Tracheotomy

I wrote a song many years ago called "I Can't Wait to do a Tracheotomy." It's a love song. Some of my friends here might know it. I was just thinking about that song, and about my father, while looking out over a wide expanse of our Rogue Valley from the deck of my friend Eric's house - he's in Argentina - smoking a Seneca brand filterless cigarette that I bought on the Tonawanda Indian Reservation in Western New York recently. I was in Western New York to visit my father, and various other wonderful elements of my family. 


My father, it turned out, actually had a tracheotomy some years after I wrote that song. Some years after that he presented me with the metal tracheotomy contraption that he'd had to wear during that episode. The grandkids tell me he blew bubbles through it now and then. Dad gave the device to me because I'd written a song called, "I Can't Wait to do a Tracheotomy," and he thought I might like to have it. 


I still have that metal tracheotomy contraption; I saw it recently while going through my possessions in preparation for our move to Australia. I found it in a sandwich bag. Still shiny as ever. I think I'll take that contraption with me to Australia. Why not? 


I tell you this only because: There are some moments, some events, some memories, some combinations of moments, events, and memories, that make this weird painful thing called Life worthwhile. For me, that's one.