The Cryptic Band Name Game

WTF****?  Not sure why the font stayed that small after the cited quote.  Sorry 'bout that.


I was in the middle of a rather long post about my uncle last night when my 'puter decided to freeze up, leaving me no choice but to reboot.  Needles to say I was not happy, and in no mood to retype the post. 

So, today is a new day, and I'm game to try a gain.


When my new Av comes up, it will be a picture of Uncle Dale from the commune days.

As a preface, he is an excerpt from an article I found about the Renaissance Community:

"Dale was initially beyond our comprehension, a huge Viking-Indian with long red hair down to his waist, who strode around Warwick dressed only in cut-offs, even in January. It was Dale who had shown us timid, urban intellectuals that we had bodies beneath our brains and that it was hardier than Mama ever taught. With Dale as our inspiration, we meditated in snowfields under full-moon winter skies; logged all day in 10° weather, and leapt off 50 ft quarries into the waters below. While Michael was ensconced with the band, Dale was the de facto leader of the pack, a daily presence, sauntering loosely with his two canine companions, Barney and Huey, singing snatches of obscure Brotherhood songs ("Everyday you ask me, WHAT AM I GONNA DO??!! I can show you the way, I say, I CAN'T DO IT FOR YOU!!), and punching people playfully on the shoulder. When the pressure got too much for Dale, he would sequester himself in the deep forest around Warwick and scream among the trees."

Though I was very young while Dale was still in the Commune, I have vivid memories of him from that time.  He was always smiling and/or laughing, and always exuded a very zen-like aura.  One of my earliest memores is of camping with him in Northwestern MA in the winter.  We fished for our supper (I had to kiss the fish and thank it before we ate it), and slept in an old Army tent with Army surplus sleeping bags.  Though it was bitter cold, Dale wore nothing but combat boots and cut-offs.  Before bed, he went and sat on a log and meditated for what seemed like hours, unfazed by the cold.

The most amazing thing I saw him do didn't come until a few years later.  Another camping trip, this time during the summer.  We were a few miles from my parents house, We were camped out beside the local reservoir.  After we hiked in and set up camp, we decided to have a swim (skinnt-dipping, of course).  After a few minutes of horsing around in the shallows, Dale dove under, and stayed under.  At first I thought he would swim around behind me and try to scare me, so I backed into really shallow water, but that didn't happen.  After a couple of minutes had passed, I started to get nervous, and started calling him, thinking maybe he had  swum (swam?) further up or down the reservoir  and had gotten out without me noticing.  No answer.  I went back in the water and dove under, looking for him, to no avail.  After what seemed lik 15 minutes (probably closer to 7 or 8 in reality), I saw his head emerge in the middle of the reservoir, a good 100 yards from shore. When I asked him what had happened he calmly replied, "I was talking to the fish."

In my eyes, Dale is a true mystic, and he makes me believe that there are forces in nature that cannot be comprehended by all people. I can't really adequately describe the way his charismatic presence commands the attention of all those around him.

If you're interested, here's a link to the article I quoted, it's pretty interesting.  http://www.authorsden.com/visit/vie

wshortstory.asp?id=46370

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Just to avoid confusion, the bold is from the article, the rest is from me, though I'm sure it's not hard to tell the difference in writing style, one is articulate, the other is mine.