Chapter Nine

         As his banjo, I'm feeling a bit left out. He's not picked me up as much as he use to.  But it comes in fits and starts, and so I'll wait for another fit or start. Or this could be the way it is.

    He played me yesterday. He skipped me today. He has moved me to the office (again). Sigh. Oh that office with the 'Gone Fishing' sign constantly affixed to the window pane.

    Another day, he didn't play with me.  But he heard a few good songs, even one that reminded him of me.  Or, so I hope. I thinking of  that one where Roberta Flack sings 'his fingers slowly strumming '. 

    Well, instead of me whining on like this, let me just say there were periods of time where he didn't play me. 

    Did I mention I did get played a bit by someone else? This new player was much better than Harry. Harry is a very metronomic rhythm to his strumming.  This player had some rhythm, even swing. And well, yes I began to sing in ways I didn't know I could. I felt like part of the river of music that a banjo can make. Harry's strumming was ... and here I go whining about things. By the way, Harry knows he has issues with rhythm, he knows he doesn't clap on the right note often. I am not whispering behind his back.

    Is this the natural history of a banjo owned by a man with no rhythm.  Can he find the rhythm through me? Not if he don't play me.

Chapter Eight

    As his banjo, now existing in the main room, I could see that working for the woman was the new value offer for Harry. Harry traveled from, "How do I prepare for a disaster", to "I'm in a disaster", to "How do I make it better." Harry cycled through them.

    This is not to be taken lightly. Thair are many kinds of disasters. Some of them we share, some we don't. Thinking about disasters can bring anxiety itself.

    Beng in a disaster has all the impacts of what that disaster means. Disasters are painful.  The ones we share, and the ones we don't. A disaster brings indeterminate times. Questions like "Are we there yet?", and "When will we get ...?" and "When can I go home?"

    As his banjo, "How do I make it better?" had a ring to it.  He might just be able to make me sing-a-ling a song with that. But yet he endures in the land of plowing.

    And, so, tell me something good today.  Something new can be just as good. Tell me something new today. And why is that important? Oh my, not another disaster. 

    Nope.

    A lot of what we have is not a disaster. And learning something new can brighten the mind and the day.

Chapter Seven

     If a guitar can weep, I can whine a bit.  A banjo can whine with chords about the state of the world.  We banjos have done it for generations, and we will do it for generations to come.  At least that is what I was told by my banjo kin at the store. 

    The banjo builders were moving so fast at the banjo factory, I as a banjo before I even knew what I was.  I got to the store that had me month to month in 2018.  I went month to month for a while and then I got a for real home.

    A banjo can sing a bit, too. But will the singing ever be with me, and make a difference?  That's a question, which I don't think about it. 

    A musical instrument can be a source of discomfort for many of those surrounding a musician new to their instrument. The discomfort is caused by the off notes, and irregular tempo. The musician makes many mistakes in the use of the musical instrument.  Initially, and including a longer span than some can endure.

    As a banjo, do I become a part of that discomfort?  Yes.  We are not talking air banjo here, this is a physical banjo being strummed. And if a lot of bad, bad banjo is played, people can get tired of hearing any banjo.  Importantly, the banjo's human should like to hear what proper sounds the banjo can make too!

    Therefore, I implore you to play me to the best of your abilities. If not for this banjo, then for all the other banjos in the world, now and to ever come. Please don't be the one that killed the banjo!

    Frankly, I'm not amazed about the disappearing recorder, because recorders have so commonly been used to teach lots and lots of elementary students about playing an instrument.  If you didn't know about recorders, well now you know why you didn't. 

Chapter Six

     Once you relax in the chaos, the rest can be a lot easier to handle.

    And then the traffic horns awaken you, a crow caws.

    Construction jobs of various types were on Harry's resume. The jobs had been taken because he was curious about architecture. The thing about Harry was that once he wanted to know or do something, he wanted to know the top and the bottom of it. If you are going to do the work of an architect you're gong to have to work on buildings, you are going to do the work of getting the dang thing built.  Life Happened and Harry never did become an architect. But he had some experiences, and still appreciates a beautiful space when he sees one.  Harry sometimes thinks that he can create a beautiful space, but he just doesn't presently get his paycheck from that. More importantly, Harry wants to make sure he doesn't take a space already created by someone or group and make it a less beautiful space. 

    Along the railroad tracks, Harry was pondering these civil rights, "The tricky part is deciding sometimes what beautiful is? Because beauty is part of everything in the universe." 

    First, as Harry's banjo, let me say this came as a bit of shock to me.  I was hoping that he'd say that his banjo, or any banjo was part of everything. But of course, I was stuck on the whole instrumentality of what it meant to be beautify and being Harry's banjo. That was sad. But it was a stage we both endured.

    I wasn't Harry's first stringed beauty.  He had, still has?, a monk's 6-string classical guitar, which put him to sleep many a night.  Hey, look I'm Harry's banjo, and I can tell you he can hardly handle my 5 strings, so that old 6-string don't worry me none.

    I keep telling myself, I'm a banjo, he can treat me like one that needs his attention, or he can see me gone, gone, gone to Carolina, or anywhere that someone can make me sing, like I know I need to sing.

    I am trapped in way that I often don't admit.  I don't have a case, I can't travel without being in a case or cover of some type. Problem is I don't have a way to pay for one, all I have is a desire for one.  Truth be told this was a point of aggregation with his 6-string ex. It had a case.  Not me. Truth be told, too, the 6-string-ex came with a case, as part of its package. I can't blame the 6-string, it was what it was.

    I think sometimes Harry doesn't want to buy me a case because he knows that I might leave him them.  I think it so hard sometime, I hurt. It hurts so much I think it must be the truth.

    Then I remember, I was a month-to-month rental when we first met.  I was new, but I was a rental.   We didn't know it, correction, he didn't know if it would workout, so I was a month to month at first. What did I know then? Not much, didn't get much singing time.

    Then Harry started talking about working for the woman, and I had hope for the first time in a long time that I'd get a chance to sing.

    

Chapter Five

     So, mid-day Harry's looking at a car that's parked in front of his drive way and thinking "How do people think this is okay to do?" Well, maybe it is case of dashing to a neighbor's door to drop off a package and the car will move shortly?

    If that is not the case, Harry is thinking "How do you reason with a person which lacks the social skills to know you don't park in front of another person's drive way? Well, let's see how long this bout of driveway blocking goes on for - 5 minutes, ... 

    One could reason with them, perhaps, but let's hope it doesn't come to that.

    And if it does come to a confrontation - it won't involve any reasoning - it'll be a request to move your car so I can pull out of the drive way - 10 minutes ...

    At this point it might be 5 more minutes, or 20, or longer.

    In the end, it was over an hour and a note was left on the windshield. Better to leave a note than reason with someone about such a behavior.

    But to leave a note, you need a windshield or other means of displaying the note. And it leaves a memento for the person to reflect on, to think about to consider.

    Like Oswald says, "It's chaos out there, be kind."

Chapter Four

     Working for the Woman was the way Harry made sense of the change in thought he had. When a person is working for the Man, they are working for a large organization, hence the position is one with less individual initiative. Working for the Man also means for some - the police - which casts an odd light on his contributions to unsolved crimes.

    Working for the Woman  was not the work he did directly for the women in his life,  his sister, his wife, or his daughter.

    Working for the Man wasn't an evil in Harry's mind, it just had limitation he had grown weary of. And maybe it wasn't the work so much, as the organizational style of working for the Man. Granted, Harry would be the first to admit working for the Man had advantages. Just in the possibility of getting something grand done requires an organization to generally pull in the same general direction. 

    Working for the Woman  can still require an organization to pull in the same direction, too. Working for the Woman allowed more nuance and discussion  in making choices. This did not mean one got less actually done. How often had working for the Man been a show of just doing something because you must not be standing around idle. The Woman requited one to be more observant and take action that might make the smallest of differences on the surface of the situation, but made larger impacts possible.

    Maybe there was room for both. Maybe since the beginning of work, they had been there all along Man and Woman.

    Efficiency and Exploration. Working for the Efficiency, or Working for the Exploration?

    One way or another, the way he worked needed changing, and it did.

Chapter Three

 One job lead to another and then another. Interviewing hospital patients and their family members to understand what were their concerns as a family regarding the recent diagnoses they were living with. Setting up computers and networks for individuals to communicate with their colleagues with. Changing the tractor feed printer papers on the OKIdata 391.  Doing data review and cleaning for survey research. Cooking Jobs (too many to mention),  Installing software on bare metal and virtual computers so Harry's colleagues could do science. Harry moved data for pay and heartache.

In all these jobs, the pattern, and what did and didn't fit the pattern was part of the job.  There was the job too, actually getting the job done, like feeding tapes to an SL8500, or pulling machines out of a rack and working with others.  Or Harry thinking he was working with others, and then he realized that what Harry thought was the case, was now not that at all.  The silliness of the confusion - or - confusion silliness - is the sensation that Harry had toward then end when working for the Man.

Then the pattern of one job then another job stopped.  The Man said,  "We don't need you no more."

Harry was left with a pattern of not taking jobs, or not investigating situations, environmental or otherwise, for the Man. There was a lull. Harry was fine with the lull. It has been a long time since he was able to kick back and take in life the way he wanted. No doubt there was a transition but he managed.

Until, Harry didn't mind working for the Woman.