Part 10: "Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Graf!"
On tour - as it were - in Europe, life becomes a micro-cosm, adventures, beginnings and endings fly by, fast forward, hello-goodbyes, whilst the "good" goodbyes... always kill you the most. And saying "Auf wiedersehen" to my gracious host (the Count) Herr Graf Alex von Ludwigshafen - who will drive me to the train station - makes goulash out of my blood, leaving me sizzling with emotion.
The Schloss, too, O venerable hospice! The bells, the bells! And the birds and the bees and all of the "Tannus" nature (bugs and all!) wild and free: Elysium!... For these are the (holy) days for which every vacationer pines, far from the hurly-burly of modern tourism.
It´s time to leave has I have gigs to the South in Freiburg I. Breisgau, by the Black Forest (Scwharzen-wald) and thence to Italy.
After several farewells to the folks of Usingen and friends of the "Schloss", the Count and I hit the road then stop atop a nearby hillock for a reflective view, the car is loaded with my gear plus a crate of Bitburger.
Drinking and enjoying a late afternoon cigarette, a church bells tomes from the distance and the sun´s embers coal-fire frame this land of golden crops. A short distance away a farmer drives a tractor, almost monotonously, pulling along some vehicle laden with hay.
In the short time I´ve been here...I´ve feasted, played concerts, formal and informal, have sat around camp fires by day and late into the night, swapping ideas and speaking of all things with the local "cogniscenti", and yet;
"Old man Reilly was right, Dave." says the Count. "We Artists come and go. We make Music, we speak Poetry, we philosophize!... "Aber", it´s a different light we shine on these...these Edens."
He pauses...his dark eyes, either tearful or glistening with a quiet terror. Then, sighing, "...But only the farmers have won."
I would wish for the film-soundtrack of that great Western movie, "The Magnificent Seven" to kick in!
Extinguishing his half smoked cigarette, the Count, Herr Graf Alex von Ludwigshafen, walks determinedly back to the car:
"We ride!"
2010, dave delacroix/ Merzingen/our man in europe
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