“Row” by D-Squared
My older brother Don wrote this song (and he and my sister, Deb Gessner perform it here) to celebrate the birth of our little brother Mike’s first grandson, Orion. Mike only got to see Orion in an ultrasound capture, a photo my niece showed him a day before he died of cancer in March 2020. He would have loved this song, though not as much as he loves Orion. I’m particularly fond of the way Don and Deb shot this from below—like we get to be the baby listening to the song and wondering what might be out there!
With gratitude for my beautiful adopted state’s wild outdoors! Photos taken between August and November at Granville Barrens, Loda Pioneer Cemetery, Celery Bog Nature Park, McCormick’s Creek State Park, the Swift Farm, Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area, and Sugar Creek Canoe Launch.
“Ducky Waits for the Pleiades”
Deb Gessner and Don Charles (D-Squared) perform a song written in honor of the late Larry Duckworth of Paisley, Oregon.
Asked by the writer David Hanson (“Meeting People”) to describe his profession, the then-78 year-old Duckworth said: “Cowboy and fisherman. I was independent. I was ranch labor, broke horses. And when there wasn’t ranch work, I got on a crab boat out of Brookings, Oregon. I did the things I liked doing. Now I like to fly fish.”
Asked why he did the work he did, Duckworth said, “It filled a spot in your soul—but I couldn’t keep it full, my soul. I’d spend all winter breaking horses and just when you get ’em rideable and dependable somebody’d take ’em away from you. Even though you understand what they’re doing, the business of it, it left an empty spot every time. That’s all. You have to keep doing it to refill the empty spot.”
And if he could travel anywhere in the world, the cowboy/fisherman said, “Paisley. Why would I wanna go anywhere else? You can see the great wonders of the earth—Crater Lake and Grand Canyon—but it’s only when you get to a place like Paisley that you get to see the people. Takes a long time to see the people.
Surrounded by a group of poets and singer/songwriters playing to him in his final days, Larry said, “You guys are going to the moon, but I’m headed for the stars.”
Sandhill Cranes at Jasper-Pulaski, November 2-3, 2022
“Yellowstone Winter 2021
Photo by Becky Wendt, music by Steve Charles
Into the Fields I Go
“Into the Fields I Go” from Michael Lewis’s album The Natural has been the go-to song when the Platypus needs inspiration, and he’s been kind to allow us to post it here. A writer/musician based in Lafayette, Indiana, Michael is also co-founding member of Traveler’s Dream, a one-of-a-kind band playing “spirited songs from the Celtic lands and French Canada, hard-driving Irish jigs and reels, sea shanties, and traditional American songs.”
Hit by Lightning
Paul Hutson was originally interviewed for the Humans of Montgomery County, a joint project between Wabash Magazine and the Wabash College English and Rhetoric departments. Paul lives in Crawfordsville, IN.
Summer Breeze
Wind River Chimes with bird call, recorded August 2021, Crawfordsville, IN