The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

South End Greenworks finally opened its doors. They’ve pretty much avoided the radar and the microscope since they bought the old cinderblock building that sat vacant for years after Shari’s Style Shoppe closed up when Shari retired and moved to her Nevada trailer court retirement villa. Since then it’s grown a nice patina of green mold. You’d think they’d have had a Grand Opening, throw open the doors to all the smokers and tokers who’ve been buying marijuana for years illegally. When Prohibition ended — hoo boy! — the celebrations rang to the rooftops and the liquor flowed like glacier melt. And lasted for days. It was an undeclared National Holiday.

Maybe we’re just accustomed to being miscreants and scofflaws down here, but I didn’t see much hoopla the day they opened their windowless doors. Only a discrete sign in a barred window timidly declaring they were OPEN. The End of an Era and it went out with a whimper, not a bang. A few folks stood across the highway with cameras. Two Toke Tom waved and smiled and said ‘cheese’. I think he thought they were reporters for the Stanwoodopolis Gazette chronicling the momentous event, but Tom was maybe overdosed on the ‘edibles’. The so-called press sure wasn’t going to help publicize this affair even if it might sniff of newsworthiness. No sir. The South End String Band played a tongue-firmly-in-cheek Strange Grange Ganja Gig a few weeks earlier to fundraise for the South End Grange, something they do most every year. The papers, every one from Skagit Valley to Everett, refused even to list the concert on their events calendar. Oh my. So much for that left wing bias. Even legal, the sheer mention of the drug that apparently can’t be spoken scares the ink off these folks.

No, the photographers wanted mug shots of the citizens brazen enough to enter the Greenworks. By god, if the government won’t label these folks criminals, they sure would. Paste those shots on Facebook instead of the Post Office. Maybe call these infidels out if they show their shameless faces at the Little Chapel in the Ravine. Shame them and blame them and defame them!!

Sure, I thought about photographing them photographing my pals, then running their sorry mugs on the Skeeter blogspot, but I was worried they’d go North Korean on me, hack my e-mail, threaten to blow up my shack. All I can say is I sure am sorry we’re overseas fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We could use some help down here on the South End.

I had an old friend ask me late into our New Year’s Party last year if I had a banjo she could borrow so she could learn to play one. Since I had 5 of them hanging on various walls, I could hardly say no without seeming like some selfish materialistic you-know-what. Four were handmade by me, three of them within the year so I didn’t want to loan those. Another is my concert banjo, mostly rebuilt by me, so no on that too. And another was a 1920’s vintage Sterling, nice inlays, sweet action, pretty sounding little 5 string.

So I loaned her the Sterling. Reluctantly. And I still felt like a selfish materialistic you-know-what. I mean, jeez, she was a friend and I could help out and maybe she’d even learn to play the thing and maybe love playing it and the world would be a better place with another banjo picker. Stranger things have happened, believe me.

Two weeks later I get a call. The banjo, she says, has problems. Won’t hold its tuning. The 5th string peg is glitchy. She’s had her luthier pals look at it, but they don’t want to make adjustments. She wanted me to pick it up, fix it and return it when I had it ready. She sounded a little put-off that her loaner wasn’t up to snuff. I said bring it down and I’ll see what I can do, but I’d been playing it and I sure didn’t have those problems. She said snippily, it does now.

I adjusted some tuning pegs and glued the 5th string peg and she took it on home. It was clear she wanted a replacement banjo, but I was … well, you already know what I was. A week later she called to say the banjo was no good. Her friends had looked at it and they said it was no good too. She was bringing it back. I said okay. I was leaving but just leave it in the shop, door is unlocked.

When I got home, it was raining cats and puppies. There was a message on my answering gizmo telling me my banjo was leaned against the shop back door, outside, and it was raining so if I got this call, I might want to bring the banjo inside. At which point she laughed and hung up. I raced down and sure enough, my vintage 1920 maple banjo was soaking wet, the pot full of water, the tuners ready for some imminent rust.

Maybe a better man, a less materialistic you-know-what man, would’ve shrugged and said c’est la vie, it’s just a banjo, probably only worth $500, no big deal. But like I said, I’m not. And my friend, well, she isn’t my friend anymore. With friends like that I could start another band. Course, it would be mostly blues.