Slidin’ In

It’s icy cold and windy in the Ozarks tonight. They say a low of 15 but it feels colder. Wind chill I suppose. My car door was frozen shut when I made my post office/Wal Mart run this afternoon. I heard they cancelled a House of Representatives hearing on global warming in D.C. because of snow. Everybody needs a snow day now and then.

I’m drinking a cup of white tea. The label says; “These tea leaves are plucked at dawn on only two days of the year.” Don’t know if I buy that, good tea though… plucked at dawn.

I’ve been playing a lot of slide guitar lately, something I’ve avoided for a while. Most electric slide players I’m hearing these days play in an E tuning (EBEGsharpBE) or standard. I’ve been playing a G tuning (DGDGBD) which is more of a delta sound to my ears. I’m using a brass slide. It’s sounds kind of like sticking a hot, cherry red knife blade into a can of motor oil.

I learned to play slide from Ron Roskowske. I lost rack of Ron but he is one of the best guitar players I’ve known, slide or other wise. I wonder what he’s up to these days.

You are probably wondering (c’mon, humor me a little) how I know what I hot knife sliding into motor oil sounds like. I worked in a blacksmith shop for a couple of years. We had a contract to make some fighting knives and we experimented with tempering them in oil. Thats a pretty nervous moment. If you’ve ever deep fried a turkey and felt skittish about lowering the turkey into the fryer; multiply that by ten.

Happy Valentines Day tomorrow, pitcher and catchers report the next day.