Kara lasted three weeks after the wedding. I was sitting with her a week before she died when she made her last request.
“Wiley, we need to consummate this marriage. Married people are supposed to sleep together. Will you lie down on the bed with me?”
I was uneasy, both over the moral implications and because of her increasing frailty. But she was so determined that I eased onto the bed, on top of the covers.
“This is much better” she said snuggling under my arm. I lay there, hugging her until she went to sleep. Emotionally drained, I dozed off also.
I woke to see Nurse Peters standing at the door, tears falling out of her eyes. Why do people always cry when I’m around?
I started to get up but she motioned no, pulling another blanket out and covering me. She bent down and kissed my forehead, leaving without saying a word.
Kara’s Mom woke me gently, telling me my grandmother was here to pick me up. They both had tears in their eyes, I was getting a complex.
I lay on the bed and held her every day afterwards until she passed.
She was buried in her wedding dress with a picture of our wedding kiss in her hands, wearing her ring. I slipped a cassette of Kara’s Song into the casket. I still visit her, on our anniversary when possible.
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I continued to play for the kids in honor of Kara. One little boy showed me a picture of a minstrel out of one of the storybooks, saying it was me. I thought about that for awhile.
My friends from college helped me, and soon I had an authentic minstrel outfit. Orange tights, green boots, pantaloons, and tunic, with a red cap that had a huge feather. It was a smash. I switched from guitar to an old gourd style mandolin for dramatic effect. Side note: It didn’t take me long to figure out changing at the hospital was a good idea. You get odd looks dressed as a minstrel driving a Mach 1.
Nurse Roberts remarried about nine months after Kara passed, to a doctor she met while doing volunteer work. She introduced me to him as her white son, I was truly honored. Retired now, she volunteers, becoming famous locally as a dramatic reader, making the stories come alive. After seeing my minstrel outfit, she appears now in gypsy garb, scarfs and all. We often work together. I usually go first, and introduce her as my soul mother. Some think she actually is my mother.
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I think it was about this time when I started to compartmentalize my life. I became jealous of my volunteer time and didn’t want to share it. Somehow it lodged my head it was disrespectful to Kara’s memory.
I was a little shell shocked, for lack of a better term. Mom died. Chip died. Kara died. I was just over fourteen and my mother, my brother, and my first love were all gone. My father was dealing with his own demons, and my grandmother was losing her health trying to bring us both back to the land of the living.
I had it in my head if I got too close to anyone they died. It took Dottie and Gram both to bring me back.
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Seeking solace in music, I studied and practiced relentlessly. My guitar instructor wanted to send a video of me to Julliard.
Life reared it’s head and took that dream away too. A few of us were riding our mountain bikes around a homemade course, racing, when I tangled with my best friend and got my left hand caught in the wheels, breaking my little finger four times.
I recovered, but it left my finger weak. My instructor called after three weeks and insisted I come for my lesson. Personally, I thought it was a waste of time, but it was life altering. He introduced me to the slide. He also gave me a bass to keep my fingers limber.
My guitar teacher was an amazing guy. He was around fifty when I first met him, and had played both in big bands and early rock combos. When he met the love of his life he left the road and opened a music store, offering lessons as a sideline. Over the years he taught full time, turning the day to day operation of his store to his wife and son. His wife also taught, piano and organ. I took lessons from her, learning to love the organ.
Probably more than any other instrument, I loved playing slide guitar. After he showed me the basics I practiced constantly. In my opinion, slide is much more expressive than regular guitar. You can made it laugh or cry with you.
I studied everyone’s style. In the end I developed my own. My sound was a little sharper, a little crisper than any one I emulated. Derrick Trucks, Lee Roy Parnell, Greg Allman, and most others coaxed notes out. In some of my work, it seemed like I was reaching elbow deep inside the guitar and was dragging the notes out, howling in protest. I toned it down usually, but if I got wound up that’s what came out. Jimmy, the drummer, loved it when I got wound out.
Rarely with the band would I do slide work, usually when we covered the Allman Brothers. Mostly I stuck to bass, that was my role in the group.
Next to slide, I loved playing the bass. I could slap and pop with the best of the funk players, but my style evolved to the point when it often sounded like a deeper lead. It didn’t work on all songs and I would tone it down when necessary.
I could sing. I had a fairly good voice, but had almost ruined it when I was young and playing in metal bands. You don’t sing those songs, you scream them. Realizing what I was doing, I backed off singing lead as much, and actually studied voice to try and revive my range. I got to the point where I could do about two sets worth back to back before my voice starting going. We had a rotation in the band, there were actually three of us with good voices, and the rest did a fair job of harmonizing.
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I thought my life was going pretty good, and two things happened to alter it completely The first occurred when I met Freddie Johnson.
Most people didn’t know his name, and truthfully, I didn’t recognize him until he sang. But to be honest, I didn’t listen to country music that often. I sold my guitars by word of mouth. If I had something, I told a few music stores I had a good relationship with, plus private collectors I had dealt with through the years. I had tried the websites, and while it got a lot of attention, few were serious and I ended up wasting a lot of time.
Freddie called and introduced himself, saying The Guitar Shop, one of the music stores I dealt with, told him I may have something he was interested in. We made plans to meet the following Monday.
He met me at the mini warehouses I owned. It was built to be a truck stop, based on inside information a developer had gotten about an interstate route coming by the location. The plan went down in flames when an investigation into a state highway official brought it all to light. The interstate route took another direction, and the property went into bankruptcy. It sat empty for eight years before the bank decided to auction it off, just to get it off the books.