By Tondeleo Lee Thomas
Writing Doc's thoughts, opinions and ramblings is not an easy job. First off, because he mumbles, and his English is atrocious. He misuses words and mispronounces a lot of them.
On the other hand, his lack of education and culture is part of what makes his opinions and advice interesting. Most of these postings are made from recordings of phone calls and one on one conversations. Whenever I visit Doc, I have my digital recorder on, and when I leave several hours later, I have enough fodder for a dozen or more blog postings. Doc has an opinion about everything and there is nothing he won't talk about... well, unless it is something that I try to bait him into pontificating on, and then he can get sort winded pretty quickly.
As I listen to the recordings, I usually transcript them based on however I am feeling at the moment. Transcribing with only mild deletions or editorial comments is a task in itself. I do my best to spell his worlds the way he pronounces them, and also to try to have the postings make sense.That is harder than I first imagined. However I find it to be a positive challenge and I am starting to get into the flow of it, and to know what he means by certain malapropisms the instant he mumbles them.
As for the photos on this blog, I carry a digital camera with me when I visit him and when I am able to go with him when he and Marilyn are playing music somewhere. I take as many pictures as he allows me to. Sometimes we will go for a ride while visiting - "C'mon Tondy, let's go for a ride and you can by me a sandwich an' bring one back for Marilyn" - and part of the deal is that I can take a few pictures of him if we find a place that is interesting. Again, he gets antsy about it sometimes - "My mama warned me about men like you what want's to take my picture" - and other times he seems impressed that someone would want to see pictures of him on the "interweb." The pictures are posted randomly with the postings, just as I go through the pics that I have and then try to match them up appropriately to the editorial content.
I gave one of my old digital cameras to Marilyn and she has gotten some good ones of Doc. He is more relaxed around her and lets his guard down. Most of the ones where Doc looks more relaxed or even nearly pleasant have been taken by Marilyn. She has also made recordings of some of his musings and has emailed them to me when he takes her to the library for Internet access.
Anyway, that's how it is done. I also have video of him playing and singing and several of him and Marilyn at different venues and also playing out on the streets. I plan on putting them on Youtube at some point. I may also link the original sound files of these postings where possible and when I can find them on old SD cards, just so you can get the feel of how it is to talk with him.
