{"id":746,"date":"2016-09-29T16:20:44","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T16:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=746"},"modified":"2016-09-29T16:22:39","modified_gmt":"2016-09-29T16:22:39","slug":"ftv-the-end-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=746","title":{"rendered":"FTV: The End – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0The fateful day that Ray (the Human Jukebox, guitar player, vocalist) called to tell me that he was mustering out of the Air Force hit me like a ton of bricks. \u00a0He said that he would be heading back to his old stomping grounds in southern Illinois in early May so his last band jobs with Knockdown would be at the end of April. \u00a0\u00a0I appreciated the fact that he let me know three months ahead of time otherwise I would have kept booking jobs into the next summer and found myself without a band to fulfill those gigs. \u00a0When the Twig ended, it matched up with the end of our \u00a0high school years so it was a natural transition after our four years of playing together. \u00a0Having played with Knockdown for two years, the end happened at a more chaotic period for me. \u00a0I found myself trying to plan for multiple changes that stacked up all at once. \u00a0I felt like a juggler tossing balls in the air without any clue if they were going to come down again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I really enjoyed the stability of playing in Knockdown. \u00a0We played 2 or 3 nights a week with only two Christmas weekends off over a two year period. \u00a0Coupled with my summer work at the Huron Mountain Club, I was able to finance school, buy a used truck, and still have time for a full schedule of classes. \u00a0We had a large repertory of songs in many styles so we \u00a0found we were comfortable playing teen center dances, wedding receptions, bar gigs, office parties and the occasional frat party. \u00a0The Air Force guys in the band couldn\u2019t join the musician’s union (AFofM Local 213) so I was the guy who booked the gigs, paid the contract fees, did the band schedule, filed the tax forms, and issued the payroll checks. \u00a0I learned enough about handling schedules and paperwork that it made a pretty good addition to my post college resume. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While I got to play \u201csmall business owner\u201d, Ray was the guy who fine tuned the music end of the our well oiled machine. \u00a0Ray was one of the finest singer – guitarists I have worked with and his encyclopedic knowledge of musical styles meant we could play just about anything the audience requested. \u00a0\u00a0Ray would soon be gone and he would leave a void that I knew I wasn\u2019t going to be able to fill quickly enough to keep the band going. \u00a0Lee and Rich were disappointed that I wasn\u2019t going to keep Knockdown afloat, but they decided to try and replace both Ray and I and keep playing. \u00a0I wished them well but was not at all surprised when both versions of the band they tried to rebuild broke up by the end of the summer. Both were accomplished players but there is more to keeping a band rolling than just being able to be a sideman. \u00a0\u00a0Knockdown was one ball I tossed in the air but didn\u2019t try to catch and even though it was sad that the band had ended, it turned out to be the right time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The second ball I tossed into the air was, \u201cWhat am I going to do for a summer job?\u201d \u00a0After three summers working at the Huron Mountain Club, most of the crew I had worked with were moving on. \u00a0I was not looking forward to being the only \u2018old guy\u2019 returning to the kitchen crew. \u00a0I confirmed this when we drove to the club over Christmas Break to visit Ted the kitchen manager and I more or less told him, \u201cThanks for helping me work and play band gigs over the last two summers, but I won\u2019t be back next summer\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0Ted understood as he was also getting restless to move on. \u00a0I entered the winter semester knowing I wouldn\u2019t have a summer job besides the band. \u00a0Two months later, I learned I wouldn\u2019t have a band to fall back on either. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There are times when one has to step back and be patient (not one of my main character traits when I was younger). \u00a0In this case, I didn\u2019t have much choice. \u00a0The plan was to get my new semester classes rolling and then start worrying about the summer. \u00a0I walked into the Geography Department office on the first day of the semester to hear my up the street neighbor (and eventually my graduate advisor and boss) Pat Farrell say, \u201cHire Ken.\u201d \u00a0Ceta, the department secretary, looked at me and asked, \u201cDo you want a job?\u201d and without asking any of the important questions (Doing what? \u00a0How many hours? \u00a0What is the pay?), I said \u201cSure!\u201d \u00a0Perhaps I thought they were kidding but that ball came down rather quickly when Ceta said, \u201cGreat! \u00a0Write out your class schedule and I will figure out when you can work your 20 hours a week.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Geography Department generally employed a couple of work study students to do general office work. \u00a0\u00a0Both of their fall workers had dropped out of school after the first semester. \u00a0When I look back at it now I marvel that I found another job without actually having to look for it. \u00a0I was now a 20 hour a week secretary and I got to do the work that was normally split between two students each working 10 hours per week. \u00a0Maybe I should have also considered another possibility: \u00a0\u201cThey must have been desperate!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In essence, this was a ball I caught before I even tossed it in the air. \u00a0My semester as a secretary coincided with one of my education classes where we were required to learn how to operate all of the machines that we might encounter in the education game. \u00a0Xerox technology was just gaining traction over the old fashioned mimeograph and stencil machines so there were all sorts of office type machines we had to demonstrate mastery over. \u00a0We had to make an appointment at the Learning Resources Center (re: \u00a0The Library) to demonstrate for the work study student in a back closest that we could \u00a0indeed make copies, run a tape recorder, create and copy a test and so forth. \u00a0I ended up showing the poor work study girl at the LRC how to use most of them because I was already using them in my Geography Department office job (including film strip and movie projectors and a new fangled, reel to reel video tape machine). Apparently I was her first customer so we learned her job together..<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Handling the professors in the department was a different matter. \u00a0I have had nothing but the utmost respect for office managers since watching Ceta manage the eight or nine \u201cbosses\u201d she worked for without knocking a few heads together. \u00a0Ceta was as charming as can be but she did not suffer fools lightly. \u00a0When one of the \u201cbosses\u201d got her dander up, they knew when to retreat. \u00a0A couple of times I got the brunt of the abuse for something I did or didn\u2019t do (or at times, things they thought they told me to do – the stereotype \u00a0of the absent minded professor isn\u2019t always a myth). \u00a0When someone took issue with something we (or I) had done wrong, Ceta could be like a mother bear protecting one of her cubs and I learned the best defense was to keep my mouth shut and let her vent a little righteous anger. \u00a0\u00a0I was disappointed when her husband got transferred to Dubuque, Iowa at the end of the semester but I made sure I took her out to lunch before she left to say \u201cthank you\u201d for teaching me the ropes. \u00a0My third job working for the university was just an extension of my 20 hour a week job. \u00a0I was asked if I would be available to handle Ceta\u2019s office during the six week intersession between the end of the winter semester and the beginning of \u00a0summer classes. Working 20 hours per week without having to go to class was almost like a working vacation so I filled the secretary void until a replacement was hired at the beginning of the summer session.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If you check your scorecard, you will find that I just fielded my third university job ball from the sky. \u00a0Number two had actually occurred a mid-semester when Pat Farrell had asked me what I was going to be doing for the summer. \u00a0\u201cTaking the Geographic Field Studies class at Cusino Lake with you,\u201d I replied. \u00a0\u201cGood. \u00a0Take another class and you can be my assistant manager for the summer.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Had I been trying to keep Knockdown together, I would not have been able to move to Cusino Lake for the summer. \u00a0This turned out to be another great resume item and when upon returning to civilization in early August gave me a whole three weeks to contemplate the fact that I had no job, no band and no prospects for either going into my senior year of college. \u00a0Fate again intervened by putting me at the last gig of Barry Seymour\u2019s Chicago style horn band, Sunstone. \u00a0A brief discussion with Barry during a break got the ball rolling for the band that would become Sledgehammer and it began to look like the end of Knockdown wasn\u2019t going to be the end of my band days.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There are two more parts of the story to tell covering time I spent with Sledgehammer and Easy Money but it is time to move on to something else for a while. \u00a0If there is a moral \u00a0here it is simply the old adage \u201cWhen one door closes, another door opens.\u201d \u00a0Maybe we can also write a new one: \u00a0\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how many balls you throw into the sky as long as some of them come down.\u201d \u00a0In my case, I seem to have thrown up less than I had come down. \u00a0It is possible that \u201cThe End\u201d doesn\u2019t have to be as final as it sounds and in some cases, a job finds you and not vice-versa.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top piece video: \u00a0Joy to the World<\/em> because it was one of my favorites from the Knockdown days – it was indeed a Joy to play with Ray the Human Jukebox . . . also to have jobs fall out of the sky when they were needed!