No. 751 – Coyote Dance

Performer: Robbie Robertson & The Red Road Ensemble

Songwriters: Dave Pickell, Jim Wilson

Original Release: Music for The Native Americans

Year: 1994

Definitive Version: None

When Debbie and I got home from our Brown County weekend, we spent the night at her place, which was typical. Debbie had her bathroom situation set up the way she liked it there, and because she had to get up and go in the morning, it made more sense for her to have the home-field advantage.

Another reason we liked staying at her place was we were out of range of prying eyes. Debbie used to tell me that on mornings when she’d make the 300-yard drive to my dad’s office, she occasionally would run into Dad coming to work on Third Street, and she noted with a certain smugness how he’d always crane his neck to see whether her car was parked in front of my place. Once she said he nearly plowed into a stopped car ahead of him because he was looking the wrong way.

But I liked the few times when we did stay at my place, because they were rare. One of the times was the day after we got back from Brown County. Actually, Mondays were the days she was most likely to stay at my place, because I had Monday off. As I’ve noted, I usually spent those days shopping before going over to Dad’s house for dinner.

But on this occasion, we had dinner at my place. I can’t remember what we had, but I remember the why: We had to carve the pumpkin we bought in Indiana along the drive back.

I had a better display opportunity than she did, so I got the pumpkin. I think she also didn’t want to get pumpkin gunk on her table. I had just bought my dining table and chairs, but I had no such gumption. I wanted to put them to use, and, after all, a little newspaper goes a long way.

I hadn’t carved a pumpkin since I was a kid, and I recalled as soon as I popped the top on it why I didn’t like to carve pumpkins—all the goop. Fortunately, I found to some delight that it’s a lot easier to scoop out all of the goop when you’re bigger.

I made a funky gap-toothed grimace on my pumpkin, and the best part was when Debbie added the candle. The candle she bought for it was pink, so at the right angle, it looked like my pumpkin had a tongue. It had a place of honor on the window sill in my bedroom, keeping a doleful vigil over Frankfort Street for any ruffians looking to make mischief.

OK, so that wasn’t the most compelling of stories, but when you have 100 or so songs from a narrow four-month span, you have to parcel them out carefully. And besides, how much did you pay for this blog?