Transcript

Ep 1: Graceland · The Starter

Graceland Some mornings I wake up before dawn, and I know that I’m not going to fall back asleep. This was one of those mornings. I roll over and check the clock radio - green numbers glowing in the dark. 4:07am. Time to get up. I had bread to make anyway. A couple years ago, both of my brothers started making sourdough. Brian first, then Greg followed. For many months after, they pestered me to join them. “I don’t eat a whole lot of bread,” I’d say. “No, you don’t get it,” they’d tell me. “Sourdough is different - it’s a natural fermentation. None of that store-bought garbage.” They’d text me photos of golden loaves pulled fresh from the oven, steam rising into the air. I resisted. As the youngest of three, it’s in my nature to be a little defiant. Usually though, I come around. On a trip back to Michigan, Greg brought his sourdough starter and left a portion for me in a small mason jar, along with detailed instructions on how to keep it alive. I fed it once a week and didn’t let it die, but still I did not make sourdough. After a few months, I gave in. “Fine,” I texted my brothers, “I’ll make bread.” Brian mailed me a set of proofing baskets. Greg sent a cast iron dutch oven. And so it began… My first few attempts were bricks - dense and doughy. But I kept at it, and little by little, my loaves improved. After almost two years, I finally figured it out. Now when I pull a loaf from the oven, the crust is crackling and golden. The loaf rises high, and the crumb? It’s soft and airy, with pockets waiting for butter to melt its way into. These days, once or twice a week, I pull the starter from the fridge, and begin again. On this early morning at 4:07am, I’m in need of a soundtrack. Something to work my hands to, but not just any old playlist or random shuffle. I had been thinking about Graceland. Alone in the kitchen before dawn, while my wife and our two boys still lay asleep upstairs, it seemed like the perfect time to revisit this album and give it a proper listen - deep and attentive, without distraction. I put on my headphones, and the breathing of accordion and pulsing of drums echo between my ears… I’ve reason to believe We all will be received In Graceland When I was in 7th grade, we read The Catcher in the Rye in Mr Jansen’s English class. I loved it. It was one of those books that I just couldn’t put down. Holden Caulfield was like an old friend, like a part of me - his despondence, his sarcasm, the way he saw everything as phony. “When you get older,” Mr. Jansen told me. “Give it another read. It will mean something different to you then.” As I stand at the butcher block countertop in our kitchen, mixing and working the dough to the sweet sounds of Paul Simon, I know he was right. I have revisited The Catcher in the Rye, and Graceland many times - through adolescence, adulthood, and into middle age. The songs stay the same, but I change. These are the days of miracle and wonder A flood of memories comes pouring through with the music as I knead the dough, and tears well up in my eyes. There is a whole lot tied to this album - family history, childhood, love and loss. A whole lot to make seemingly mundane experiences like mixing bread dough in the early morning hours pack some weight. We lost my oldest brother Brian this past July, and I have been trying to make sense of everything ever since. Making bread is one of the ways I stay connected to him. The starter Greg gave me traces back to Brian. When I measure and mix, and stretch and fold the dough, Brian is right there with me. And when a loaf comes out of the oven just right - I know he would approve. “Looks pro,” Brian texted me one day after I sent him a picture of a loaf I had just baked. It was one of the last messages he ever sent me. The bread is one thing. The music another - a living bridge to the past. A way to open doors and step into rooms that hold a lifetime of memories. A place where I can go to find my brother, and know that he is not lost. When we were kids, my mom drove a Big Red Van. It was an old GMC Vandura - with bright red cherry paint, and tan interior. It was our wagon that carried us through life, and ran errands around town. I can still picture my mom in the driver seat, nervously twirling her hair around one finger as the other hand held the wheel. When it was just me and my mom, I would sit up front, and her free hand would hold mine as she drove. I don’t remember when I got too old for this, but I remember the feeling that holding hands with your mom was little kid stuff, and I was too big for that. As the youngest of three, you grow up quick. In the center console was a collection of cassettes. Bruce Springsteen, Anita Baker, and Graceland. I remember holding that pearl-colored cassette case in my hand, and taking in the album artwork as the tape played over the car stereo. The picture on the front was a depiction of Saint George, known for slaying a dragon. My mom later told me that her younger brother, my music-wise Uncle Bobby, gave her that cassette as a gift. At the time, I had no idea about all the history - I just saw a guy on a horse. We come and we go That’s the thing that I keep In the back of my head We moved to Michigan when I was just a baby. My mom chose Ann Arbor because it reminded her of home - towering mature trees and occasional hills that felt like her familiar New England childhood. My parents separated a couple years after the move, maybe I was two? I have a fuzzy recollection of my dad being at the house the day that my bunk beds were delivered, but beyond that, it was every other weekend with my dad in Dearborn, and life as usual with my mom and two older brothers in Ann Arbor. I later learned that Paul Simon made Graceland at a low point in his life - after a failed marriage and a flopped album. He traveled to South Africa to record with local musicians in Johannesburg. He went searching, and came back to rebuild. Poorboys and Pilgrims with families And we are going to Graceland Every so often, during the summer or around the holidays, we would all pile in the Big Red Van and take a road trip back east, to my mother’s hometown of Wallingford, Connecticut. My brothers and I would lay our sleeping bags down in between the benches in back, and doze off or read books while my mom drove through the night, the lights from passing cars illuminating the interior of the van. Twelve or so hours on the road, and a lifetime away from my mom’s childhood home, where my grandparents still lived, in the yellow house at 449 S Main St. This is the story of how we begin to remember At the old house in Wallingford, there was orange shag carpeting and an upright piano in the living room. The familiar nicotine-stained smell is embedded deep in my memory, and in the fibers of the shag. “Keep your shoes on in the house,” my mom would tell us when we got there. At Thanksgiving dinner, Grandpa Lusher would bless the meal by saying grace. And so it went… “God, please send grace to our table. And if Grace isn’t available, send Maggie.” My brother Greg still likes to recite this blessing every now and then at family dinners. My mom still rolls her eyes. Grandpa Lusher was a man of one-liners. “I’m gonna eat all the mashed potatoes,” he would announce at the dinner table, and for some reason, we always laughed. Out of all my grandparents, I remember him the best. I was 17 when he died, and he was the last to go. The summer before he passed away, just my mom and I made the trip back to Wallingford. It was a hot summer at 449 S Main that year with no AC, and I was put to work. I scrubbed years of brown-yellow nicotine stains off the windows. The orange shag carpeting had long since been replaced. We made a run to the recycle center in Grandpa’s old Buick LeSabre, a car that my mom would later inherit. We stuffed large plastic trash bags full of empty half gallons of McCormick’s into the trunk. “Who drank all that gin?” my grandpa mused. No more mashed potatoes. We ate breakfast at the local diner, and I was amazed at his capacity to smoke three Marlboro Reds during the course of a meal. He had on his new LL Bean bomber jacket, and it looked good on him. The next summer, after his funeral, everyone went through the house and claimed items of interest. I took the bomber jacket, and it became a staple of my own wardrobe for many years. I don’t think people often realize that the last time they see someone will actually be the last time. As my mom and I packed up and drove off from 449 S Main after our weeklong stay that summer, the thought never entered my mind that we wouldn’t see my grandpa again. He passed away the following June, on his 74th birthday. We made one more family pilgrimage back to Wallingford that next summer, and we all stayed at the old yellow house together during the funeral. Brian was not a father yet, but he wasn’t far off. My niece Jasmine would be born later that year. We went to pick Brian up at the airport, in Grandpa’s old Buick. My Uncle Bobby drove, and Greg and I sat in the backseat, sipping Budweiser from red plastic cups. With Brian out of state, and Greg in college, it wasn’t very often that we all stayed together under the same roof anymore. There is an epic photo of all of us in front of the house after the funeral. We are standing on the lawn in our bare feet, and we look happy - happy to be together again as a family, and to be outside with the grass between our toes. The old house was sold shortly after that. Twenty-five years later, my wife and I have started to fill our own house with happy memories, and a growing family. We plan a trip to Montana, to visit the Hollowells out west, and spend quality time as a family at Brian and Becky’s new dream home, up in the hills, among the trees, and out of town. As my brother and sister-in-law were becoming empty nesters, we were starting over, with one more on the way. When the kids grow up and move out, you are allowed to have nice things again, and the move to McAllister began a new chapter for my brother and his wife. As Teddy laughed and played and stumbled about the living room, Brian hooked up the stereo system in his new home, and made sourdough. We took the boat out on the lake, and Brian gave my oldest son Henry a turn at steering. I snapped some photos, and one of Brian at the helm stands out. When I picture him now, it’s in this image. There he is - in his element. Up in the mountains, out in the woods, in a boat out on the lake. The last time Brian was here, Greg drove up from North Carolina to help him tile my mom’s bathroom, and there is another epic family photo from that final trip - the last time we were all together. We are sitting on the couch at my mom’s house, all the Hollowell boys - from baby Phillip to Brian the oldest. We look happy, all the boys together. The way the camera follows us in slo-mo The way we look to us all It’s February, and we are celebrating my 43rd birthday. I am back in the kitchen, working out some dough, but this time, our house is alive and full. My mom is here, and she has brought food and gifts. Henry and Lizzie are playing with Teddy and Phillip in the living room. There is laughter, some brotherly jousting, and joy in the air. Over this past year, there have been a lot of firsts since Brian has gone - the first Thanksgiving without us brothers sharing our menus for the day, the first Christmas that I couldn’t call him and commiserate about how much we hate the holidays, and the first birthday without opening a gift from my brother. When you share a lifetime of history with someone, their sudden absence changes everything. We eat dinner, and settle down in the living room to open gifts. I sit in the recliner, and my mom hands me a stack of wrapped presents. From the flat square shape of the boxes, I already know what they are. And if my mom adhered to my birthday wish list, I can already tell you which ones too. Teddy sits next to me, eager to open up the gifts. I told him he could help. I give him the first box, and Teddy, the talker, poses the question to the crowd of my mom, Lizzie, Henry and Phillip. He loves an audience. “What is it? What is it??” Teddy croons in his singsong toddler voice. He knows the drill. I tell him he can go ahead, and Teddy starts ripping off the wrapping paper. Phillip toddles over to help, and grabs his own piece of wrapping to tear off. There are three records in all, opened in the following order, saving the best for last. Let It Bleed, by the Rolling Stones. Abbey Road, by the Beatles. And Graceland, by Paul Simon As I sit in the chair and hold the album in my hand, no one speaks. The room falls silent for a second, and I take in the artwork on the cover. There’s old St George, atop his steed, ready to slay the dragon. “Thank you, Mom.” I say. And that’s enough. For the record, and for everything. The next morning, I’m up before dawn again, ready to fire off another loaf of sourdough. I preheat the oven to 500 degrees, and let the cast iron warm inside. Lizzie and the boys are asleep upstairs. I pick up the stack of albums and go into the family room, where the record player holds court. I slide the Graceland vinyl out of its paper sleeve, and lower the record down onto the turntable. Power on, the table begins to spin, and I carefully place the needle. These are the days of miracle and wonder