April 2005: The people who this blog is largely about will likely never read it for reasons that will become clear, unless their friends and/or family send them a copy of the contents for perusal. This does not really concern me in any way, because they are not targets nor will they be maligned in any way. They are to be admired, held up as examples, and by all means, not offered help where it is not necessary. That's because they are perfectly content living:

THE SIMPLE LIFE?

A wise dude, all right it was actually Mick Jagger, long ago said, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need." I want to modify that a bit. Many of us already have what we want. However, is it what we REALLY need, or has that need become part of the demands of today's society? There are those who will scoff at us who have what we want, even though we want more, because they want so little. However, most will not scoff. They will just feel badly for us. Who are these people? They are the lucky ones, as I will explain. I not only know them, but I am related to some of them.

THE FIRST CASE

On a recent excursion to a ragtime festival in Michigan I was fortunate to meet up once again with my mentor and the great ragtime pianist Dick Kroeckel. Little has changed about him over the past 25 years, so I can give you a good picture of who he is in a short space. Dick is the physical anomaly in his family to a degree. His father and brother are 6'5" and 6'4" respectively, while Dick is the short one at 6'1" or so. But he acknowledges that he makes up for this in sheer volume, as his mid-section will attest. This does not diminish his playing talent or personality in any way. Personality? Well, the lovable grump might be the surface description. I want to avoid the Teddy Bear paradigm, although it's hard not to like Mr. Kroeckel, even with his occasional gripes. Many things bug Dick, but he can dismiss them for the most part. His telephone answering machine is warming to friends but downright foreboding for solicitors who must certainly shy away from the threatening tone directed at them (rah, rah, rah!). He used to be found frequently with a fat cigar in his mouth, but those days are over. He is of a certain age (let's just say the mid to upper 50s) where the hair is graying and some mellowing is setting in. However, he is still Dick Kroeckel, personality and pianist that I knew back in the early 1980s!

Dick's life has been centered around the piano since forever ago. When he is not playing ragtime piano, he is repairing or rebuilding player pianos and other mechanical music devices. He has at least 18 pianos in his Denver area home at any given time, 15 of them players right now. This is some of the most complex technology you will find in his house. You see, other than the DVD player (his luxury, and a necessity any more if you want to see new movies), Dick has no *gasp* computer, or no mobile phone, or no wide screen HDTV. He uses a typewriter (you can look that word up at Merriam Webster - www.m-w.com) for correspondence, and pay phones or whatever is available when he is not at home. Dick's biggest stress is perhaps that he hates gambling (lovable grumble grumble) and all it represents, but the casino he works for in Central City pays him very well from the gambling proceeds. Seems our primary audience is dying off (I'm not so sure of this) so he's there for atmosphere and the occasional ragtime fan. He does not favor travel, and tries to avoid long drives. He drives a pickup truck, not a luxury SUV, although it likely does have a CD player in it.

The point is that not only does Dick Kroeckel not have technology that you and I would be hard-pressed to give up for even a couple of days, he does not know what he is missing. Actually, the question is, does he really NEED such things? Not really. There are us fools who pay for all this stuff, so he can just call us up on his landline if he needs to find out some information, and have US look it up on our DSL/Cable connection. Let's face it - many of us have been trapped by these things. We have trouble fathoming life without our digital phones (how can we make calls while traveling?) and internet (I alone get 25 to 50 e-mails a day that need answering, and can't just abandon that). Dick can get in his truck and visit somebody without worrying about having his phone charged or putting an auto-response on his email. He gets no junk e-mail, and thanks to his low-tech answering machine, little or no phone spam as well. If you don't have it, how can you depend on it or miss it? The player piano business will still be there. His employer can still reach him at home, or leave a message. Dick can pay for things with cash (he has extra because he is not paying for digital phone service or DSL) and not incur credit debt. What's so bad about that? What is he REALLY missing?

I can attest to this to a degree, both the good and the bad. When DVDs came out around 1998, I thought it would be cool. My partner saw one and flipped over the quality, so we got one at a time when we were first on the block. Now we have no less than six DVD players in the house via hardware or computer. But do we rent movies? Hardly. People rent them from us. We have over 1,000 to date (albeit lots of great old material like MGM musicals and epics, along with Gilligan's Island, Star Trek and Friends), and they have become our bane to a degree. No trip to Wal-Mart is complete without a nosedive into the $5.00 bin. The up side of this is that we don't have, or feel we even need cable or satellite. Yeah, I'd like the History Channel, but lots of their stuff is on DVD, and PBS presents some pretty good history. Yeah, I'd like Turner Classic Movies, but I have most of them already. Plus, I'm a special feature junkie (see the correlation between narcotics and media?) and they don't usually show these features on cable, and definitely not on broadcast. CSI and Idol are not on cable, so I'm not missing it. Therefore, I have a simple life to a degree. REALLY? Hmmm.

THE SECOND CASE

The next case has to do with close relatives of mine. My mother's first cousin and his wife, in fact. Jim and Bonnie exemplify the simple life in soooooooo many ways that it is entirely admirable. I have known them pretty much all my life, and still visit them on a regular basis. I could actually get used to their life - given enough rehab, of course. Their life might boggle your mind, in fact, but here it is.

Jim and Bonnie live in rural Jasper County, Missouri, a bit north of Carthage. They were raised as farmers, and now in their seventies are still farmers, though mostly retired (yet still working harder than many of us). They have left the general area of Southwest Missouri and Southeast Kansas for two trips in their life - one of them to Las Vegas and Los Angeles to visit relatives, an experience which totally vexed them. And this was nearly 30 years ago. To Jim, a long trip is out to Springfield for supplies, perhaps 70 miles or so. All they really need is, for the most part, in Carthage, Joplin, or even tiny Jasper. They have a few crops, and have scaled back to around 30 head of cattle. Most of their capital is tied up in perhaps $1,000,000 of equipment like combines, tractors, etc. They also own a substantial wild turkey wilderness preserve that offers great hunting for themselves and friends or hunters who pay for the privilege.

What is remarkable, and yet perfectly natural when you spend time with them, is that they really do have all they need and want. Their luxury is cable, necessary if you have a TV because there is virtually nothing to receive otherwise where they are. It is basic cable at that. There is no DVD player hooked up (no good movies made for some time, so I'm told). No CD player except for the one foisted on them by Chrysler in their sedan. No computer. No pavement on their long driveway. No giant stereo system. They reluctantly bought a non-dial phone a few years back, but are unhappy since those phones seem to last only a couple of years at a time when their older phones from the 1950s still work just fine. Their house is over 100 years old, with one window air conditioning unit upstairs to accommodate guests. They did add a nice glass-enclosed porch where they can watch people drive by on the "main" road, usually able to identify virtually every person even from that great distance, or simply watch birds or the weather or the cows, etc. Bonnie is short, so one concession in their home, a simple one, is that the kitchen is around 6" lower than standard issue.

Jim and Bonnie are simply happy with the simple life. They were married almost directly out of high school, more than 50 years ago, and have always had each other. They get only what they really need for survival, with few luxuries, and only on occasion at that. Note this advantage: When Jim had a major heart issue a few years back, requiring a bypass, the hospital in all the usual wisdom of the modern hospital started with that all important question - "How are you going to pay for this?" It took them quite some time to grasp that Jim did not have insurance, but his attitude is that if you live a healthy life style (even though he ate rich foods and smoked cigars prior to that time), you shouldn't need any G.D. insurance. They offered cash, which was questioned at first, but when it materialized in Bonnie's hands, they were immediately given a substantial discount as if they had donated a new wing or something. No payments to an insurance company for fifty years. No payments to the hospital for the next twenty. Simple.

Don't misunderstand simplicity for simple minds. Jim is very sharp. He is an astute Civil War historian who has evidence that the first armed conflict of the war actually took place on his property, the beginning of the battle of Carthage, some time before Bull Run. He has written on the topic, made museum and land donations in that pursuit, and gives seminars on it as well. Jim is also very knowledgeable about new technologies for boosting crop yields or raising healthy cattle, as well as land boundary legalities. These are all necessities for what he does, but he does not see them as burdens either. Bonnie is also a very hard worker who has no trouble negotiating the fields, taking care of the cattle, dealing with necessary equipment repairs, cooking healthy and generous meals, and partaking in some very neat crafts as well. You don't need a computer to accomplish these things. They only have one phone line at home, but also one mobile line because it is necessary when Jim is out helping someone else with crops or farm errands. Take no pity on them, even if they do on you, because they not only have all they feel they need, they are content as the cows they take care of with all they have.

Whenever I visit there, which I will again soon, I long for the life they have as well. As much as I enjoy being a fixture on the internet, and spreading the ragtime gospel with all of you out there, as well as exchanging ideas with people from around the world, there are days that it would be nice to just go out and do six to eight hours of honest hard labor, then just kick back for an evening watching that old VHS of Patton, or even just listening to the Missouri summer rain on the porch roof, knowing that tomorrow I might be sitting on a perch waiting for a turkey to appear in my gun sight, his name being Dinner.

*Sigh!* If you never hear from me again, you'll now know why. Viva to Dick Kroeckel, my cousins Bonnie and Jim, and all of you who cannot read this because you are part of the simple life. Most of you have what you need, and like Garrison Keillor used to say about Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery Store in Lake Woebegone, if you can't find it at Ralph's you can pretty much do without it.

I don't believe in frettin' and grievin';
Why mess around with strife?
I never was cut out to step and strut out.
Give me the simple life.
Some find it pleasant dining on pheasant.
Those things roll off my knife;
Just serve me tomatoes; and mashed potatoes;
Give me the simple life.

A cottage small is all I'm after,
Not one that's spacious and wide.
A house that rings with joy and laughter
And the ones you love inside.
Some like the high road, I like the low road,
Free from the care and strife.
Sounds corny and seedy, but yes, indeed-y;
Give me the simple life.

The Simple Life, Words and Music by Harry Ruby and Rube Bloom, ©1945

Next time: Why Rap on Rap? An alternate view on why it should exist, and how it relates to ragtime of all things.

GO BACK TO WHERE YOU WERE BEFORE YOU GOT HERE

Do you have some thoughts on this simple topic? Informative or constructive ones are always welcome. You can write to me at perfbill@hotmail.com, or choose to do so for your friends that don't have computers. If they want a response, well, I still have a typewriter, dontcha know.