Reason for a Change-Mitch’s Blog

Day before yesterday I was showing Eileen the nest the Cooper’s Hawks built early this spring, then abandoned, or so I thought. There was a big storm with lots of cold wind when they first nested, and I did not see them again for 2 months. But while we were looking, one of the hawks flew to about 20 feet from us and landed on a low branch.

Then last night as I was going home, I heard calls from all over the woods, there must have been at least 3 birds flying and calling, it seemed one was in the nest, the other a few trees away, and a parent or two flying around. I am assuming the the fledglings are just learning to fly, and the parents brought them to the woods for hunting lessons. I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears open in the next few weeks,
Cooper’s Hawk call

We missed the Market last week because of the massive storms and flooding, but are looking forward to it this week. The week before was great, except the new blacktop coating on the lot was tough on the nose. I have been getting out in the crowd more, playing the songs is mostly autopilot, but connecting with the kids, making folks smile, is what it is all about. I’ve learned to smile while playing, people seem to get more from a tune played by happy musicians, and when they get happy, I get even more happy, quite a feedback loop! The coolest part is when I move close to a baby or toddler in a stroller, and they tune in to the fact that I am playing to them, their faces light up, and it is all worthwhile.

I serve on the Board of Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, our community food pantry.

Our philosophy falls some where between the Diggers and Mom. It was founded by single mothers trying help each other and they wanted whole nutritious foods for their families. The cupboard now distributes free food, often organic and locally grown, to anyone in need, no paperwork, authentication, tax forms; nothing but your signature affirming compliance with our guidelines. Like Mom, we want everyone in our family (our community) to be well fed and healthy. We run with minimal staff, our volunteers are the heart of the organization, people helping each other.

We have three parts to the organization’s outreach, our food pantry at 1010S. Walnut, our nutrition education classes, and our community gardens programs.

The vibe at MHC is like a cooperative, people helping each other, we are not a charity. Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard needs to grow, we are the largest distributer using the Hoosier Hills Food Bank, and our customer numbers have grown by 20% in the last year.

At our last board meeting, Sophia Travis came to pick up her husband Greg (who is on the board), and got to hold Rebecca’s son Donovan, I got this great snapshot.

Our next big event is the Harvest Team Breakfast on March 6, 2008, where we ask you to come to an early breakfast, and then ask you for money. I will be contacting you soon to see if you can attend!

I had the honor of being the MC for IU’s Cornhole Tournament, as part of the week long Celebrate IU campaign. I took some pictures and videos, which are posted below. I put the pictures on my Picassa account for easy viewing. We were very lucky in that the clouds were piling up for rain, and then about 2 pm started pushing back west, and we had sunshine for the Hutton Honors College dedication at 4:30 pm. The rain held off all through the whole event, and the bonfire burned brightly with no smoke.

The most amazing thing was when President McRobbie tried his luck at corn hole tossing. Before the Hutton Honors College dedication, VC Bruce Jacobs took the president to the playing field, and introduced him to one of the students playing, who showed him how the game was played. As it happened, one back was already draped halfway into the hole. The President took aim, let fly, and he not only dropped his bag in the hole, he knocked the other bag in as well, scoring 6 points on one throw!

I also took a few videos:

I just edited the Wikipedia article on my great-great-great uncle (my g-g-g-grandfather’s sister Ann married Gen. Coffee’s son, Alexander), Gen. John R. Coffee. Even though he is not a direct blood relative, the name has lived on in my family, my grandfather and his father were both named Alexander Coffee Sloss.

General Coffee was a close friend of Andrew Jackson, he married Jackson’s wife’s neice, Mary Donelson, and engaged in land speculation with Jackson in Tennessee. During the 1813 Jackson-Benton duel in downtown Nashville he pushed Thomas Hart Benton down a flight of stairs after Benton had shot Jackson in the shoulder. He went on to serve as Brigadere General commanding the cavalry under Jackson in the Tennessee miltia during the Creek War, and he was wounded at the Battle of Emuckfaw Creek. He recovered to command the southern flank in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. He marched to New Orleans and commanded the left flank at the Battle of New Orleans, firing from the Cypress swamps to the east of the Mississippi. After the war he became first a land speculator and then a surveyor, and is buried near Florence, Alabama, which he helped to found.

Walking through the woods in the old crescent is a great relief from windowless office, computer based work. Today I heard a loud bird caw, not a crow, but a preditor. I looked up and around and saw a small to medium hawk land on a barren branch 60 feet up. As I watched, it became apparent he/she was eating something, as the bird’s head would go down to the feet on the branch, then pull upward, and I could see bits of fur or feathers float away in the wind each time. I was totally engrossed with watching this brunchen scene, when much to my surprise, high in trees, just a few feet from the hawk, a hummingbird flew into sight, hovored as only they and bees can, and then moved on. Wow, amazing what you can see and hear, even in town.

This cool 2 story is on its way out, it is about to be torn down and turned into student housing. Years ago I move an bunch of earth to the right of the house, then formed and poured the patio and concrete, and reset the limestone steps It is still in good shape! Goodbye to good work, it is not the first time I will watch my efforts destroyed.

Friday is art opening nite, and we visited a number of venues: SOFA Gallery, where we saw Nicole, and Ladyman’s, where we saw Dan & Jan, also down at the Art Garage.

Yesterday on the way to the Woody show, I parked my bike by the railroad track north of 12th St. A coal train came by, but with gondola and tanker cars, and it was heading west, unlike the all coal trains that run from the strip mines in western Indiana to the Indianapolis power plants. I asssumed that the string of cars was local, the coal perhaps going to the IU power plant. I was jus absorbing the feeling, the meaning of the trains, hoping to use it in my performance that nite. It just kept coming and when I saw the gondola car I remembered the time I had had hopped a frieght in Bakersfield, California, heading back to the midwest. So I parked my bike, ran alongside the gondola, grabbed the ladder and hopped up. I remembered the other times I had hopped a frieght, the last a short trip from Iowa City to neighboring Coralville. I suddenly remembered that the easy part was getting on, jumping off a moving freight is much harder. So thought about what I had to do, one foot immediately after the other, I would be moving at 15mph when I hit the ground. I was lucky, I hit with my left foot, the right went sailing out in front, and miraculously, I was still upright and moving more slowly by the third step. My heart was racing, so were my feet. This really brought back the memories.

The time was 1967, not really knowing what I was doing, I had hopped on a flatcar with heavy machinery strapped to it. Leaving Bakersfield, I had little choice, as there were no open boxcars, which is what I was I had heard and read about, but I was not to be stopped, I was on the way home to the midwest. It was plenty hot, and I was heading into the desert, so who needs a boxcar?

That night I learned a life lesson regarding altitude and temperature. As the freight moved out east into the mountains, the air became thinner and thinner. The higher we got the colder it became. For some reason, the freight stopped for several hours at what seemed to be the highest part of the mountains. I slept and shivered through the long night, and just before daylight, the train began move down grade into the Arizona desert.

The next morning the train stopped right in the middle of a grapfruit orchard. I hopped off the flatbed car and grabbed a few, but wouldn’t you know it, that’s right when I heard the clunk, clunk, clunk of the train starting up. I ran back and got on my car, but my heart was racing.

I had my pack on the train, and did not want to loose my few possessions. This same pack had accompanied me across the White Mountains in New Hampshire and across windy lakes in Vermont, and I had just traveled to and lived in San Francisco with what was with me.

Much later that afternoon, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico, and did not move for over an hour. Being the impatient sort, I spotted I-10 several hundred yards or so across the desert, so I headed out to hitchhike Certainly not as exciting as frieght hopping, but faster, I hoped. I finally got to the freeway, climbed the enbankment, and stuck out my thumb. Wouldn’t you know it, I again heard the thunk of the train starting up. I again shouldered my pack and began running back to the train. Nearly exhausted, I ran alongside a gondola car, and as the ladder on the back of the car came by, I swung on and up the ladder. That’s when my adventure and education began.

On the gondola car were several bedraggled men. One was looking very hungover in a corner, but the other were standing with their arms draped over the wall of the car, watching the scenery go by. The guy nearest me, walked over, I must have been a sight with hair to my shoulders, carrying Euro hiking pack with clean jeans and shirt (that old saw about dirty hippies was way off, it you had that much hair, you shampooed on a regular basis.)

We are in the last days of rehearsal, and the show is going well, I am having a great time as I learning to sing with others, finding my place in the whole, and even some occasional reading of the notes on paper!
Here is a picture of the Breeden brothers singing in the beginning of the second act, and also a picture of my favorite cast members, babies Della and Lauralyn, who bring so much joy and family feeling to the show.