And They're Better Than a Wall: Bill Staines

George Burchfiel introduces Bill Staines, 10/5/16

"On the Road" never has been Bill Staines' theme song...it's Willie Nelson's, of course. One of the highlights of my music appreciation life had been hearing Wilson sing it live at Radio City Music Hall in 1995. But folksinger Staines, who has logged well over two million miles driving the country roads and blue highways in his circuit travels around the USA, has rolled along steadily for over forty years. He's been on the road almost as long as Willie. In over 25 albums he's chronicled his observations, some wry, some whimsical, some poignant, some heartbreaking.

The other night I delighted in finally hearing Staines perform in person in one of the fabled house concerts he's so beloved for. George and Sue Burchfiel of Orange treated 35 lucky listeners to an evening of Staines reminiscing, singing and strumming on a guitar that he so treasures that he's never risked taking it on an airplane. Its worn case looked as weary as I imagine Staines sometimes might feel, rising before dawn to head for his next gig.

But when he sat down before his mic at the Burchfiels' living room Wednesday night, he sounded as fresh as Sunday morning. My boyfriend, Frank, and I had arrived a little early to get front row chairs. Frank's favorite tune that evening was "Bridges." I've posted the lyrics to "Bridges" at the bottom of this post...and I continually revisit them in these days when I hear so much talk about erecting walls.
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 You can hear Stains sing "Bridges" here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ6Zat_BiAk

My favorite of Staines' selections that evening was "Song for Tigmissartoq." Here's why, from the liner notes for the album, Looking for the Wind.  Staines wrote: "Song for Tingmissartoq" is my tribute to Charles (and Anne) Lindbergh. Their pioneering flights of the 1930's in the "Tingmissartoq" went a long way toward the establishment of international air routes for then fledgling commercial aviation. By the Way, "Tingmissartoq" is Eskimo for "One That Flies Like a Big Bird." Anne Morrow Lindbergh chronicled these flights in two books that she wrote entitled "North To The Orient" and "Listen, The Wind." It struck me how many of us in our lives look to that very same wind, the same wind that lifted the "Tingmissartoq," to provide us with enough lift to change things or to move on.
What does Anne mean to me? When I got married in l955, Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s eloquent and elegant book, Gift from the Sea, had been on the New York Times Best Seller list for 19 weeks. It went on to remain there for 80 weeks altogether. I read it not long after coming home from my honeymoon on Catalina Island, off the California coast. I had grown up loving the ocean, so I was entranced by the idea of a few quiet weeks in a beach cottage.
 In those '50s days, Charles Lindbergh, the first man to cross the Atlantic

Anne Morrow Lindbergh , 1918

nonstop from New York to Paris in 1927in The Spirit of St. Louis, was still famous, but Anne, a pioneering aviator herself, found herself nearly equaling his fame with this landmark book. In it she addresses issues that remain timeless. Essentially how does a woman fulfill the roles of citizen, artist, wife, partner, mother, career person, friend, family member, and balance all of that with the time and self-commitment for spiritual and emotional nurturing? I’ve returned to this book half a dozen times over the decades, and its words always speak to me in a new way and shed light on how I structure my time.

At the close of the evening I thanked Bill Staines for singing this number...and for honoring Anne..."he had a way for wings, she had a way with words."

Indeed! Here's the song:  https://www.you.tube.com/watch?v=Cz1VItk76kw

Staines invited me and Frank to sit and chat with him for a while, and we talked of Anne, and of Thomas Wolfe. Staines recently had seen "Genius," the Jude Law/Colin Firth film chronicling  Wolfe's relationship with book editor Maxwell Perkins. I mentioned how I'd visited the Wolfe museum last year in Asheville, where I learned that Zelda Fitzgerald had once been a resident of one of the rooms at "The Old Kentucky Home," the boarding house operated by Wolfe's mother and immortalized in Look Homeward, Angel.

Frank told of our first date this past May when we saw "Papa Hemingway in Cuba," because I'd told him that night about Perkins and how I'd met his biographer, A. Scott Berg, who had written the book the film is based on.


Since Staines so obviously appreciated Wolfe, I asked if he'd read the 1962 novel by Herman Wouk, Youngblood Hawke. I added that I had stayed up all night before my 26th birthday, turning the final pages of that book...and how I'd written about its impact on me. That story I titled, "One Fine Day."

Staines had read it, and said,  "You're the only person I've ever met who knows that book." I felt special indeed. And Staines is the only songwriter I've ever met who paid tribute to Anne Morrow Lindbergh, my personal heroine.



 Reluctantly, Frank and I took our leave, me armed with new CDs to play as I drive the freeways of Orange County. It had been only one brief evening, but I felt connected forever to this remarkable artist. Through mutual appreciation of Anne and Thomas...and Youngblood Hawke, we'd built a bridge between us.

Here are the lyrics of "Bridges":

Bill Staines, Terri Elders

Bridges Lyrics

There are bridges, bridges in the sky,
They are shining in the sun,
They are stone and steel and wood and wire,
They can change two things to one.

They are languages and letters,
They are poetry and awe,
They are love and understanding,
And they're better than a wall.

They are languages and letters,
They are poetry and awe,
They are love and understanding,
And they're better than a wall.

There are canyons, there are canyons,
They are yawning in the night,
They are rank and bitter anger,
And they are all devoid of light.

They are fear and blind suspicion,
They are apathy and pride,
They are dark and so foreboding,
And they're oh, so very wide.

They are fear and blind suspicion,
They are apathy and pride,
They are dark and so foreboding,
And they're oh, so very wide.

Let us build a bridge of music,
Let us cross it with a song,
Let us span another canyon,
Let us right another wrong.

Oh, and if someone should ask us,
Where we're off and bound today,
We will tell them, "Building Bridges",
And be off and on our way.

Oh, and if someone should ask us,
Where we're off and bound today,
We will tell them, "Building Bridges",
And be off and on our way.

We will tell them, "Building Bridges",
And be off and on our way.

Bill Staines official website: http://www.acousticmusic.com/staines/

One Fine Day

The morning of my seventieth birthday, I sipped some pomegranate tea and reminisced about other landmark birthdays. I’d celebrated my fiftieth with escargot at an award-winning French restaurant in Ensenada, right before I went into the Peace Corps. On my sixtieth I’d hiked over moonlit trails in Seychelles with friends in the Hash House Harriers.

Now I was tucking another decade behind me. Did I fear aging? No. Only one birthday had scared me, my twenty-sixth way back in l963 when I thought I’d have to relinquish my dream of becoming a writer.

I’d just finished a student teaching assignment at a school that subsequently hired me to teach English and journalism. My husband had been jubilant.

“It’s wonderful that you’ll have a steady job,” he’d said. “Teachers get good retirement pensions and solid medical coverage.”

I remember how I’d scowled at his well-meaning comment. I might as well have been turning seventy, instead of merely twenty-six. Goodbye to youth and dreams, bylines and best sellers. They’d be replaced by lesson plans, bulletin board exhibits, and report cards.  Now I’d be a grown-up with a full-time grown-up job. I’d been tackled and wrestled to the ground. I’d turn into a stereotypical respectable middle-class wage earner, abandoning forever the wild-hearted Bohemian writer I’d always intended to be.

All the time I’d been accumulating credits towards my teaching credential, I’d thought of myself as a promising young writer, even though I’d been married since shortly before my eighteenth birthday, and two years later became a mother. But on the eve of my twenty-sixth birthday, I felt the hot breath of middle-age on my shoulder, and I believed then, as Yogi Berra had once remarked, that my future lay behind me. Since I’d written my first poem in seventh grade, I’d seen myself as a budding Edna St. Vincent Millay. Now icy-hearted reality warned me I was destined to become a hair-in-a-bun drudge.

On that eve of my birthday, the night of June 27, 1963, our beloved Dodgers weren’t playing, so my five-year-old, Steve, and I didn’t spend our evening as we usually did, glued to the radio. He went to bed early, and I picked up my novel. For the past week I’d been reading Herman Wouk’s classic Youngblood Hawke, an indelible portrait about staying true to a writer’s dream. I’d been nearing the last chapters, and couldn’t put the book down.

I finished the final page shortly before dawn, crept up the stairs and crawled into bed, tears trickling down my cheeks as I envisioned the parade of gray days that would constitute my future. I shuddered as I pictured myself correcting papers, diagramming sentences, and brushing chalk from my drab schoolmarm clothing.

When I awoke, I turned on my favorite radio station KRLA as The Chiffons burst into their rollicking “One Fine Day,” a song with a message of hope. I brightened. Maybe somehow I’d find a way to continue to write. Maybe I wouldn’t have to give up my dream altogether. That night Warren Spahn finally beat the Dodgers on their home turf, breaking a losing record that stretched back over a decade. Maybe that was a sign. After all, Spahn hadn’t given up hope. Then we all piled into the old Chevy and went to the drive-in to see Bye Bye Birdie.

Any day, I concluded, could be one fine day.

The night I turned seventy, Steve phoned me. I explained how I’d been remembering that earlier birthday.

“Yes!” he exclaimed, “I remember how cute Ann-Margret looked with the credits rolling across her face at the end of that movie. And it’s funny that the Dodgers lost that game to Spahn on your birthday, because that was the year they went on to sweep the Yankees in the World Series.” That certainly proved to be one fine day for the Dodgers!

As it played out, I taught for only three years, and then segued into another career as a social worker. Eventually I joined the Peace Corps and saw more of the world than I’d ever hoped. And as the years passed, I continued to write and to publish.

I never become a novelist, as I’d anticipated. Somehow I’d lacked the discipline to set aside the requisite chunks of time. Nonetheless, I stole evenings here and afternoons there. I wrote and sold articles and essays, book reviews, travel pieces, and author interviews. I never ceased to be delighted when I saw my byline in newspapers and magazines. The thought that somebody might be enjoying something I’d written continued to inspire me. With each submission, I kept my dream alive. It didn’t matter that I’d never written a novel or that my name never made a best-seller list. I had clippings galore.

Now on my seventieth birthday I savored yet another special day, one more fine day. I fed the dogs and cats and transplanted the zinnia seedlings. Every year I’d plant those seeds, and hope they wouldn’t get nipped by a late frost. I paused frequently to marvel at the myriads of butterflies fluttering around the poppies and delphinium in the front garden. The garden teemed with life. So did my spirits.

Later, I lost a game to my husband at cards. “Happy birthday,” Ken chirruped, plunking down his second gin hand. I opened his gift, a crystal unicorn, rampant over a sapphire blue heart. I touched up my pecan-hued hair and sprayed myself with honeysuckle. I donned a navy dress with a splashy flowered border, and coaxed Ken to photograph me in the garden by the scarlet Asian lilies, flowers against flowers.

We drove to town where he treated me to an Early Bird Supper at the Oak Street Grill. I savored every bite of my lemon garlic salmon. In the evening we watched Jeopardy, read the local papers, caught the results show of So You Think You Can Dance, relieved that our favorites had made it through another round.

Then shortly before midnight, I sat down at my computer and finished an essay I’d started earlier, about how writing, like sowing zinnia seeds, calls for an act of faith. You put your words down on paper, just like you plant seeds in the soil, and hope they’ll bloom and that somebody eventually will find them entrancing. I’d seen a call out earlier for stories on gardening for an anthology. I decided to submit mine.

That story so far remains unpublished. But since my seventieth birthday I’ve had over a hundred other stories accepted by a variety of anthologies. So I never doubt that indeed I am a writer. I’m never haunted by the ghost of failure. Bohemian? Perhaps not. Wild-hearted? Certainly…until this very day.

My eightieth birthday now looms on the distant horizon…just one more year. I’m betting it, too, will be one fine day. It's likely I'll write about it.