Crossing Tracks

Late one frigid winter night in 1980 I was driving west to New Mexico on a lark. I just wanted to get away from big cities for a while and roam about alone on some vast, remote wilderness area where no one else would be aside from some rare wildlife I hoped to encounter there. I had set sights on the Grulla National Wildlife Refuge near Portales, where I once visited my cousins about a decade earlier in life. So after a stop at home in a newly built apartment for a quick meal and a shower, eastern New Mexico was my destination goal.

I was feeling good at the time as I had just wrapped up my second year in music school and had neatly aced my most recent performance guitar jury. But it was time for change as I had been living, studying and working in dormitories for two years and I was running out of money to stay in college any longer. I needed to return to the common labor workforce for a couple of years before I could resume university studies. A fast track welding course and a lucky break led to an interview which went well enough to land my first job working as a weldor building and repairing boat docks and ramps on Possum Kingdom Lake. I had a feeling I was going to enjoy being a weldor plying the waters of the lake on the Argo Barge, and I did. It was the most enjoyable common-laborer job of all I ever worked at, hands down.

The truck was running well, its heater keeping me comfortably warm and cozy in the cab as I cruised through Cool, Texas at 3:00 AM. I had been flipping between AM and FM radio stations while reception was still strong, especially in the 1980s, searching for good music. Just as I was leaving Cool I managed to pick up a strong signal from KPLX FM out of Dallas. Listening to crystal clear FM music while cruising through the still, quiet of night on a road without much traffic, my good mood intensified. The truck was rumbling over the T&P railroad tracks just west of Cool when the DJ announced a new album by an up-and-coming banjo picker I had never heard play before, even though he had been around for some time.

I cranked up the radio and the title track started. I had never heard anything like it before and had never heard of its composer, either. An utterly amazing new banjo piece played by some youngster named Béla Fleck. That new musical composition indelibly kindled location, tune and artist in my mind when it began playing. The tune was titled "Crossing The Tracks".

Listening intently, I was stunned by the mastery of the artist in both composition skill and performance of the wonderful musical creation. It sent tingling waves of thrill up and down my spine as it played out on the radio. The French call it frisson. Some call it skin orgasm. No matter the term for the sensation, I knew I would be spending some portion of my hard-earned income working as a weldor to buy a copy of that delightful album as soon as I could.

Twenty-two years later I watched Béla Fleck & The Flecktones perform at the nicely restored Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe while living and working there for several years.

So every now and then, especially when life is changing significantly, I take time to travel through Cool again, put that first album of Béla Fleck's on the stereo to play as I cross the tracks (now a state park trail crossing), and ponder at whatever changes are happening in life at that moment. In this morning's news there was an article about Béla Fleck canceling a performance with the National Symphony Orchestra at a recently renamed venue with a long positive history now tarnished by the new name rudely slapped in front of the original name.

Several other artists have cancelled their scheduled performances there, and I don't blame them one bit for doing so. Obscene renaming of this once auspicious venue is vomit worthy. Why any accomplished performing artist would deign to appear there now is beyond me. It will not surprise me at all if it goes stagnant and eventually decays and crumbles in ruination.

Another relatively recent change in life brought about by prescribed burn turned monstrous wildfire is another reason to take a trip through Cool sometime this coming spring. And this life change has been as interesting and thrilling as any experienced to date. Acquisition of a pair of custom creations purchased from an artist in Vilnius, Lithuania have accentuated the thrill of recovery from the fire, and both instruments will be with me on that next leisure trip.

Many thanks to Rapolas Gražys for agreeing to provide these beautiful creations to add to my musical instrument arsenal as it is being rebuilt from scratch after the fire. My apologies, Rapolas, for being so unvideogenic.