We’ll Grow Roots When We’re Old

This week, my friend Andy packed up his bass and his awesome dog, Monk, and bid farewell to the beach.  He’s moving to Indiana to start the next chapter in his life, as they say.  As one of the main providers of great live music and off-color humor here on the Outer Banks, he is definitely going to be missed.  There’s only so much the rest of us can do to fill the void – I can tell a “that’s what she said” joke like the best of ‘em (sorry, Mom), but I’m not so good at bluegrass.

Andy leaving made me sad in a very juvenile sort of way – it’s just a very simplistic sort of melancholy.  It might be because the last time I really had a good friend move away was in middle school, so I don’t really know how to feel other than how I felt when I was twelve.  I think I also know so clearly that this is the right thing for him to be doing that it doesn’t leave much room to worry about what the rest of us are going to do without him.  Missing someone is a very selfish sadness, isn’t it?

I also realized that I’ve been pretty spoiled.  Nobody’s ever really left me before.  Going to college, coming to the Outer Banks, going back to New York, going to New Zealand… I’ve left a lot of other people, but nobody’s really left me.  It’s much more comfortable being the one leaving than the one left.  I’ve been getting itchy feet again lately.  I’ve been here for ten months now, which is the longest I’ve been in any one place in the last five years – crazy.

Anyway, before Andy rolled out to the midwest, our pals at Pamlico Jack’s threw him a going-away party so we could all send him off in style.

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It was a good time.  The captain’s hat was passed around a lot.

Sorry for the terrible grainy photos.  I refuse to use the flash on my phone because I’m incredibly prone to demon eyes.  I could’ve been cast in The Omen.

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That was an unnecessary illustration of my point, but you know I can’t resist a good photo caption.

Anyway, Andy was a huge part of the OBX music scene and one of my best friends here.  He’ll be an amazing musician and a hilarious dude in Indiana, too, but there’s going to be a little less music on the beach without him.  Womp wompppp.

On an unrelated note, there is an unbelievably annoying bird squawking outside my window and it’s driving me crazy.  It sounds like one of Irie’s squeaky dog toys, but louder.  It’s been making this terrible noise every few seconds for about ten minutes now and I’m very close to fashioning a slingshot out of a tree branch.  Too bad I didn’t go see The Hunger Games movie last night or I would probably be all amped up with archery techniques and wilderness survival tricks.

On an even less related note, I bought bobby pins today.  Why is this remarkable, you might ask?  Well, I bought them because my current little container of bobby pins, which was once full, is now nearly empty due to years of losing, misplacing, lending, or breaking them.

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And THAT little container of bobby pins, my friends, was something I bought in preparation for my trip to Panama in 2004.  That means this is only the second time in my whole life that I have bought bobby pins.  I realize that’s kind of a lame factoid, but I just thought it was funny that one little thing of bobby pins has lasted me eight years.  I wish myself a happy eight years with the next generation.  Okay, now this is getting weird.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite lines from one of Andy’s original songs, which I find myself singing more than usual lately.

“We have to wander while we’re young, we’ll grow roots when we’re old.”

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2 thoughts on “We’ll Grow Roots When We’re Old

  1. The travel advice in your latest How-to is common sense and so very wise. You’d make a terrific travel writer if you don’t regard yourself as one already.

    As for “That’s what she said” jokes, the best one I’ve ever seen was in the comments under a Fender electric guitar review video. A guy had asked the guitar expert how to fix his guitar because he was getting a lot of feedback and too much pitch whenever he plucked the G-string. I don’t have to tell you what the reviewer’s less than adequate response was to a perfectly straight question.

    1. Wow, thank you – you are too kind! I’d more describe myself as a person who writes about travel. “Travel writer” makes me sound way more legit than I am 🙂

      And yes, I think I can safely assume what the punchline of that joke was! Haha

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