creature of unhabit

 IT'S SAID WE are creatures of habit. I'm a creature of unhabit.

I have been neglecting this blog. I don't know why. I really don't have much to say anymore. I'm just a former newspaper and music store guy who picks up labs for a living. I've had a lot of adventures. If asked, I'll tell you all about them. But I'm not a Web Warrior who thinks he's better than anybody else.

So ... I've been quiet.

When I wrote columns and stories for The Whig, I cared about what people would think. The better the subject the better the product, but .... reaction was motivation.

Now? It's live and let live. Unless you are an idiot. 

I gotta get back to the habit of writing, if only to please a few people. Or not please them. 

This past weekend, I got out of the unhabit. Namely, I cleaned. What? 

I have three upstairs rooms. One serves as a spare bedroom. The other two are just .... rooms with stuff. 

My brother Steve and his son Riley are coming this summer for a visit. I'm going to need another bedroom. And another bed. Wait ... that's another blog idea.

See? Getting out of unhabits is starting to work.

I had a rare Saturday off - no guitar lessons, no gig that night. So I trudged upstairs and I cleaned out the big junk room.

I only hit my head on the ceiling fan twice. I only cursed breaking a bookcase once. Actually, five times. Getting out of unhabits can lead to bad habits. But I'll take it.

I threw away five or six big empty cardboard boxes. Actually, I took them to the recycle place. I filled two garbage bags with useless stuff. Hey! Another blog idea! What is useless, and what isn't?

In about two hours, the room was empty. I even (gasp) vacuumed. Please don't tell anybody.

I put everything in the smaller of the two junk rooms. It's stacked and organized. I won't be able to find anything. But it's ... there.

Later Saturday, I moved some music stuff upstairs to the empty room. It's going to be Riley's Room, but for now, it's Uncle Rotknee's Guitar Tone Chasing Lab. I'm having a ball.

I'm out of the habit of ignoring a project. And, believe it or not, I just bought an electric lawnmower and used it for the first time yesterday.

But that's another blog for another day. If I can get back in the habit.

 

 

 

Prayers for Justin Haubrich and family

 LOCAL MUSICIAN JUSTIN Haubrich passed away Friday night after an ATV accident on family property in Missouri. He was 37. He leaves a wife and four young sons. 

Devastating.

I do not claim to be great friends with Justin or know him that well. But I do know this - he was one of the best musicians around. 

Justin played in the amazing band El Gentlemen. Nobody can touch them for what they do- classic rock and party music. They play songs other bands can only dream of doing. 

Justin was the guitar player. He was a shredder but he also could ... play. I'd watch him at Octoberfest and Mayfest and I'd want to throw my guitars into the river. He was also a great sax player. 

Sadly, his family has been through this before. Justin's brother Zak passed away years ago after a vehicle crash. The annual celebration of Zak's life at The Dock was always one of Quincy's biggest and best shows. 

 Justin was also a good Second String Music customer and we were always glad to see him when he came in to buy strings. He'd always talk about how crazy his life was with little kids. But you could tell he loved it.

A few years ago I was playing with Prospect Road at a garage party. Justin was there. He was good friends with our singer, Alicia. We took a break and Justin asked if he could play a few songs with Alicia and maybe somebody else.

I just remember thinking when he got done that my guitar never sounded that good when I played it.

At the end of the night he gave me a big hug and thanked me for letting him jam. 

That was Justin. 

I have the song Heartbeat City by The Cars swirling around in my head and I can't stop thinking about Justin's parents, wife, sons, friends, bandmates.

His death is a massive hole that will never be covered up. Never. And we will never understand it. 

Peace and prayers to you, Justin. You were one of the best. 

 

 

Hanging with great kids at JWCC

 LAST WEEK MY friend Mike Terry invited me to speak to one of his classes. I've done it many times before but this was the first time in a few years.

And, like the other times, it was a great experience.

Mike teaches at John Wood Community College. In his writing class, he requires students to pick a person to interview and then write a story about them. So we talk about the interview process, how to ask the right questions, how to prepare, how to put together the story. 

We started talking about my 24 years in journalism, and suddenly the questions came fast and furious. Who was the most famous person you've interviewed? Has anybody tried to intimidate you during an interview? What was the worst thing you saw as a reporter? What was the best?

Well. You Can't Make It Up, the stuff I saw in my day as a crime and courts reporter. 

My journalism career ended in 2012 and the more time goes by, the faster it fades when looking in the rear view mirror.

But talking to the kids made me realize it really was an interesting job. The hour flew by and I had to get to work but we could have spent more time talking about journalism and life.

I am around young people a lot in my job as a Blessing courier. I wonder about some of them in this day and age of ChatGPT and AI and the inability to look up from a cellphone or screen. 

But then I go to Mike Terry's class, and I see young people being respectful and actually taking an interest in an old burned-out newspaper guy. You know what?

They are likely to do great things.

Thank you, Mike. The kids in your class are awesome. I'm sure they will find great people to interview and write stories about. Maybe I helped them a bit, but in truth, I probably got more out of it than they did. 

 

  

Past New Year's Eves

 THE OLDER YOU get the faster time flies. Here we are, ready to kiss 2025 goodbye.

How do you celebrate?

NYE celebrations have varied. My father used to gather us a few minutes before midnight and read a bible passage, then be in prayer as the clock ticked to midnight. Needless to say that method of ushering in the new year changed. A lot.

One year I was working at a restaurant in Grand Rapids (Mountain Jacks) and we all had to work. It was a party for everybody, but not us in that awful hot kitchen. A year or two later we gathered in a field behind the Rosewood house in Grand Rapids and had a huge bonfire during a blizzard. THAT was a great way to welcome a new year. We had pallets and Christmas trees from Kingmas that wooshed up into flames. Somebody called the fire department, but they simply drove up the street, took a look, and headed back to the station.

In the early years of married and family life it settled down ... eventually. One year in Alpena we had Grand Rapids friends drive up on NYE and then tore it down somewhere in town. But it became just another night, until the band thing started really kicking in.

We had some righteous Cheeseburger shows at the Elks and One in Quincy. Maye we were in Keokuk one year? The mind and memory betray us and play tricks. If I wasn't playing, I was surely in bed by 10 as usual.

In 2019 HartLyss played on NYE at the late and great Revelry in Quincy. Again, the memory isn't that great but I recall Cori and I and our old drummer Lincoln Lieber really clicking and kicking butt. Little did we know that 2020 would change everything. Man .... 

Last year I cobbled together a band and played at The Club and it was fun, but it was really hard to function the next day. Also, today is the one year anniversary of my last alcoholic beverage, a milestone to be sure. Pretty proud of that one and it's one of the best things I've ever done, the whole quitting drinking thing.

It's actually become a thing to have a party on New Year's Day, of all things. A year ago Prospect Road played at Shorteez's On The Hill in Clayton, and I couldn't believe all the people packed into the place for an afternoon gig. 

Guess what? Prospect Road gets to do it again tomorrow at the same venue. So tonight I'll get off of work, come home, make sure Coco gets some quality time in front of the space heater, and I'll be sawing logs by 10. 

Gotta rest up for the big new New Year's Day tradition, you know.

 

Catching up

 I MARKED ANOTHER trip around the sun a few days ago. It was a good day. And I'm getting old.

Later on during the day a text message popped up from a friend I haven't heard from in ... forever. We were buds in high school and my one disastrous year at Calvin College more than 40 years ago. I got her email address and we got caught up and it was a great thing.

I've lost contact with most of those friends from those years. We all moved far away from Grand Rapids and the whole life thing took over. And that's a shame. 

I wonder where they are and if life has been good to them and what they think now.

I also want to go back and confront that dumbass kid that was me all those years ago. "Hey. Wake up! Screw your head on straight and start realizing how good you are going to have it!" would be the main message.

Thank you, friend, for taking me back and reconnecting all these years later. Here's to hoping it won't be that long until we communicate again!

 

No Christmas decorations yet please

HANG ON. CHRISTMAS decorations before Thanksgiving?

Ugh.

Quincy has no shortage of people into the Christmas thing. The lights, the elves on shelves, the huge trees in living rooms, the massive amounts of egg-nog fog required to think all this decorating stuff up. It's fine. Christmas is fine. 

But it's not until Dec. 25.  

There's an unwritten rule to not decorate before Christmas. And now it's written. Don't. Christmas. Decorate. Before. Thanksgiving.

On Friday night I stopped by my favorite Quincy establishment, Lux Stogie Company, to wind down the work week. Alex, the owner, has done an incredible job opening and expanding his business. He has just opened a member's lounge area, and of course I joined. I mean, am I going to smoke a nice stogie in my garage when it's 20 degrees and the Christmas decorations have blinded me all day and night?

In my little corner of Calftown heaven, Christmas decorations include a Charlie Brown tree and few lights that go up in December. Coco usually plays with the lights and breaks stuff. Maybe this year I won't even bother.  

Alex's wife, Jamie, the real brains behind the whole cigar store thing, stopped by and started pointing at various corners of the member's lounge. "We could move that or get rid of that and put the tree right there," she said.

The tree?

"Yes. The tree. The 9-foot Christmas tree I bought today."

Then it was learned she planned to put the tree up the very next day - Nov. 1.

"But ... Thanksgiving isn't for another month," I said.

Alex simply shook his head and looked away. Jamie got a glazed look in her eye.

"I'm putting it up tomorrow," she said.

"She's putting it up tomorrow," Alex said. "Hey Rodney have you tried the new Croatian Mafia cigars we just got in?"

Alex is a sharp guy. He knows when to pick his battles. Namely, never. 

I stopped at Lux yesterday. I went back to the member's lounge. I looked for the tree. It wasn't up.

"It's in the corner and still in the box," Alex said. "I think Jamie is putting up our tree at the house today."

"We could keep it in the box and put an ashtray on top of it for now. Until after Thanksgiving," I said.

I'm just a weekend cigar warrior. It will probably be Saturday before I get a chance to stop by Lux again. I'm wondering if the tree will be up. I'm wondering how much time Alex will spend this week watching his wife put Christmas stuff up in Lux.

You know what? It's their yuletide thing. And if it makes Jamie happy, then Alex is happy (dang it). I'm sure it will put us all into the spirit of the season, and it might even make my new favorite cigar even better - the Croatian Mafia Soldier is divine, right up there with Henry Clay's War Hawk and the Rose of Sharon by Southern Draw.

So decorate away, Jamie. You rock. I'll salute your efforts with a fine cigar and good company.

And count down the days until Thanksgiving.