10/31 I was very important that everything went smoothly today for us to be ready to open tomorrow. I had scheduled the plumber and electrician to be at the new store at 7 am to begin hooking up our espresso machine, ice machine, coolers and sinks as well as the fans. etc. The a/c wasn't complete either and that had to be finished today also. The health inspector and building inspector were scheduled to show up at 2 pm to give us permission to occupy the building and cook so that we could open tomorrow. I had always thought it was doable, but by noon I was beginning to doubt and by 1:30 I was ready to give up; I didn't see how we could be ready. The inspectors got there by 2 and didn't really stay that long and didn't find any major glitches and passed us. I was both surprised and elated. Then it was a matter of just getting everything inplace so we could open. We had to figure out where to place tables, to get all the equipment working, put stuff away, stock shelves and so forth. By late that night we were exhaused again, but we had it to where we were ready to go.
10/30 Today we closed the store at 12 pm and began to move our stuff to the new store. At 1:30 the movers showed up to transfer the heavy stuff, we moved all the rest in a trailer behind my pickup, I probably loaded, hauled and unloaded 5 loads while Gerri and the girls boxed everthing up. We tried to get everything as close to where it was going to be so that when the plumber and electrician show up tomorrow they won't have any trouble hooking us up. My goal is to be open for business on Thursday Nov 1st, I think I am the only one who thinks that is possible. By 6 pm we had most of the major stuff there, much of it in boxes, and began the tedious job of figuring out where everything goes. I realized right quick that the storeroom and office weren't as big as I thought they were going to be. This was a long and hard day of all or us: Gerri, Erin, Julie, Chris and I. Dennis Kahlor came by and helped us for several hours dismanteling shelves and helping me load and unload the heavier stuff which was a great help. I think we were all glad to see this day end.
10/29/07 I have to comment on two articles that appeared this week in our local paper The Cullman Times as a banner headline on page one. the first article reported that Cullman County, a dry county with no alcohol sales, was going to share in the State beer tax revenues to the tune of one million dollars. The reason for this was that the State legislature passed a law that our local country club Terry Pines could sell alcohol on premises to their members. Once this was done we satisfied the qualifications to share in the beer tax. You can imagine the politics that took place here. I personally think that if you are going to share in the beer tax money you should sell the stuff to the public and apparantly most people here agree with me. The Times ran a poll and 54% said it was not right. The second article right below this one was titled Klan Protests Klan. The local chapter of the Alabama Klu Klux Klan is going to hold a standin at the courthouse on Saturday November 10th (during Christmas in Cullman) to protest illigal immigration. That is a problem here as in many other places. But apparantly acording to the article, the National Klan will be here to protest the Alabama Klan because they are not moral or noble enough for them, or something else I didn't quite understand. It almost sounded like the local Klan was too redneck for the national Klan. Anyway that should be something to see. I'm sure it will make national or maybe even international headlines. No wonder people regard us like they do. But there is a positive side, maybe it will keep them from wanting to live here and turn us into a clone of Georgia. I had four Australians visit this summer for extended stays and they all had apprehensions about coming because of the steriotypes that are out there, but loved it once they did.
10/24/07 The California wildfires raging now are bringing back some old memories. In 1961 and 1962 I was a member of a US Forest Service Regional Hot Shot crew stationed in the San Bernardino National Forest in southern California. We were the elite of the fire crews, there were only two Regional hot shot crews (there were a good many local "hot shots" although we didn't consider them good enough to use the name) in the whole Western Region, Converse and Del Rio. I was stationed at the Converse camp, an old CCC camp from the depression days located up in the San Berardino mountains above Redlands, CA. Our crew consisted of 17 guys, a combination of college students like me, and local indians and mexicans. We lived in an old barracks, slept in bunk beds and had an mess hall with an Indian cook named John who could put together a good feed. We always enjoyed coming back to camp where John would welcome us back, usually after several days on the fireline with a really great hot meal. When I first got there we spent weeks working together cutting survey lines, or doing other hard work learning how to use our tools and how to work together as a crew prior to our first fire. It was very hard work and We were lean, mean and very tough. When fire season came, we were a seasoned crew,and we worked almost every day and night for weeks cutting fire line in the brush and timber. We rode in the back of a large military style truck, three in the cab (the foreman and the head straw boss) and the rest of us were in the baak which was open. We raced to fires with the siren blowing and red light flashing. The fires could be an hour or more away sometimes. When we got to the fire we would unload from the truck in military fashion, pick up our tools and canteens and march in single file to the starting point and begin to work. Usually one crew would go up the mountain on one side of the the fire which was usually burning uphill at this point and the other on the opposite side in places too steep for the buldozers to go and try to flank the fire. We always worked on the steepest slopes and ridges or narrow canyons choked with flamable brush. We worked as fast as we could go cutting line toward the head fire trying to circle it and cut it off. We tried to keep it from spreading on the flanks and thus moving in one direction, straight up the hill where other crews with heavy equipment were building line and backfiring to get it out when it broke ofver the ridge. That was always the first plan. Once it broke over the first ridge, if it wasn't contained then things changed fast and it could remain out of control for days depending on the weather. The Santa Anna winds were the worst, often fanning fires out of control even before the initial crews like us could get to the scene. On the fire each man had a job and each job was vital to the success of the effort. On hot fires, the shovel crew, usually 2 men, went ahead throwing dirt on the flames to knock them down so the the axe and pulaski crews, we called them the cutters, could cut the brush out of the path of the fire and deny it fuel. Usually aircraft were woring the fire by the time we got that close to the head and would drop borate solutions on the head fire so we could get in there and take the fuel away and begin to contain it. Many a time we were sprayed with that red stuff. But it worked and it usually knocked the flames down enough for us to get in close. The scrapers came in after the brush was cleared with a tool called a Mccloud and scraped the line clean. When we had all passed we had a clean fireline 4-6 feet wide down to bare mineral earth between the burned area and the unburned brush. If we couldn't get that close we would build the line as close as we could and backfire the unburned brush out from the line to the burned area. We always had 1 or 2 lookouts keeping abreast of the fire, their job was to know what was happening around us so we could retreat if necessary. We had to on many occasions, fires are very unpredictable in their habits. Thelookouts could be the foreman or the two straw bosses, one each for the cutters and scrapers or one of us crew mewmbers could be assigned that job. It was more desirable to be a cutter, it was cleaner work, so that is where the more experienced crew members were. We always started off as a scraper and graduated up with experience and as folks left the crew. We didn't have a lot of turnover, but there was some. Believe it or not we built line very fast and could move rapidily through brush flanking the fire, leaving a good fireline behind. Seldom did it jump over behind us. We normally stayed on the line until the fire was contained then we would leave for another fire and let the mop up crews finish it up. Often we would start a fire in the early afternoon, work all night until early afternoon the next day and either get 4 hours sleep and work all the next night or move on. We seldom stayed on a fire more than two days unless it was unusually hot and uncontrollable. We often slept on the fireline in the dirt, they dropped us food and water from choppers. On a large project fire, the biggest one I was on was up near Lake Tahoe and burned over 40,000 acres, we could stay 4-5 days and would work out of a fire camp. we would be flown back and forth from the firecamp to the fire by choppers and would sleep and eat in the camp. On those kind of fires they would bring in crews from other USFS Regions to relieve us. In the fire camp the food was great. But we only came in to eat and sleep and then we were back out. We never got to bathe, although sometimes we could wash up, so we were smokey, grimy and dirty until we got back to Converse. We usually got a break after a while to regroup, reharpen out tools (we carried files with us to keep them sharp on the fireline, but they would get nicked up really bad cutting and scraping around rocks, and so we would have to grind out the nicks and dents and often rehandle them to get them back up to speed. At first I put a notch in my belt to keep up with the number of fires I'd been on, but soon got away from that. I think I was on something like 60 fires during my hot shot career. It was hard work, but I made some great friendships, we were a close crew. We would spend much of our off time together. I have been on Indian reservations, in Mexican barrios with crew members, living in their homes for a couple of days of R and R after a really big fire or a lot of days on the road. We even all went to Tijuana once as a crew and got kicked out by the local police, but that is another story which I don't ususally tell. We only had a few people injured, heat exhaustion mainly, it could get up to 130 on the fireslines. I was dangerous work, but we were well trained and disciplined, it was a lot like a military operation. It was a great two fires seasons, I'll never forget that time. Not only was it a great experience, but I was able to make enough money fighting fires to pay my way at Berkekey and get my degree in forestry.
10/22/07 I did something last night that I said I'd never do, and haven't for nearly 40 years, I watched a Jane Fonda movie. It was her latest release, Georgia Rule. It wasn't a great movie and I wouldn't recommend it, but the fact that I even considered watching a movie with Jane Fonda (Hanoi Jane to my generation)was significant. It shows to me how far I have been able to put the Viet Nam war behind me. I couldn't have done this in good conscience a few years ago. In those years to a lot of Viet Nam vets she was a traitor and I held that view and probably still do, but she is 70 years old now and has apologized at least twice for her actions. The first time i didn't believe her, but this last time I did. So I am all of a sudden willing to forgive and forget. What she did caused a lot of harm to those of us in that war, but how long should you carry a grudge. She admitted she was wrong, she was, and I can now accept that. The past can't be changed, she can't undo the hurt she did, but the present can reflect change and should. So I try to look at her not as Hanoi Jane, but as the person she is now. I might add that she is against the Iraq war too, but so am I and this time she supports the troops as do I and is not giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Now if I could have a similar view toward Dan Rather...
10/19/07 I guess I ought to say something about the move since I headlined it on our opening page. The new building is newly renovated, we are the first renters in several years. Hopefully the ambiance will be the same or similar to here, that is my goal to make it so, but of course it is a different place so things will be different. We are packing up what we can now, but plan to have the movers in here on the 30th to take the real heavy stuff and the stuff I need insurance on in case... I hope to reopen on Nov 1st. I hope that is doable, but I really won't know until we get into it. The big problem is that they are not finished with the building yet and I need to be out of here by the end of the month. They tell me not to worry it will be done, but my moving window keeps getting compressed. All that said we are excited about the move. We will have good plumbing, here whenever anyone flushed the toilet, we couldn't make espresso for several minutes until the water pressure built back. Here we only have one restroom there we will have two. There we can have outside tables, and most of all a kitchen on site. That is a big deal for us. We should be able to expand our lunch and bakery menus. Here the roof leaks and the air conditioning sucks, there it will all be new. We are naming the new place Berkeley Bob's Coffee House, the sign is up, since that is what everyone calls it now anyway. A little history, that name didn't come from me. Gerri and Erin pinned it on me and it stuck. I'm still not real comfortable with it. It is true though I did graduate from the University of California at Berkeley in 1964 with a degree in forestry. I was a product of the 60's in the San Francisco bay area where i grew up, although I spent the summer of love in 1967 in Vietnam as a Marine chopper pilot. Anyway, we will be moved soon, come by and visit the old place one last time or come by and visit the new place. Either way we have the best coffee and espresso bar in town.
10/18/07 We have been having church services at the coffee house for the last 3 Sundays. We will have one more and then move to the Baker Entertainment Center on Hiway 31 just down from the old Baker Music store. Jason Elam is heading this up. Jason is a preacher/pastor who has worked in several churches in Cullman and surrounding areas in the past as a pastor. Jason has been doing the Organic Church at the coffee house on Thursday nights for the past 2 years I think. His philosophy, and mine, is that organized religion has been the death of Christianity. It has become a business that promotes superstar pastors with bell and whistle services while forgetting the message of Jesus. They cater to stealing sheep from smaller churches while forgetting that there is a hurting world out there. Their message has been to be the real you, all you can be, reach your potential, usually measured by the accumulation of blessings which are defined as riches and good health. They seem to forget that Jesus was poor and lived among the poor, and suffered, and said we must too. And because of all that Christianity is in decline, has become impotent, and ridiculed through our country. Everybody sees this, but nobody seems to wonder why. Jason's Sunday church is called Revolution and we all hope that is what it will become.
10/15/07 This was supposed to be the open mike night that the Southern Living photographer came to take pictures for the article they are writing for February publication. But two hours before hand he called and changed the date to November 5th. A disappointment, but in the long run probably a better deal for us as we will be in the new building by then. We had a great crowd and a number of performers. We planned for this to be a memorial for Kerry Calvert who died earlier this month (see below). Almost all of our regulars were there and the music was great. We all had a really good time. Eat your heart out Southern Living!
10/7/07 John Lott called me today and told me that Kerry Calvert had passed away. That was a shock, Kerry had played with the Coffee House gang last Saturday at the Folk Festival and was a regular at our open mikes. He was 60 years old and died in his sleep Thursday night. He will be greatly missed by all of us. I just really enjoyed his music, he had a wonderful style on guitar and was a good songwriter.
10/2/07 The Daystar homeless shelter folk festival team met tonight to critique the folk festival and to decide whether or not to have another. I read statements that all the musicians had emailed me, all were very positive and upbeat about it and hoped we would continue. All of the team members were upbeat as well. We didn't make any money for the shelter, but did break even, so we didn't lose any either. I think that was ok with all of us as we all could see the potential that his has as a fundraiser in the future. We decided that we would go ahead and have the 2nd annual, time and place to be decided later. The one thing we will have to improve on is marketing and we feel we can. Stay tuned.
10/1/07 I missed open mike tonight as the Soil and Water Conservation District, where I work part time, had an awards banquet to honor all those who participated in our conservation activities through the year. Honorees included kids who participated in the poster contest (we had over 400 entries in the county and 3 won state and will go to the nationals) or the essay contest to farmers who initiated conservation practices on their farms and ranches. I did get back for the tail end, Erin and Josh ran it, and looked like it was very lightly attended.
10/1/07 I have been very busy the past several months preparing for the North Alabama Folk Festival held last Saturday 9/29 at the Festhalle Market Platz (Cullman's Farmer's Market) as a benefit for Daystar House. Daystar House is a United Way Agency and is a local homeless shelter. I joined their board of directors last spring and they asked me to organize and coordinate the event as a fundraiser. That is one reason why I haven't posted many blogs lately.
The event was held last Saturday and we had great music from about 10:00 AM until 10 PM. The Coffee House Gang opened at 10 during the Farmer's Market. Players included John Lott who organized it, Susan Vaughn, Joe Collins, Kerry Calvert and Shea Heatherly. Then at 12 Rusty Bay a bluegrass and Celtic trio from Huntsville performed a collection of traditional and original songs. They are made up of jerry and Lori McGuff a husband and wife team on banjo and upright bass and Carolyn on guitar. Blue Shift another Huntsville trio, a folk blues band, performed at 1:30 with a collection of bluesy folk songs and some originals. Steve McGahee is a new member of that band and has a great voice for what they do and also plays a good harmonica. Jerry LeCroy is a guitar virtuoso and Danny Charles keeps it all going with his fiddle.
The Festival itself started at 2 with Larry Woelhart a Huntsville folk singer. He did a lot of 60's folk revival and some Gordon Lightfoot (probably my favorite singer). The Kingston Trio's MTA, Gordon Lightfoots's Wreck of the Edmon Fitzgerald and The Canadian Railroad Trilogy were included in his set. Larry was followed by Microwave Dave who did his usual wonderful job singing and playing the blues for an hour and a half. If you haven't heard Microwave you need to, he hosts a blues radio show on the Alabama A&M PBS station and plays regularly in the Huntsville area and throughout the greater Southeast.
Phillip David Harris performed next. He is a Nashville based songwriter from this area. He is a really good guitar player and a great songwriter. Check out my earlier blog about his performance at an earlier concert at the coffee house.
String Theory followed Phillip. I just love this group. Sue Charles on Autoharp and vocals, her husband Danny on fiddle and Darryl Veal on Guitar and lead vocals really put down a great folk sound. They have a really laid back, relaxed style, remenisent of Norman Blake. I love Darryl's guitar work and vocals. This group can play anyplace. James Smith the Autoharp Man was next, he is no stranger to the coffee house and really puts on a great show. He does mostly old songs which he introduces with neat stories and also sings some originals. Karren Pell and Tom House were next. They had a neat set. Karren is the Alabama Troubadour and writes very moving songs about places in Alabama. She is an accomplished folk singer and a very engaging stage presence. Tom House is a Nashville singer-songwriter, remeinds me of John Prine. Their set was great.
We closed out with Bimini Road, they are one of my favorite groups and play regularly at the Coffee house. This was as good as I had ever heard them. They also ran the sound all day, thanks Chuck and Richard. The music all day was great, attendance was poor, we broke even, so the homeless shelter didn't make any money, but they didn't lose any either. And we all had a great time. We plan to do it again nest year.
Much thanks to all those who helped put it on. Special thanks to Jimmy wells for all his hard work throughout the planning process and the day.