My Ma

   What can I man say at a time like this in regards to responding to the news received after a gig Friday night that my Mother Lucile Faye Kruse Rieman had passed at the age of ninety years. I guess about sixty hours have gone since she went to a new place, and I can't talk to her from here.
   I had the great fortune of sharing a few words with Ma on Thurs over the phone which I will forever cherish, had a few other short occasions of the same in the last few weeks since my return from a seven day visit with her way out in Oregon where she had resided these last years. Close by my organic farming sister Patti she was. A very comforting factor for me after she had been  living miles from  either of us three offspring for many years. She had settled into her new surroundings of the Riverview Terrace Retirement Apartments. I had two previous occasions to visit her there in the previous three years, and it is a very nice place where she made friends easily, eventually engaging in weekly bridge games, and plenty of opportunity to read her books. Possibly her favorite pastime.
   She had a presence about her and seemed revered by her fellow Riverviewites with whom she fell in with. There would always be a table of them with her in the dining room, and I am sure very lively discussions would often ensue. These folks of the pre WWII era, the depression era, the beneficiaries of a long life afforded them, each with tales of the seven, eight, nine, indeed ten decades of living through all that life had in store for them. I met many folks there on my visits, and on my recent seven days with Lu received many comments from residents and staff about how they felt about her. It rekindled the knowledge I always had of what a special type person my mother was,
   Even since my earliest memories she stood out in my mind as a constant and confident part of my life, to my extreme good fortune. Me and my siblings were also fortunate enough to have a Father around and she and Bud made a good team raising us through the fifties and into the sixties. His daily endeavors  commuting downtown and frequent trips vying the wares he represented from a large Chicago clothing company allowed her the freedom of being a fulltime mom, a job she couldn't have done any better as I look back on it all.
   Children don't arrive with a set of instructions, but being the product of modest rural midwestern roots, she seemed to have had an inate sense of what she needed to do. And do it she did with all the energy and instinctive meaures that seemed to emanate from her so naturally.
  With benefit of confidence and good health nurtured in us by loving parents me and my two sisters made our separate ways in the directions of our choosing. We each ended up for no particular reason about as far as u could get from Chicagoland and still be in the western hemisphere. Shelley in Boston, Patti in Oregon and me down here in Honduras. But she always seemed to find a way to give us her blessings and a strong word of advice.
  During the ensuing years life had much in store for all of us, the proverbial ups and downs all mankind experiences. But I know I have been bolstered in such a big way knowing she was always a part of my life, always interested in what my life was about, not hesitating to give her opinion, her instinctive take.
  With due respect to my Father who nonstop busted his backside for us when we were children, he was gone alot and Ma was always that constant. Through it all she played a major part in creating that beacon with which I was able to direct my life. Having grown and blessed children of my own now, she provided the template on how rearing them took place.

   I can't thank you enough from the bottom of my heart my dear Ma. I will miss you forever, until we meet again. love,  your son Robert

Ramblings from Ship's Inn

What's goin' on now??? Boy, right here in my crib waiting till around one pm. I will head into Coxen Hole, our municipalidad, and pay my 2012 municipal tax payment as this is prerequisite to our getting a building permit for a new home me and my guys will build out at Palmetto Bay.
  We almost always have projects going on, but this end of 2011 and into the new year has seen us unemployed. This a rarity which none of us are crazy about. I guess not an unusual trend considering what they have been calling such an economic downturn worldwide which has been going on quite some time. We also can't forget that to the investigative eye taking the time to look into Honduras facts, this country has been getting alot of bad press in the last months which doesn't exactly behoove someone to wanna invest down here. Although the islands are separated geographically and culturally from mainland Central America we have seen many unwanted changes on our landscape as well. But the cruise ship visitors seem to always love their four hour sojourns here when compared to other stops on their itenerary. Alot of recent investment here reflect that many of these same visitors make a return visit of longer duration with just that in mind. So let's see how it goes. I will hope we can break ground next Monday.
   During this lull in the action I have some time on my hands.
  Where I live at present is an apartment which was constructed a stone's throw from the beach, and not hard for me to take. An expat friend of mine built these two rustic three plexes on this piece of Sandy Bay beach back in the 90's. He christened his homestead "Ship's Inn".
   Arthur John Campos retired here back in those days after leading a colorful and actionfilled life in Central California where he was born. In the late 80's his nephew Steve became employed here in Honduras with some botanical oriented work on the mainland and then over here on the island. Uncle Art made a visit and fell in love. The rest is history. He put what he had together and built his little tropical kingdom and settled in. A fixture around here is what he became in the best sense. Mixing street smarts with compassion and a big heart Arturo treated everyone well and equal as long as you were straight with him. Having put in 18 years in the San Jose PD he was not someone you could bs by any stretch. His Mexican American ancestory also prepared him to communicate on all levels, whether local English speaking islander or mainland Spanish speaking transplant.
   His bigger than life persona and rumbling laugh was contagious. A life long music lover of all genres, he saw all the greats of the blues, as well as classic late sixties into the seventies "hippy" days. He reminiced on a number of occasions the impact of seeing Jimmy Reed live in Visalia honky tonks in the early sixties. As the years of that era moved on to the '67 "summer of love" he and his homies would roll into SF to the Fillmore Auditorium and it was on!!!! You name the group of that era and he'd seen them. Joplin, Hendrix, Santana, CCR, Pink Floyd...... name'em.
   I remember his unabashed joy a few years back when he scored the CD "Super Sessions" by Al Kooper featuring guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills from an expat down in West End. The sounds which he hadn't heard for decades. I burned him a copy from the original on my little Gateway before he had to return it. He wore that CD out on his  truck stereo. You could hear the lines of  "Season of the Witch" being belted out on the stereo and Arturo's personal accompanyment as his Dodge truck rolled in to Ship's Inn from a little nightime hiatus down to the West End nightlife. After pulling into his parking spot he remained inside savoring the notes until the songs' eleven minutes duration had elapsed, whereupon he would exit his vehicle with a little war whoop "oy-oy-oooy!!!"
   Don Arturo is no longer with us having passed onto tropical heaven a few years back, but I still feel his presence here.

  We shared alot of time and laughter on this place. It feels good to me here. I feel so fortunate having this dock and ocean right out front, and am glad to have gotten my mojo going of swimming for a good thirty or so minutes of excercise multiple times each week. I use a mask and snorkle with some swim gloves which gives more resistance to each freestyle stroke, and I come out feeling fresh and flexed. With the mask on I just keep my head down while I swim and it is an opportunity to view the underwater world of this vicinity. I must admit though there is not much marine life out here between the dock and the reef. The recent invasion by the dreaded Lionfish has not helped. A native of the Indian Ocean one theory for its presence here is that broken Florida aquariams damaged during the '92 hurricane Andrew introduced them into the Atlantic. With no natural predators in this hemisphere to hinder the migration southward they have arrived and have unabated access to all young species of the marine life of this part of the world for their daily consumption.  Plenty of starfish out there but lately I haven't been seeing any conchs which even recently I would spot six or seven per session. Maybe it is just these wintertime northers blowing in from time to time during these months that have shifted them from my neighborhood. I hope it is not a result of the Corazol guys in dories reaping them illegaly under cover of darkness.....

WHY A BLOG?

Hey now, why a blog for tru.... I don't think I was familiar with the term "blog" a year or so ago. But someone very special in my life had for a few years previous been writing essays and observations and posting them on this site. Yesterday she hipped me to her new blog  theleaderintheback.blogspot.com. Highly recommended reading. Yes, Miss Trish Flanagan inspired me to try this out.
  I am writing this slightly rainy morning from my beach side apartamento here in Sandy Bay, Roatan Island, Bay Islands, Honduras, Central America where I have resided almost 39 years. I spent my first 22 years almost exclusively in the Chicago metroplex. However the late 60's oft referred to "fickle finger of fate" pointed me to  what was in early 1973 an extremely idylic tropical island  just a prop jet and a few puddle jumper flights away from Miami.
   As I take the baby steps of getting these first few words down I am envisioning what this blog may be all about. As well I am thinking that it may help trigger the creative juices to flow for me again in regards to writing especially as it relates to music.
    I found myself singing and performing music solo accompanying myself with guitar and harmonica back in '81. I commenced to begin writing songs, basking in the inspiration I felt so much back in those years and really on up to the present. Still and always performing with my band throughout the island, the writing part of music has waned for me in these latter days. I believe those feelings to create new tunes may be rekindled by sharing a little of  my life here on Roatan and the people whom on a daily basis enrich my life island side and abroad.
   Let's see what the new year brings, and what comments, creations and adventures may be rendered from these fingertips in the coming months..... Feliz Ano Nuevo  Jan. 8, 2012