Aunt Lola and I

Little Gene,

Honey, I wish you well, and I know you will succeed with your goals. I have faith in you and I want you to be safe. You are always in my thoughts.

Love

Aunt Lola

Aunt Lola...I'm so sorry its taken me this long to respond to your email. I can't tell you how much it means to me to get even a few encouraging words from family members. I remember when my dad was alive, how much more it seemed like the family was around, maybe only because he made it so. It was hard after he was gone, not only missing him, but missing the urgency he gave to keeping the family as close as possible and even at a young age I realized how much dad was an intercessor to the kind of bullshit that has sort of pulled us apart at the seams.

I guess what I'm saying is, I love you Aunt Lola. I have no shortage of memories of you and your boys. Living in Holland off McCord behind the library, or down the street on McCord at the apartment complex. Your place in Perrysburg. when you lived in my dad's old house. I remember when I was a kid, I would throw your Wham! tapes (or Bill's Motley Crue tapes) into your cassette player and listen to em over and over. Playing games at your house all night when you'd have us over. Your ex, Bob. I even have really dreamlike memories of La Rue. I feel like my very first memories are of walking through the house after it burnt down. I have some memories of the trailer. Dad or somebody running over a snake with the lawn mower. Getting yelled at for playing on farm equipment. Trying to follow the big kids as they went out into the back field to do what big kids do. I have a ton of memories with Jake and even with Bill and Jessie. Waking up at the farm to find some strange car in the drive, dad talking to you, the boys sleeping in the car. Finding out that the boys would be living with us for a little while. I was 4, maybe 5. I remember certain things.

Another thing is: with all of our family gaining so much distance from each other, I feel like I may be losing a connection with a really big part of who I am and still don't understand. I need to know my family. I need to know as much as I can about my dad. I've heard stories in passing all my life, but they were always "glory" stories and you know, when you're a kid dealing with a dead father, its not too easy to hear those all the time and you sort of start to tune them out. I'm at and have been at a point in my life where I can't afford to tune it out anymore. I can't afford to be so distant from HALF of who I am. I have struggled largely in part to decisions I've made, but mostly because I still don't know who I am. I still deal with the loss of my dad daily, and my brothers and sister don't really get it. They think its time for me to move on, and for some reason I just can't. This part of me has never healed. I feel like if I had my family around, I might better know more about certain things about me. Things I may or may not have picked up from my dad without really realizing it. I only knew him a short time (12 years) but I believe the man made as much of an impact on me as he did on everyone. I still meet strangers who have a story about my dad when I tell them MY NAME..

I don't know Aunt Lola. I'm trying to do more with myself. Trying to follow some dreams. Throwing myself into some real wilderness to find out who I am and what exactly I am made of. These past ten years have been rough. Hell, the ten before that weren't so hot either. But I'm surviving. I've met a lot of people. Made a lot of friends. Seen so much. Survived so much. I have instincts and insight about people that I just can't put my finger on and most times I just wish my dad were here so I could talk to him about it. Hear him tell me how proud he is; shit, I'd even take his condemning look of disappointment right now just to have him around.

There is a lot more that I won't go into right now. Missing everyone at the family reunion meant missing Grandpa, too. And if you don't know it, he and I really haven't had much to say since he went off on me at my dad's wake for not going down to the burial (I WAS 12)!! I would never forgive myself if I didn't try to take the time to try and get to know him again. My grandpa, probably the closest kinda guy to my dad, as far as I know.

Aunt Lola, I'm rambling. I would love to keep in touch with you. I will be 32 in August. I never thought I would make it to 28 to be honest. 32 is a weird number for me, and I feel like this could be a big year forward in my growing up (FINALLY!). I have jobs lined up for the next year or better (Polebridge, Montana, to work near Glacier National Park as a cook at a lodge for two months, then back to NYC to work as a live-in Manny!), and if I can help it, I am not going back to Toledo for a long time (except July 23rd-25th for one last visit). I would love to see you. I would love to see Grandpa too, if he's still around Toledo then. My family is very important to me, as it ever was, and I feel like part of my growing up is to get back to knowing my family again, as my dad would have me doing so. You were a big part of my life growing up though you didn't always live so close, and I would very much like to try and keep you at least as close as you were then.

I am going to try and sleep now. I love you, and I'm sorry if any of this isn't exactly coherent. Please write when you get the chance. Let me know what you think about getting together while I am in town.

Sincerely,
Gene Jr.




Little Gene,

I was happy to hear from you, and I hope you are well. I am happy you have fond memories of me and the kids when you were little. The boys are all doing well, and they would love to see you. They told me to tell you that they think of you often. Honey, your dad was my life, I sent him through high school he lived with us for about 4 years. My brother was my hero and I miss him everyday. Your dad loved you so much and he would not be at peace if he knew you were troubled and lost. You must move on, remember what you had...not what you lost..we all lost. Be that hero he was and shine through....Gene if anyone can bring him back, it is you, you are your dad shining through! I love you and I have worried so long about you....now it is time for you.

Love

Aunt Lola

---

I reply..

Hey you. Thanks for the kind words.You know, some of my friends turn up in my travels in the strangest of ways, if only in my head..What you said is not weird. It is no wonder that we turn to strange dreams and future memories to make sense of what we feel and what we see, where we are and where we know we should be. It is not sad. It just is. It doesn't make sense NOW, but it will if you work on it.

more dreaming. more traveling (inside and out).

enjoying the summer. send me your address.

xoGENEox

pt. ii, sort of..

As you may or may not know, I've been traveling. I would like to keep you updated, and don't mind doing so by reprinting some of the emails I've written and responded with these past weeks. Here is an email (most of it) that I wrote to a friend of mine recently. Feel free to forward thisto other friends and family:

xo Gene E. Crawford Jr


I'm sorry to hear about your mom. I don't know what else to say. Please keep me posted on her PROGRESS (THIS WILL GET BETTER). I'm sorry the last letter ended so abruptly. I'm sorry I've not written in a little while. Most every moment during this experience burns glowing-hot, and is yet entirely gone the moment I try to hold onto it. News from home, exchanging occasional emails from friends and family I hardly ever talk to otherwise, meals I prepare for groups of people who tell me my food "blows their minds" whom I'll never see again, my first bear encounter in the woods, street characters, double rainbows, weird hometown local bands, dancing, freaking people out with strategically placed fake-vampire-blood just to break the monotony, big purple sunglasses, hot springs under a full moon in IDAHO (glowing eyes abound), riding bikes, getting around in every town we get down in, meeting other kids on tour, telling people I'm from Queens too, finding a crush around every corner. Yesterday: Playing with a concert violinist and hitting on a lesbian. Trust me, I KNOW we were vibing...

Woke up in Bismarck, North Dakota this morning. Smoked a really good pipe (its ALL good West of the Mississippi), threw on headphones and got lost between UNCLE CHURCH and O.E. PARKER tunes on MySpace (its still where I find my most obscure (at least unsigned) finds, to date) (now listening to ODE to the RODDES)..I love O.E.'s "cottonwoods" track (the "going home" track too, my new favorite)..makes me believe all the more that he and I, if not you and I, should be playing/recording more music together..

AS you know, so much has changed this past month with my living situation and general peripheral vision. In the past 5 weeks or so, I've been all the way through to Portland, OREGON and now heading back East to NYC with a band I'd never otherwise be in..befriended and adopted two new brothers when I was sure no one would have me..I've seen some of the best scenery OUR country can offer..I've fallen in love, though not yet married a band (of)(SPIRITS OF THE RED CITY); and you know how great that feels..

I've got a job waiting for me in August RIGHT NEXT to Glacier National Park (saw my first bears there this summer) waiting for me when tour is over..I'm to jump back in the van the day after tour, catch a ride to Wissconnsin, then a train the rest of the way to Polebridge, Montana. Working for a month-and-a-half cooking at a small lodge ("we cook what we can get out of these mountians, or grow out back, we don't really need to go to town") through mid-September, living in a tent under the most majestic skies (Imagine a blazing moon on your right and the sun setting in topless orange and purple mountains on your left, all the colors between; eating what I catch, very little living "expenses"); then a gig waiting back in NYC to be a NANNY for my drummer and his wife (living in Queens for "free" for a year or more, and having a schedule that would still allow plenty of time for part-time work and MUSIC)..Three people who I've mentioned this to agree these are both great jobs for me, and momentous opportunities all around, no?..

The band has got until August 1st to get to NYC for our final gig, and I'll be hitting Toledo for a day or two sometime before then..

can't wait to hear from you

XO gene

ps. also check out a music group (family) called ODE TO THE RODDES..these are a but a small section of the group I mentioned above(S.O.T.R.C.), and you might love them, both..

pps. I lost your street address..please email it to me..
geneintoledoohio@gmail.com

ppss. during a general "random search", I found this:
August 01, 2008
Matthew G. Shoemaker from Hollie A. Shoemaker, divorce.

Hollie A. Shoemaker from Matthew G. Shoemaker, divorce.

I'm about to be 32, can you believe it?. I never thought I would see 28.

Independance Day Weekend pt.1

So, I have hit the part of the trip where oppourtunity has started to unfold. We hit Portland, Seattle (again), Spokane, and then drove from Spokane after our show straight through to Polebridge, Montana where we met our friend Alan, whom we met during our first passing through Missoula. So going through Montana the first time was quite the experience, though driving up into northern Monatana was something completely different and magical, altogether. We headed north well after sundown, and this was the third of July, mind you, so along certain parts of the road there were people already beginning their Independance day celebrations. We tried stopping in one such town to try and eat, street party set up around one saloon with way too expensive sandwiches (oysters too, of course). A band played all SORTS of Top40 crap through a system that didnt so much push the sound as it did just fizzle the bass all wonky and amplify the otherwise whiskey-soaked voice of the cowboy singer. Nobody seemed to mind the terrible sound, and just kept dancing through it and the fireworks all around. We left promptly, and headed for the junction that would send us north into the unknown and towards a mere suggestion from a guy we'd only just met a week earlier our first time through Montana.

We got our grub at the junction, at a greasy-spoon/casino (they all are, out here), and I took over driving north, dead-set on getting us there before sun-up. I sold the guys into getting there and waking up where we neeeded to be instead of trying to get through on the 4th in all that traffic. I had to stop a few times just to catch a few winks and recharge, and a few hour drive took about seven, though only after Dave finally woke up and decided to drive the rest of the way. So I WOKE up in Polebridge, and the other guys slept while I figured out what this place was about and tried to find Alan, our buddy from Missoula.

Polebridge, Montana. What can I say? The last stop before Glacier National Park. The last stop before Canada. The last stop before utter WILDERNESS. http://adinarich.blogspot.com/2007/08/polebridge-proper.html (this site might offer a better picture of the whole scene). There is a mercantile with a bakery that has easily the best turnovers I've ever had in my entire life. Crazy hot bread pockets also filled with 8 different combinations of hot stuff, some of the best I've ever eaten as well. Mango-jalapeno salsa with Pork, anyone? It all goes fast, and I watched that 4th of July morning as campers, hikers, locals came from MILES and miles around to clear them out of everything they made. Next door, locals and even a couple of visiting wanderers were preparing for the day's festivities, setting up beer tents, getting the grill going. I tried to offer some help, and possibly get to know some people, but there were so many hands just helping out. People were just making it in for the day's party, meeting up and greeting friends they'd made the previous summer. I sat and watched in anticipation of the day's events. I knew it was going to be big. I had no idea.

I have to cut this short. I will write more later.

SEATTLE/PORTLAND

okae, let me clear this up for you.

I did not actually see the guy die at the river-bottoms, but he jumped and became missing whilst myself and everyone sat and watched random people (including my companions) jump from the same bridge. If anyone was sitting there in the flow of that river, with the hills about us, the sun shining and someone else's skin so near, NOT contemplating their mortality to some extent, then they were sleeping. No one saw the kid die, officially. They knew he jumped. They knew he didn't come back up. Everyone expected the worse. Everyone was right.

Maybe you can explain my writing critique a little further. You've tried before to do this, and as much as I can stand writing and trying the stressful approach to chronological order and my most precious details, I would like someday for everyone to understand and be as taken and surprised by what I see, in a sort of live-it-as-I-did fashion, and I think its when I try to do this, I mix up "trying to to go for style and just tell stories." Wait. You know what 'm saying.

I don't know about that K B. kid. Someone said on this trip that a certain amount of pretension is required for art to work. First off, I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I DO know that he may be focusing a little to much on pretension and less on rocking. Maybe I just don't like him cause I still think everyone is better and better-looking than me. It sounds like you're having a good time though. I remember you saying you were using Dave's sweet car. I won't forget the day I walked from my mom's to Brewed Awakenings for a shin-dig, and he stopped and asked me if I needed a ride. I felt like I should be self-reliant in his eyes, and denied us both the blessing. As for you enjoying yourself and singing with as many people as you mentioned, I have been prescribing that as long as I've known you. It sounds like my prognosis may have been right on.

I left two people out of the description of my musical friends group because I wanted people to listen and find out for themselves what besides what I had mentioned might also be found in the already described super group of sorts. If you were to look up the Overby's (Rachelle, Allysa) and anything on the rest of the group, musically or otherwise, you'd begin to understand the sort of treat I came to on that leg of the road, and why their music is still ringing inside me. I sent you one of my favorite songs by them. I made the mistake of making a pass at one drunk on beer, weed and Missoula sky, and was taken aback when, like my own animal handling skills, she in the sweetest and nicest way possible, had me on my back and not even thinking about how embarrassing the whole thing could've been. I am missing them, and I hope you like what you hear. I know you can be critical. But they are a sweet, kind and heartfelt group with whom I felt immediate kinship and for that I hope you at least respect them. Not that my desperate clinging to kind people ever gave you anymore reason to open up to strangers, anyway.

As for the whole "christa" thing. It went badly. These past weeks have been fun, but stressful, and I knew arriving here I may or may not get to see her. I finally got a number for her, and upon contact, she was this really disconnected person that I forgot she could be. She used words like "last-minute" and "ohio" like they were one of the seven deadliest. I tried to understand, but I couldn't. My ego. My heart. My fucking heart. Why have I not still figured out how to protect it? I became curt myself in response, and the phone call was all at once as brief as I think she'd intended it to be. I got a text from her later apologizing and trying to explain her shortness with words (patience more like it), and asked if I would like to have coffee the next day, to which I quickly overreacted with "YES"'s and A LOT of other unnecessaries, to which she hasn't replied. So lose, win, lose, I suppose. I am my own worse-enemy. As for mutilating myself on her behalf, I really like the sentiment with that idea.

I did check out Pike Place Market though (no fish throwing did I see). I bought a loaf of really good bread to which we offered our hosts in Portland to eat with our awesome (and badly needed) comforting tuna casserole. This was immediately following my conversation with Christa. I ate it that shit like it was her heart and my own. I love that there are as many ways to make Tuna casserole as there are homes in this country. Who says Americans have no food-style. We played an open mic hosted by a bunch of 60-somethin' hippies ("dude, I WAS at the original Woodstock") who had a really good band (girl bass player, no less) and played all the hits, radio, blues and otherwise. I have been warned a few times about this city and its drugs, and it was evident even in a general, non-threatening way, how much meth and heroin has destroyed every head and heart in this area both directly and indirectly. I felt enlightened and scared for my life all at once.

I remembered a dream I had some time ago:

I was in Portland. I was sleeping in a big sort of boat house with a bunch of other people. Then, in the dark, the walls came crashing in with water. I crawled and swam for the stairs. The water overcame.

Tomorrow we turn around and head back towards the east. NYC. I've never been. We'll go back through Toledo for one day, too. One more month ahead of us. Who the fuck knows what could happen in another month of shit and stars like these days have brought me...?

I hope you have a good day. I hope you can get out of yourself for at least one minute today. I have no choice, myself.

I've Hit Seattle..

So I've been to quite a few places since last we were together. I'm not sure how much I could go into about how I even got on this tour without boring you..

I've seen some of Indiana, and a nice suburb of Chicago called Villa Park (habitated by the brother-in-law and sister of the guys I'm traveling with), who for CHURCH RUNNING CHRISTIANS, are as nice as the ones who talked me into/helped-me-into Baptism. I've met these guys' mom and dad, and also the drummer's wife and kid (M and O), AND EVEN HER PARENTS (in KOHLER, WI); all these places I've stayed, and at the very least, with THIER family who felt so much like my own in my first week away from home.

I am cooking as much as I can. For everyone who'll have us over. Carrying babies off as much as the blessings would let me.

Talking to each and everyone aside, and the whole time being asked to travel only for the sake of my abilities to play music (and wash clothes).

Now I'm making ten-bucks a day for all my "band-mother" duties: cooking, laundry, and general handling of the band's collective absent-mindedness.

We are presently mixing down a demo (of which I am ALSO in charge of) that we recorded with some of the best recording/playing equipment I've ever seen, and in a place where I feel a certain part of my childhood might still be missing (Cassville, WI).

I've been to Eau Claire, WI, a small, though musically supportive town in itself, and went skinny-dipping (nearly) at dawn in a river; though had the BEST time when I met Mali, from Menomonee, WI, who took us to the river-bottoms (Chippewa?). I saw brothers (mine) connect after years. I made a long-overdue friend. I threw myself further into the river. I sat IN the current (literally). From where I sat with Mali digging rocks and transversing the current, I saw a boy plunge tens-of-feet off the train truss-ell (bridge) with my companions (brothers), only he didn't come back up, and after long hours of searching, we found out days later that his body was discovered in the dam, down-river.

The sun was shining when he died. The weather was beautiful and people all around him were holding each other and discovering their own mortality.

We drove on to other gems: Minneapolis. Fargo(where I'd finally been able to pick up traces of friends who'd played there before and gave me a show ( a good one with the FILLERS and LONELY H and Blind Joe (the best damn country singer I know) because of it. Bismarck, where we met the BEST friends of the so-far trip, Elijah and a supernatural group from Minneapolis called "Spirits of the Red City". A family band, whom I don't mind admitting, were the result of any hard dreaming and listening I've done inside myself.

SOTRC are a gorgeous, supernatural-sounding, seven-piece, led by Will Garrison, (who's done his time in Louisville and Minneapolis, AT LEAST). There are a pair of classically-trained fiddle players (BROTHERS) (one little, one big) who not ONLY COOK (WELL), but who play like they were playing each other's wedding/funeral, and who play along side one Rachel Overby (Double-Bass, Vocals) AND her adorable sister (whom you might equally fall for), Alyssa; both of who grew up in one of the biggest folk tribes of the Northwest. I met them and ate with them, and then after my time in Billings, Montana, caught up with them again in Missoula, MT where we were greeted like old friends and forced ourselves into next-day hedonism (foods/hammocks/
mango-mimosas), and for the rest of the day proceeded to cook, cook, cook. Two names not yet mentioned are surprises for you. But know this tribe is not only RELEVANT, but talented as any sing-along you or I could ever muster.

I am in love with all of them, equally, for seven different reasons.

I played a show in Missoula at the same house party. I was told I made a boy cry (which was always a true gauge for me, ask my new friends).

I played with Will and smoked with Anthony, and amazed all with an after-hours-Swiss-Chard sauté, stacked with GARLIC and more-garlic-rooster-HEAT, left-over diced, fried potatoes, PEANUT-BUTTER and RAISINS (of all things). IT WAS "AFRICAN". YUP. "AFRICAN". AND THEY LOVED IT. OVER SPAGHETTI. Then as a digestive/dessert, I served fresh-watermelon sprinkled (secretly) with sweetened lemonade mix. I was blowing minds. Forget about the girl that blew me off that night, though would've married me the night before. Nice teeth, yes. Good ears, maybe. Poor sleeping skills, indeed.

I made some mistakes, coming onto girls(one or two, sisters of mine) with several different reactions (not regrets, but forgetting myself).

I made friends and can't forget the hitchhiker we picked up between Billings and Missoula that we took all the way to Butte. Crazy Fuck."..my ugly wife..I can say that cuz I love her" Dave transcribed the whole thing..I snuck a picture.

I slept as many sleepless nights as I ever have. I had a nightmare hitting Idaho. (ask me about it), and woke up screaming as Steve drove and Dave wondered even MORE about me. They finally understood (or maybe not) why I DON'T SLEEP MUCH.

I've seen Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Washington for the first time and fell for each of them.I saw Seattle for the first time today. Another religious pilgrimage of sorts (nearly L.A.).

I played Seattle for the first time today.

I may see Christa in the next coming days.

I am alone and OKAE..

I miss you, too..

GeneJr