“Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can’t.” ― Johnny DeppMusic can indeed have great power to trigger emotions.
In an hour so I will be leaving for the airport to fly away to Los Angeles to see my sister and brothers and their families. I did not see them last year because Richard and I were supposed to have a short vacation but that never happened. So I am overdue for some R&R.
I had no work to do yesterday, so I spent some time bouncing around on YouTube listening to all sorts of music that I enjoyed back in the day, among them this marvelous performance of the Blind Faith classic by Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton.
One line in the song is particularly poignant, “I’m wasted, and I can’t find my way back home…”
In 1969 when the song was released, I had experienced a couple of years of students at the college I attended falling into the black hole of drug use. Mostly they were just smoking too much marijuana but some were dabbling with LSD and “magic mushrooms” and the like. I watched a couple of very bright students turn their minds to mush and drop out.
But then there are some memories that are much closer to home. Sad memories of what happened to our only first cousin on my Mom’s branch of the tree. My mom had one brother, Ellis, who was quite a bit older then she was – between them were three other children born in the family that died in infancy. Ellis in turn had one son, Ralph. Ellis’ wife died when Ralph was very young, and I am fairly sure he and the boy moved back home for a while.
Ralph was 13 years older than I was, so he would have been 16 or 17 in this picture.
And then he started drinking and couldn’t stop. He lost everything: job, home, wife, kids.
By then Uncle Ellis had moved to a town in central California, and Ralph went to live with him. But he fell afoul of some men there who were threatening to kill him, so Uncle Ellis sent him to us.
He lived with us, briefly, in 1969. Mom and Dad tried to help him, but they did not understand alcoholism and did not have the resources or the knowledge of how to help him.
Ralph vanished out of our lives, and it was only later many years later that we learned he had died in 1971, at 34, homeless, on the streets of Los Angeles.
What a terrible, sad, waste of a life.
4 comments:
So sad, alcohol misuse is horrible...as is drug use. The mind of those addicted is different...I don't begin to understand it ...I hope you have a good visit with your siblings:)
I found your blog at such a time when I have been looking at properties in your area. Then I traveled down to your 'Adventures in Country Living" post and "wait a minute" mice and snakes . . . oh, I have actually passed out at the sight of a snake.
I enjoy looking at properties across America and seeing the differences in prices and living conditions. I enjoy laid back country living. I enjoy hard work and specifically gardening. It's good to know what we put into our bodies, because we have grown them ourselves and the work of keeping a garden is so much more rewarding than any gym membership could ever be.
Anyway, good to meet you and happy blogging. Oh, and have a great vacation.
Connie :)
I had a brother like that, a half-brother who was maybe 14 when I was born. I think he was under 40 years old who drinking became his total downfall. He lost a wonderful job in Des Moines he'd had for several years. He destroyed his marriage and spent half the latter half of his life in jail, just going in and out of prison. He died in a halfway house in Kansas City.
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