let the day roll after a Herculean effort with my fellow Herks.

Around one thirty I started getting organized. I checked on another axe, a Breedlove guitar, and packed music gear for the next forest.

At four o’clock I walked into a bar for a two hour set. Two hours? Yes, two.

Until that point I’d done a three song set at an open mic, a Hank Williams song with a live karoke band, and goofed around in my garage.

Here’s the deal. In the land of plenty we older folks, 64, get accused of things. Things like ruining the economy, poisoning the planet, wasting valuable resources.

You know, the usuals.

I looked at my pile of guitars and asked the eternal question, “Why?”

I mean, I like guitars. I like plucking and picking and strumming, but I’m not doing much. I’m not even crazy about my acoustics. They are all sub-par, but so am I, so we’re a good match.

I decided I’d either do something musical, or sell them all. So I borrowed my kid’s Breedlove and auditioned at a local place. Two weeks later I’m walking through the door.

Here’s what I learned from one axe, then the other.

The blade axe formed America, from the chopped tree to the split rails. From the log cabin to the porch swing a sharp axe gave America shape. It’s a great tool.

The six string axe also formed America. Rock and roll on anything else is just an organ band. The blues without a guitar isn’t blue enough. Who would know folk without a six string?

So I dropped into Tapphoria and found so many familiar faces I told I’d be there. And they showed up. Based on how many times I show up to invited things, it felt like a miracle.

I found my place, got set up, and started playing shuffles. I focused on a toddler in the place with parents. The kid was bopping along. I gave mom and dad a gourd shaker to start their kid in music.

More people came in, so I broke into my playlist. The highlight was the room singing along to Johnny Cash’s Ring Of Fire.

Two hours later I packed my stuff and had a beer in my mug club beer mug.

The audience put a few bucks into an empty pitcher. I checked with a pal on what to do.

Mike said follow Kenny Rogers lead and never count money while sitting at the table. So I stuffed into my pack.

Of the two axes I can’t decide which is more historically important, but handling both in the same day gave pause for reflection.

Which axe is more important?