mp3: Tonight I Will Retire

mp3: Place to Be (Nick Drake Cover)

Dear Damien,

How was your Thanksgiving? Mine was really quite wonderful — short — the calm before the storm. I went home to the land of my (our) heritage — Washington. It rained most of the time. I kind of didn’t like that part about it. It’s funny because I know that it rains back home, but I have been transplanted to Utah for so long that I seem to have forgotten what all that rain feels like. I am now used to thin, cold mountain air. It seems like when you have been somewhere for so long it makes you question what home is. I used to think that being in Bremerton was home, but then my family moved to Silverdale, and then I realized that I spend 99 percent of my time in Utah — maybe this is home. But there is something about my Evergreen state that still grips me — and I think I felt it more this thanksgiving more than any other.

Your music is one of the things that grips me from my teenage years. You wrote a song about your bicycle — and it has become my most commonly covered song (maybe the only). It is funny, and witty, but not that kind of Adam Sandler funny (which most people should agree is a higher level of funny). And then you got more serious and moved away from the funny songs — and now your songs are really good, and still kind of funny (even though you don’t intend them to be). I saw you recently in my own hood, and it was quite good. It reminded me of being a teenager. When I got home I found a couple of your old cds and I put them on my ipod. It was kind of like I remembered how Washington felt and I wanted to go there for just a moment.

But now I am thinking that I need to be there for more than just a moment. It may well be very soon (not too soon, don’t worry) that I leave this home behind.

Rob

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