Balder Goes Overseas
Balder got orders to go overseas, to Okinawa.
Brew had been stationed
on Okinawa, at Balder's age. He loved it.
Until he read Chalmers Johnson's
Blowback, he didn't ask himself why America needed so many bases on places
like Okinawa. To defeat godless Communism.
Why did it need so many bases
on places like Okinawa after Communism imploded? To fight asymmetrical warfare against
states that harbor terrorists, or sponsor terrorism.
What's terrorism?
If somebody else does to us what we have been doing in the Third World since the
end of World War II, that's terrorism.
What is it when we do it? Spreading
democracy. Extending freedom.
* * *
Brew's truck had just died. He bought a bike to ride to work and back.
Balder asked Brew if he wanted to drive his car while he was overseas.
Brew
said he would make the few remaining payments on it (to Gerald), and keep it in good
repair, so Balder drove to Atlanta, and got Brew, then Brew drove Balder to New Orleans,
to finish packing. Then Brew took Balder to the airport, drove to Wewa, to spend
the night with Brenda, and drove back to Atlanta in Balder's car.
For a year,
Brew drove Balder's car.
He drove it home to see Brenda, he drove it around
Georgia, to see Owen play, he drove it to folk art shows. He went to movies in it.
Art films.
About the only thing Brew missed about Atlanta was the art films.
And he could get them through the mail, and watch them on his TV set, if he just
waited a bit. Right here in Point and Shoot.
Owen and Malcolm Holcombe Play Eddie's Attic
Owen had a week off, from Doyle, and he and Malcolm Holcombe went on a four-day
swing playing live-music venues like the Down Home, in Johnson City, Eddie's Attic,
in Decatur, a microbrewery in a college town in North Carolina.
When they
played Eddie's Attic they stayed with Brew, in Tucker.
Brew lived in Lilburn,
then Tucker, then, after Brenda sold her trailer in Wewa and moved up, in Norcross.
Brew made a pot of chili for the boys, but they weren't hungry before the gig.
They gave him directions, and after they left, Brew drove out to hear them play.
Owen and Malcolm opened for Dayna Kurtz.
There seemed to be a lot of women
in the room, and many of them together, or looking to pick another woman up.
Nobody looked interested in picking Brew up.
Brew had been sober for 20 years.
He ordered a Bass Ale, on tap.
He had several glasses of beer, then drove
home.
About 2:00 a.m., Owen and Malcolm came in and ate the pot of chili.
Brew was asleep. They bragged on his chili. Brew went back to sleep.
In
the morning, Malcolm gave Brew a CD, and Brew gave Malcolm a copy of Screed.
A couple years later, when Brew and Brenda visited Owen and Jean in Newport, and
they all went to the Down Home, the doorman, a musician, had read Brew's book. Malcolm
had loaned it to him.
He liked it, he said.
Owen Changes Bands
Owen left Doyle Lawson and hired on with James King. Again.
This time,
King could afford to pay a fiddle player, and had always wanted Owen to be in his
band.
The Lewis Family had a Homecoming in Lincolnton, Georgia, as they do.
Little Roy was a big fan of Owen's fiddle playing, and his cooking.
Whenever
Doyle's bus would pull into a campground where both bands were playing, Little Roy
would show up with a cup, to get some of the stew, or chowder, or burgoo Owen was
cooking.
This show, Owen, onstage, dedicated a song to Doyle Lawson's bus
driver. "Someone Took My Place With You."
The fiddle player who
took Owen's place with Doyle, Jimmy Van Cleve, now plays with Mountain Heart.
"No gig lasts forever," Owen says.
Brew had certainly found that
to be true.
People move up. Or down.
Or sideways.