Doc Stevens

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.

Doc: Tondy, they ain't hardly no crabs left in the Potomac river no more, an' I can tell you why.

Tondeleo: Doc, I'm sure you've got the answer . . . and' I'm sure it's not what all the people who study the rivers and the Chesapeake for a living think it is...

Doc: Used to be you could take a couple of rotten chicken necks out with you, tie 'em to a string an' then pull in crabs until you was too tired to pull 'em in. You'd get a bushel in a half hour. Not now. You might be out there two hours an' get less than a half bushel, which ain't worth goin' out for.

The government says that crabbers took all the crabs outta the water an' ate them. I ain't seein' no fat crabbers or any other watermen for that matter. Mos' of them can hardly afford gas for they's boats.

No, it ain't the crabbers what's makin' it to be no crabs. It's the government what kilt the crabs by gettin' all the seaweed out for the boaters.



Marcia Koeppe down here in Southern MD took this picture of blue crabs bein' hosed off to get all the pollution off 'em.

Crabs need seaweed an' the speed boaters cried to the government to get rid of it cause it got caught up in their props. So the government killed the seaweed and that's what killed the crabs.

But the boaters is still gettin' stuff caught in their props, it just ain't seaweed.

[Note from Tondeleo: I just HAD to post this little rambling by Doc. It is so typical of his ignorance and also of his humor, if you can call it that. I am never sure when he is being funny or being serious. This is from a phone call the other night before he went to the Bluegrass festival and got asked to leave.]

Doc: Tondy, they's all goin' on about what they call roots music . We ain't never called it that. Mostly it’s just old songs what everybody knows how to play an sing.

You know, Tondy I thought "roots music" was what Kunta Kinty sang. They kept callin' him Toby but he wanted to be called Kunta. I wouldn't wanna be called no Kunta, or Kinty. I'd hit a man if he called me that, but he wanted to be called Kunta an' that's his right. Yeh, I'd knock a lung loose in a man what called me that.

Anyhow's, that ain't what they call roots music. What they call roots music is what I play an' my daddy an' grandaddy played an what my friends play, but they think you cain't play it if you got a guitar an' amp. Only a cuestick guitar. No amp for guitar. Just their weak little puny office boy voices.

Tondeleo: Hello, This is Tondeleo...

Doc: Look, Tondy, I still got a burr in my saddle thinkin' about bein' throwed outta that Blue Grass Vestibule over the weekend. An' I wasn't drunk or fixin to be cause I cut all that mess out when my brother died an' told me to take care of Marilyn his daughter. He told me afore he died to take good care of her and stay sober an' I mostly done it. Over the weekend I got throwed out 'cause they said if I used 'lectricity when I played my guitar then it wasn't truly country roots bluegrass American music.

Now if I live in the country, which I DO, an' I play music which I DO, an' I use a amp so you can hear my guitar over my singin' which I DO, an I am an American WHICH I AM, an the songs I sing is the ones my Daddy an my 'Grandaddy afore him sang, which they ARE, then how is that not real country roots American music?

Tondeleo: Ummm...

Doc: But that ain't all. They use 'lectricity theyself. They got CD's out an' they has radios an they is all 'lectric. They was SELLIN' CD's there, which you gotta have 'lectric or you cain't hear them.

But I ain't allowed to use 'lectric on my guitar which I have been usin' for more than 30 years an' I have played it in the mountains, in the valleys an' wherever I felt like it til this past weekend, when someone invited ME, I din't invite them, to come an' play.

Now here is what got me madder than a striped ape in a prison camp. They, the good little boys who WAS allowed to sing, was all singing through mikes, which IS 'lectric an' plug into AMPS which is 'lectric. I know a mike ain't really' lectric, but my guitar ain't really 'lectric neither. It ain't no more 'lectric than a mike is. A mike which I DON'T need cause I got a fair set of pipes on me. My guitar is what needs to be made loud an' Marilyn's harps gots to be made loud. But I don't need no mike for my voice.

They had some of them boys up there singin' into mikes an' blastin' the sound all over the place an' holdin' theys guitars in front of mkes an' that is ok, but I ain't allowed to play my guitar or use my stompbox cause it gots a mike in it too.

Tondeleo: Well, Doc, it IS their festival, and you were only invited at the last minute... and you don't even know if the bloke that invited you was authorised to... or did he just invite you to attend...

Doc: That guy what worked there who told me I couldn't play my guitar through my battery powered amp, he couldn't play nothin anyway an' he didn't have enough shoulders to hold up a guitar strap. I was gonna wup his hindparts an' rake the grass with it an' then wup him again for leavin' a greasy stain, but the way he was howlin' an' carryin' on cause I wanted to play my guitar was so pitiful I was too disgusted to wup him.

An like I said yesterday, Marilyn had commenced to cryin' an' said they would put me in jail if I got up on stage an' played anyway, which I was goin' to do. I had a Hank Williams set of songs an' some Webb Pierce and Merle Travis which is 'bout all I know, but I know 'em real good.

We rode more than two hours to be there an' then got throwed out cause don’t you know that country people don't have no 'lectricity. That's what city people thinks, an I was gonna show him some real country 'lectricity if Marilyn hadn't tugged on my arm so much an' ast me to leave an' if Oliver hadn't been there to help me get over it.

So here is where it stands. I AIN'T goin to no more Blue Grass vestibules or any country ones lessen they tells me up first I aint gonna be able to use my guitar, ceptin' my one what ain't electric an' if they try to stop me then, they is gonna have one situation on their hands, period. Bye.

Tondeleo: Bye, Doc. Have a good evening.

Tondeleo: Doc, you're calling me after midnight this had better be good. What's going over there?

Doc: OK. I got invited to play and sing at the Blue Grass Vestibule over at Leonardtown and...

Tondeleo: Vestibule? A Bluegrass VESTIBULE???

Doc: Yes - the Bluegrass Vestibule over there at Leonardtown. They brought in a bunch of singers and players from here in Maryland and some from Virginia, down in the mountains where my people come from in Scott County.

So I get my buddy Oliver to drive me an' Marilyn down there, an' I give him 50 bucks for gas. I bring my guitar an' battery powered amp and stomp box so I can play an' sing. If you gonna play outside, you gotta have a amp an' you gotta have a mike on your stompbox so they can hear it.

We pull in an' a geek what worked there told me where the stage was an' me an' Marilyn got my stuff outta Oliver's truck an made our way to the stage where them other boys was playin' an' singing. I figured we get up there an' join 'em cause that's what you do an' all take turns at the mike.

But guess what that polo shirt wearin egghead told me when I got near the stage? Now, I got Oliver to ride me two hours to play there cause they wanted real country roots music as they call it but all it is is just music. I'm carryin' my 'quipment an' this polo shirt wearin' sissy calls out , "Sir, you can't bring any ELECTRIFIED instruments up here! This is bluegrass!"

I din't pay no 'tention to him and kept walkin' towards the stage. I told him I know it's bluegrass but what them boys up there was playin' weren't no bluegrass it was jus' music an' I was gonna go up there an we're all gonna play together cause they ain't got no 'lectric guitar an' they ain't got no stompbox. Marilyn told him to open up his big baby blues cause they ain't got no harmonica players neither.

Well he started whinin' and callin' for security to haul me outta there. I tol him he didn't know nothin' and all those candy pants he had up there was probly mostly office boys an' geeks pretendin' they was "country." You ain't country if you're pasty white from working in a office an' your hands are soft like a woman's.

He started orderin me around callin' me "SIR" an' tellin me to leave before Security had me arrested. Arrested for tryin' to play music at a music vestibule. So I ast him what he would do if I hit him up side the head wi' my guitar an' I went over there an' lifted it up to swing it like a baseball bat. He took off runnin' for the security boy on a golfcart and he came over an tol' me I was gonna have to leave or he'd have me locked up.

He weren't big enough to lock me up an' I tol' him so. I said I'd pound his head til he looked like a bowl full of prunes an' then I'd get up there an' play as long as I felt like. Well. Marilyn commenced to cry and tol' me he warn't worth it. I was gonna knock him out of that little golf cart an' put a hole in one in his rear end.

After that, I din't even want to be there an' I told him I was goin' home an' he couldn't stop me if he wanted to. I picked up my guitar an' amp an' stompbox an' got back in Oliver's pickup truck an' Marilyn got in an' Oliver did a burn out throwin' dust an' grass and dirt all up in that sissy's eyes. When we left he was cryin' about getting' dirt in his precious contact lenses. I ain't goin back to no more of those vestibules an' if they calls me again, I'm gonna tell 'em [deleted by Tondeleo, as editor with a sense of propriety]. That's what I'm gonna tell 'em an' then ask the Lord to forgive me, but not them.

Tondeleo: Doc, you know I put this on the Internet so you better be careful about some of the things you say...

Doc: Ok, I ain't sayin' nothin' about the people what runs that vestibule or none of the people what got to play an' sing even tho they used mikes and amps an' my guitar weren't allowed to be plugged in or my stompbox. They is all good fine Americans an' love the Lord. .. and I forgive them. Goodbye Tondy.

Tondeleo: Goodnight, Doc.