Bloodlines Mailing List archives May 25-26, 1997
from the John Stewart email list
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bloodlines-digest Monday, May 26 1997 Volume 01 : Number 005
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Date: Sun, 25 May 1997
From: Robert <jen_rob_geo@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: My Personal Journy
Dear John,
It is 1 A.M. and I am so pleased to hear from you. I was sleeping. My
partner woke me up and just said "There's something I think you should
read here." So grumply I got out of bed like a teddy bear and read your
message as well as the others.
I cannot say how much this personal message touches me sir. Since the
age of twelve you have helped me live through difficult times. I was
sexually abused mostly but emotionally abused as well. What I heard in
your music for all these years was the will to live. The power to be a
caring, loving human being. There were times when I would cry especially
in hearing the cut "Song For A Friend" From the album "Time To Think".
I must confess that I drive my partner a bit frazzeled because most of
the music I play is yours. He's a goodhearted person though.
I plan to come to the Capitola concert in Oct sir. I hope that I may be
able to say a personal face to face hello at that time. If not, just
having this note from you is very special.
As to CD's or tapes I am very much in need of your album "Fire In The
Wind" as well as "Signals In The Glass" is there any way you could get
those to me? I realize they are out of print. If not maybe we can find
somethig else. That in truth, getting a CD or tape does not matter to
me. What matters most is that you cared enough to reply. This is
something truly lacking in the world of music these days.
Bright Blessings,
Robert
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997
From: Rodney@lubbock.demon.co.uk (Rodney Hamon)
Subject: Question for John
John, I have a question for you...
Were you involved in a recording project, possibly late sixties,
with Marijohn Wilson, under the name The Nashville Street Singers
or The Nashville Street Choir?
If so, who else was connected with this project? Bucky Wilson?
Kris Kristofferson? If not, I apologise (I'm not normally prone
to figments but I guess this could be one).
Thanks,
- --
Rodney
rodney@lubbock.demon.co.uk
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997
From: Angelbravo@aol.com
Subject: Re: Question for John
Fred Neil, Vince Martin and me, mabey Buck.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997
From: "David L. Taylor" <davidltaylor5@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: My Personal Journy
Hi Robert,
Welcome to Bloodliners. Yours is a very touching story. I'm glad you are
strong.
David
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997
From: alleycat@cruzio.com
Subject: Friendship
> I have made several VERY good real time
> friends, whom I see frequently.
>I anticipate that many of us here will develope close, and "REAL" friendships,
> through meeting each other here. Goes back to the point that I don't feel
> that keeping any postings here EXCLUSIVELY about JS or "don't post it" is
> fair to everyone who is interested in getting to know some of the others here>>>
I think this is a very good point, Nancy. I am enjoying the friendships
I am making, and I enjoy hearing of those formed by other liners. In
Capitola when John was attempting to explain the list to the folks in
the audience who were not members, he did not describe it as being
completely centered on him (though that is ,of course, why we have
gathered together). He talked about the fact that there is a lot of
bonding going on. I rather liked that description. Catherine
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997
From: Roy Fritz <RoyFritz@compuserve.com>
Subject: Why
First, welcome aboard Robert -
Thanks for sharing your very personal
story with us. In a way, you've said something about all of us on
Bloodlines and why we are here. John's music helps us all with
whatever struggles we may have - and we all have them.
I started following John's music from Trio days and have
been amazed many times that a man from California could
somehow see into my mind and produce lyrics that I immediately
understood and identified with - while most around me just
didn't get it. When I discovered thanks to Michelle and Ron that
there were others who felt the same way - I was just blown away.
John's music is a catalyst - at least for me - it makes my mind work.
As other BLrs have said - we don't always agree - but we are out
there thinking - sometimes way out there! Bloodlines is like finding
out about some brothers and sisters you didn't know existed - and
now we can stay in touch until the big family reunion.
As most of you know, I'm not usually this serious so,
A priest, a rabbi and a Sterwartista walked into a bar...
You fill in the next line.
If you're drivin' on the highway...
Roy
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997
From: Bluesy33@aol.com
Subject: Re: Friendship
In a message dated 97-05-25 12:23:57 EDT, you write:
<< I think this is a very good point, Nancy. I am enjoying the friendships
I am making, and I enjoy hearing of those formed by other liners. In
Capitola when John was attempting to explain the list to the folks in
the audience who were not members, he did not describe it as being
completely centered on him (though that is ,of course, why we have
gathered together). He talked about the fact that there is a lot of
bonding going on. I rather liked that description. Catherine
>>
Just wish........we lived as close........as the Pirates of Stone County
Road..........
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997
From: "R.Geddes" <geddes@mcb.net>
Subject: Re: Friendship
Bluesy33@aol.com writes
>Just wish........we lived as close........as the Pirates of Stone County
>Road..........
>
"But we are all one family without walls, but we have waters"....
(one of the best lines he ever wrote!)
Walls are barriers, water is life, and for travelling !
Rod
- --
R.Geddes
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997
From: alleycat@cruzio.com
Subject: We are all one family without walls, but we have waters...
Bluesy wrote:
> Just wish......we lived as close......as the Pirates of Stone County
> Road..
Blue, you will never know how much time I spend wishing the very same
thing.
Roy wrote:
> Bloodlines is like finding
> out about some brothers and sisters you didn't know existed - and
> now we can stay in touch until the big family reunion.
That has to be the best explanation for why we're here that I've seen.
And when is that family reunion??
Catherine, thanking Rod for the heading and welcoming Robert
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997
From: Angelbravo@aol.com
Subject: Re: My Personal Journy
These are out of print but I'll kep my eyes open.
Email Dave Batti at DBatti@aol.com.he might know.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: Steve <Loboaw@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Memorial Day (No overt JS content)
Well, I didn't get down to Rolling Thunder, the big MIA-POW motorcycle
ralley in DC-weather blew me away. Funny, there was a time and place
when the weather didn't matter, we always went. But that was then...
I had a need to pass on a few comments about Memorial Day and figured
the Bloodliners might be a place to hear it. Down below you'll find the
last two poems of "Victor Echo Zero Five", a chronology of poetry I
wrote between 1967-89, as I learned to be a backseater in Marine F4s,
dance the Sierra Tango off Haiphong, and try to find the way back. Still
in the business of trying to get the kids home-I work in a VA hospital
with vets of all wars, men and women, all suffering from reactions-they
went and stayed too long, and sometimes one day was a lifetime.
The first was written during the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial in DC; the second in '89. You can delete this thing any time,
of course; I just wanted to send something out to somewhere for everyone
who never made the Freedom Bird and all their families who have the long
fall forever wait.
(Note: "Freedom Bird" = nickname for any airliner taking people home
from Vietnam.)
On Distance
Wednesday afternoon, District of Columbia,
Scud running low in November sky,
And I stand before polished black granite,
Seeing myself reflected through carved names,
And through unbidden tears of memory.
I reach out to touch the wall and a name,
And a forgotten memory, and a part of myself,
And the stone feels warm, like the handclasp
Of a friend.
Beyond the treeline, brooding in shadow,
Lincoln sits in frozen judgment,
And the path from there to here is worn smooth
By my brothers and sisters finding their way.
Later comes time to lean against a tree,
Feeling the slow pull of gentle Fall breeze,
And think of the path from Lincoln to us,
And think of deep running roots.
He might have understood our pain,
Having seen our nation in the agony of division
Once before, families split, war's awful,
Awesome, cost and confusion.
He knew Vicksburg, and Seminary Ridge,
And Fredricksburg and Petersburg,
And the Wilderness, and the hundreds of stones,
In hundreds of towns, carved with names.
The path between the monuments is not long,
Short as the time in a nation's life
Between Shiloh and Khe Sanh, so much the same,
Despite the differences of place.
The important parts were the same, a century apart,
Courage, and pain, and death, and the color
Of American blood was the same and more important,
Than blue or gray or mottled camouflage.
Lincoln would have understood sacrifice,
Even for goals never attained, out of reach,
And he would have honored the offering made,
Unrequited gallantry is not bound by time,
And we who are joined across the century
Did all that was asked, and more.
There is value, Abraham knew, in the offering,
And if some cannot honor the giving,
They dishonor themselves.
Shiloh, Thud Ridge, Gettysburg, Khe Sanh,
And black granite in Constitution Garden,
So close together,
Under Lincoln's gaze.
(Note: Bert Stiles, playwright, wrote a book about flying B-17s during
WW II called, "Serenade to the Big Bird")
Serenade Echoes
She loaned me a book,
thought I might enjoy it.
A book about flying, B-17s,
World War Two and ancient history.
A serenade to a big bird,
and I read words from forty years past
and found I heard echoes,
blurred together,
of Fortress and Phantom.
He wrote of the skies of Europe;
mine were Asia's.
And he wrote of friends down
and wanting things better,
of ugly flak flowers
and quiet moments talking
with a friend.
And he wrote of the tears
which rise up from the depths
we bury them.
The abyss of grief.
I wanted to find him, and talk,
and ask how things are going,
and maybe trace patterns in the air
with hands, talking flying,
and tell him about Mu Gia Pass flak,
and friends down,
and the tears
and ask him
if it gets better
after forty years.
I hurried into the book,
skipped into the first chapter,
left pages folded over on one another,
which waited in patient silence
like an untripped boobytrap,
and did not see
the "Note on the Author"
from an anonymous Briton
that after thirty-five missions,
when he could have gone home,
he volunteered for Mustangs,
and died over Hanover
26 November 1944.
It was, again, a friend down;
Jack, or Peck, or Ben,
or Bob, or Mike, or Joe,
a friend down,
and the same thoughts came
four decades late
of wanting to have been there,
maybe I could have covered him,
maybe I would have spotted
the guns or the SAM or the MiG.
But he was not lost to SAMs
or MiGs; wrong war.
And I could not have been there,
when there was before I
was born.
Still...
He hauled bombs to Berlin,
and to Hanover, and Normandy,
and hoped it would make things
better.
And maybe all the kids
who climbed into Fortresses,
and Focke-Wulfs,
and Lancasters,
and Bettys, and Mirages,
and Phantoms, and, yes,
and MiGs
have all hoped
it would make things better.
He never found out,
26 November 1944;
I still wait to find out,
14 July 1989.
He felt the stream of the sky
cover the world
and saw divisions were
imaginary.
I recalled a morning sun
spreading its light beneath me,
sweeping across borderlines
invisible in the light;
existing only in what might be
a special dark,
and I had put away the thought,
as did the kids in the Fortresses,
in Focke-Wulfs, Lancasters,
Bettys, Mirages,
and, yes, as did the kids in the MiGs,
so I could pretend
the lines were real.
Why haul the bombs
if the lines were not
real?
I have seen the films
a thousand times,
gunsight flashes
and flickering images
of planes falling,
sometimes burning,
sometimes not,
sometimes whole,
sometimes not,
falling to earth
or sea, or hanging
in the air
while cannon rounds
kick chunks away
in slow motion.
I see the films
and each time
I look for the white blossom,
a 'chute that seldom comes,
and I don't care
that the plane is theirs
or ours.
They are all mine,
in my heart,
and I want them all
to make it back
to the world.
And they cannot,
their forever fall
all that remains preserved,
shadows and light
now entertainment.
She said she didn't mean
for the book to hurt,
but it was the hurt I know
and would never give up
for it is the cost
of the joy, the love,
the warmth of more than
that of the tears.
He and I never met,
never talked,
and we flew together;
we shared the sky
and the love of clear blue
and midnight stars
and machines come alive,
and the absolute honesty
of flight,
tracing contrails,
life lines,
in arcs joining
science and passion.
And in the moving wind,
which respects no border,
faintly comes to me
echoes
of a sernade
to a big bird.
- --For Bert Stiles
Have a good day out there, 'Liners, and at some point maybe raise a can
of coke to all the kids from Valley Forge to Desert Storm who never made
the Freedom Bird.
Take care,
Lobo (AW)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: Nancy Talbott <cockatoo@bslnet.com>
Subject: Re: Memorial Day (No overt JS content)
Thank you, Steve.....I salute you and all the men who served and died.
Nancy <--- with another lump in her throat
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: Bluesy33@aol.com
Subject: Re: Memorial Day (No overt JS content)
In a message dated 97-05-26 12:03:19 EDT, you write:
<< Have a good day out there, 'Liners, and at some point maybe raise a can
of coke to all the kids from Valley Forge to Desert Storm who never made
the Freedom Bird.
Take care, >>
Roger that Lobo.......here's to those who never made it back..........Blue
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: racer42@m3.sprynet.com
Subject: Re: Memorial Day (No overt JS content)
Please pass along the following to the author. The poem is beautiful and brings
back many memories. Although I didn't make to "the Nam" I did serve by
maintaining F4's at Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, Ariz. The only thing I'm still
bitter about is that Lyndon Johnson had to flat out lie to congress about the so
called "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" (which in fact never did occur" to get the
authority to esxcalate the war. As far as I was and am concerned he should have
been charged with premeditated murder. I do raise my glass to all those who
fought in all wars so that safe old men could thump their chests and brag about
how good they are. Next time somebody gives a war lets not attend.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: racer42@m3.sprynet.com
Subject: Re: Memorial Day (No overt JS content)
Sorry folks, that last should have gone B/C
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: "David L. Taylor" <davidltaylor5@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Memorial Day (No overt JS content)
Thanks Bluesy, I always do.
Semper fi,
David
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: alleycat@cruzio.com
Subject: Re: Memorial Day (No overt JS content)
Steve wrote:
> Have a good day out there, 'Liners, and at some point maybe raise a can
> of coke to all the kids from Valley Forge to Desert Storm who never made
> the Freedom Bird.
I don't have the words.......can only say that I truly appreciate you
sharing that with us. Catherine
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: GeoScher@aol.com
Subject: Re: Memorial Day (No overt JS content)
<< I do raise my glass to all those who
fought in all wars so that safe old men could thump their chests and brag
about how good they are. Next time somebody gives a war lets not attend. >>
My sentiments precisely. I was one of the lucky ones he didn't have to
attend that war in SE Asia or any of the one's since, but have great respect
for those who heed their country's call, just not for those who do the
calling.
I'm one of those who believes patriotism is not just about wearing a uniform
and totin' a gun.
". . .I believe that the flag, it was more than a rag/ but the outlaws in
office have shattered my life . . " JS/Surviors 1975.........that's a great
memorial day song!
Peace
George
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: "Michael Armstrong" <MikeArm@netcom.ca>
Subject: Memorial Day
This is my first go at participating....only lurking till that Memorial Day
poetry.
Although I am a Canadian, the thoughts of the war and the sixties and the
lies and the bloodshed are all still vivid in my mind. I tried to enlist in
1960 in the American Navy but there were visa problems. Thank God for small
miracles.
Isn't there a line from JS or the K Trio "the worst of men must fight and
the best of men must die"?
Sunstorm Mike
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: Nancy Talbott <cockatoo@bslnet.com>
Subject: Re: Memorial Day
Michael Armstrong wrote:
>This is my first go at participating....only lurking till that Memorial Day
>poetry.
>
>Although I am a Canadian, the thoughts of the war and the sixties and the
>lies and the bloodshed are all still vivid in my mind. I tried to enlist in
>1960 in the American Navy but there were visa problems. Thank God for small
>miracles.
>
>Isn't there a line from JS or the K Trio "the worst of men must fight and
>the best of men must die"?
>
>Sunstorm Mike
>
>
Mike,
Thanks for "coming out" from the shadows, and welcome.
I find it quite amazing that you, being Canadian, tried to enlist in the
American Navy, in the midst of a massacre across the sea. I'm no expert on
Viet Nam, one reason being I'm only 41 and just a bit too young to have been
a protester or a supporter. Looking back, on what I know now, I'm think
there were other "allied" forces there, besides just us. I guess I'm just
blown away that a Canadian would voluntarily try and serve with us. Thank
you....and I mean that sincerely.
It amazes me also, that while there were many here who chose to run away TO
Canada, rather than serve their country, that you would volunteer yourself
for us. I for one am proud to make your acquaintence.
Thanks again,
Nancy
Prescott, AZ
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: Christopher Newton <cnewton@fyi.net>
Subject: Re: Memorial Day (No overt JS content)
Beautifully put. I salute you.
Kit Newton
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997
From: "Michael Armstrong" <MikeArm@netcom.ca>
Subject: Re: Memorial Day
Nancy,
Believe me, there are no honours coming to me. My efforts we entirely
selfish. I was sick of high school and looking for a good job. Vietnam was
not a real issue then or, if it was, I was not aware of it. But thanks for
your kind words.
Sunstorm Mike
"The bird that flies above the clouds......."
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End of bloodlines-digest V1 #5
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