NEWSLETTER

MAY, 2005

Because it is so difficult to tell you all the things you need to know about the wonderful performers we have at the café, we are adding their web sites (if they have one) to the newsletter. You will learn more about why we have selected them to be a part of this great May line-up:

MAY 5 – LAURA KEMP. This singer/songwriter from Oregon is returning for an encore performance.

MAY 7 – BOB SINCLAIR & VICTROLA CLUB. One of our favorite groups.

MAY 12 – FREDDY BRADBURN & LISA STEVENS. We have grown to love this singer/songwriter duo over the years.

MAY 14 – THE BUCKERETTES. This all-female group is making their first appearance at the café with their combination of standards, country, western and “even some new ones that sometime “buck” the system.”

MAY 19 – DARLYNE CAIN. This Asheville-based singer/songwriter returns with “blues, jazz and a whole lot more.”

MAY 21 – DAVID CHILDERS & MODERN DON JUANS. “Mount Holly’s gritty Southern poet” returns.

MAY 26 – DANIELLE HOWLE. This singer/songwriter is making her debut at the café.

MAY 28 – ROD PICOTT. We are glad to have this Nashville-based singer/songwriter back at the café.

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If you are a jazz fan, you need to mark your calendars to include the Purple Onion in your plans for this summer. Beginning in June, the café will be open on Wednesday nights and the music we feature will be jazz. Jazz guitar legend (at least that is what he says) Marc Yaxley will help us coordinate this program. More details next month.

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No matter how hard we try to keep it from happening, sometimes our lives get out of whack. Things are just not right with us and we simply don’t know how to “fix” them so that our lives will once again appear to be in balance. For example, when I retired from gainful employment some years ago, one of my goals was to slow the pace of my life while filling some of it with more activities that I wanted to do rather than those that I thought I ought to be doing.

While I did not know exactly what they might be, I have been around long enough to know that opportunities present themselves to all of us as long as we are attentive and open to receiving them. One such instance for me has been what I do for the Purple Onion, booking our music and writing this newsletter. There have been others. Sometimes they come in bunches or morph into more work and/or time than I had planned to devote to them. Before I know it, my life is too busy! How did that happen? How am I going to get everything done? Etc., etc., etc.

Yes, as you may have guessed, it has happened to me. I am, however, reassured by a Buddhist teaching that nothing lasts forever (except maybe for death unless, of course, you believe in reincarnation . . .but I digress). If that is the case, and I believe it is, we should make every effort to reduce clutter of all types in our lives and pay attention to the magic that surrounds us if we would only take notice.

This might be as simple as watching the two regal male rose-breasted grosbeaks (along with their dowdy mates) at our feeder the other night while my wife and I were having dinner. No conversation was unnecessary. Or it might be the bald eagle (yes, an eagle) that flew through the woods back of our house some years ago and perched on a tree near the house long enough for us to marvel at his unexpected presence. Or maybe it is the wild turkey that I see with some regularity on my way into Saluda from our home. I would love to know what his/her story is and why he/she is always alone. Or maybe it is the brown dog (old enough to walk with a slight limp) I often observe coming back from Saluda early in the morning to his home some three miles away. Where has he been? Where does he live? Does he make this trek every day? Does he have a girlfriend?

Or maybe it is the old farmer who lives near us and who apparently heats his house with wood because he has stacks of it all around his property. Each year, in spite of his obvious age, he brings in more, splits and stacks it himself. While it seems to be enough wood to last into the next millennium, he is clearly optimistic that he will live long enough to burn it. Living proof that it is never over until it is over. He has become a role model for me.

Or… Um… Er... I seem to have lost my train of thought. What was I worried about? Was it that important? Did it have any thing to do with time? I seem to have gotten distracted.

See. It works like a charm. It is magic. By concentrating on some very small but unique things (even if it is only because I am writing about them), I have recalibrated my anxieties and concerns so as to shrink them into a more manageable size.

Now the trick is to remember to do it every day.

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Here are some quotes that I have come across recently that speak to me.

“Nothing done in love is ever wasted.”

Garrison Keillor

“I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no long know how to use my telephone.”

Bjarn Stroustrup

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“There are two classes of people who tell what is going to happen in the future: those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

“Where are you going? I don’t know but I am on my way.

Author unknown (to me)

Robert Seiler

Purple Onion Café

www.purpleonionsaluda.com