20070927 Live at The Buttonwood Cafe

20070927 Live at The Buttonwood Cafe

Another memory from the Everglades in tribute to Ranger Steve.

The Buttonwood Café is the place to be when Steve and Amelia perform. The Two of Us, as they are known professionally, pack ‘em in, especially the park service staff. As the Buckleys, the Haapalas, the Van Adders, the Toths, the Temples, Laura and Steve, Tony and Tina, Ellen, Craig, law enfocement, and the current year’s campground and interpretive staffs arrive, one round plastic table is shoved against another and another in string of pearls that esses from one end of the room to the other. The pizza is lousy but hey, who can mess up a pitcher of beer? Really, it is all about community.

The Flamingo community includes not just staff, but many, many visitors who come year after year. We come to be a part of the rhythms and the harmonies, not just in the music but in the place. The waters of the Everglades, the lungs as Steve calls them, breathing in and out with the wet and dry seasons. The tides coming in and out of Florida Bay, marching under orders from the moon unless countermanded by the wind. The wind clocking around from the southeast to the south to the west and eventually to the north as a January cold front passes, bringing chill and maybe even a freeze until it eventually continues on around to the southeast once again. The white ibis flying out from Eco Pond to the mangrove islands every evening at dusk. Wading birds in general moving from one forage opportunity to the next, currently using the one due to expire first like the oldest milk in the refrigerator [another Steveism]. The mosquito populations rising from pleasant to bearable to panic then thankfully falling. Through songs like "Seminole Wind" and "Big Yellow Taxi", The Two of Us challenge us, as members of the Everglades community, to live in harmony with these rhythms.

Steve and Amelia are always up for ‘open mike’. Anyone who has talent can join in on a song or two. Allyson plays flute, Jeanette plays violin, Chris beats the drums, and various other people sit in from time to time. Donna regularly sings "Down in the Everglades". Sundae laments "Desperado". Rob reminds us, "There ain’t no bears in Bear Lake!"

Okay, so I’m not musical. I’ve owned a guitar for nine years and can play three songs, none of them well. I can play six or seven chords, correctly about forty percent of the time. C, D, and G I pretty much have down. B7 is stretching it. I harbor no delusions of rock stardom.

In addition to a lack of musicianship, I’m not a singer. At least not a singer anyone wants to listen to and not a singer who wants anyone to hear me. Still, I love to sing. For years my only regular public performance was to shout "Ring!" at the appropriate moment during Steve and Amelia’s rendition of "Oh Bla Di Oh Bla Da". After years of repressed desire, I finally decided to act. If CJ has the guts to get up and wail Neil Young’s "Pocahontas", then I guess I can do something too. After all, I’m still working on my fifteen minutes of fame.

At the time, and geez, this must have been early 2004, Oh Brother Where Are Thou? was popular. CJ felt he could sing "Man of Constant Sorrow" but needed backup. In addition to backing up CJ, I would sing lead on "In the Jailhouse Now." Our work with Steve was minimal, but Steve needed little. "Just give me the chords." CJ and I mostly rehearsed by singing to the recordings in the Taj. Rob Temple, captain of the schooner Windfall, joined in with no rehearsal at all.

The night of the show CJ and I were both nervous. Like Steve I don’t drink, so Rob and CJ’s choice of sedative was unavailable. I just visualized. One comfort was that I knew Steve would be there as a steadying hand, playing the right chords. Another was that by the time we sang at the end of the show, the audience consisted of mostly friends who would applaud no matter how bad I was.

And bad I was. And bad into a microphone! Still, I did it. I sang backup. "In constant sorroooow, for all his days." I sang lead. "I told him onst or twice, to stop playin’ cards and a shootin’ dice…" I even yodeled.

Predictably, my friends clapped and cheered. They did so not because I was good, but because I did it. I consider this night one of the cherished accomplishments of my life, right up there with running two marathons and keeping my sanity. The Two of Us made it possible.