Crystal Angels, The Backstory

First thought, I think there is a book and movie here....

I am a back roads /paths walker by nature, and enjoy walking across all seasons here in the north country of Rural Ohio. James Taylor`s `Country Roads` and `Walking Man` songs first coming out in my youth, bore right into my soul and invaded me. Walking and exploring the world has since been a huge part of me for observing the world, driving out stress and freeing my mind, and pondering life in general.

Long distances covered walking have been part of me in local and international travels, helping make many places home feeling, and leading to unexpected discoveries and sights not found in the speed of a car or train or taxi.

I made up Betty and Bill as a fictional couple and story based on my life experiences, stories from my relatives and friends, and set in a real life setting I found while out walking and exploring my world near home.

The road the farmhouse is on, just over the rise, on my walking route heading through the Vineyards and Fields of Northeast corner of Ohio in early spring.

Our home for over 30 years now, sits between the wild Grand River and a covered bridge on the edge of farmland as the paved roads head into gravel and dirt heading away from town heading south. It is bounded to the north by the shore of Lake Erie with a small vacation and marina resort with a state park and cabins. Into the hills heading to the northeast corner of Pennsylvania at the edge of Ohio Along I-90 here is a sprawl of wineries sitting in rolling vineyards with some steep ridges and canyon-like shale walls leading down to the river and its feeder creeks.

The Covered Bridge Over the Grand River , 2 miles or so from home and the Farm House

Mill Creek ,Feeder Creek to The Grand River WInter Walk 2019

It’s two miles into a small town that rapidly fades into rural America within the same distance in all directions and then to Amish farms rolling for miles even further south. Small traditional farms and mini farms dot the landscape and houses and barns range from new and luxurious to collapsing and dilapidated and lived in to abandoned and falling down.

The Local Frozen Lake Erie Shoreline in Panorama (Geneva Ohio State Park)

Some unusual History

20 miles south on the same state road lies the boxer Mike Tyson`s home he abandoned and has been reclaimed into a Church, and one State Route road over was Don Kings famous boxing training camp. True anomalies in the landscape of deeply Rural Ohio...also business diversity is incredibly strong here with Molded Fiber Glass being founded and started just down the road. They engineered the first Corvette body’s and then supplied for decades, as well as revolutionized the boating industry. The world famous golf club testing robot `Iron Byron` Was developed here with True Temper golf shafts manufacturing and testing being located nearby until a migration to the US south in the late 1970`s. Welch's Grape flavored drink boxes were made here for 20 years ending in the late 90`s. And multiple heavy and medium manufacturing plants arose, and mostly failed as labor moved/south or offshore through the 80`s and into the turn of the century.

Amish Farming, Fiberglass, Drink Boxes ,Golf Robots, and Boxing ... with Wineries/Vineyards, lake land tourism along the shore, and then a collapsing Agri-manufacturing economy creates a fascinating mix in a 20 mile radius.

So the families in the area had diverse job opportunities over the last 80 years starting with agriculture and lakefront tourism and progressing to manufacturing and technology innovation for their times.

My fictional families experienced all this change, and then decay in some cases, through the second half of the 20th Century with a backdrop of immense socio-political upheaval on the global stage that reached into lives uninvited and in many cases destructively.

Three of the Local Homesteads are below as samples , they are rapidly disappearing, literally wasting into the ground , and there are many like them that are abandoned and falling down as the economy has been destroyed and shifted away from small agriculture, and manufacturing has migrated out of this area. I constantly question what happened to the residents, families and that are the backstories as I see these skeletons of what must have thrived.

Over years, there a couple of 3 to 4 mile country blocks that I have put on regular walking, running, or cycling cadence. On one nearby road was an older farm with a crumbling barn and outbuildings and backed up to the interstate.

It was starting to decay years ago, and had caught my eye with unusual and wondrous decorations including ceramic frogs, metal shell shaped lawn chairs painted over rust circa 1950 (under the shady front tree), and lawn decorations of all kinds, plus some really old wagons and an aging tractor in the fringe woods between the freeway and the outbuildings.

I never saw a soul in passing, but there was smoke from the chimney in winter, and lawn was cut in the summer, so I knew it was inhabited. Across the street was more land, and a block building with a large Vietnam Veteran sign posted.

Background on where the Story came from

As a teenager in the 70`s , I grew up on a steady diet of Vietnam war news, protests on TV, big brothers of friends being drafted (and knowing some weren’t coming home).

Mix that in with a stream of childhood and teenage fears and horrors including a short list here that includes the Cuban Missile Crisis, Multiple Assassinations , Communist global domination fear , Race Riots, Protests, Altamont, Kent State, The Draft, and Nixon impeachment and the result is a personal dark canvas shadow for me that overrode the peace and love movements that accompanied that time. I had high anxiety of what would happen if the Vietnam war didn’t wind down by the time I was draft eligible. I am not sure how, but Kent State pulled on me, and I ended up finishing school there years later to continue the theme unintentionally. One walk by the " Pagoda" at Kent on a spring evening will bring a weight that is not welcome.

I am sure many of us had similar experiences or our parents and other family did. Globally this always has a different lens, but all are conscious of the US historical landscape and turmoil over these decades, ally or enemy.

On a different note, Growing up as a kid there was always colored or crystal glass decorations on the window sills and end tables of my Grandparents, and then my wife’s childhood home had the same. I came to associate that type of decorating and glassware display practice with the WWII age grouping , and saw many prism like lights and reflections across family apartments, homes, and the Grandparents cottage.

WWII is directly linked to me via many pieces. These include my mom’s childhood from Burma and Australia with her father in the British Army, then his disappearance, followed by her flight via freighter to the US with sister and my maternal Grandmother-my wife’s Father, a Navy man at D-day, and my Grandpa Jack an MP in WWII Germany. With this in family linkage I came to appreciate the impact of WWII PLUS Vietnam on my generation of kids in the boomer years.

Back to the current day BG the Walking Man, and the Story

Shockingly, one day I came across the house burned and deserted after watching it deteriorate over time. In the charred threshold of the house was a ceramic angel, and a real sadness came over me that stuck for some reason I can’t explain.

The burned out farm house March 2017

Almost immediately I knew I had to pull a story together from the scene and the lives lived there that haunted me almost instantly and continued for over three years now. I found I couldn't move on past this effort to new material as a songwriter so I was driven to finish the story.

I wrote the song and lyrics this January- March, writing out an imaginary story grounded in time accuracy and what actually could have happened , then with some trips back to the property for motivation and clarity, I started the music and rewrite into a song , and a long one.

I could not find a way to cut it back and tell the story. In March, almost 3 years from my first sight of the fire damage, I am now finished (never really BTW) with recording in my home studio and ready to publish. It’s all fiction pulled together from my imagination, but tied to bits of history and feelings I have had or witnessed. It’s has almost become real to me in what it symbolizes as a mash up of the human story at the back half of the 20th century.

Below are photos of the real scenes that motivated me to build the almost 90 year of Midwest saga that the song represents into 7+ minutes...from pre-WWII to the Building of the Interstate system, to Vietnam, and then to the turn of the century and finally the end of the family and abandonment fire and collapse of the house and grounds. This tiny farm did not have a pond, but they are common in the neighborhood as Interstate 90 was built through the country. I added it into the story as it just flowed into the lyrics and story.

Investigating the property I have learned there was a family of three here, the son was lost before his parents I am told, but I am not sure if in what era or why. I was told by neighbors that he parents passed in nursing care away from the property.

This is the charred stairwell internal to the house, leads to upstairs bedroom, this was a 2020 photo and the local kids have graffiti-ized the deserted house.

Below is the falling down outbuilding, life just got away as it slumps to the ground more each year, under the weight of age and neglect.

The old cart above set on the property, that over years had an older tractor moving it around over the years , there are sawmill and circular blades parts in the back field behind the house so I think the planking was all home sawn. The tractor has disappeared.

The main barn on the property today. Falling down as time and no attention taking its toll.

Literally grown into the backyard tree, this bike in a 2020 photo below, has the fork and front wheel completely frozen and embedded into this tree right behind the house the house.I took this before I knew the backstory, likely belonged to the long lost son in reality . I am unlikely to visit this again now I know…... Literally locked into the farm. This is so haunting now to me , I wonder if it was there after the son passed before the parents moved into a care setting as per neighbor reports.

I pictured Betty and Bill as a young couple in the beginning years of the war in a 40`s Small Town high school romance, that led to marriage before Bill leaving for WWII in Europe, and then his return to rural Ohio and a building of the small farm at the same time Levittown was under construction and the GI`s came home by the thousands to find work and re-enter society. I am sure hundreds of young men then went on to having a family and trying to heal from the war without PTSD understanding,and then then while working through the 50`s and raising a child and families in rural and small town America into the early and mid 60`s.

I tried to imagine what it was like in the turbulence and change of the times over that period leading up to the draft and their sons and daughters pulled into the Army/Military and Vietnam Nam and consequent loss and impact on so many lives that just barely preceded my adulthood een with such strong personal memories of Walter Cronkite on black and white TV telling the daily story of an American Tragedy that was so real to so many.

The Angel figurine in the "Threshold of the Farmhouse" front door March 2017, Un-Placed and in a haunting fallen angel pose

It’s a very sad picture and song /story, but it wrote what it wrote without me feeling in charge of the story line. I consider it a tribute to those families and people that endured the pain, joy, love, and loss that came at them during those years from the World War Two, through the turbulent years leading up to the 2000`s

Complete for Now

So now the song is out of my fingers and my head and into the world, its a moment of mixed emotions. It’s been cathartic to write but frustrating and rewarding at once. The music and techniques challenge my ability to play and sing across the instruments greatly ,and took me on an unexpected and dogged path to work on new tunings and techniques on Lap Steel guitar which I wanted to `cry` in the background to offset and pull the story and melody across the guitar centric backing.

The guitar finger-picking in time, and then up the neck of the guitar to get the sound of the chord inversions I wanted ( or maybe the song wanted) took a REALLY long time and is still ragged, and the harmonies and vocals challenge concentration over that long of a song. If imperfection is part of being human , this imperfect recording should catch the imperfection of the lives the song and story reflects, and my own limitations.

All said this is a risk thing to push out as it's so far from the mainstream, I didn’t plan it, edit it, shape it or push it anywhere except where it wanted to go in my natural flow of writing it. .. maybe a real recording studio sometime to come in the future now that its formed……..

I Hope you enjoy as much as I did the work, the creativity, and the needed the distraction over the challenging past months starting into Corona Virus early in the writing stage and into recording during the US Lockdown and global trials.

Brian Gilbert, Harpersfield Ohio, April 2020