Things I Think About

It was Tory Terrell. I haven’t seen Tory since maybe the early 80’s. “Thom, I just wanted you to know that Mu died yesterday in his home. He had a heart attack. Yeah, he went very peacefully. He’s probably up there laughing at us right now. Funny thing is, yesterday was his birthday. Pretty neat, how he could come in and go out on the very same day of the year.”

We talked for a while about staying in touch. I told him financial considerations would make it impossible for me to attend the funeral in Maui. He was in a hurry to tell everyone of Jeff’s friends and family about Jeff’s passing. We ended the conversation abruptly with promises talk soon.

Jeff Driscoll is (was) younger than me, by a few years, about the same age as my brother David. We once took a road trip to Atlanta, from California, and helped my father moved into yet another house after my mother passed on from her heart problems.

She died at about the same age that Jeff just did. That fact does not escape me. I had flown to Atlanta at Dad’s behest to be with my mother during another time in the hospital due to the strokes she was having at the end. She would look at me and think that I was someone else. She seemed more distressed than she ever had and I was helpless to do anything for her; I could only go to the hospital and hold her hand. It was very sad for me, knowing that my mother was dying but I had known for a long time. She had been weak and tired through most of my childhood. But it must have been so much more sad for my grandmother, who was there through all the last days of my mother’s life.

I was thinking about Jeff’s mom, and how she must feel right now. And I was thinking about when, when I was just a traveling musician looking for a meal and a mattress, Jeff Moose Mu Driscoll took me to his parents’ music shop and got me back into teaching the guitar – and the banjo - on a full time basis in my early days in Southern California, Thousand Oaks / Westlake Village.

They took me in as a teacher, booked my students, and let me practice in their practice studio, even when I was just waiting for students. Then I would teach until 8 or 9 at night. Then, Jeff and I would run around and try to round up some dates for the evening, or we’d just play our guitars, even when it seemed like nothing else could happen. Jeff once taught me how to get girls to pull over so you could talk to them. That was some good stuff.

Last June, Jeff told me that he was having some health problems, and that’s why he couldn’t get the dream catchers together that he was working on for Heather, Jenna, and Sarah, my daughters.

I thought I would see Jeff again, at least once. But that won’t happen until I move on myself. But I can still hear his calming voice, reasoning with the Universe.