Doc Stevens

Tondeleo: I ran across a quote by Hunter S. Thompson that made me think about some of the things that Doc, Marilyn, and their friends have said about the music business and how ruthless it can be. Here it is:

Tondeleo: We've been talking with Doc and his lifelong friend, Big Dave about growing up in poverty, and having to make do with very little in the way of food, clothes, money and other material goods. There was not only financial and material poverty, but also the poverty of family live and support, the poverty of emotional support and poverty of opportunity.

I've been interviewing Doc and Big Dave for three evenings, and will be publishing excerpts from our several hours of talking. 

Big Dave, you talked about your father being in and out of jail, and having bad health, and alcohol problems. How did that affect you growing up?

Big Dave: Well, you learn not to depend on nobody for nothing. The old man might promise to get you something say for your birthday or Christmas, and you learn not to get your hopes up. He mighta been lying, just BS'ing you, to get you to be quiet. Or, he mighta meant it at the time. You never can know. He mighta said he'd get you a present for Christmas because he had just got paid. 

But that didn't mean he'd get you anything. He mighta needed that money to pay back a loan. Or to pay the light bill. He mighta just drank that money away or smoked it up. Then when Christmas would roll around, you would half hope he'd a gotten you something, but you knew not to get your hopes up. 

If he'd remember to get you a Slim Jim or a candy bar, you'd done all right. Or, he mighta got drunk on Christmas eve and be somewhere else. or in jail. You never could tell. 

Mama would call the churches right before Christmas and try to get something for each of us. Sometimes that worked out pretty good. Sometimes not. Some years she waited too late and there wasn't nothin' left for us.  Sometimes the toys they gave needed batteries and we'd never have money for batteries, so we'd just use them the best we could.

We ain't never had a Christmas tree. We decorated a tree stump out back... 

Tondeleo: How about you, Doc? How did growing up poor affect you and your family?

Doc: I don't really know, Tondy, 'cause that is all we knew. We didn't know what it was like to have nice clothes, or new clothes. But it never crossed out minds to get brand new clothes. People at the church gave clothes to us, in big black plastic garbage bags. We got some stuff from the thrift shop. That's just where we figured clothes came from. We didn't even know about so many things that the rich kids had. They lived in a different world. Kind of a sissy world, if you ask me. But we learnt things they didn't learn.

Tondeleo: Things like what, Doc?

Doc: Well, we learnt not to cry every time we got hurt. We learnt that you could fall down and cut yourself and be bleeding, but that didn't mean you had to cry. That was a good thing.

Tondeleo: You didn't CRY? Why on earth not, Doc?

Doc: Well, the old man didn't like to hear cryin,' and said to save cryin' for somethin' bigger than a cut or bruise or a knot on your head. He said you could get hurt and not say or do nothin', and he did that all the time. You never knew if he was hurt. And he was right. You can get cut or hurt or whatever and not cry.

We learnt not to be picky about eatin'. Food don't have to taste good or be your favorite. Food ain't s'posed to be entertainin', food is fuel. If you're hungry, you'll eat it. Don't matter if it's so called good or not. We learnt to eat anything and everything, Tondy!

Big Dave: We learned how to fight. Rich kids didn't know how to fight, and as soon as they'd get hit, they'd bust into tears and start crying like babies! We learned to fight because we had older brothers who picked on us, neighbors, teenagers, everybody. So we had to defend ourselves. Fightin' aint somethin' you'd choose to learn when you're little, but it pays off when you get to school and people are makin' fun of you because you're poor. You can only take so much, and then you gotta do something about it. 

I remember the rich kids takin' karate lessons. They'd PAY  and go every week to a class where they wore pajama's and then played like they was fightin' in slow motion. We never put on pajamas to fight and I aint never been in a fight in slow motion.

The teachers and principals didn't agree with us given a whoopin' to some snooty rich kid, but ain't no one ever made fun of the teachers and principals. They was probably the ones makin' fun of poor kids when they was in school...

Doc: Yeah, and they was the ones gettin' beat up by us poor kids when they was makin' fun of us and laughin' at us. So when they grew up and got good jobs, they'd always take sides with the rich kids who was laughin' at us.

It ain't fair, but we learned how to not care about fair, 'cause fair ain't nothin' that's ever gonna happen to a poor person.

Tondeleo: Whatever did they laugh at you and mock you for?

Doc: How we looked, how we talked, how we dressed, where we lived. You name it. Our house was a shack compared to where they lived. But it was home, for us.

And, we couldn't go to a barber shop so mama cut our hair with scissors. She wasn't too bad at it, but the rich kids laughed at us for that. Same with our clothes. They was all hand me downs, and didn't fit too good. Either too big or too small. Sometimes they was a little smelly from the last person what owned 'em and sweated a lot. Or, maybe someone gave us jeans and they was woman or girl jeans but we didn't know the brand names, so we wore them anyway.

In gym class, it would be the underwear. I ain't wearin' no thrift shop underwear, so mama made our underwear outta old t shirts or pillow cases. She'd make 'em like shorts and put a draw string around the waist. That's the way they did it in the old days which is why underwear is called "drawers," but ain't no one at school was interested in that.

The girls don't wanna go out with someone what is poor or has homemade underwear. So we had to pick from other poor girls when we got interested in girls and all that goes with it, if you know what I mean.

Big Dave: I ain't never wanted to date some prissy girl anyway. I liked a girl who could hunt and fish and fight better than some cream puff rich girl who thought she'd get dirty if she let you touch her...and sometimes they would get dirty if I touched 'em!

Bein' poor, you learnt how to fix things instead of throwin' them away. If you couldn't fix something, you could learn how to use it broken or you could make something else out of it. That's how Doc got all his early guitars. Puttin' broken ones together...

Tondeleo:  It must have been hard to grow up poor...

Doc: Times was hard, and still are, but you're gonna grow up whether you are rich or poor. You got to learn how to laugh, too. We learned how to laugh at everything.

We were so poor, when we went to KFC we licked other peoples' fingers... you got to laugh at what problems you can't solve.

And  guess what, Tondy? We all made it! We ate, we fought, we cried a little bit, we made things, we fell in love with poor girls, got our hearts broke by them and probally broke a few hearts, and here we are!

Tondeleo: One thing that impresses me about the poorer rural Americans I have met is their creativity. From the places the live, and the improvements they make to them, to their vehicles, their clothes, musical instruments, what they eat... everything.

Poor people want the same things as the rest of us, only they don't have the money available to just go out and buy the things they want. They want to have their own unique personal style, they want convenience items, they want to have fun... and they have to use their creativity in order to be able to do that. Also, they have to be able to not only use their imaginations to be able to pretend that what they have is what they really want. What got me started on this line of thought was when Doc and Big Dave were talking about their childhoods and some of the things they did and their parents did in order to make do...

Big Dave: Yeah, we didn't have much of anything when we was growin' up. Pop had bad health and couldn't work much. Mama did whatever she could to bring in a few dollars and most of that went to the light bill and rent... four of us kids to feed, We lived in Old Man Adams' yard, in the trailer back by the tool barn. He was good to us as far as understanding when rent was late. the 'lectric company wanted their money pretty much every month and sometimes let us pay late. 

If they cut us off, Pop would run a cord from Old Man Adams' workshop out to the trailer. We had a hose runnin' out to the trailer for our water.

We didn't have much time to play and not much of a mind to play. When your old man is drunk and hittin' mama and cussin' at you you don't want to play. You don't want to play when your belly's empty. We didn't have much fun and ain't nobody talked much about havin' fun, so we didn't miss it.

Doc: We was pretty much the same way. But we did have music in the house. Daddy and mama did like music. We didn't have nothin' to sing about, but we liked listenin' to country music and gospel and blues. 

Pop had a record player he got down to the dump and we got old scratched up records from the dump. We had to make up words alot 'cause the records was scratched and no good - that's why people threw 'em out. 

Same with instruments. Sometimes we found rusty harmonicas or bent up trumpets and stuff. A lot of broke up guitars - well I mean two or three a year. That's how I got started makin' guitars. I could take a neck off a broken guitar and put it on a wooden box or a tool box and cut a hole for the sound to come out. My fingers was never long so I had to learn how to sand the necks down so my hands could fit around them, and make the strings real low. I still do that. 

Big Dave: We did that. We made  drum sets outta dry wall mud buckets and empty paint cans. It sounded pretty good, if you did it right.

Tondeleo: How about food? What did you all do for food? 

Big Dave: Well, we hunted. Deer, rabbit, squirrels, possum, coon. Shot ducks, went fishin'. We did all right. We grew tomatoes, kale, corn, beans and all that. We ate ok.

Doc: We did the same thing. Plus, there's road kill like for deers mostly. If you come home an' there's a dead deer on the side of the road what wasn't there earlier, you know it's fresh enough to eat. Even if it's been there long enough to get stiff, that don't mean it's bad.

Tondeleo: Road kill... OK. Some people would find that disgusting, you know.

Big Dave: So that just makes it one less person tryin' to field dress a deer on the side of the road. More power to 'em.

Doc: I find bein' hungry disgustin'. If it's fresh, it ain't nothin' wrong with eatin; roadkill. At least you know it was healthy when it got hit.
 
Tondeleo: So how DO you know if it's been there long enough that it's bad? 

Doc: Fleas. If the fleas are still on it, then it's fresh enough to eat. If the fleas have left, you don't want to eat it. That's the way you tell.

Tondeleo: How about sweets, dessert, fun food?

Big Dave: We didn't really have fun food. We didn't really have fun, like I said. But in the summer, Mama would get a jar of dill pickles, and we'd get out a dill pickle and dip it in Kool Aid powder. That was pretty  good on a hot day.

Doc: We did that one, too. Also, this is funny. We never could afford ice cream. So mama would give us a couple of spoonfuls of Coffee Mate on a jar lid, and then a ice cube wrapped in a piece of newspaper. We'd dip that ice cube in the Coffee Mate and pretend it was ice cream! It was good enough for us and sometimes I still like it better than ice cream... it's cheaper, too.

 Tondeleo: I've been writing from my notes and recordings about the immense creativity and the drive for self expression in even the poorest and the most uneducated people. In the rural areas of America, at least the ones that I have been to, there seems to be no limit to these traits.

If I was poverty stricken, I would try to not attract attention to myself. But for these rural Americans, it seems that the poorer they are, the more need there is for self expression. They seem to have a need to say, "HEY! Look at ME! I may be poor, but I am SOMEBODY!"

One  example of this is the Ford pickup truck that belongs to Doc's friend, Big Dave. Dave hasn't had it registered or insured for about two years now. Something happened somewhere that caused him to park it in his garden for a while. Neither he nor Doc feel that it is important enough to talk about, and when I pulled Marilyn aside to ask about it, she says it is something that we don't talk about. It just "is" for now.

I asked Big Dave what year it is, and he says that it's a couple of different years.  "It doesn't matter."
I ask about the modifications he's made on it and whatever else he can tell me about it. Here is what he said:

Big Dave: I'm not drivin' it right now and it makes me feel bad, you know? It's sittin' there wastin' under a tree when it ought to be drived. 

Well, it's a 4X4. Got 4 wheel drive. That means it's good for drivin' in the woods and in mud and snow without gettin' stuck. I got 31" tires on it. I lifted it up like 3 inches, to make it a little taller. When I go deer huntin' I can take the truck out there, so I'm not walkin' and draggin' the deer around through the woods. Especially if I get two or three of deer.

Tondeleo: I notice that it doesn't have a grille. And, you've painted what was behind the grille silver. Does that mean you're not going to get a new grille for it, Big Dave?

Big Dave: Yeah, my truck lost his front teeth in a fight with a white oak tree! 

I couldn't find a grille that was any good, so I took some of that mesh that you use in front of a fireplace and put it in there to protect the radiator - that's all a grille does anyway, and then painted it all silver... (laughs) it looks like I at least know he ain't got no teeth anymore! 

I painted the shiny metal around the headlights black, and I painted the bumper black because I had some black spray cans and didn't have anything better to do. So I painted stuff. 

Tondeleo: What else can you tell me about your truck, Big Dave?  Remember, I don't know much about these things, and people who read my blog may not know very much about them...

Big Dave:  What else? Uhhh, I got a cap on the back. I tried paintin' it cammo by sprayin' around leaves here an' there. It didn't come out too good. 

I can sleep in there if I'm out deer huntin' or duck huntin'  over the weekend or anytime, really. If I got my tools in the back, the cap keeps the rain off of them. Keeps people from just reachin' in my truck and stealing my stuff. Havin' a cap on the back's a good thing... 

I could clean it out back there and have a date back there.

Marilyn: YUCK! You're so GROSS, Big Dave. NO self respectin' woman would get in the  back of your old truck!

Big Dave: Well, I don't always go for the self respectin' type...

Tondeleo: I notice that you have painted the back half of your truck black. Was that because you were bored, also?

Big Dave: I painted the back part of it black because I'd had a wreck into another tree. 


Tondeleo: Your license plate says Dog Man. Does that have a meaning?

Big Dave: Yeah. I'm a dog man.

Doc: Yeah, he's a dog man, all right.

Marilyn: Big Dave really IS a dog man, Tondy.

Tondeleo: OK, I think I get it... you're a dog man, and it says it on your license plate... 

Marilyn: Well, he loves his dog Bulkley more than anyone on the whole earth, Tondy. Bulkley is head of the pack, fifteen years runnin.

Big Dave: Yeah, ain't nobody better n' Bulkley. Well Christine is, but she's Asian.  

Tondeleo: ... uh, ok... I think I get it...  so, what is the meaning of the four horseshoes on the front of your truck, on the front of the bonnet?

Big Dave: My truck ain't got a bonnet, first off. It ain't a woman. A car ain't got a bonnet either. It's a hood. The meaning of the horseshoes on the front? It means good luck. You oughta know that, boy. But it means somethin' else, too. Somethin' people gotta figure out. But I'll tell you; I don't want you sittin' here all night. It means what might be good luck for me ain't good luck for someone else.

Tondeleo: Like what?

Doc: Like for the HORSE! That's a lesson right there, good luck for one is bad luck for another. People can  look at the front Big Dave's truck and get a life lesson, if they're thinking while they're looking.

Tondeleo: How about the donkey that is also on the front? Does that mean anything, Big Dave?


Big Dave: Uh, well, yeah it's got a meaning... 

Doc gave me that a long time ago. That's the third or fourth truck it's been on. It's outlasted every truck I've had and two women. That donkey, well, he's got a big grin on his face. He's happy. He's sittin' down on the job. He ain't workin' and he ain't doing anything and he ain't goin' nowhere. He'll get up when and if he's a good and ready. That donkey is me, Tondy.  

Doc: It SURE is.That donkey is definitely Big Dave!

Tondeleo: OK, I admit it. I'm not much for working on cars, getting dirty or racing or any of that. I don't like loud noise unless it is loud music. But I DO like learning, and I like helping people and I like having fun.

Doc took me over to his friend's house early on Saturday morning, to work on a race car of sorts. His friend is like Doc, in that he doesn't have any real money, but he likes to create and make things, and make the best of a bad situation. Pat's house has a metal garage out front that's almost as big as his house, and there are a lot of cars and pick up trucks, in various stages of being dismantled, repaired or stripped out to be sold for scrap metal.

Out in front of the garage was a rather torn up Mitsubishi. The  windscreen was broken, the headlights were clouded over and useless, and it was dented up. I couldn't see any potential in it whatsoever. Doc informed me that I was looking at a future race car. I could not believe it.

Doc: Tondy, racin' ain't always about big money. The kind YOU are thinkin' of is big money. But we aint got that. So what are we gonna do... not race?

No, we're gonna do the best we can. Like with this car, someone gave it to Pat because it had problems. Dented up, busted windshield, bad lights and some other issues. The AC don't blow cold. I don't know all the issues, Tondy, but it was bad. But it DOES run ok. Trans and rear aren't bad.  Now, it's worth about $10 per hundred pounds as scrap metal. Pat's gonna turn that  car into scrap metal, and get a couple hundred bucks for it.

But first, he's gonna have some fun with it, racin' it on the dirt track at Potomac Speedway. He's gonna finish bustin the glass out, strip out the interior, pu;; the door handles off and a bunch of other stuff. The trunk [boot] lid and doors will have to be chained shut for safety. He'll have to put hood [bonnet] pins on it to make sure it doesn't fly open. He'll take off the exhaust - the cadillac inverter's  [catalytic convertor] worth a few bucks. He'll save that for cashing in on later.

Pat's got a bunch of old roll bars and pipe from other junk cars what he raced, so he's gonna weld in whatever roll cages they say he's gotta have. I don't know about that, but he does, and when he's done with the car, he'll pull it all back out again for the next one. They been in and out of more cars than I don't know what, Tondy! They's all rusty, but looks don't make it go any faster.

Him and his boy James is gonna take it to the dirt track an' drive it til it won't drive no more! They'll have just as much fun as them boys what spend thousands of dollars to drive on the same track! It ain't NASCAR, but it ain't bad. He'll still be mashin' down hard on the gas an' turnin' left, over and over again!

His wife and daughter will be out there cheering him on, his friends and cousins will be there. He'll have a couple of them working the pit crew. Everybody's gonna have a good time, and it really aint costin' them nothing much.It's a lot of fun and it's good for a family to do stuff together like that.

And guess what? When him or his boy have raced the mess out of it, he'll yank out the battery and the radiator, and sell that car for scrap, and get just as much out of it as he would if he hadn't raced it and torn it up. That $200 bucks or whatever he gets will help him pay some bills and will leave a little money for the next junk car him and his boy want to race. Plus it's good father-son stuff to do."

Doc and I spent the whole morning and into the late afternoon and evening working on the car with Pat and James. I don't do much, but I handed them tools when they asked for it and brought them sandwiches that his wife made. I sprayed the rims silver. Doc put the lettering on and used a brush to write some other names on it, and some details that were added at the last minute.

I confess that I was proud to have my picture taken standing with the car. I had been breaking the windscreen out of it when Pat's wife wanted to take my picture. You can see that the windscreen is half in and half gone. That's my handiwork! I would have never gotten this opportunity in England,  and it makes for a good memory and a good story to tell my mates when I get home.

 These last few posts have been about the creativity that comes to the surface when a person has the same desires as other people, but not the resources to fulfill them. 

For example, it's natural for a person to want to stand out, to be noticed, to appear to be successful and confident. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the car or truck that one is driving. 

You may be broke, living on SSI, social security, disability, welfare and any other government entitlements that you qualify for - but that won't get you the kind of money you need to express yourself adequately. After buying groceries, cigarettes, paying the rent, the light bill and phone bill, there just isn't enough to set yourself apart from the crowd. that is, not if you don't draw upon your  inner genius for some inspired ideas.

 
Here's a car that you would see at Scott's Store in McConchie, MD, just east of Nanjemoy. It was cheap to buy, and all it needed was some love and inspiration to make it into a real head turner. 

Doc pointed out all the refinements to me, so I could appreciate it and you could learn from it. This is like a poor man's Pimp My Ride episode. Here goes:

Doc: Ok, Tondy, this car's all about customizing on a working man's budget. Look at that gold grille. $1.50 can of spray paint from Dollar General and a $2.50 roll of masking tape. 

That hood scoop came off a 70's Corvette that was wrecked on the front end. But the scoop was still good. Bein' fiberglas all you need is a saber saw to cut it off the Corvette hood so you can put it on the Caddy hood. You're lookin' at about an hour total, with cuttin' it out, sprayin' it flat black, and screwin' it on with drywall screws.He prob'ly got it gave to him,

 so all he had was a buck and a half of black paint and a handful of drywall screws. But he's changed the whole look of the front of that car! I don't know where he got them rainguards on the windows. He probally had to buy those brand new. I aon't know what they cost, but they add to it. 

Look at the rims, Tondy! Well, wheel covers, really. They ain't match but they set that car off! You can pick those up off the side of the road for free. People pay about $30 for a set at the Wal Mart, and then they fall off when you hit a bump! The trick with them is to use screws to hold 'em on. That's one trick. Or you can use zip ties, around two spokes and through the holes in the rim. 

What I do is get a set of trim rings, and pop rivet the wheel covers to them. You ain't never see trim rings on the side of the road, cause they got grippers all the way around. You can get those at a junk yard for $20 a set. I go head and buy wheel covers new at the Wal Mart or the Pep Boys when I need 'em. I did that for Marilyn's car.

Now, look at that back end job! Five antennas! He aint got no CB in it, but they just dress it up and set it apart. You get them antennas for a couple bucks at yard sales. Aint too many people got CB's in they cars anymore, so they aint want the antennas. Out of five antennas he got three different kinds! You gotta work with what you got, Tondy!

Then, you set it all off with the two American flags!  That'll make people sit up and take notice. He'll probally catch a good lookin' woman with that rig!

Them old Caddies always had a problem with the plastic around the tail lights breakin' up as they got older. You can't find them in good shape anymore, so you got to do what you got to do. He used that shiny silver tape what's made for fixin' mufflers. It looks better than the broken plastic, and really catches the light good. 

Last is some bumper stickers and magnetics to show what you believe in and how you feel about things. That way if a woman sees that car and thinks she might be interested in you, she can read the back of it and see if you're her kind of fella or not. If she likes what you're about, then she'll find some excuse to hang around your car til you come out, and she'll start talkin' to you. It's a good start, anyway.

Look at that thing, Tondy! Look at all that glory! Flags wavin' in the breeze, the wheels reflectin' the sun, the silver tape on the back end... If that don't catch your eye going down the road, you just ain't lookin! 

I couldn't help but agree. Seriously.
 

One thing that has continually fascinated me, and that I write about regularly is the creativity that latent in the hearts and minds of people with scant financial resources. These people want the same things that others want, but don't have the means of just going out and buying them; so they make or adapt what the want from what they have access to.

Also, like the rest of us, they draw inspiration by what they see on TV or things that other people have. I'll be writing about this for a couple of days or so.
For example, you may have a boat that you use for bass fishing, and it's big enough that you can't haul it on the roof of your minivan, so you have to pull it up out of the water and keep it on the bank. You might have to pull it up on a trailer from time to time, if you want to take it to a friend's house.

But, you don't have a pick up truck or four wheel drive. You need to get the boat up on bank, or on the trailer. What to do?

You can have an "inspired idea" that comes to you in the wee hours of the morning. An idea that compels you to get up out of bed and go out to the shop and start inventing!

Here you can see what can be done with a front wheel drive minivan, some scrap steel and a cheap winch.

Make a rectangle base from the steel, then weld the two upright pieces to the base. Using a U bolt, fasten the winch to the uprights.

Then, get some bolts with 2" washers, and drill holes in the hood of your minivan (or car) and tun the bolts through the steel, then the hood, and put the washers on the underside, and then tighten the bolts. Voila! Who needs a pick up or a 4X4? You're all set to pull the boat up onto the bank when you're done fishing, and you're ready to help a friend who has run off the road after a night of visiting the local watering holes! Not only that, but you've increased the usefulness and possible resale value of your minivan by at least $75.

There's no limits for a person who will draw on their inner resources to get their dreams fulfilled! Everybody's got an inner genius living inside of them, that is just waiting to be called on for solutions and inventions! That's what Doc and his friends say. And, it MAY be true!

Tondeleo: Doc has always enjoyed traveling - or rambling and roving. Sometimes he refers to it as being a hobo.  He says when the travel bug bites, he has to take off. When Marilyn was dropped off for him to raise, he had to cut back on his traveling to just a bit here and there, and for shirt little trips and time off.

Doc: "Yeah, I had to cut way back on my hobo ways when my brother's wife dropped her off here on her way to Tennessee with that piece of trash what she met at the carnival. Marilyn was about 10 or 11 and couldn't be left on her own, so it was up to me to be there for her and look out for her. Plus them socialist services was on my case all the time tryin' to catch me messin' up. I had to watch my p's and q's, which included not takin' off so much."

That seems to be a pretty common phenomenon among him and his friends. They can talk for hours about the various times they just "took off," to wander around the country for a spell. Some of them have spent years at a time hopping trains, and just going wherever the trains took them. To support themselves, they'd steal food or anything they thought they could get by with taking and then sell very cheaply. Doc won't talk much about what he calls the days of his darkness. Especially not with Marilyn around.

But he does talk about the urge to wander and roam. He talks about some of the good times, anyway. From what I could tell, the travel bug would bite whenever there was financial pressure, work pressure, family pressure or any other kind of pressure. When the pressure builds up too much for alcohol to wash it away, they would take off. They might just start walking. Just walk out the door with nothing but the clothes on their back, and keep on going.

Doc: You gotta go when you gotta go. It gets too much to be stayin' in one place and then that open road starts callin' and you gotta answer. I've hopped trains, hitch hiked, walked, took buses when I could do some work for a few dollars, and then one day you wake up an' you're ready to go back home an' see your friends an' family. Dependin' on where you are, it might take a couple weeks to make it back. Home seems better when you're far away and been gone awhile.

Once you been gone a while, you can remember all that's good about it and how the folks back home ain't that bad, and they mean well and how deep down in your heart you really do love them. Well, most of 'em.

I always take a guitar along. Usually my oldest Tele. That guitar's been a friend of mine for years an' years an' been on many 'ventures with me. I can count on being able to make a few dollars singing on the streets with that Tele and my battery powered amp, or play indoors with other people and pick up a few bucks.

Once people here you singin' and playin' and find out you're not a crazy person, you can get invited to their place to play at a party or barbecue or whatever. Mostly it's about playin' and  singin' the kind of stuff they want to hear, an' also about bein' friendly and not scary. A lot of homeless people scare people away as a way of protectin' themselves. I can take care of myself, and for me, bein' funny works most of the time.

I like going to churches and missions to play for 'em and share my testimony. Sometimes they give you a love offerin' and put you up for the night.The preacher might meet you for breakfast in the mornin' if you told your testimony well an' if the folks got touched or someone got saved. Oh yeah, I also take a Bible with me when I go ramblin'.

So I ask, "Doc, what is it that makes a man want to ramble, as you put it? How do you know when it's time to take off? What about the people in your life, like your family or boss or your friends?"

Doc: "Well, Tondy, it ain't somethin' you choose. A restless feelin' comes on you and won't leave. You start dreamin' about places far away an' wantin' to be there. Even if you don't leave, you're no good where you are. You're heart's not in it and your mind's not in it. You're better off just takin' off an' gettin' it outta your system."

Me: "But what about the people you leave behind? What about your boss?"

Doc: Well, when that bug hits you hard enough that you gotta roam, they all know it, and they are pretty ready for you to go. If you're poor, your job ain't much anyway. You get a little hard to deal with, and usually the boss man is about ready to let you go from the job. You ain't really hurtin' no one. I know, they cry a bit an' fuss, but they know that a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, and that you'll be back when you can. And then everybody's happy when you get back. Plus, you got new stories for them from faraway places."

You know what else, Tondy? If a man's gonna be poor, he ought to at least see some sights Y'all forget that poor folks can't go on vacations an' cruises an' all that. We work, we find some way to chill out, like drinkin' or smokin' weed for some, or playin' music - for some, it's drinkin', smokin' weed an' playin' music all at the same time - or goin' to church and gettin' on fire for the Lord.

That's one reason why a lot of our churches are more excitin' than the churches where richer people goes.
Church is all the excitement we got, if we ain't drinkin', druggin' or ramblin'. When I cut back on my ramblin', Marilyn and the people at her church got me goin' to church an' castin' my cares on the Lord. That's kept me calm and gave me a peace that passes understandin'.

People like you got money enough for vacations, travel and what not and you got money for them therapists and all that. We ain't got none of that. But like I said, I ain't done much ramblin' and wild cattin' since Marilyn came here. I had to stick around no matter how bad the itch got to take off. But nowadays, I can come and go as I please an' it keeps the pressure from buildin' up makin' me want to leave. Bein' with the Lord and His people has made all the difference in the world for me.

Tondeleo: It has been a few months since I have been able to post a blog for Doc. I have been busy with work and travel. 

Last week, I was able to get a few days in the Washington, DC area, and visited Doc and Marilyn. As you may know, Marilyn got married last September to David, and they moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Fortunately, she was visiting Doc when I was there for a few days.

Doc: Tondy, we just played a few jobs where there was people with a lot of money and nice cars and they was real nice to us. 

One was a lady’s 80th birthday party. Her grown kids threw it for her. They had a car show at it and everything. When we pulled up in my old Chevy panel truck, I saw all those nice cars with pretty paint and shiny rims and chromed out motors and thought, “Uh oh. They are gonna make me park out in the back!”

But once we got all the ‘quipment outta the back, the guy whose house it was asked me to park my old truck right out there with all those nice hot rods! I was really surprised, cause this truck ain’t never been waxed and only washed maybe twice in the last couple of years. But he let me pull it right out there in the line with the nice cars! And people took pictures of it, just like they did the other cars!

Then when we was settin’ up, I found out there was a good handful of guitar players and musicians there, too! All I had brung with me was the homemade guitars. I don’t know why. I brung my two favorites, which I made a long time ago, and two smaller ones what I keep in the truck. You need smaller guitars when you’re playing out on the streets, or travelin’. You ain’t got room for full size ones. 

It’s cheapest just to make ‘em yourself outta old parts and boxes. I keep the one what is made from a tackle box in regular tuning and the other little one in a open tuning for slide guitar and blues. The lady who lived there took pictures and sent them to us in a e-letter. 

I figured those guys with all that money was gonna laugh us off the property when they saw those old home made guitars what was made outta trash. But NO! They was real nice about it. People was even takin’ pictures of ‘em. That made me feel real good.
We had Marilyn down for the weekend, and Buttermilk Wade was on the lead guitar, and Lump was on the harp and K.I. on the drums. That is pretty much our line up these days. We are lucky to have a good handful of musicians to pick from and who can be available. 

The people there was real nice and it was a good party and we all ate a lot of food. They had a little bit of everything there. Nobody got too drunk, and there was no fightin’ which is always a mark of a classy party.

But we was all amazed that people kept asking about those guitars and takin’ pictures! Well, I know this: If we’d had nice guitars and good equipment, and nice clothes, ain’t nobobdy woulda been takin’ pictures!

Oh yeah – the other thing is that when they see those crappy looking guitars and old amps, they figure we’re gonna sound like garbage. So when we don’t sound like garbage, they all are surprised and then they think we are good. Those guitars sound GOOD though, Tondy, they was just cheap to make, that’s all.

In my last post, I was attempting to get Doc and Marilyn and Big Dave to discuss the end of the world, the Mayan calendar and survival. You can read how far we didn‘t get in that attempt. This segment is from a few minutes later in that same conversation, such as it was. 

I was trying to explain to Doc, Marilyn and Big Dave how unsettling it will be, according to all the scare mongers, when the next disaster strikes. I didn’t get too far. 

Tondeleo: OK, Doc, I understand that you don’t want to buy the Mayan calendar. And, like I said, there really isn’t a Mayan calendar for you or anyone else to buy. It just was like a prediction or something… but the point is that there are a lot of people saying that people ought to be ready for a disaster or for a zombie invasion…

Doc: Aint no ZOMBIES gonna invade nobody, Tondy! Don’t get your panties in a bunch…

Marilyn: I ain’t scared of zombies, Tondy! I have anointing oil that I got at the church and I would pour it on them and rebuke them in the name of Jesus! A zombie ain’t nothin’ but a demon livin’ in a corpse. I’d cast that demon out of that zombie and command it go to back to hell and the zombie would just be a dead person again…

Doc: Yeah, one more thing for me to bury around here.

Tondeleo: Well, what about being’ PREPARED, Doc? I read you about the “37 Foods You Must Have in a Disaster.” What do you think about that?

Doc: Well, Tondy, it’s a scam pure an’ simple. There ain’t no secret foods. That guy ain’t got no special secrets. OK: you gotta have water. We got a well, so we’re ok. Then you need to have things you can store. But we live like that anyway. You been out here in the winter. When it snows, ain’t no snowplows comin’ down here. We can’t get to the store.

We have sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, carrots, turnips and such down in the root cellar. They keep as long as you need ‘em. Why it’s called a root cellar.

Then we got salt cured ham and deer jerky. We even got some catfish jerky that Big Dave makes. We’re good for meat. We do that every winter and been doin’ that since I was a boy.

Plus, we got guns and ammo and plenty of deer, rabbits, squirrels and possums. We got fresh meat year round – all we have to go is take a walk in the woods.

When we ain’t got no electricity, we play the acoustic guitars… and Marilyn don’t need no electric to play her harp.

We got blankets and a woodstove, and kerosene lamps. That ain’t no disaster Tondy! It’s how all us live out here! Poor people been livin’ like that since the world began!

And you city boys think it’s the end of the world if you cain’t get your Starbucks and the interweb! You better man up, Tondy!

Big Dave: Well, if it IS the end of the world, you’re not gonna make it anyway. You’ll be dead. The world ended, remember?

Marilyn: The Bible says all this stuff is gonna happen in the last days. Tondy, what you need is the Holy Ghost. Then you wouldn’t be scared all the time. Do you want me to cast that spirit of fear off of you? I can do it if you want…

Tondy: No thank you Marilyn. I’ll be all right. I have some freeze dried food and other supplies coming from Amazon. 

Tondeleo: I never cease to be amazed at the creativity of some of these uneducated rural Americans. Many of them nave finished secondary school, and are not informed about (and indeed have no interest in) world events and politics, but they can invent and make almost anything. 

Below is a picture that I took of a workbench on a wagon that was built by one of Doc’s friends, Gunter (yes, Gunter, not Gunther). Gunter is handy and creative and always has some new invention he has come up with. 

Gunter is a family man, and like a lot of rural people, he keeps working on his house to improve it so it will be bigger and better for family gatherings over the holidays. He has added on an attached two car garage. He finished out his basement by adding a brick fireplace, a bar and family room. Across the back of his house, he has added a two story enclosed porch with a barbecue pit and exercise room. 

No plans or blueprints were used. Indeed no building permits were obtained. Gunter pictured these things in his head and commenced to build them.

He made a portable workbench on a wagon so he could transport his tools easily and have a work surface to use them on whilst working on his projects.

Doc: Yeah, that Gunter can make anything and fix anything. He’s smart, and like the rest of us, he don’t have any money. When you ain’t got money, you gotta use your brain more. You can’t let it hold you back just ‘cause you ain’t got any money. Country boys can SURVIVE, Tondy!
That wagon workbench of his is really nice. He got the wagon part of it at a tool sale. Then, he took scraps of one inch angle and welded up a little table to fit just inside the edges of the wagon. He put a frame about 8 inched or maybe ten for support, and also to hold the Pepsi cartons that he uses to hold his hand tools.

The Pepsi cartons are held in with zip ties, so he can remove them if he wants. The workbench is not welded to the wagon, even though welding is faster and easier. He bolted it in, in case one day he wants to take it off and do something different with his wagon. 

Gunter has a shop out back and he needs those wagon wheels to get his workbench from the house to the shop and back. Little wheels would get stuck in the mud.

This here picture is made under his porch what he built. Look at that floor! That didn’t costs him even one thin dime! He made it for free by pickin’ up old 2X4 scraps from off of construction sites and then cuttin’ them up into 10 inch sections and layin’ them on the sand what he put under his porch. That’s a good lookin’ floor, for free. 

Gunter’s a smart one, for sure. You ought to show people the picture of his porch from the outside, how he framed out the screening by using wooden screen doors.

He got all kinds of things what is worth writin’ about. He can fix cars, weld, do masonry work, electrical work, carpentry work, all of it. And he does it good. Write about him, Tondy.