That time of year...

It is autumn now, the old year fading into winter, a time of endings and remembrances.  But autumn must proceed winter, and winter leads off for spring when all things are renewed.  There is a distinct air of melancholy and loneliness in the air.  I feel it, I do.  But there are many things survive the years, the changes, the winters, they survive and return.  I was thinking of my father this morning, gone over forty years now, thinking of the things he left to me, the memories. 

Among those memories was a song, and old cowboy standard that many people have covered, a song my father liked to sing.  I remember him best singing it the night I was riding with him (he was a long haul trucker), the night the muffler blew out on the truck somewhere west of Texas on I-40 and he had to pull it off the pipe to let the engine breathe enough to get us down the road to where he could get parts for a repair, which was up the mountain in New Mexico.  As diesel engines go it wasn't a terribly big engine, but even a little diesel has a full throated roar when the muffler is gone and it's pulling the slope with a full load behind.  The cab was almost painfully loud, there was nothing could be done about it.  Daddy stuffed some cotton in my ears, in his ears, and into the night we went with hammer down hard: the only way to run the engine was flat out, he didn't dare let it suck cold air up against hot exhaust valves, that would have been the end of the engine.  Soon enough I was all but punch drunk with the noise. Somewhere in the middle of that six hour run up the mountain I remember him singing this song, out shouting the roar of the engine that had somehow hit a minor key resonance in tempo to the song.

Just for whoops and grins I've included two versions of the song, one the original and the other a cover by someone modern so you can pick your vintage.  My Dad would have raised an eyebrow at the modern fellows appearance, but hey, he would have fully appreciated his music.

All good things come back around, one way or another.