Dirty Jack's

Here is a recent recording to enjoy during the Holidays. It's not a Christmas song at all (it's blues, actually) but I like the way it sounds. Enjoy, and have a safe and joyous season.

There is a pretty interesting thread over at the Planet Jackson Hole blog with lots of old time stories about the area. Lots of names I recognize from my days there in the 70s and 80s. There are several references to "Large Marge" at the truck stop (sounds like a bad country song), but I don't remember her at all. As I said, the thread is pretty interesting. At least, it is until it finally devolves into name-calling and paranoia, like so many long blog comment threads.

Last week I returned to Wyoming, but I did not get a chance to visit Jackson Hole. I drove to Denver to visit my son Tyler and go to his gig with his jazz big band. I actually like long-distance driving, which is a good thing since I hate flying. I got on Interstate 80 here in Davis, California, and did not make any turns until I hit Cheyenne. Southern Wyoming was much as I remembered: desolate and bare. I raced along I80, rolling past smoke-belching mining operations and sheep wagons and pronghorn antelope. The outskirts of every town had trailer homes scattered across hillsides like blocks spilled from a child’s toy box. Wyoming is not big on zoning. I took a detour in Cheyenne to find the house where I lived in a basement apartment. In 1985 a tornado came and drove several friends and I into my apartment. An hour later torrential rains and hail flooded the place, driving us out. The next day, all the cars in town looked like they had acne, with pits and dimples from the hailstones.