It is Sunday morning.  We played a little coffeehouse just south of downtown Spokane last night.  We had a few friends in the audience, some of the regulars, and some dropins from the publicity we gave the gig.

We could be anywhere in the western U.S., maybe anyplace at all in the United States.  We could be in a motel room in our hometown.  For all practical purposes it wouldn't matter much.  The businesses are the same.  I went to a convenience store downtown just a short time ago.  It was like any convenience store in any downtown in any American city.  I think the time of day may have made it more interesting than if it had been later.  Also Sundays are different (i.e. "Sunday Morning Coming Down" ala Kris Kristofferson).  There is the usual presence of dire poverty in most American downtown areas these days.  Nothing new about that.  I think most people my age would confirm that.

On Sundays the streets are very sparse downtown for vehicles and pedestrians alike as most of the major businesses are closed on Sundays.  That's partly a remnant of blue laws, and probably mainly the fact that most people like to take a day off, and with business slow - Sunday is the day although most of the monopoly businesses are open on Sundays.  They mostly employ low to medium skill workers who don't generally have much say in what days or hours they work.

We have been getting our feet back in the water of being touring musicians - touring on the lowest rungs of the ladder.  I think it would be good if we gave more thought to what we are doing.  We would be smart to do more publicity, and have more confidence in our abilities.  We have worked long and hard to be doing what we do, and almost universally we are recognized to be good at what we do when we play.  Now if I would only recognize that.  At this point I always want to point out to myself that the world is full of people with our skills.  That isn't exactly true, and there is not an act that would really be like us as we bring the world that we have experienced with us in our performance.  We give people a glimpse into that world, and that world is well traveled and diverse compared to most people.  That's why I named our latest CD project "Windows".

I have given some thought lately to my progress through life.  One might think that I would have been done with that some time ago, and indeed I had abandoned that kind of "where am I in life" meditations some time ago.  It isn't just an introspective perception that I am experiencing.  It is a result of the experiences of others as well.  We have a few friends who are couples who were reunited after being adolescent lovers.  Kristi and I have attended a couple of gatherings of my high school class and I only can think that I was pretty much a hollow vessel in those days.

I don't know if I'm going to write anything else about this.  I try to keep this kind of public writing out of the realm of confessional, or too introspective.  Not just because I think it isn't really all that interesting, but, well . . . for other reasons as well.  Now I know I have set up an air of mystery.  Don't stare at the man behind the curtain folks.  He isn't really there.  Just turn away now and go about your business.

It is always a little interesting to visit Spokane with Kristi because she was raised there and a few more bits come out every time we visit.  We were driving around investigating ways to get to our gigs and we drove through a neighborhood.  Kristi casually mentioned that it was the neighborhood where black people lived in Spokane.  You might want to comment on that, because I found it a little shocking that there was a neighborhood there that was designated "for black people only".  I guess shocking isn't the right word because by now I know that cities all over this country have been, and in many cases (maybe most cases) still are somewhat segregated by race, and class.  Still . . . I suppose it's just a lot of foolishness on my part not to just accept that that's the way things were, and hope that that's not the way things are.

OK.  On the other hand when Kristi and I were looking for houses in Tacoma our realtor refused to sell us a house because it was in a black neighborhood.  That was 1997.  I remember that clearly, found it disturbing, and I'm still disturbed by the notion.

We visited Manito Park in Spokane on Saturday afternoon.  It is a very nice park.  Not as nice as Point Defiance, but a very nice park with long walking paths, trees, at least one pond, which Kristi remember ice skating on.

It was nice to get outdoors as we always end up spending a lot of time in our motel rooms.

I thought the park had similarities to Pt. Defiance in that it had gardens integrated into the park structure, and the gardens, if not maintained, seem to be sponsored by garden organizations.  Here's a list of the gardens:

• Duncan Garden - formal 3-acre (12,000 m²) European garden with a large granite fountain; designed and built in 1913. The arrangement of the flower beds, and also the plants make the Duncan Garden symmetrical.
  
  

  The Duncan Garden in 2003, before and after flowers were planted.
• Joel E. Ferris Perennial Garden - perennial plants.
• Gaiser Conservatory - greenhouse located immediately north of the Duncan Garden. One wing contains desert plants and the other contains tropical plants.
• Nishinomiya Tsutakawa Japanese Garden - in honor of Nishinomiya, Japan, Spokane's sister city. In 1967 noted landscape architect Nagao Sakurai began its design. After his stroke in 1973, designs were completed by Shosuke Nagai and Hirohiko Kawai and the garden was dedicated in 1974.
• Rose Hill - 1500 rose bushes representing over 150 varieties; an All-America Selections rose test garden.
• Dahlia Garden - one of the American Dahlia Society's eight trial gardens. Adjacent to Rose Hill.
• Lilac Garden - over 100 cultivars represented; Spokane is known as the "Lilac City".

There are plaques at each of the gardens that mention organizations that I guess help maintain the gardens in some way.  I had to wonder who paid for all of the work that went (goes) into them.  At this time of year there isn't much to see, and there was ice on some of the paths which made them look too dangerous for us to be walking on.

Here's where we played on Saturday night.  The staff was very nice.  It is a small space, nice sounding and folks were very polite.  One of my high school classmates came out to see us, and one of Kristi's came as well with his S.O.  We had a good night playing my songs.

On Sunday we left our motel room at checkout time as we were ready to leave town but not before we played a couple of more times.  In between gigs we went to the Northwest Museum of art and culture.  It is in a lovely couple of buildings.  It was remarkable how poorly the space that they have is used.  It was $18 apiece to get in (the senior rate).  I thought it was quite a bit of money, and after seeing what they have to offer I thought it was too much.  They had a "Titanic" display going on.  It was something they had imported.  There were relics that had been recovered from the ship and a lot of text explaining how the ship had gone down.  I thought the most interesting part of the display was where they explained how many First Class, 2nd Class, 3rd Class, and Crew survived, or were lost when the ship went down.  I suppose it's no surprise to any of you that the First Class had the highest percentage of survivors, 2nd Class next, 3rd Class, and a very small percentage of crew members got on a lifeboat.  

24% - the percentage of crew members who survived.

61% - the percentage of First Class passengers survived.

42% - the percentage of Standard Class passengers survived.

24% - the percentage of Third Class passengers survived.

When we first got to the museum there was public art which we quite enjoyed.

  Until next time.  Steve Nebel