Dirt Girl Does Texas: Songs, Dust and Random Finds

Careful readers of Dirt Girl Unleashed have been warned that from time to time I may dig into other topics herein. Topics such as songwriting, which is another of my passionately explored avocations. Therefore this post recounts my recent trip to the Texas hill country to compete in the Kerrville Folk Festival’s New Folk songwriting competition. I did not bring either of my fine Tesoro metal detectors with me as I had NO ROOM to pack them.

For those of you for whom this tangent is simply unacceptable, I will enliven my tale with pictures from completely unrelated metal detecting excursions.  We’ll see how it goes. (And there may be a wee spot of hot, throbbing MD action at the end, if you are very good and read every word. And eat your peas.)

First some background. I have been submitting songs to the New Folk competition sporadically since the mid-1990s, when I began writing songs; I’d never been a finalist and had pretty much given up. But this year, decided to try One More Time; this time was the charm.

I will leave the entire discussion of how weird it is to “compete” in songwriting for another time. Songs, by their nature – as expressions of the longings and complexities of the human spirit – are by their nature perfect and beautiful. Or are they? I have not quite figured it out.

The Kerrville Folk Festival is a biggie, in its 41^st year. I was last there in the early ‘90s as a backup singer, so I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the extraordinary, surreal, musical and social meta-organism that it is. Stretching over three weekends in late May and early June, Kerrville attracts thousands of folkies who camp together in happy, dusty delirium. Many regard it as a sort of annual pilgrimage and have been coming for decades.  Over the years, small communities have sprung up; there are dozens of named campsites – Camp Coho, Camp Cuisine, Camp Kaffeine, and Camp Bayou Love (say it fast) to name just a few. These are often quite elaborate, festooned with decorations and solar powered Christmas lights. Each night, the common areas become song circles that can last all night.

Once my friend, fellow songwriter (and previous New folk winner) Kathy Hussey, learned that I’d be going to Kerrville this year, she decided to come too, and guide me gently through the process. I shall be forever grateful to her. It was through her that I ended up at Camp SingKerrnicity, down in the Lower Meadow.

We arrived on Wednesday, May 23 in the late afternoon, after landing in San Antonio and renting a massive white jeep. (Kathy has very battable eyelashes which translate into impressive car rental upgrade skills.)

Our rental car did not look like this.

What a cutie. 

Got beer. Set up tents, and I blew up my mattress with a foot pedal, which I know sounded like I was having crazy, wheezing sex inside my tent all by myself. Adjusted my brain and comfort level to camping mode.

Camping at SingKerrnicity means two big, fancy meals a day (I paid for them in advance) and the first night’s fare was etoufee. Not exactly wieners and beans, and I was very grateful. The competition wasn’t until the weekend so I had a few days to acclimate. Soon, we settled into an agreeable routine.

A routine that did not involve little, tiny guns like this one.

Bang, bang.

Up by 9ish (the sun toasts you out of your tent pretty quick). Coffee and breakfast. Then off for a swim in the Medina River which is cold and clean and lovely. (You want to stay at the river as long as possible because mid-day at the fest features a lot of dust and aimless wandering around looking for shade of any sort.) Get back by 6, have a lovely meal with lovely people at your campsite, then head up to one of two stages for the evening’s entertainment.

For example, Thursday night, I particularly enjoyed Guy Forsythe, from Austin. I also enjoyed a strawberry milkshake. Thirdly, Kathy and I enjoyed a vigorous dance to some wacky Russian folk music.

Here’s me, dancing to the Russian band Limpopo.

Get down tonight, baybeeee.

Then the real fun begins: campfires and song circles all over the place. Some loud and crazy, some quiet and gentle. Some featuring all original songs, some featuring Brown Eyed Girl and Margaritaville.  You just walk around with your guitar slung over your shoulder, looking for an empty chair and some likeminded folkies. You do this until your lack of sleep renders you senseless and dopey. Then: sweet tenty slumber. Hah. You hope. Earplugs help.

The New Folk competition takes place over two days during the Memorial Day weekend: two sets Saturday and two on Sunday in the Threadgill Theater.

I was to perform my two songs on Saturday afternoon -- the closing slot of the first set -- and was pretty nervous all that morning. Lots of time spent calming down. Breathing, stretching, keeping control of my brain, running through lyrics. Lots of liquids. I just love Gatorade. I don’t care about the high fructose corn syrup. That stuff is like yummy plasma.

When it was my turn to go, I just went out and did my two songs: one about a woman in a divorce court (an experience I had one time) and another about a woman who wants her husband to just make dinner once in a while (an experience I have had on multiple occasions). I didn’t have any major flubs and people seemed to like what I did, so I felt if not confident, then satisfied that I didn’t mess up in any royal sense. Enjoyed hearing all the other contestants. There were some really excellent performances.

Best of all, my cousin John and his partner Jimmie, drove all the way from Houston to cheer me on.

Here they are. I love them!

Family is everything. Well, family
and metal detecting.

The winners were announced on Sunday night at the Mainstage and miracle of miracles, Your Dirt Girl was chosen as one of the winners of New Folk 2012. I was rather happy about it.

This, however, brought with it a new responsibility: winners have to stay at Kerrville and perform the following weekend. Or you can go home and come back but that didn’t seem to make much sense. After much hemming and hawing with my hub over the phone, it was decided that I would stay on the Happy Valley Ranch (as it is called) for ANOTHER WEEK. Al (hub) would join me for the winners concert on Sunday, June 3.

Kathy and my other Nashville friends went back to their houses, spouses, pets, air conditioners and BATHROOMS in Tennessee and I hunkered down in the sun to write songs, meet people and learn how to balance my well-deserved pride in my accomplishment (a new feeling for me) with feelings of intense loneliness and physical discomfort.

Here's me sweating in my tent.

The problem with camping is the lack
of a handy flat iron. Note the unruly bangs.

 Three days thus passed. I will add that throughout my stay I met some amazingly brilliant, kind and generous people and heard more than my share of inspiring songs. I was humbled about every five minutes.

At the nadir of my sweating, a very nice lady named Liz loaned me her LEXUS and I drove to the town of Kerrville and ate the most delicious spinach enchiladas ever. Much of their deliciousness was due to their being served in an air-conditioned restaurant.

I ate the enchiladas with a fork that resembled this one, pulled from a field in middle Tennessee.

It's forkin' awesome, dude.

After dinner, I drove the Lexus to a grocery store and stocked up. Al was coming!

The next day, he arrived and got hugged harder than he has been hugged in a long time. I’m not sure he recognized the wire-haired, dust-covered creature that seemed permanently adhered to his neck but he was quite good-natured about it.

That night, we sang and played together in really lovely song circle made even more special by the appearance of Peter "Puff the Magic Dragon" Yarrow who hugged everyone there and was so sweet.

Spent Saturday at the river and rehearsing.

Sunday we performed a 25-minute set at the New Folk concert which was much fun.

Here we are.

The Hills are alive, if looking down.

Afterwards, there were group pictures and lots of friendliness. 

I'm in the center feeling a little out of my league,
but hanging in there. No one seems to notice.

Here we are with awesome bassist Freebo, who was super nice and liked Al's guitar tones. I like Al's guitar tones too. Very much.

Freebo, Dirt Girl, Al

Monday… home to Nashville.

Which brings us to … METAL DETECTING!!! (See? You read all that music stuff and now you get a nice treat.)

I’ll be brief. It took me a few days to catch up on all the work I’d missed, but Saturday I was itching to get out there. Cheryl and Doug have used my absence to pretty much remove all Civil War artifacts from the ground but I felt I had to at least make an effort.

Cheryl and I met at a location in middle Tennessee, the property of a friend who owns hundreds of acres of beautiful land.

Right away, I found this…

Whose buckle was this?

The guy whose property it was had a good question. "Why are all these buckles in the ground?" He's got a point. Did men in the woods 200 years ago just get mad at their belts and throw them on the ground and stomp off without them? Was there a mass pants-dropping? We may never know.

Then we got on four wheelers (or whatever you call them) and went for a hair-raising “ride” through the woods to another site. Cheryl drove, bless her heart. Despite my best intentions, I am a city girl and this ride involved quite a bit of screaming for which I apologize. Here are some verbal eruptions with which I polluted the Tennessee woods:

“NOOOOOO!”

“We’re GONNA TIPPPPP OOOVERRRRR!!!!”

“MAMACITAAAAAA” (that was a weird one. I have never said that before.)

and

“I’T’S GONNA CRUSH MY LEGS AND AAAAARRRMMSS!!!!”

Anyway, it was really fun. I only picked off three ticks.

Back home, I wasn’t ready to quit and went back out to Brush Hill Road to a yard I’ve dug dozens of times. Got this.

This is the prettiest, most ladylike button
I have ever found. I wuv it.

It was perfect.

May Daze

Let’s cut right to it.

On Thursday, I couldn’t type fast enough (dayjob) for I knew that at 6 p.m. I’d be heading over to the west side of town for some fun with my girlfriends, one of whom had been feeling a bit pooky lately due to some boy-related heart strain. (The heart, she reminds us, is a muscle and does not break – but it does hurt when strained).

As all good girlfriends know, the proven balm for heart strain is:

A balmy Thursday evening, beer, lawn chairs on the driveway, chips, guac, goat cheese, nuts, a couple of Tesoro metal detectors and the landlady’s permission to hunt the large, virgin yard of an old house that backs up to the railroad tracks.

Everyone was there when I arrived and after 30 minutes of chowing and yapping, we got down to business. I took the DeLeon and got MJ started on the tried and true Cibola. She wasted no time in pulling out this.

Nice job, kiddo! There was some dancing about with excitement.

It’s an American Signature brand sterling child’s fork. Probably 1940s…

Realizing that I was not dealing with amateurs, I decided not to rein in my extraordinary expertise. So I pulled out this:

Forget the gun, check out them gams!

It’s a starter pistol. I wonder what it started…

It cleaned up nice too. Barrel still turns.

Dude, your starting days are finished.

Kim and Kathy joined in and soon there was a major excavation going on: a really deep hole yielded … a lovely piece of wire.

In the MD world, wire can really mess up your head. It’s like, everywhere at the same time and it’s so thoroughly disappointing when you pull it out. You can’t even put a positive spin on it. (“Oh, wire! I can use it as a whisk!” or “Oh good, I can fashion a coat hanger!” or the ubiquitous response: “Oh! Art project!” Really, none of them applies to wretched wire.)

In another part of the yard, I pulled out a weird, lumpy clump and decided to just clean it up later.  Well, I should have taken it a bit more seriously because here’s what it looks like cleaned up:

Back of once valuable brooch. Sigh.

Front of once valuable brooch

Tarnation. I’m sure the diamonds and rubies that once encrusted it are still slumbering peacefully in the hole. Which hole would that be? I have no idea. I fill all my holes with surgical precision.

Found these two bullets in the same hole. I’ll have to wait until the next Middle Tennessee Metal Detecting Club meeting to look in the big bullet book and figure out what these are. They don’t look Civil War to me, but I’ve been wrong before. Any suggestions?

Soon it was too dark to dig. My now fully indoctrinated girlfriends were thrilled with their grand total of 26 cents and various pieces of trash. We repaired to the dining room where MJ’s newly polished sterling silver baby fork was used to polish off a bowl of spaghetti with marinara sauce. Then we played Dominos until the wee hours. Altogether, a fine evening of estrogen and sonic waves.

Well, I didn't want to be stingy with this very nice, flat, mowed, permission-granted yard and so returned with Cheryl two days later. We had a fine time. Enjoyed a cleansing rainstorm. Behold the riches:

This...

was about six inches from this.

Cheryl dug something really cool, but not yet identified. When she sends me a photo, I will post it.

Sunday, Cheryl and I met Doug at a construction site in Murfreesboro. It was too hot to be out there long and there was just so much trash it was tough going, but I found a nice harmonica reed just lying on the ground.

Before I knew better, I threw out a bunch of these
things thinking they'd fallen off of a lawn mower.
I am not sure how I came to this conclusion, having
no knowledge of lawn mower mechanics. But no,
this is a harmonica reed and they are EVERYWHERE
in the ground in Tennessee, left behind by
thousands of young soldiers who passed the hours
delivering sweet and mournful songs into the woods
that would one day be Music City.

Also found this:

I love license plates. They festoon my kitchen.

And so, dear reader, that was the weekend.  Nothing earth-shattering but lots of fun. Gearing up for my trip to the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas where I am a finalist in the New Folk Songwriting competition. You’d think I’d be practicing, but no, I’m trying to figure out if I should pack a machine….

“It’s like we’re all livin’ in a big ol’ cup... Just fire up the blender, mix it all up…"

If you’re checking in to see if I still like metal detecting, I do. I’ve been at it for 15 months and while I do not feel quite as enslaved by it as I did at the start – when, after a day of digging, I would feel kind of sick, as if having eaten too many eclairs – I am still very, very interested in doing it every chance I get.

In the last two weeks, my busy schedule (day job as a writer for a medical school, part time job teaching dance to sweet little children, walker of dogs, cooker of meals, marketer of Not About Madonna, and – oh, yeah – writer of songs) has made it hard to find time to get out there. But you know, give me 20 minutes at the end of a crazy day and I can dig the crap out of some dirt and come home with some history in my pocket.

First of all: my own yard continues to amaze. I’ve dug it countless times, but I’ve been revisiting it with my new Tesoro DeLeon and pulling out all kinds of new stuff.  One day about two weeks ago, a quick dusk hunt in the front yard yielded this.

Ladybug and The Boss

Isn’t that cute?

And then there’s the back yard. When I bought my first machine in January of 2011, the first place I went was the back yard and I immediately found a Civil War-era musket ball and not long after, a minie ball. But that was it, relic-wise. Until that evening two weeks ago. I stuck the ladybug in my pocket and went around back and – bing, bing, bing – found three more CW bullets (one of them quite smashed) and a more modern bullet.

Was there a camp here? A skirmish?

Here’s one “moment of discovery” for ya.

Another day, on my lunch break (I work from home) I went across the street to my neighbor’s huge yard that I have likewise hunted many times. Pulled this out!

Was very excited, until I turned it over.

Made me laugh and think about the ‘60s and how, if we’d had a car I would have LOVED to collect all the Shell Mr. President Coin Game tokens. I like how all this stuff is all jumbled up in the dirt. Civil War bullets, ‘60s Shell tokens, ladybugs, pennies. The land is like a big Christmas fruitcake. And I love me a good fruitcake, any time of year.

Last Sunday, Doug and Brenda drove me and Cheryl to a field about an hour east of Nashville. Do you want me to tell you where? I won’t do it.  I won’t tell. I will tell you though, that as we drove there, I thought about how badly I wanted to find a cool coin. I have NEVER found anything more interesting than a wheat penny. So, I put that out there.

We parked under a tree and climbed over a fence. (Yes, we had permission.) It was easy hunting, as the field had been plowed recently.  Doug believed there had been homesteads here, back in the 1700s and the bits of colored crockery and the old, rusty nails we found supported that.

Then I dug this!

Doug thought it was a Large Cent – a common penny in the early 1800s. When I got home, though, I took a picture and posted it on a numismatist forum. They were so helpful! At first, they said it was a farthing, but the final diagnosis is that it is a George III Half Pence. This would date it between 1770 and 1775. Here it is up close.

Note the BR... on the bottom left. That's the start of "BRITAIN".
You can kind of see the image of a seated woman, facing left,
with her right hand outstretched. Under the line at the bottom,
you can see "17..." but I can't make out the entire date.

Strangely, the flip side has been kind of defaced. Weird.

Who did that and why?

So I guess it must have come over on a ship, then made its way, from homespun pocket to homespun pocket, to a field in Tennessee.  That night, I took the half pence to a festive dinner party. It had fun.

Today, (Easter Sunday), Doug and Cheryl and I went back to that field. On the way, we got into a minefield of a conversation about various historical and social issues. Voices were raised and spit (mine) was flying (only a little) and heart rates (mine) were raised (quite a lot). I didn’t like it much; I don’t like conflict. But I thought of it as a wonderful opportunity for the exchange of ideas, even if you can never, in a million years, agree with some of those you receive in trade. I really, really, REALLY like and respect the people I go out digging with. The fact that we have some profound differences in the way we see the world might make me uncomfortable, but it’s the price – and privilege – of living in a country where all kinds of people live together and interact every day. We're like that line in my favorite Brad Paisley song: "It's like we're all livin' in a big ol' cup... just fire up the blender and mix it all up..."

When we got to the field, I didn’t do nearly as well as last week. Doug skunked us both, pulling out a veritable museum display case of colonial-era thingies, including a silver thimble and what I think will turn out to be another half pence coin. I found three partial horseshoes (now soaking in a jar in my bathroom… why? I have no idea), an old, G-shaped iron hook, a thing that Doug says is part of an colonial-era, two-pronged fork, a metal tab off a strap from when the field was used for maneuvers during World War II, and my very first Native American arrowhead. Also a couple of flattened beer cans. Of course.

Talk about your jumble of history: arrowhead (super sharp),
colonial fork thing and WWII strap tab...

Here's the "hook"... G-shaped, as if to say,
"Gee, aren't you spending a little too much
time metal detecting?"

Hot and tired, we headed back to the car whereupon Doug drove us around to various enticing historic sites where we did not have permission to dig, and to a couple where we did have permission, but no one was home. We stopped on a bridge and the three of us looked down into a copper-colored river. There, in the sun were fish, hundreds of them, all facing the same way. I don’t know my fish, but Doug and Cheryl saw bream, catfish, bass and something called “suckers” that I really don’t hope to have any direct contact with.  Funny thing was, all these different fish were floating together, facing in the same direction. Like they were listening to a speech or a sermon – it was Easter Sunday, after all. Maybe they were focusing on their similarities. I don't know what they were up to, but it was surprisingly ... organized.

Last stop was Bledsoe’s Station – a colonial-era fort which Doug and Brenda discovered in a farmer’s field 30 years ago. Now it’s a protected historical park. As we drove in, this is what we saw:

OK. That was surreal. We went over for a chat. These four picnickers were members of the Regency Society (“a group for Ladies and Gentlemen that is dedicated to remembering and preserving the history, culture and costume of the 1790-1820 time period.”) They very kindly allowed me to take their photograph even though I was quite obviously wrecking their lovingly crafted time machine ju-ju by hurtling towards them with my IPhone. Turns out two of them were from Michigan! My enthusiastic “Go BLUE!” was met with polite nods (these were lords and ladies of the Spartan variety).

And will you look at this! Here’s their blog about that very same outing.

http://rsatn.blogspot.com/

Once again, the mingling of history.

Finally, a tangent, filmed in the field where Indians hunted, pioneers chopped wood, WWII soldiers practiced before heading off to war and tractor drivers drank Budweiser just a year or so ago. So much of metal detecting is the hunt, the history rush, the holding of the ancientness. But just as much are moments like this:

1939

My four days in NYC led to a week of lovely, self-imposed hermitude. Al is gone, Sam is gone… it’s just me and the dogs and the splendid weather: an excellent combination. I’ve been going back to hunt The Eterna-Yard throughout the week. Found another old buckle and a whole bunch more wheat pennies from the ‘40s and ‘50s. Also one silver Rosie dime. I actually feel like I am having a relationship with that yard… like we’re seeing each other. Hanging out. Hooking up.

Today, Sunday, I drove about 50 minutes deep into the countryside to meet up with Doug, Cheryl and Brenda. For the record, I love my IPhone and those killer map apps. Just astounding.

I pulled up behind them at a gate at the end of a long dirt road after having passed flocks of chickens, roosters, guinea hens and a bunch of cows enjoying a cooling dip in the pond on this beautiful, hot day. Beyond the gate was a large river. Doug’s research had led him to believe that there was a ferry landing and a town here, many years ago. The town had been burned in the war. We walked around and did some half-hearted MDing. He found a minie ball, but no one else found anything. I, myself, was nearly sucked down into the core of the planet by evil river mud/quicksand, but I got free due to my strength and determination.

We had a really nice chat with the owners of this magnificent property. The man’s family had lived on this land for five generations. But he didn’t think the landing was here; he gave us directions to another road, just a mile or so away.

Here, the road just ran down into the river. It was definitely a landing, or had been. Nearby, though, Doug had noticed lots of buttercups: a sure sign of an old homestead. Was this the town?

(A side note: I maintain that the flowers in question are daffodils and that daffodils and buttercups are not the same. The parties involved were unable to come to an agreement on this.)

We parked next to the… flowers… and dived into the woods which were thick, but doable.  I was immediately visited by numerous friends and relations of Ticky McTickerson (see previous post) wanting to know his whereabouts. I told them he was still in New York, at the Carlyle, and would not be returning. Then I killed them.

As so often happens, my first signal was my best find of the day: a beautiful brass buckle. 

We also dug a lot of big pieces of lead. Found a large cistern, still filled with water (extremely creepy, as in likely-place-to-hide-the-body…)

We all were very excited about this spot and will return. We are confident that there are some CW hotspots nearby. We just haven’t found them yet.  There is also the scenic beauty factor to consider: oh-so pretty. I wanted to be an Native American maiden with braids and SO BAD. Looking at beauty like that makes you want to simplify your life.

I got back to Nashville by about 3:30 and walked and fed the citizens, then, since there was still valuable daylight just hanging around in the sky doing nothing, I headed out to a vacant lot nearby that I’d been given permission to hunt. Very disappointing: rocky soil that was hard to dig, pesky power lines and nothing but trash.

I was aware that people in this (very exclusive, tucked-away) neighborhood were checking me out and soon a car pulled up and the couple inside asked me if I had permission to be there. I did, but I had unwittingly crossed over into non-permission regions. They were nice about it though and I appreciated that. I left soon after.

The only thing I came away with was a Mercury dime.

When I got home, I cleaned it off: 1939. That was so long ago.

A few minutes later, I got a phone call from Ann Arbor. Al flew there from NYC today to celebrate his mom’s 97^th birthday. (I was just there a couple of weeks ago and decided not to go.)

Everyone was there, around the Hill family dining table. I could hear the hilarity, the clinking of cutlery. Helen got on the line, said she missed me. I love her so. She has been such a wonderful mother to this motherless girl. (Her own mother died in the 1918 flu epidemic, when she was only three, so we have a sad bond).

“Helen,” I said, “how old were you in 1939?”

She thought for a second. “I was 24. That was the year I drove out west and camped for the summer in California.”

When she got back, she said, she had a telegram waiting for her from the University of Illinois offering her a position teaching English.

“It was also the year the war started,” she continued. “That was in September and everyone was on edge….” She paused. “When I got to Illinois, I saw this tall, dark, handsome man in the halls. He didn’t notice me much, but I noticed him! And eventually, he noticed me…”

“Helen, I’m so glad you got that telegram and went to the University of Illinois and noticed that tall, dark, handsome man,” I said. “If you hadn’t, my life would be so different now.”

“So would mine!” she laughed.

“So 1939 was a very important year, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“It was. It was a very important year.”

Dirt Girl Takes Manhattan

Good gracious! So much to tell.

There’s been a bit of a lull in the MD arena for me over the past couple of months – not for lack of effort, but definitely for lack of noteworthy finds. Here’s a quick recap of February before I get to the entomological, sterling silver, urban weirdness of mid-March…

The Yard That Keeps On Giving

There’s a yard near my home I’ve hunted at least a dozen times and it never disappoints. Just when I think there’s nothing left in it, it delivers afresh. One February afternoon I ran over there for a quick look-see and noticed something: a two-foot-wide strip of grass that ran between the long driveway and a tall hedge that marked the border of the next property. Could there be anything in there? There was. My first signal yielded three silver dimes (two Mercs and a Rosie) all in the same hole. There might have been a wheat penny in there too. 

Dimes were all in the same hole; adorable Esso was in another.

Further down the driveway, got a real honker of a signal and pulled out this cool, old finial (the top of a lamp, or maybe a flag). Not particularly old, but very pretty. 

Some kinda finial.

Then, in the back yard I found a tiny Esso sign, probably part of an old, toy gas pump. That was a good day.

West Side Delights

Through a friend of a friend, I made contact with a lovely 80s-ish couple over on the other side of town. They live in a densely populated neighborhood that is very hilly.  And, as I am learning, hills in Nashville = Civil War encampments. I had friends visiting from out of town and we drove over on a sunny but chilly afternoon for some hunting that I was pretty sure would deliver some goods. I gave Annie and Rod my tried and true Cibola to play with while I took the Tesoro DeLeon I was trying out and thinking of buying. Unfortunately, the house was right under some power lines and the frequency interference made it almost impossible for me to hunt, so I just helped them.  We dug some coins and some trash and had fun. Then, as we were getting ready to go, I grabbed the Cibola and took one more swing and pulled this out.  Looks like the mouthpiece of a small bugle or something. Love it!

I think it's brass.

Cheryl and I went back to that yard for a serious hunt about a week later and I pulled out a beautiful uniform button and a three-ringer bullet. Nice yard!

Cover Girl

At the beginning of March, I learned that not only was my OHIO (see earlier post) featured in American Digger Magazine, it was front and center on the COVER.  

Yup. I done dug it.

OK, now for more current events…

As many Dirt Girl Unleashed readers know, my husband, Al Hill, tours the world as music director for soul diva Bettye Lavette. A few months ago, the schedule revealed a choice gig: three weeks in March at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City – my hometown. These days, I am an entirely lapsed (failed) New Yorker. I just can’t do cities any more, particularly that one. Being a squeamish, tender, introverted sort, I am severely compromised by:

1.     dirt

2.     bugs

3.     globs of spittle on the sidewalk

4.     loud noises

5.     huge crowds

6.     rude salespeople

7.     lack of grass

So I mostly stay in Tennessee, preferably in the woods. But here was a chance to go to New York and stay in one of the nicest, fanciest hotels in the world AND a chance to hang out with my sweet family of origin. Not to mention a chance to try a wee spot of urban MDing. You need a permit to do anything serious and sadly Central Park (a block from the Carlyle) was completely out of bounds. But I got permission to hunt two friends’ backyards: one in Harlem and one in Brooklyn. Excitement!

Your Dirt Girl packed carefully. I disassembled the recently purchased DeLeon and crammed it into a backpack. Also packed the nicest dress I have and some lovely pleather boots.

Our room at the Carlyle was not large, but luxuriously appointed and altogether agreeable to me. See, there has been much talk of the resurgence of an insect I will call schmedbugs. These critters are apparently EVERYWHERE in New York City, to the point that people in luxury high-rise apartment buildings will throw all their fancy furniture out onto the sidewalk and post signs on the pile warning; “BEWARE! SCHMEDBUGS!” Hotels are not safe. No place is safe.

So I arrived terrified, but was instantly soothed by this lovely, spotless hotel.

Friday morning, it was off to dig in Harlem. Great to see my dear, college friend, Loi, who lives in Astor Row – one of the neighborhood’s most architecturally significant blocks. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_Row)

Her yard made for hard digging though. Lots of flotsam and jetsam. But I unearthed some interesting ceramic shards and part of a 45 record. 

Pretty, huh? Sure would love to know what record that was.

I’d like to go back and dig every single back yard on the street. Yum. Here’s me in Harlem.

I know. Dork. But I just don't care.

After a wonderful dinner with my family, I headed back to the hotel to see Bettye’s show. Strangely, her performance sits nicely into any story about things that are hidden and revealed. That woman digs down deep. A stellar show. Very proud of Al, who played Bobby Short's piano all night. Afterwards, the two of us communed with the spirit of the great Mr. S. by attempting to mimic his optimistic expression.

It's hard to see just how cute this dress is. I bought it in Ann Arbor at Adorn Me.

Al looks way more optimistic than I do.

Friday night, things got weird. About 4 a.m. I woke up with a start. I could feel something crawling on me. I shook out my pjs and swiped off the (fancy, 400 thread count) sheets. “There aren’t any schmedbugs at the Carlyle,” Al mumbled in the dark. I believed him and went back to sleep. Just my ‘magination…

About an hour later, I felt something again. I slapped my hand to my ribcage and sprinted to the bathroom and turned on the light. There was a BUG on me.  Much whimpering. Al came and bore witness. We captured the varmint, still alive, and tucked him into a tiny plastic bag. Then, of course, we hit the Internet.

Guess what is NOT a good idea: looking at giant, gory, up-close photos of schmedbugs in the middle of the night. We could not decide if “Bernard” -- as we began to call our new charge -- was, in fact, of the offending breed. Tiny and evil, it looked not unlike any number of other insects. But what was it doing in my bed? At the CARLYLE?

Miraculously, we got back to sleep.

In the morning, we called the front desk and let me tell you, that was one speedy hotel manager who appeared at our door with his reassuring Swedish-seeming accent. He took Bernard downstairs. Shortly after, I overheard this phone call:

Hotel Manager: Well, sir, it’s not a schmedbug. … tell me: do you have dogs?

Al: Why, yes, we do. I mean, at home. Not in the room.

Hotel Manger: Well, sir, it’s a tick.

Al: Oh, well, then, all right. Thank you.

Click

Hotel Manager: (to entire hotel staff) Those filthy Tennessee heathens and their ticks! We haven’t had a tick at the Carlyle since 1934! Harumph!

(OK, that part I made up.)

But sure enough, when we got downstairs 15 minutes later, instead of one or two clerks behind the (shiny, marble) front desk, there were about 25 highly coiffed hoteliers, all standing in a line, staring at me and Al with frozen smiles. I can't quite remember what I did as I walked past them toward the tender mercies of the front door, but I did one of two things: a “thumbs-up” – as if to say, “whoo-hoo! Ticks rock, dude!” or I mimed wiping sweat from my brow – as if to say, “Close one, Carlyle! No schmedbugs for you today.” Whatever I did, I was horribly embarrassed and spent the next hour wondering how a tick (if it was a tick) ended up on my ribcage.

No, I’m not done. There’s more metal detecting to describe.

After a fun East Village lunch with meta-cool young blogger Royal Young, Al and I headed out to Brooklyn to reconnect with old Ann Arbor friends Esther and Alan. They have a dog named Molly -- rescued from a bad situation in East Nashville and now living the good life in Brooklyn. Here's Molly communing with the spirit of Bobby Short by attempting to mimic his optimistic expression:

After hugs and kisses and chit chat, I headed out back to have my way with their yard. It was really pretty out there, but there were problems: I had to dodge lots of valuable underground plants plus there were big, fat power lines above playing havoc with my signals. So it was slow going. BUT I found this sterling silver fork (?) handle!

I really, really love it. Wonder who “M.F.C.”  was…

Here’s me in Brooklyn, right before I stepped in doggie diarrhea which put an end to my hunt.

Yes, sometimes I wear a skirt to hunt.

Sunday I didn’t dig at all. Sang songs and read from Not About Madonna at the Rockwood Music Hall on Allen Street and saw lots of old friends. Much fun. And Monday, back to Tennessee.

On the plane, I thought about the tick. First of all, yes, I have dogs. One of them is irritating me as I type this. But I have never seen a tick on them, nor have I ever seen a tick in my house. Plus, the hotel manager’s insinuation irked me: what, they don’t have ticks in Manhattan? Central Park, lovely as it is in the springtime, has to be crawling with them. I walked through the park once during my trip, but stayed on the paths. I didn't roll around on the ground, I promise.

In the end, I'll never know how it happened, but I prefer to think that my metal detecting gear was the portal. That while digging Civil War relics in deep Tennessee woods, a few days before my trip, Ticky McTickerson fell into my fanny pack, flew Delta to New York City, then crawled into bed at the Carlyle Hotel.

“Aah,” he thought. “Now we’re talkin’.”