David and I walked the couple of
miles up Plochmann Lane from town, where the flag on the Village Green waved at
half-mast. At Levon's driveway, last week’s flowers now forlorn, have been
joined by fresher bunches, inscribed mylar balloons, and handwritten notes of
love. There’s a policeman managing traffic, but he’s hardly needed, and someone
from the barn keeps the buses rolling smoothly through. Walkers like us got
onto the bus at the end of the driveway and rode together through the piney woods
as if on a school field trip to a safari range in the Catskills.
I am grateful for the opportunity. We
all are. We step off the bus and go into the lower level of the barn, and left
through the hallway, slowly, to take in the photos and mementos of a life so
thoroughly lived and so well documented. Left into the main Ramble space, altar
to the spirits of song, and there his drum kit is, still, and his closed casket,
that new forever place.
There’s not much more to tell. I saw
a few people I knew and we nodded, I gave Barbara a hug, then out, and back
onto the bus, and we rode it along the north end of Plochmann, onto Glasco, down Rock City, and
were dropped at the Rec Field with a feeling of goodbye, and the sun did in
fact shine through the shadows, just like Levon said it would.
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