Chimes of Freedom...Ranting of an old Folkie

Readers...I love you,, miss you.   I've got a few old posts in this blog about songs I've fallen in love with.  And references to other songs that touch our lives.  With Covid19  here to stay for a while,  it seems to me that all things relate to the troubles we're having and are still to have.  The virus is the backdrop of our lives.  There is poetry by Bob Dylan written when he was a 20 year kid that I knew way back then but I was full of hormones and didn't see the imagery from a genius.  It's important for me to talk about the song "Chimes of Freedom" as it speaks to all of us in terms of our pandemic.        But I just have to set myself up personably by mentioning a more mainstream song by Dylan:  "Mr. Tambourine Man."  If you have ever heard that song or the "Chimes" song,  you heard the Byrds who had these songs on the charts.  Both songs are incredible lyrically and can stand alone as poems.  They were both written in 1964.  After "Blowin in the Wind"  by Dylan went on the charts by Peter Paul and Mary and the Kingston Trio etal.   "Tambourine Man" was this long busy lyrical esoteric autobio ballad.  Really beautiful.  The Byrds did this bubbly melodic tuney cover.  It had guitar tricks and one chorus then one and only one verse,  then guitar tricks and a final chorus.  Maybe ran 3 minutes which is long for a single.   But Dylans poem of Tambourine had five verses spiced with so much metaphor  you realize every single line of it is metaphor,  and alliteration.  Dylan's howling bitter rendition maybe ran 6 or seven minutes and wasn't going to be on any Billboard 100 chart which was just being invented.  Before that: hits were on...remember the top 40?   In one of the verses Dylan describes himself as he tells the Tambourine man not to pay him any mind and if he hears "vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme,  to his tambourine in time ,  it'll just be him, a ragged clown behind, just chasing a shadow he's seeing down the ancient empty streets too dead for dreaming"      Dylan is a character in his own poem.   And in this other song "Chimes of Freedom"      Dylan again is a character.  Dylan shouts out to the underdogs with pain in his heart.  In the song, he narrates that this  character, and a friend  get caught in a huge thunderstorm.  They duck inside a doorway just in time and watch a spectacle.   My heart rediscovered this song as I was trying to pray and pray for so many people over these few months that seem like years..or minutes?  Dylan saw the "majestic bells of bolts" striking like chimes and the thunder was endless tolling of deep bells.   The bells were tolling for the warriors whose strength is not to fight.  And tolling for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight. And for each and every underdog soldier in the night.  And they gazed upon these Chimes of Freedom flashing.  They tolled for the searching ones on their speechless seeking trail.  They tolled for broken hearted lovers with too personal a tale.  They tolled for each unharmful gentle soul misplaced inside a jail.  They tolled for the aching ones whose wounds can not be nursed.  They tolled for the countless misused, accused, abused, strung out ones and worse.  They tolled for every hung up person in the whole wide universe.  And they gazed upon the Chimes of  Freedom flashing.   I want to dedicate this post today, Memorial Day,  to the fallen soldiers as they lie in Arlington, and Flanders Fields,  and in hometown churchyards, and everywhere.  And I dedicate this post to the 100 thousand we have lost to the virus,  and to their families.  And I dedicate this post to all the front liners in hospitals,  clinics, testing labs, virus research labs,  Doctors, Nurses, graduating med students beginning their careers in a trial by fire,  essential employees at fast food, curb restaurant food,  Lowes,  Home Depot,  Tractor Supply,  The Press and journalists guarding our democracy,  the entertainers very young and old raising millions for equipment and other needs for front liners and the homeless.  And I dedicate this post to the Homeless and hungry and those nearing hunger.  I ask that this virus not be political.  We all survive together or we all fail together.  There is only this one human race on the planet.  We are all in the same sinking boat.  We all ride on a ship called earth.  If something happens bad due to abuse of the earth we all will suffer together.  We only have the one earth.  We don't have a spare race car.   People be nice and be kind and be your brothers keeper.  If you want to gather in groups in church be very careful.  Remember one of the most profound verses in the New Testament:  Jesus tells us NOT to be like the Hippocrates and worship where all can see how pious we are.  Jesus says in Matthew 6 v5...."go into your room,  close the door and pray to your father..he knows what you need before you ask him"   Then Christ says....          "This,then is how you pray":   Our Father who art in heaven...…..etc.   In this same verse he teaches the Lord's prayer!   If you want to stay safe sheltering at home,  it's not just OK.     Jesus recommends it!    This is the longest post ever.  Is this what eternity looks like?      LLITTU     :::::+:::::

Shed Some Light

Hey folks.  I hope you are all staying safe and healthy.  If you can't I am praying for you. Almost every morning I awake with troubles on my mind.  My fault.  My mind.  The troubles are outside of    me.  And should not be able to make me afraid or sad or anxious.  I'm workin' on that.  Now that the US "economy"  is "opening up"  I may be against the grain a bit.  My wife and I have been staying home.  Even before the pandemic I was staying at home mostly.  Just being asocial because I could.         "Hey Lloyd,  why do you have long hair?   "Because I can".    Hey Lloyd,  you own an airplane,     wouldn't you just like to take a nice ride in it?     "Not particularly".   " Hey Lloyd,   Aren't you dying to go to fly ins and car shows and auctions?"   "No.  I'm busy not dying."                                      Our state is still in a form of lock down stay home.  But Lowes has been open the whole time.  Home Depot too.  The fixer up sweat equity industry is thriving.   We have a little shed/stable in our back yard.  Also a 30X40 barn/shop.  In a 65mph gust a few weeks ago, half of the shingles blew off the little sheds roof with the tar paper still holding them together.  It's a little Amish built shed that had a warranty.  So my wife calls the dealership in Harrington who sold us the shed and sent pictures of the wind event.  The dealer called the Amish manufacture and two days later these 2 Amish guys from Lancaster, PA.  show up.  They have a compressor/ generator,  shingle bundles, a small dumpster,  air hammers, etc.  They were there 90 minutes with a perfect match on the shingles and loaded up the old shingles.  My wife gathered up all the cash we could muster and went out to send the guys off north.  She asked what we owed them,  they said nothing at all per warranty.  They smiled when she gave them a little roll of bills and said at least we'll get your dinner.  Maybe we should get the Amish folks in Lancaster to handle our federal supply chain for the pandemic!                                                                                                                                                                                         Talk to you soon.      LLITTY