It was a Merle Haggard kind of day. When I told the carpenter and my husband that I had my radio show today and could only work this morning and there was a lot to do still– they laughed, and suggested that I had higher priorities, such as dusting and setting up the kitchen. I disagreed, but I had a melt down all the same. We were standing in the sawdust inside the little house next door that my son and his family will move into on Friday at noon, for six weeks. (They are flying across the world as I type. Perth- Doha- Seattle-Juneau. ) We would have met them, say halfway, like Fiji, but the Aussies wanted to see snow. The good news is that they will.
Why is it that a volunteer job does not rate as a high in this world of ours as a paying gig? I mean, I have an obligation to do my radio show because I said I’d be there–and because I really like it. It is the definition of giving to recieve. I have been spinning country tunes and keeping everyone company for a few hours a week on KHNS for nearly 40 years, and I’m not about to stop now just because I’m behind the 8 ball on this house. The Back Country Show is 1-3 every weekday and Tuesday is my slot. My brother-in-law Norm, a real country DJ, volunteers on Weds and my friend Tom does Fridays. I bring a back pack full of my own CDs, pick a pile of albums from the record library in the Chilkat Center and use Spotify on the station computer too. I love the free association between tunes so I always pull way too many records and bring way too many CDs, but I never know which way the show may go until it begins.
Basically, it’s something familiar, something new, something that sounds good. Women. A lot of women — three songs and a break for the announcements, such as: there is a winter storm watch 6 am to midnight tomorrow. ( Great. We will have to move mattresses in a blizzard), and that there are 6 hours and 27 minutes of daylight today, and that the school holiday concerts at the Chilkat Center are at 6:30 tomorrow night for grades 6-12, and 6:30 Thursday for grades K-5.
The high schoolers were practicing a duet down in the theater, and I peeked down from the light booth, which is right next to the record library at KHNS.
Saturday, your pet can have their photo taken with Santa, and the Friends of the Library will sell home-baked cookies by the pound 1-3. (Drop some off, please, at 12:30 Saturday at the library. Thank you.) The parade is at 4, with the snow dragon and the marching band.
There is so much more, but my focus is on preparing for the family visit right now, and everyone arrives on Friday’s trusty little LeConte. Today, just before my show at noon, I picked up a friend at the ferry terminal who needed a ride home. She had been in Juneau shopping. I did not want to be late for the radio, so we quickly unloaded all her groceries ( she even brought a wreath from Juneau) and totes of deer meat from her husband and daughter’s hunt in Tenakee.
I drove back out to the terminal at 3:05 before I even put the records away ( I came back) to drop off my grandaughter Caroline who was on her way to Juneau on the back haul. Her mom is there for work and she wants to sail back up to Haines with her little cousins from Australia and Juneau on Friday. That warms my heart.
Lean on Me keeps popping up in my ear-worm. That, and Jolly Old St. Nicholas. Crazy too, Crazy he calls me…
I was so grumpy and panicked this morning that not even my close friends could talk me out of it. I’m better now. Thank you. Country music, ferry shuttles- those close connections of family and friends and community– and a lot of love, for so much in my life right now, and even though I should be in bed- it’s late and I’m tired, I just unpacked a few of the Christmas books and the old creche. I think that my Grandpa Smith made it. He glued down all the plaster players in the classic Nativity scene, baby Jesus even. That way I won’t lose him.
