Creedence Clearwater Revival

For as long as I live I will love the music of J.C. Fogarty's band Creedence Clearwater Revival, CCR for short. My friend John found a lot of meaning in "Who'll Stop the Rain?" It rained a lot where John was in Vietnam.

Some of my USAF Russian language classmates who served in Japan encountered odd renderings of "Proud Mary" by local Asian bands playing in the Airmen's Club on base. "Plowed Maly. . ." they sang over and over.

My favorite songs were always different ones, though. On the light side, it was "Lookin' Out My Back Door."

But by the time CCR came along with their more mature stuff, the idealism of folk music was not longer that of the people. Beatles were beaten. Soul had wrung its heart out. Peace and love were in pieces. Wood was stocked. And the danged country was just going to do what it was going to do: draft more young men, send them to a war it never really wanted to know or believe was happening, a war that lasted four times as long as World War II.

To really get to the logical, moral, spatial and spiritual disconnect of the whole era, nothing much gets you down the road like CCR's "Graveyard Train" and "Run Through the Jungle".

They won't be rending these works into 75-second emotibites on American Idol anytime soon. And if they try, I just might have to move to the Khyber Pass.

Saturday we walked in the West Hills of Portland. Older homes worth some bucks. Somebody's always doing a remodel up there. You can tell because there's always a porta-potty onsite.

Clearwater, huh? In a porta-potty? You promise?

Please, leaders of our country, solve problems. Soon. Please! Don't tell me cutting taxes will balance the books when we are already running trillions of dollars short. Don't tell me you can build a bridge over the Grand Canyon of health care costs with band aids and toothpicks and fabric scraps. Don't tell me the canyon isn't there. Don't tell me you about a magical future doing it your way when all you care about is winning the next heat on the talk show circuit and the next election. Don't tell me you love America and I don't. You love money because you have it. And I don't. Guess that's why I'm not one of our leaders. Gotta be really rich to do that these days. Then, you get even richer.

Leaders, don't tell me there is clear water in the porta-potty. After all, I use these things sometimes. I know what I leave there.

I feel like running through the jungle most days lately. Hear the train a-comin'?

R.