When Jack was a kid, his family drove from their home in Dade County to his grandparents’ farm in Seminole County. This meant three small boys sitting in the back of a 55-Chevy for over three-hundred miles. It was a long, miserable trip: seven or eight hours of brothers’ elbows, mother’s scolding and potholes testing the suspension.
Colquitt was the last town they went through, and there they would stop to get refreshments. They sat for half an hour in the shade of the Tower Hotel on North Main Street, mama sipping her peach tea, the others ice-cream sodas.
“Y’all be quiet, now,” mama urged them, “you boys please quit being ugly.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the boys would chorus.
Jack stared across the street at a clump of four red cedars, perched majestically between the Methodist Church and the Miller County Library. Through the heat haze, he could make out a tall, black man, his back to the nearest cedar; a guitar around his neck. The man started picking and the sound of sliding chords carried through the still air. Jack thought it was wonderful.
“Please mama,” Jack said, “can I go listen to that man play the guitar?”
His mother looked up, following the line of Jack’s sight, and frowned.
“Why honey, I’m sure he doesn’t want to be bothered with you,” but it was too late, Jack was already scampering across the empty street. He reached the clump of trees and sat down in the dust.
“What are you playing?” he asked.
“That,” said the man, “that’ll be the Blues.”
“What’s the Blues?” Jack asked.
“The Blues,” said the man, “ain’t nothin’ but a good man feelin’ bad.”
“Can I play the Blues?” Jack asked.
The man chuckled and said, “Why sure, but y’all need to get some things.”
“Things?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, things,” the man said, “you need to get that thing that hurts down inside, and that history thing that puts you in a time and place where no-one wants to be.”
“Can I get them?” Jack asked.
“You sure can,” the man said, “but I’m not sure you’d want them.”
“How did you get them?”
“I’ve travelled far,” said the man, “and picked them up along the way.”
Just then, Jack’s mama arrived, panting and sweat breaking out on her pink face.
“Jack,” she called, “stop bothering that man. I’m sorry, sir. Jack has a mind of his own.”
“That’s okay, ma’am,” the man replied. “Just been telling him the Blues secrets.”
“He told me you have to travel far and pick up things along the way,” Jack said.
“Is that what you did?” Mama asked, her curiosity piqued. “Travel far?”
“I sure have, ma’am, thank you for asking. It’s been,” he said tipping his hat, “a long journey along a winding road.”
Jack said emphatically, “I’m going to play the Blues. Just like you.”
With that, he took his mama’s hand and took his first step on his own long and winding road.
