SHARKFORUM: OPINION WITH TEETH

In pre-internet days—when that F-100 was close-to-new— I started Poor Richard’s Newsletter. Postmarked Galveston, Texas, it was folded with stamp affixed, hand-addressed, stapled, and mailed to friends. It was about music, boats, drilling rigs; about work, beauty, boredom, and bragging about drinking too much. Poor Richard’s became Don Ricardo’s Life & Times in the early 1980’s in Nashville. Home was the Gulf Coast of Texas again for a few years. Home has been New Mexico, Chile, Michigan, with short stays elsewhere. Then home became Switzerland, an event nobody could have foretold.

Gouged out by the Rhine glacier some 15,000 years ago, Lake Constance is the largest inland body of water in Europe. Viewed on a map from the north, the German side, it looks like a crudely-drawn shark, or a cloud mirage, with its nose at Bregenz, Austria where the Rhine comes in at the eastern end. It reaches its widest point between Rorschach to the south and Friedrichshafen, from where the mighty zeppelin air ships once sailed. Narrowing towards the west the Bodanrück peninsula divides the tail at Konstanz, called Kreuzlingen on the Swiss side. Below one fork of the tail would be the Überlinger See; above, the Untersee narrows with hills coming down on either side: past Ermatingen, Mannenbach, Mammern, Eschenz on the Swiss side, and the peninsula Reichenau, then Gaiennofen, Hemenhofen, Wangen on the right bank. The lake becomes the Rhine again at the town of Stein am Rhein, which though it straddles the river is Swiss, belonging to Canton Schaffhausen. A one-lane wooden bridge crosses the river about eight kilometers down. Here on the north bank the road goes up the hill to the town of Gailingen, part of a German corrodor with Swiss territory on either side. On the south bank sits the ancient, still partly-walled town of Diessenhofen, where this wanderer came to rest. Five years now we’ve lived in a house atop the south wall, in an attic loft under massive wooden roof timbers. On a clear day we can see the Alps away in the distance.

Ten kilometers downstream the main body of Canton Schaffhausen pokes up into Germany like a mushroom. Below the town the river drops over the thundering Rhine Falls, the largest waterfall in Europe. Zürich and the airport at Kloten are forty-five minutes to the south; I can leave the house at six in the morning and eat dinner in Houston the same day. This is my beat, between Europe’s largest lake and waterfall. I have written a book about this country. Because no one else has, not in English that I know of. It concerns music, work, wine, language studies, fishing; my ongoing life as a performing songwriter, recording artist, husband, Texan in exile. I don’t work on boats or drilling rigs anymore, though I go there every day in my mind. I am beginning the third revision of this book; third or fourth, I disremember. The work goes forward, with grit, grunt, joy and some dissembling.

Richard Dobson
13 March 2006

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Not much time to ponder, I better make haste. Sergio flew in Wednesday night from London on Helvetica. We drove to pick him up in our almost-new Fiat. We had two days to hang out before we drove up to Baden-Baden to rehearse with Mätze, Richie, and Peter—the nucleus of Thomm Jutz’s old band— for the big show opening for Albert Lee at the Albisgüetli Country Festival in Zürich on the 15th. We’ve got more club dates coming up, but this one requires the full band with drums and keyboard, and guitarist Giampiero Colombo. If we don’t give Albert a run for his money, we’ll give the folks a good show.

I miss our little car, the red Fiat Uno, a sweet-running machine, grown a little tired of late, with an engine not much larger than a loaf of bread. Lots of famous musicians rode in that car from the days when Edith ran a concert series at the Trottentheater in Neuhausen—Peter Rowan, Rosie Flores, Katie Moffatt, Tom Pacheco, Dale Watson—they all wanted to ride in her little red car. I was the only one to lay a hand on her leg, an act fraught with consequence. Later it would become her Fluchtauto, her getaway car when she ran away to Texas.

Sophie, Thomas’s—her middle son’s—girlfriend drove it for a year. After Edith came back to reclaim it we drove it to Croatia and back—twice. We drove up to play in Mettmann, up in the north of Germany with Mark Wise who’s well over six feet, the three of us packed in with two acoustic guitars. We drove twice to France, to Leon, and down in the south the year we played the Crappone festival; to the far side of Austria hard by the Hungarian border; and south over all the major alpine passes, San Bernadino, Gotthard, Arlberg, Brenner. It’s not that a car has soul, but it begins to represent the accumulated memories of the times and places you’ve gone in it. A car is a piece of gear, really, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come to love it. You can feel that way about a boat, a guitar, a worn pair of boots. Great love and affection I had for a silver F-100 Ford pickup with close to a quarter-million miles before I let it go.

We watched the odometer roll over at 100,000 and still it kept chugging; uphill and down, dependable as it was unassuming. “We must think of getting another car one day,” she said.

“Oh, let’s keep it rolling awhile. There’s plenty of miles left in this baby, and it’s paid for long ago.” The kilometers ticked away with the days and the days into years. It would almost do 150 on a long straight-away. Other drivers were ever anxious to pass us, even when we were going over the speed limit. I had the feeling they found it annoying to be stuck behind us. But it was gradually losing compression, and power on the hills. Then one afternoon, deep in hinterland of Canton Thurgau it failed to start. I looked under the hood, checking for loose wires. Finding nothing wrong I tried again and it started. We took it straight to Herr Schwyter at the Steiggarage in Schaffhausen. Had it been using water? Well, as a matter of fact…. Aha… My Swiss German is better these days, but I still didn’t follow all the conversation. I heard Zylinderkopf and understood we needed a new cylinder head. Not a complicated job but it would cost us 700 Francs to repair. In time it would need a new clutch. A rigorous inspection coming up in August, there was no telling what else might need attention. Then he showed us the almost-new Punto, a dark silvery gray, 4-door. A patient man, Herr Schwyter had shown new cars to Edith before. She had always resisted, but this time she wavered. It was time to let the Uno go.

We went down and cleaned it up next morning. Swept the snow off the roof, polished the windows, ran the sweeper, emptied out the door pockets and under the dash, collecting parking receipts, shopping lists, pencils, maps, matchbooks. Looking good with clean lines, no wrecks, and paint slightly faded. A friend of Michael’s, Edith’s youngest son, had agreed to buy it from us for 350 Francs. I wondered if he would peel off the decals—the Texas flag, stickers from Luckenbach, Arizona, and British Colombia—likely revealing a darker red underneath.

Herr Schwyter gave us a pretty good deal on the Punto, a demonstration model with only 2700 kilometers, air bags, CD player, AC, bigger engine. This would be a help on the German Autobahn where you took the little Uno at your peril. It required steady nerves and concentration to venture out there, and you really had to watch out in the left lane with the big Mercedes and BMWs barreling down on you, flashing their high beams and looming in the rearview.

The doorbell rang in the late afternoon, after we’d gone in the Punto to buy floor mats and a new map of Switzerland. Edith chose expensive ones; on purpose even though money is tight. It was Michael at the door with his friend, a tall young man with long hair pinned back and a floppy cap. After shaking hands and some pleasantries we went downstairs together. I saw a dog in Michael’s car, parked just behind. The dog barked once and Michael let him out. Medium-sized, black with a white throat and bandana collar, it looked like a born Frisbee-catcher. The door to the Uno was open and at a word from his friend the dog jumped in, streaked once around the back, and returned to sit bolt upright in the shotgun seat, looking straight ahead and ready to go.