In the late 90's I was a struggling college hockey player and a self-handicapped struggling English major with a minuscule 2.1 GPA. With hockey, well sports is always a struggle for no matter how good you are there is always someone in the ranks better than you, as for Literature well it sometimes helps to buy the books you actually are assigned to read. Impressive though is the rhetoric I learned to craft when called on in class sans book nor any knowledge of what it contained. Last time I checked Hemingway never went to college and the next time I checked you don't have time to prepare for a question in life by reading what happens after you answer it. And as it stands today whenever I had to shoot from the hip my shot rifled through the air and penetrated some lesser who spent his nights studying for class.
How I spent my nights was crowded up against other sweaty bodies in small storefront bars resembling the picture above. I worked at the rink in town in the pro shop with a deranged young man who spent years listening to the dead and hours with me dipping and crafting Frankenstein like creations out of hockey gloves. CCM cuffs on Bauer palms, names embroidered just like the boys in the show. He lived on my couch for some time when we weren't in the shop or pounding Cutty Sark in the bars. With him there was another buddy from Philly who smoked non-filtered Pall Malls, another who smoked and drank everything in sight under the rein of his father who was a two star General. There was obviously a Sully and a Sean who dreamed of owning a liquor store, and there was Tommy who desperately tried to be seen as anything but a friend to every woman on campus.
With steamed windows from the freezing Boston air we'd rage and sing, drink and skull everything within our vicinity. This being Boston there was always a strong UK/Irish music scene. People who lived with the same dismal, shitty weather; people who were just as young and ready to take on the world without fear but knowing nothing. People who were growing and would eventually be consumed with that dark cloud on the horizon being adulthood.
The Frankenstein creator now owns three hockey stores in New England with a wife and two kids, his gear is worn throughout the college and professional ranks. The Pall Mall smoker moved back to Philly after some town in Charlestown, the General's son became a priest in D.C after a few years in the Senate. Sully and Sean have their liquor store and Tommy finally found a woman who wanted more than to find an arm around her shoulder while she cried over her ex. As for myself I am still the same person inside though I am sure the others feel they are the same within the constraints of their own personal consciousness.
Mumford & Sons plays a variety of traditional instruments and crafts lyrics based off of Steinbeck and Shakespeare. When not on the road Mumford runs an online bookstore which no doubt fuels the fire for more of these superbly crafted songs and melodies. Their works encompass the best of bar-folk-music showcased in their motherland, like Morrison, The Clancy Brothers and Moore before them there is Skiffle hidden within their tunes. The music born of lifetimes of hardship only lifted by a few hours in the pubs. However these boys are no run of the mill, gin joint crooners. Nor are they the political activists telling all that 26+6=1. This may be because their home is the main force in making that equation work but more so because political statements become so banal after a few minutes or one song. Their message transcends politics and delves into such worldly topics of which music belongs sticking its nose in, topics like love, longing and living just as you always knew you would. Living it wild and reckless.
We eventually moved into that dark cloud with doubt that would eventually be trumped by the beauty of all that is out there, our memories washed away by the classes behind us and their spilled beer on the century old hardwood floors. When the sun ascended up and over Boston its rays swept across the country and illuminated the remainder of the country hour by hour. Our ascent while not so instantaneous moved with universal force through the land where we made our mark in the same way we moved through the crowds to find that one girl, that last drink and eventually our own full lives. In thinking about this and believing this to be true I see the same silly pride and ego that sweated out through our pores more than a decade ago and am reassured that yes I am still that same young man though that body maybe older and bent out of shape by the winter winds and lonely hearts across that same land my rays fell over.
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