Reason for a Change-Mitch’s Blog

Here is the poster for the show I have been working on, this is last week of rehearsal, show is March 31 and April 1. This has been a great learning experience for me, I’ve been used to being a lead solo singer, and group work is different. The rehearsals have all been fun, in part due to the 3 generations of families in the show, yep the babies make some sounds, but they are learning the joys of family and singing and community, and this has made every night lively.

March 1, 2007
What a day! March came in like a lion, bringing swift and decisive changes.

1. It started with the Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard annual breakfast on a morning of rain and strong winds, a tornado watch was active all afternoon. It was a wonderful event, we raised more money than any previous year, plus we got a $10,000 matching gift! So many of our friends and aquaintances were there, it felt wonderful to be with my community of common interest. Sue, Sandi, Doc, and Bob came to represent the bagel buddies, and I had checks from those who could not make the breakfast. Eileen showed up to fill out our table and we had a good breakfast. Laura did a great job giving the keynote, it was her first time speaking after 9 years of Jessica handling the chores.

2. Michael McRobbie named president of IU, a big thing for techies like me.

3. Busy day at work, I teach Tom from IU Medicine how to create signature files. It was busy all the way.

4. (This is the big one!) Emma somehow packs her life into 2 big and 2 small bags, and gets on the airport shuttle to begin journey to her Peace Corps service in Uganda! Everything went well, we got to shuttle in plenty of time, said goodbye, and that was it. It seems our family thrives in high energy times, this is all happening around tomorrow nite’s full moon eclipes in Virgo. Emma’s strong Uranus is emphazed as well, this is a very energtic time for all of us, which I take as a good omen for her time in Africa.

When I started working for the Bloomington Voice in the late 90’s I was thoroughly tired of driving the streets of Bloomington as I had for the last 15 years as a building contractor. A day with only one trip the lumberyard was rare, and jobs were scattered in every direction.

While we live just south of the campus, the Voice office was on S. Old 37, just north of Rhorer Rd., so I bought an old 3 speed Raleigh like I had as a kid in the early 60’s. I rode that every day for about a year till we moved downtown. It got in much better shape, and started doing short rides like riding out to Griffey and up the hill to Bethel lane, and back across to Cascades and into town. I kept expanding, but needed a better bike, and so bought a Trek hybrid. This was great for commuting, but I also started riding 2-3 times a week for 25-45 miles, I averaged about 200 mi/week for several months. That winter I not only felt all that riding in my wrists, but also in my neck, which was unbearable for several weeks. I related this to my posture while riding coupled with new work on a computer while using my bifocals, I was holding my head back to use the bifocals in just the same way as I held my head while riding.

So I tried out Kevin Atkin’s recumbents that spring, and I was sold. You don’t understand how uncomfortable bike riding is till you try a recumbent. No wrist pain or numbness, no neck pain, and no pressure and numbness in the crotch. I’ve been riding it ever since, both in town and for long rides. People ask if it is harder to ride, and the answer is yes and no. There are definately different skills needed, everything is done with the legs, no help from your weight (you can’s stand up to pump), and you can’t pull on the handlebars. You need skill in shifting, and balance can be a problem, but only in the beginning.

So to answer the question at the top, why ride? I got tired of driving, I realized how much fun riding can be, it was cheaper, and I got to spend more time outside now that I worked in an office. Plus I lost some weight and lowered my blood pressure and increased my aerobic capacity.

Underneath all this was the connection I see between our energy needs and war and environmental degradation. I see a non-car life style as both possible and desirable. We moved from our country home on the premise that we could afford to pay more in the city if we were eliminating 175 miles/week, which also freed up 3-4 hours time. I am not paying the increasing price for gas, and I get so hear the cranes migrate and see a fox running through the grass just outside town. My life and lifestyle are enhanced by my bike riding, if you want to try any of my many routes, just let me know.

I just can’t help it! Really. Since the 50’s, when I became conscious of music through my mom’s singing and our 78 and LP records, not to mention my handheld transister radio. Flying Purple People Eater on the back porch in California, PA., Tom Lehrer, Pete Seeger, Cisco Huston, Ledbelly, early jazz, the Newport Folk Festival recordings, all were heard around the house, though I got my music merit badge throrough my analysis of the Grand Canyon Suite!

Moving to Pittsburgh in my early teens in 1962, I fell in with a crowd of folksinging, Quaker, peace and justice oriented teens who helped shape my life course. When we got together as a group at the meetinghouse for a seminar, or out in the community at a weekend work project, we sang folksongs as we knew them from Pete Seegar, Wood Guthrie, Joan Baez, Missisippi John Hurt, Cisco Huston, Bob Dylan, Brownie MaGee and Sonny Terry, Dave Van Ronk, Jim Kweskin, whoever had dipped into the tradition, or created it originally were used to make us one. I sang with the Freedom Singers when they stopped on their tour for Voter Rights, teens like us who faced violent racism with love and music. We were totally inspired, it brought me to the realization that resistance to the intolerable can be, needs to be joyful as well as articulate.

I often attended the Friday nite Caleidgh on the campus of Carnegie Tech, really a song circle for Appalachian/folk music. my friends from the AFSC were often there, but also “older” folks who organized and led the sessions, including the banjo playing Pete Hoover, who has so many recordings in IU’s Archives of Traditional Music.

Moving to Cleveland in 1965, I lost interest in playing, my next door neighbor, Steve, want me to play rock and roll, but I just could not get behind the electric thing. After several years in the natural foods business, I went back to college and supplemented my income and by street singing on Coventry Ave in Cleveland, where I lived while going to CWRU and then Cleveland State Univ. I worked through my repitoire of Woody, Pete and Cisco, but needed more, which I got from Dave Newman, old time country DJ at WRUW, the local FM station. I recorded his shows on the on my expensive (to me) radio/cassette recorder, learning Carter Family, Jimmy Rogers, the Delmores and more. Fiddle tunes, the early stuff recorded in the twenties, this was where the NLCR got their material, Charlie Poole, Gid Tanner, Mississipi Shieks.

Upon moving to Bloomington I became absorbed in the oldtime dance tunes played for line and square dancing, banjo and guitar, later uke and harmonica.

Eileen and I began playing farm and food songs at the market when we first moved here from Nashville in 1979, and have done so ever since. The Bloomginton Farmers Market is our city’s priemer community building event, and we are open nearly 40 weeks per year. Our songs draw families to our spot at the south end of the market , the limberjacks are fascinating to all, and our songs food, farms, and Indiana are selected just for the Market.

Our album “Fresh from the Market” is available from us and CD Baby. This album has become a favorite of the younger set, played in all the best pre-schools, it is a great intro to Appalachian roots music, with vocals by Mitch and Eileen, accompanyed by banjo, guitar, harmonica and fiddle.