McCabe & Me

MCCABE & ME

by Lee Cheney

With Additional Narrative by Chuck McCabe

For My Sweet Sally

"For the kind words you have spoken

For the love that never ends

For the door that’s always open

I’m thankful you are my friend"

Chuck McCabe

"Life in the hereafter

Oh, if that were true

Songs and talk and laughter

Forever, me and you"

Lee Cheney

Copyright 2015 by Lee Cheney

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Prologue

Introduction

During his life Chuck McCabe had a long list of accomplishments, not the least of which was that he undoubtedly saved me from a life of mediocrity. Not one of his goals I’m sure, but true nonetheless. From him I received motivation, inspiration, dedication and a short but imperative list of priorities:

1. Focus on the things about which I am passionate.

2. Don’t worry about the fork in the road; just pick one.

He was my enabler; he gave me the tools and the confidence to be comfortable with who I am and what I do.

He was my best friend for almost fifty years.

Sometime in 1995 or ’96 Chuck sent me 25 pages of a manuscript that he was working on. I read it, promptly filed it away somewhere and forgot about it. At the time I was busy with my retail business and didn’t spend much time thinking about the old days. After Chuck’s death I began to think about the years that had passed since our meeting in 1963 and that I needed to write down what I could remember or thought I could remember. After almost a year and the writing not half finished, I stumbled on Chuck’s manuscript. I had struck gold! Not only could I write about Chuck, I could write with him. He had the same idea I had but almost twenty years earlier. He had written mostly about the early years of our travels together but also included some tales in which I had no part.

By the time I re-read his manuscript, my story’s timeline had progressed to about 1980 and the idea of including Chuck’s writing with my own seemed like a no-brainer. Easier said than done, it was difficult to decide what went where and at times his recounting was at odds with my own. So be it.

I will leave his narrative intact as much as possible although some editing was unavoidable. As a raconteur Chuck tapped into the creative skills he developed as a songwriter, evidenced by a book he authored in 1993 titled, Uncle Rhythm’s Cosmic Riff and Gig Guide. It’s a window into Chuck’s world and a great read.

So, here’s our story, told to the best of our ability. I think my partner and co-writer would approve.

Leroy25,

June 2013

Chapter 1

You Can’t Get There From Here

For me it was a life changing moment, although at the time I was blissfully unaware that something had transpired that would influence the rest of my life. That moment occurred the day my father acquired a guitar. He knew a few chords and most of the words to a dozen or so songs from his early years in west Texas and New Mexico. At thirteen he was a dollar-a-day cowboy working alongside men that had ridden with Billy (The Kid) Bonny and the Regulators during the Lincoln County Wars.

To say that my dad could play the guitar is a stretch but he could fumble through those three-chord country songs well enough to stay pretty close to the melody and he sang with passion and conviction so anyone listening was drawn into the music.

I remember that guitar clearly. It was a Sears Silvertone arch top F hole model, sold by the thousands to beginners and people who couldn’t afford anything better. At first I didn’t pay much attention to the instrument, it being at a time in my life when girls were my main focus and acquisition of a car, necessary to the process of getting girls, occupied most of my time. I did eventually learn some basic chords and became interested in the idea of picking a tune.

My first attempt at picking was a popular folk song called Wildwood Flower. I practiced it incessantly, over and over very slowly with many mistakes, (Chuck would call them clams). My long-suffering mother finally said, Get that thing out of the house. Take it someplace where I can’t hear you. I was relegated to the barn where the cats and the horses watched my struggles without comment.

Eventually I became accomplished enough to occasionally be asked to play in my brother’s Hawaiian band. It wasn’t a real Hawaiian band, he just called it Hawaiian because one of the members played a steel guitar and his best song was Aloha. We cut off some old jeans at the knee, frazzled out the ends, wore straw hats, and other than Aloha played country songs currently popular on the radio. I did not sing, would not sing, I was much too shy for that but I did muster up enough courage to stand behind the other players and strum the chords.

My commitment to my high school education being virtually non-existent I was able to focus on girls, beer parties with girls, going to the beach with girls and keeping my (first) car running so that I could get to the place where the girls were. My first car, a 1940 Ford 4 door sedan, had been given to me by some friends of my father who felt that the car was on its last leg and that at best it was something to keep me occupied. Cars built in the 1940‘s were pretty simple machines and I was able to squeeze a lot of miles out of that car before it finally went belly up. I never took the Silvertone anywhere in it. I didn’t tell my friends that I had a guitar or any interest in music as that might have left me open to some sort of ridicule. I was painfully thin in my teens and maintaining any amount of cool was a challenge.

Somewhere near the end of my senior year in high school my school counselor called me into his office for a chat. He said something like, Lee, we have a situation here. It appears that you are failing a couple of classes and will not have enough credits to graduate. That was news to me; I’d already had my cap and gown picture taken for the yearbook. You can take some make-up classes in summer school to earn the necessary credits and we’ll issue a diploma in the fall. You’ll miss the Senior Prom and the graduation ceremony but that can’t be helped. That didn’t sound like much fun to me. I had done the summer school thing the previous year so that I could be advanced with my class. More summer school was not in my future. I left the counselors office left the school and that was the end of that.

After leaving school, I didn’t go home for several weeks. I stayed a few nights here and there with friends and relatives and spent most days hanging out with some other ne’er-do-well dropouts drinking and feeling sorry for myself. However, my friends were involved in more activities than cruising the drive-ins and ogling the girls. Eventually I was invited to join them on one of their capers. I was dumb but even the alcohol couldn’t make me brave, I understood guilt by association and that my situation could deteriorate rapidly when the inevitable happened and my, friends were busted. That idea finally made it through my information filter when a neighbor informed me that a deputy had been around asking questions about me. Red light! I pondered my predicament. Perhaps my brother had a good idea. After graduating high school he had joined the Air Force and was promptly shipped out of the country. That sounded pretty good to me...where do I sign?

My enlistment officer said that they would be happy to have me but that it would be 60 days before they could make room. It seemed we were between wars and space was limited. I sweated out that 60 days waiting for a fateful knock on the door or orders to report for induction...whichever came first. Uncle Sam came to my rescue and I was off to Texas for boot camp. I had not told my parents that I would be leaving since I wasn’t sure where I would be going. The morning of the day of my departure I woke my father to ask for a ride to the bus depot. My folks made no comment when I told them of my enlistment and we rode to the depot in silence. At the depot each hugged me and wished me luck. Their expressions were of a little sadness and a lot of relief. Now, maybe, I would learn some responsibility.

Boot camp was more like a scout-o-rama. We learned military protocol, respect for our superiors, personal hygiene, how to march, the do’s and don’ts of military food, camping skills, (they called it bivouac) and the kind of work for which they felt we were best suited. I spent the next four years in the motor pool; probably because of skills I had developed while driving my brothers blue 1950 Olds coupe that he had left at my parents when he shipped out, with the stipulation that they start it occasionally to keep the battery charged. At the tender age of 13 I would sneak out late at night, coast the car down the street a little, start it up and drive around for an hour or so. I put a lot of miles on that car. The battery was always fully charged.

My first duty station was Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, Nevada where I contributed my monthly pay, a sum of $96 to the local economy via the casinos. However, I did learn a valuable lesson; any time you play someone else’s game your chance of winning approaches zero. Also, while stationed at Las Vegas I decided that getting married was a good idea. The object of my affection being a girl I had dated in high school. She was at odds with her stepfather and considered marriage a means of escape. Of course I figured it must be love...why else would she write long letters to me? We married while I was on leave prior to being shipped overseas. She was 17 and I was 19. I was not particularly adept at clear thinking at that time in my life; I couldn’t find my butt with both hands and a flashlight...but I could make a baby.

After I had been at my overseas duty station for the requisite amount of time I received a telegram informing me that I was the proud father of a strapping baby boy. I had difficulty assimilating that information. Like most GI’s stationed in South Korea in 1958 I spent considerable time and energy, (and a modicum of money) being entertained by the local working girls. The news that I was a father did little to curb my appetite for entertainment.

In my spare time, if I was broke or not able to get a pass off base, I listened to music. I assembled an amplifier and record player from kits that I ordered from an electronics catalog. The process took a few months but I wasn’t going anywhere and during that time I started a record collection. When the assembly was finished, miracle of miracles the system worked and I had music. My taste in music was fairly eclectic but consisted mostly of AM radio fare; Presley, Everly Brothers, Hank Williams, some rhythm and blues, folk music and best of all, the beautiful voice of Sarah Vaughn.

Eighteen months in Korea went by slowly. I managed to stay out of trouble with the exception of one error in judgment. I was captured by the MPs’ while being entertained in an off limits establishment. The error was in visiting an off limits place that was subject to police scrutiny. There were plenty that were not. My transgression was not considered to be serious enough for a court martial so my punishment was determined at the squadron level. The squadron commander, a major Jack Parker, (known in the ranks as The Hanging Judge, after a famous figure in Texas history with the same name, who considered defendants in his court guilty and the appropriate sentence to dance at the end of a rope) was not sympathetic to my plea for leniency and I was sentenced to paint. The object of my labor was a sizable building in the squadron compound that was painted regularly by soldiers in my predicament. The punishment consumed all of my off-duty time for weeks. The price of entertainment had gone up.

At the end of my tour of duty, I was scheduled for rotation back to the states. FIGMO! (F#*k It Got My Orders). I was excited to be going home, however, I had some trepidation concerning a wife I could barely remember and a child I had never seen.

I had no concept of the nature of parenthood or the care and feeding of a life-mate. My military pay, on which I was to feed and house three people, came to a total of $350 a month. Even in 1960 that was a starvation wage.

When I returned to the US I re-established a relationship with my spouse and we settled in at my new duty station, a bomber base about 100 miles north of Sacramento. We found a place to live that we thought we could afford at $50 a month. It was a little one-room shack that had been condemned by the county but that the owner rented out anyway. It had electricity, running water and a two-burner stove, all in an area of about 20 feet by 20 feet. Cozy.

By working extra jobs I eventually got us into better living conditions but by then it was too late, the wife had had enough of poverty and reconsidered the merits of the stepfather. She and baby went home to mama.

I still had several months left on my enlistment and moving to quarters on base was not appealing, so I decided to keep the military out of the loop concerning my domestic situation. I moved into a fruit pickers cabin that boasted a sink, a toilet/shower stall and a bed, all in one small room. It was necessary to climb over the bed to get in and out of the front door, but at $10 a week, it would do just fine.

I would occasionally nurse a beer at a nearby roadhouse that, on weekends, had various local bands play for dancing. I began to pay attention to the players and the music. The music consisted almost entirely of country and western radio hits and the players mostly wore cowboy hats. I don’t know that I formulated any ideas about becoming a professional musician during that time but I know that I acquired a new respect for players. They appeared to be having a good time and the ladies were drawn to them like moths to a flame.

Chapter 2

Hasty Tasty

August 1961, at last my active military service came to an end. I still had two years of inactive reserve to do, but that required no time or attention so, in effect I was free. I packed my meager possessions, left my fruit pickers cabin, and headed home. My parents had invited me to stay with them until I got settled. Now I needed something that I had never had...a real job. It took me about four hours to get back into civilian life, (the drive time from my duty station to my folks house). After a couple of days of visiting family and hanging out, I got into the help-wanted section of the newspaper and began making appointments for job interviews. Other than four years in the motor pool (mostly as a clerk or dispatcher), I had no particular skills that would make me appealing to anyone that was hiring.

At an interview with Litton Industries in San Carlos, I was asked if I would be willing to work the graveyard shift (12 midnight to 8 a.m.), $3.29 per hour, and they would train me. You bet, sign me up. I had a job.

The job didn’t require much in the way of skill or education...perfect for me. I settled in. Along the way I had acquired a beautiful Gibson Barney Kessel jazz guitar. An instrument capable of far more than my meager talent would ask of it. Next came one of the great mistakes of my life...I traded that guitar for a candy apple red double cutaway Gibson rock and roll guitar, perfectly suited to the kind of music I didn’t play. I soon discovered my mistake and traded that guitar for a Martin D-28. Now we’re getting somewhere. I had decided that I wanted to be a flat picker so I bought some Doc Watson 33 1/3 rpm records played them at 16 rpm and learned the songs note for note. I practiced diligently. No singing, just picking. I was starting to get the hang of it.

Just about that time I was served with divorce papers. I hired a lawyer but he said that I was probably going to get hung out to dry. That’s lawyer talk for drawn and quartered. He was right, the judge awarded child support that was a large portion of my take home pay. I needed a second job to get money for food and rent.

Things were getting complicated. I scored a second job driving a school bus for K through 12 students in the local school district. I drove the bus 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, which made my regular workday close to 12 hours long. I was not having any fun.

After several months of little sleep and zero life, I received an envelope marked, Return to Sender-No Forwarding Address. It was my child support payment. I went to my ex-wife’s house, and sure enough it was vacant. Her family wasn’t talking so I wrote a letter to the court explaining my inability to comply with the court order. I received a response advising me to continue to make payments into an account in case the ex-wife and offspring reappeared and wanted back payments. I continued to do that for three or four months, but the long hours at work and a new, just shoot me attitude put an end to my school bus driver job. Driver guidelines prohibited throwing unruly kids off the bus, I threw them off anyway...adios to them...adios to me, I was fired. I stopped paying into the support account, which meant that I could live on one paycheck and that I had more time to practice my guitar. I had a life.

Years later I learned that my ex-wife had married a house painter and moved to Oregon. He did not want his new (my old) family to have any contact with me so, again, adios to me.

Life settled into a comfortable routine, work - sleep - practice, and over again. I was learning how to pick the guitar but not much about how to play music. Then, again, something happened that would change everything, but in this case it took a lot less time.

By now it’s late spring 1963, I’ve been working at Litton for almost two years. It’s a bright sunny day and I’m out and about in my '57 Olds’ Rocket 88 convertible. Cool. I must have been hungry because I pulled into the Hasty Tasty, (a grab and go hamburger place in Burlingame). The kid at the order window took my order and I waited a couple of minutes for the food. When the food arrived, I pulled a handful of change out of my pocket, in with the dimes and quarters were a couple of guitar picks and the kid said, You play the guitar? It was almost a lie but I said, Sure, do you play? The kid said, Yeah, say I get off work in a few minutes, wanna stick around and maybe we could play some records at my place? I agreed. I loved records. A little while later The Kid came out, walked up to me and said, Hi, I’m Chuck McCabe.

When my father acquired that Silvertone guitar he was helping me get ready for this moment in time. All my stars were aligned and the gods were smiling.

Chapter 3

Chuck McCabe and Me Circa 1964

Chuck

Charles Henry McCabe III was born on August 24, 1944 in Pensacola Florida, I believe at the U.S. Naval Air Station where his father was stationed. His extended family called that part of Florida home and he had a substantial number of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents that he spent his early years with while his father was stationed in Europe or the Pacific. I think those relatives were from his mother’s side of the family, and I know that his childhood experiences there produced some great songs. As a Navy brat Chuck moved frequently from one duty station to another throughout his fathers Navy career. I think that I heard Chuck mention some time in Norfolk Virginia, in Hawaii and at Point Mugu, California during his fathers’ service. While at Point Mugu, Chuck went to Cal State but left before finishing his studies. At Cal, Chuck played guitar in a folk quartet called The Three Shillings & One. The group was not long lived but it was a launching pad for a very creative life, one that would touch many other lives with music and friendship and devotion.

At 18 Chuck was a serious young man with a cherubic face, a lot of dark wavy hair and a passion for bluegrass music. He was new in the area and didn’t know any musicians...the gods were laughing.

When we arrived at his house, he explained that he lived with his parents and a brother and sister and that we must enter the house quietly. A hard thing to do because when he opened the door a huge Weimaraner charged us, barking and slavering and eyeing me as if I was a juicy T-bone. Chuck collared the dog and we hustled downstairs to his basement room. A bed, a record player, stacks of records everywhere and in the corner a Gibson Golden Mastertone 5 string banjo, a serious instrument for a serious player. He pulled an album out of its jacket placed it on the turntable and said, Listen to this... She was just seventeen, you know what I mean... It was the Beatles first album, a UK release. He said, Listen to those harmonies. It was easy to see his passion. Later he played some Flatt and Scruggs bluegrass records and we talked about the music. I told him that I played a little Doc Watson but that I didn’t know much about bluegrass. He said, That’s okay, I’ll teach you. And for the next 48 years I was his student.

Chuck worked days and I worked the graveyard shift so we would get together in the evenings to work on songs. His skill with the banjo was professional grade, an all-around great bluegrass banjo player. So where did I fit in? He showed me the chords and the passing notes and the phrasing and patiently helped me put it all together. And he loaned me some of his 33 1/3 rpm bluegrass records so that I could play them at 16 rpm and steal the licks.

I lived out in the boondocks, so when we practiced it was occasionally at his place but usually outside somewhere. Chuck didn’t get any encouragement from his parents regarding his music, or much of anything else as far as I could see. His father was a stern professional soldier retired from the Navy and working as an insurance agent, his mother was aloof and unapproachable. His brother, younger by a few years, was a solitary figure lurking around the house and his sister, younger yet, was shy and seldom spoke, another dysfunctional family. Arguments between the father and mother were loud and lengthy and the tension in the house was palpable. Years later the parents would divorce, I think they waited too long.

When cold weather arrived, practicing outside was no longer practical. We needed someplace warm. Chuck said that he had discovered just the place, and it was near his house (and near my job). Just the place turned out to be the Bluebell Laundromat in Belmont. We would stroll in about 8:00 or 8:30 and practice until about 11:30. The patrons didn’t seem to mind and I could multi-task by doing my laundry while we worked on the tunes. The winter of 1963 we spent a lot of time at