Sunday, June 10, 2012

Fear and loathing on the Alzheimer highway

It's a stinking hot day.

Me and the farm manager are sitting in the shade of the big spruce in front of the house, watching the turkey vultures swoop and soar.

Magnificent animals, those turkey vultures. They get a bit of a bad rap simply because of their name, I think.

Turkey vulture.

Just in front of us is a forty foot nearly-dead pine that lost the other third of its height to lightning a few years ago.

The farm manager is talking about how that tree is a metaphor for our relationship.

Needless to say, that inflicted a massive head-spin on my part.

In a desperate attempt to change the subject, I bring up the fact that the grass is really coming up fast.

Didn't I just cut it Thursday I said?

Thursday?

Ya, was it Thursday?

There's a noticeable change in tone coming from the farm manager.

It's not Thursday.

I look at her, not comprehending...

It's not Thursday?

I know it's not fucking Thursday. Did I cut the fucking grass on Thursday?

Oh!...

Whew!...

Trouble is, we're closer than we think, and the ghost of the Alzheimer plague is always just around the corner.

The favorite aunt on the other side is just starting down the road.

Fuck, I'm just started; she's fifty miles ahead of me.

We're at a restaurant the other day. She pulls out the dental floss. Can't get it unraveled.

Leans into the farm manager. Can you help me dear?

Well, that's a tough call, especially for somebody hard-wired to help.

You want to help, but that just means Auntie is going to be flossing her teeth at the table in the restaurant.

So we take a break from the shade of that spruce and I want to show the manager a few licks I've added to my musical repertoire.

I'm a shitty bass player, but I recently added a 200 watt amp to my collection, so at least I can play really loud. My band, CrackerBilly, is in the final stages of rehearsal before we launch a global tour.

Well not "global" global, but at least south Ontario. Maybe a few shows in some of those Michigan college towns if we don't have too much trouble at the border.

HELLO ANN ARBOR, THIS IS CRACKERBILLY!!!

Ya, just like that.

Anyway, yesterday the craziest thing happened. Right there in the corner of the garage we discovered a snake nest!

I saw the mama snake first, slithering her way into the corner, right behind that cabinet that has a lot of my old cassettes in it. We check in behind, and lo and behold, there's an entire snake-ball of baby snakes!

A couple of hours later we check on them again, and they're all gone. Guess they don't like to be disturbed.

So fast forward 24 hours, and I'm taking the farm manager back to the garage for an impromptu concert. I plug in the bass, turn on the 200 watt amp, hit a few notes, and...

HOLY FUCK THERE ARE SNAKES CRAWLING OUT OF THE AMPLIFIER!!!

Which is probably the only thing I have in common with the big dogs in the world of rock and roll bass players. We've all seen snakes crawling out of our amps.

So on my side, I've got the uncle who was a world-renowned scholar in the field of reformation history until a few years ago.

Now he sits at home and wonders who's house he's in.

It's a terrible lonely desolate road, that Alzheimer highway.


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