June 9, 2005

An Old Friend’s Ashes

Randy Ehinger 1948-2005

So please call my missus…Gotta tell her not to cry 'Cause my goodbye is written…By the moon in the sky Hey and nobody knows me… I can't fathom my stayin' Shiver me timbers'Cause I'm a-sailin' away

--Tom Waits, 1974

Well, I knew you buddy, probably as well as anybody ever did. So when I got a note from your widow… and later your sister… that they had saved some of your ashes for me to keep, it was quite an honor. Tell you what, man. I was horrified. You will always be that big strapping redheaded guy who was just as game as I was to get one foot in the weeds. Now, if I rub the jar will you come out and grant me three wishes?

Here’s the first wish: I wish you were somewhere where you could get it all figured out. You could always cut to the biscuit and parse the question while I was still kicking things and damning it all to spud nuts. Your curiosity cooled my cupidity more than once. I wish somehow you could keep doing that. Well drum burn the fern turn. I just blew wish number two, didn’t I? You’re right; I got to be more careful.

I remember those road trips and the old days when we took our bikes, your Honda 450 and my BSA 441. Oh we could swoop to Florida in my Mercury, but the days I remember best were aboard those bikes. There was one trip in particular where we were going to end up outside Traverse City. Trying to keep up with your Honda melted the spacer on that old Beezer. Somehow we got to a rest area.

We talked about that one for years. I still point it out to my family, the rest area where we camped in the weeds for two days. That was one of the strangest adventures ever, but I won’t go into it here. That was over 30 years ago, right in the neighborhood where you drew your last breath on a February day of this year. That Tom Waits tune always reminded me of you, and never more than now.

So here’s the deal with the ashes, man. I remember when you proposed the Mother of all Bike Rides: out to Portland-Seattle, two thousand miles each way. Damn it all to spud nuts, I declined. There was no way my Brit one-lunger was going to make it that far. So you did it solo, as usual. In those days, a 500cc bike was “big iron.” I got the real big iron now, but today my old frame couldn’t take it on two wheels.

We’re going to make that trip now, buddy, you and me. I have a high-speed hybrid swoop machine and a family, and together we’re going over that road you took solo so long ago. We’re going to see what’s left of our country, and I’m taking that small part you left back here. Your heart’s in the wind, man, and soon another part will be too. I’ll know the spot when I see it, and I’m going to let you go.

Hey, I don’t want to get all sloppy and smarmy or anything like that… but fifty years ain’t chopped liver, boy, you hear me? And if I blubber like a silly old grandma when I pour your carbon in the atmosphere, well, go ahead and laugh… wherever you are. I deserve it. So do you. We got our Huck Finn Riverboat Gambler days behind us, and nobody can take that away… ever. You and Chuckie can snark all you want.

I’m running sweep as usual, an old man without many friends or a country left alive. I miss you all terribly, I get maudlin about it, and you all can just kiss my withered old patoot. But you know what? I’m passing along the stories to a young rubber resilient generation to do with what they will. You’d be proud of them, guys… you really would. They’re all smack and swagger and don’t-give-a-damn Rebels… just like we were.

Oh right, I’ve seen their dipwad sideways-hat clown clothes and heard their thunka-tunka hip hop fluff… but I’ve also seen the fire in their eyes. Trust me; there are guys among them who are going to kick in like men. And the ladies, what can I say? Sure there are the air-headed midriffs… but there are also the Great Ladies behind their eyes… the ones who gave us our lives and our children. Hey Grandma, you’re so young.

Blue Water’s your daughter, boys. I see them every day. Our Country’s a mess, stupidity is a pandemic, your grim combat is over, and I have a few last licks to get in. I think there’s hope, guys, I really do. These kids aren’t the vacuous career-chasing Hitler Youth I saw 20 years ago. So get ready for our road trip buddy, I’m taking you on that last Green Mile. And don’t think for a minute that I’ve forgotten anything.

Nothing is forgotten. Nobody dies. And I still have one more wish.