You Can't Take that Away from Me

This weekend we had the pleasure of hosting a dear old friend from college. He was on his way back east to meet up with his family. He mad a comment that really stuck with me and triggered a thought to write about. It also reminded me of an essay I wrote about our days in college and a funny little group of musicians.

As we caught up on the last year since we'd see him, he recollected more of the challenges he and his wife have had over the last few years. They have suffered mightily from a mysterious development of Lyme's disease which has rendered them allergic to everything under the sun (including, I think the sun), as well as heavy metal poisoning. I'm not talking about too much AC/DC, I'm talking mercury. YIKES. It means they've had to give up their life dreams of owning a farm, of working the land, and living sustainably.

"The one thing I've realized in all of this." Said The Once A Farmer Friend. "You know, this disease can't take our music away from us." He talked about the jublilation of the day when they could buy new instruments. It pulled at my gut. Such a simple pleasure that suddenly means more to a person than anything in the world. It is incredibly painful to realize what it means for two people in their mid-30s with two young children to be completely without anything in the world but friends, a lot of hope, and music. But he was right. As much as identity is caught up in material possessions, it is also connected to the abstract concepts like music.

The full impact of this comment ties to a the lives we led in college. It starts with the house at 1674 Dayton Avenue in St. Paul. It also used to be the center of a community of people variously connected by music and Macalester college. Known simply as “the Yellow House,” it served as a center of activity for a relatively large group of people, all centered around old-time music.

This place was nothing compared to the heyday of Bloomington, Indiana in the '60s and '70s. But it was our own little slice of it. Truth be told, I’m not exactly sure just how long the Yellow House was in the Macalester family. Invariably houses like that would pass on from one generation to the next, one group to the other, bridged in some way by a commonality of at least two people. I initially heard of the Yellow House when I was in my first year at Mac. At that time it was loosely connected to the theatre department, by way of the students of course. It changed hands in my second year, passed to members of the music department. It was in that year that I came to know it. The new members of the Yellow House ran it like a collective, and these Granola-crunching-tree-hugger-folk musicians made it a landmark.

The Yellow House drew people not only with parties and outings, but also a way of life. The residents of the house at that time were five men and one woman. The Yellow House community was connected through the members of the house; five of the six were musicians in a group called the Flying Fingers.

The Flying Fingers were (and still are) a folk-music ensemble run by students. The members of the group learned songs together, taught each other how to play various instruments, and performed both at school and around town. In many ways this group was more likely the basis for the community, but the Yellow House served as the nerve center for the group, and thereby allowed more than musicians into the fold. Both the Flying Fingers and the Yellow House certainly could have existed independently of each other.

In many ways this connection could have easily been rooted in the desire of both members of the house and the music ensemble to embrace more of a collective living standard and, if you will, a more folky way of life. My first introduction to the Yellow House was where the Flying Fingers parties would take place. These were grand events where everyone connected to the members of the band or the house were welcome, food was abundant and music flowed like water. A rack of musical instruments lined one whole wall of the living room. Hanging from them were all manner of stringed things- guitars, banjos, dulcimers, mandolins and the occasional rhythm instruments – jug, washboard and bones. As folks came to the house, the instruments came down and the jamming sessions would begin. The singing and playing of music would go late into the night. Birthday parties, holiday parties, any kind of parties always had the same format, music, friendship and spirit.

Other outings that originated from the house included things like midnight sledding escapades at the Town and Country Club. The Once Farmer was one of these house members. Often in the winter he would drive around the campus and pick up people in his old ambulance. Stocked with sleds and comrades, we would take off down Marshall avenue though the sparkling winter snows to find fun and frivolity on the gentle slopes of the country club. (We climbed the fence to get in). Other times the assorted members would travel to the west side of the Mississippi, in Minneapolis to have a bonfire and sing songs. Some of the more memorable moments were sitting around a big bonfire singing songs like “Rooty Toot Toot for the Moon.”

Music can't be taken away from you. No matter if you have give up your instruments, you have voice, feet, and hands. You can pick up a borrowed instrument and play what your hands will recall. You can always have music. It can heal, it can bind, and it can take away the worries of the world. At the same time, the music creates the connections to the people that make you who you are. As much as the Once Farmer's experience revolves around losing his dream, it draws in his friends and family. It draws in the Yellow House community. It makes me think that we have to stay connected--whether through the music, through conversation, or just keeping in touch.