Hickory Wind - From Where Dost Thou Blow

Many of you may wonder (or perhaps not) why I named this blog Hickory Wind. I first became aware of the song "Hickory Wind" by Gram Parsons when I heard it on an album by The Byrds titled "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" back in the seventies, one of my favorite Byrds albums. Parsons was with The Byrds at that time. The song spoke to me, I think because it was a lament about a hark back to the fond memories of where one grew up and the romantic memories of one's youth. As many who know me are aware, I do tend to "harken back" fairly often. I value the past perhaps more than I should but history and looking back has always fascinated me. 

That said, when we arrived on the hill here in Tennessee there were many tall Shagbark Hickory trees, not pine, although I planted a number of pine. The hickory trees have become a bane. They drop nuts profusely and the hulls litter the ground and driveway. The riding mower scoots and looses traction on them and they also shed small limbs and twigs it seems continuously. They are so big and tall and there are so many it would be a major expense and/or effort to drop them and have them removed or burned. I live with them - as do the squirrels - who seem to enjoy them much more than I do. 

Anyway, when we moved here this song came to mind and the small hunk of hilltop we live on was dubbed Hickory Wind. In turn there was a small hobby enterprise I dubbed Hickory Wind, and a newsletter I issued twice annually by the same name, and finally this blog. 

In the song Gram mentions the tall pine trees, also the oak tree he has fond memories of, but only alludes to hickory trees mentioning the wind I assume that blows through them.

The Hickory Wind in the song is or can be analogous to any place you grew up and considered home, i.e. in my case, Cahokia and the surrounding area. I guess it can also be where your heart is anchored and fond memories of a time past. 

Anyway, that's the story of my attachment to the name Hickory Wind. It's a beautiful, sort of mournful song and when I hear it I'm drawn back to Cahokia and my time growing up there. Cahokia and that area will always be home. 

As a side note, I personally know Phil Kaufman, the "Road Mangler" who was a road manager for Parsons and a number of bands who famously or infamously stole Gram parsons body and attempted to cremate it in Joshua Tree National Park in California. There was a movie made in 2003 that depicts that event entitled Grand Theft Parsons. Kaufman lives here in Nashville (also a Facebook friend). You can go to Wikipedia or do a search for Parsons, etc. to get the full story of Parsons, his short lived life and his impact on music.  

There were many popular versions of the song, Hickory Wind, other than the one by The Byrds, One was by Emmy Lou Harris. Even Kieth Richards of the Rolling Stones recorded it. Richards was a friend of Parsons. Here is a link to Gram and The Byryds version 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJKRA1ZIeiM

And a version I also like by a soulful Bluegrass singer, A J Lee. If you don't know of her you should. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXBXlJYKTNI&list=RDyXBXlJYKTNI 

                                                          "Hickory Wind"

In South Carolina
There are many tall pines
I remember the oak tree
That we used to climb
But it makes me feel better
Each time it begins
Callin' me home
Hickory Wind

I started out younger
At most everything
All the riches and pleasures
What else could life bring
But now when I'm lonesome
I always pretend
That I'm gettin' the feel of
Hickory Wind

It's a hard way to find out
That trouble is real
In a far away city
With a far away feel
But it makes me feel better
Each time it begins
Callin' me home
Hickory Wind
Keeps callin' me home
Hickory Wind

To Those That Came Before and Gave Me Life

Like so many of us who come from the Cahokia, Illinois area the traces of my ancestors range from Europe, via the eastern seaboard, through the great Smokey Mountains into Missouri and Illinois and also from Mobile, New Orleans and Canada following the fertile flood plain of the great Mississippi River to the St Louis area, once truly the gateway to the West. Many, many ancestors have contributed to my genetic makeup and they live on through me and in my heart as do so many of my friends I have made along the way. We are all linked either directly by blood or indirectly by way of the heart.

I often think of my ancestors and wonder if they know I do and how I try to imagine them and the lives they lived. And to thank them, and send them love, for without them I wouldn't be here. In honor of and in awe of the many ancestors that contributed to my physical and spiritual composite and of my friends who have contributed to my life I wrote this poem back in 1998 to try to  express my thanks to those ancestors who have gone before. Especially those I shared my life with and loved with a passion, those friends and family members we hold dearest, even those we feel disappointed with but have forgiven. The last stanza reminds us to not wait for our lives to end before saying those things we want to say to those we love but have held back for whatever reason.

What does it all mean? Or what does it all matter? I don't really know - but in some way I do. Today, I'm not even sure what this poem means - or what inspired it. It just came out.

Love by Spirit's Grace

This odd genetic potpourri, now living here in Tennessee
A double helix in the rough, and metamorphed from basic stuff
Chromosomes from mother earth supplied the pattern for my birth
The memory of each gene-wrought cell, sings of Heaven, stings of Hell

Many fathers and many mothers, have fueled my passions, shaped my druthers
Forged my body and tint my reason, gave me vice and set my season
A single transgenetic fusion with no forethought or collusion
A mating of the poles of nature that played no favorite, planned no measure

This spirit though it be misshapen, flawed for certain, but not mistaken
Exists as God must have intended, a work in progress to be blended
Melded with the lives of others, all are sisters, all are brothers
Interwoven into one, the blood of mothers, fathers gone

Man's spirit is where power resides, where mountains rest, where oceans tides
Do ebb and flow with every breath, it gives us life and wills us death
Oh Heart! You are the spirits brush, with love you paint the flower's first blush
With love you grace the sparrow's nest, with love you shade our final rest

Whatever time my final turn is, cast me deep into the furnace
Give my spirit back to God, and spread my ashes to be trod
By those who must their time endure, as I did mine and rest assured
The mind can only bare embrace the power of love by spirit's grace

Life's petals falling one by one, the last one bowing to the sun
Our home is where the heart lives on, not in this sack of flesh and bones
In spirit we are not apart, why even now you're in my heart
And I'm in yours and never gone, there in your heart forever on

So, don't wait for what the brush disturbs, give me right now your final words
Your secret thoughts you hold so dear, your finest smile, your smallest tear
Before you sets a pot of gold, so pick it up for it's been told
That once you hold it you will see, love is all life's meant to be.