“Kindred Souls”

c. 2018 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(8-18)

The joy of junk.

In recent weeks, my immediate family has been involved in the task of clearing our parental homestead, some four hours away. This ongoing struggle has unearthed tidbits of childhood fun and some relics never seen before. We are reliving old memories and adding pieces to the life-puzzle composed by our mother and late father. Unfinished projects are again meeting the light of day, after long periods of slumber.

Like a Sears & Roebuck television set from the late 1940’s, that I purchased three decades ago.

Dad once took a course on television repair, when such devices were becoming popular. I had reckoned that he might heal the vintage receiver, which still had the ability to play audio signals but yielded no video output. He promised to have a look. Then, the long, little box was stashed in a corner of their living room. Mail, magazines and miscellany soon shrouded it darkness. Only my sister remembered its fate.

Like a time-warp adventure, cleaning up after years of neglect gave us a vantage point where yesterday and today were the same.

One sentiment has dogged our efforts in this moment. The conclusion that those who brought us into the world were avid collectors by nature, not design. Steeped in depression-era traditions. They literally saved everything, to be relocated again and again, and again, then studied later and pondered with an air of mystery adding spice.

Predictably, their path became our path.

We of the next generation followed this habit closely. In our own homes, the familiar bent toward gathering useful trinkets has become obvious. But instead of noting these items with affectations of grandeur, we name them lovingly, with a more common touch.

We call them ‘junk.’

The term, in our lexicon, does not connote a lack of worth or significance. Instead, it is one we use as a proletarian bit of verbiage. One expressing our mission as hunter-gatherers without any pretentiousness. We are librarians and urban-archaeologists. Archival hoarders. Students always of what has gone before.

The journey began with my grandparents, and their farm in Columbus, Ohio. A place inhabited by a university professor, his schoolteacher wife, and many children. They remained close to the soil despite their education. My parents turned this art of keeping things into a more mobile experience, relocating many times over the decades. I grew used to the continuity of stuff while the outside world continued to change. My own home is short on usable space, yet long on artifacts. Pieces of yesterday that offer numerous opportunities to peer through the mist and write creative reports.

All of this provided a foundation for my personal enjoyment of ‘Cult Radio A Go-Go’ by Terry & Tiffany DuFoe.

I discovered their station when clicking on a link for Davie Allan. The legendary California guitarist has been a long-distance compadre for many years, after I ordered compact discs from his website. He mentioned having given an interview on a west-coast, Internet station. Initially, I listened to the chat in hope of gaining more understanding about his career. But then, I read of the team responsible for this interaction. I saw photos of their posters, books and bobbleheads, records and movies on disc and tape. I watched Facebook Live posts that toured their studio. I read their manuscripts, penned for fanzines, and interacted with them about music and pop culture. We traded instant messages across the miles between the Pacific Ocean and Lake Erie. Suddenly, I knew these people whom I had never met.

They were kindred souls.

When I recorded a short cellphone glimpse of my office, Tiffany commented with excitement:

“Yes! You are one of us...”

My personal work station is a bulky, metal desk, left by Wife 2.0. This wordsmithing platform is flanked by towers of file cabinets, bulging with yellowed manuscripts and photographs. On top are rotary-dial telephones, beer bottles, a USB radio microphone, and various toys. The room walls boast images of sports, music and motorcycles, in no formal order.

It is my cradle. My crib. My launching pad for ideas-in-print.

The audio stream from CRAGG has provided a proper soundtrack for work done in this space, with unpredictable variety. Songs by Tiny Tim? Show excerpts from ‘Hazel?’ Interviews with ladies from G.L.O.W.? Obscure recordings of old-time radio? Snippets of dialogue from adult films?

Yes, yes, yes.

My only regret is that Paul Race, my spiritual mentor from New York, did not live long enough to hear of this connection with the DuFoes. As a rabid keeper of comic books, vinyl records, guitars, beer signs, pop bottles, antiques and such, he would have been another kindred soul in the group. I often think of him when sitting at the keyboard. Or when listening to T & T with their stream-of-consciousness take on pop culture.

Or… when hauling boxes out of my parents’ home, south of the border.

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