When I was a younger man I could work all day and still have gas left to party all night, but now that I am quickly approaching fifty the cold cruel reality of the physical limitations of age has hit me right between the eyes like a ton of bricks! But, back in the day, it was a very different situation.
Being newly married and under the payments of a new home I worked during the day and played drums in a band 2-3 nights a week. Playing music somehow didn’t seem like work, even though I did get paid for it. I remember Roy Clark once said, "It almost seems criminal to accept payment for something that you would have done for free anyway!"
Be that as it may, I was indeed burning the candle at both ends. So, when I did get some sleep it was usually in short intervals but good quality sleep. I guess you could call them power naps. Luckily, our new love nest was situated on a remote part of my Parents farm overlooking my beloved Bear Creek valley so I figured things would be fairly quiet. No traffic noises or sirens of the city to disturb my sleep.
One particular spring weekend our band played an American Legion Post in a town about two hours away. Rather than spend the money on a hotel room I decided to drive home after the gig. There was a full moon and after an unusually hard midwestern winter I was actually looking forward to enjoying the cool spring night air. Our gig was over by 1:00 a.m. and after the customary post gig drinks and glad-handing was over I loaded up my drum set and set out on the open highway.
At around 2:00 a.m. there was hardly anyone on the road and after having just finished a four-hour set in a hot, smoky and loud atmosphere the cool quiet ride home was a nice change of pace. As I drove down the remote highways of rural south central Missouri I found myself enjoying Mother Nature in all her springtime glory. Pockets of noisy little spring croaker frogs would approach quickly and just as rapidly fade in my wake only to have more approach destined for the same fate.
My temporary love affair with Mother Nature, though, was short lived as my creative adrenaline rush was quickly wearing off and after about 30 minutes of driving I started regretting my decision to drive home. Soon, white line fever set in and the next hour and a half would turn out to be brutal. All of the typical wake up tactics were failing miserably and the rest of my trip was spent slapping myself and sticking my head out the window like an old coon dog in a desperate attempt to keep it between the lines. Finally in a frantic attempt to say focused I pulled into an all night truck stop and against my better judgment ordered a cup of coffee. When “Flo” brought me my cup it looked like it had been brewing since the Spanish Inquisition but I paid for it anyway and got back on the road.
A wave of relief washed over me when I crossed the Bear Creek Bridge and saw the familiar glow of our mailbox shining in my headlights. “Man, that bed is gonna feel good,” I mumbled to my self as I fumbled with the key to the front door. In my haste to get to bed I left a trail of clothes through the house all the way to the bedroom. Once in bed, the pillow felt soft and cool as I settled in for a good sleep. I rolled over kissed my new wife and whispered, "I love you" as I started feeling my muscles relax. I knew it wouldn’t be long before my old friend Mr. Sandman and I would be tripping the light fantastic together.
Just as I was about to drift off, it started, "Whip-or-will, Whip-or-will, Whip-or-will" from the trees right outside my bedroom window. As loud as he was, it almost seemed like the darned bird was right inside our bedroom with us. Trying not to wake up my wife I leaned over and tapped on the window. It worked! The bird stopped and once again I settled in for my first class trip to La-La Land.
"Whip-or-will, Whip-or-will, Whip-or-will!"
O.K. now this was getting personal. That bird obviously knew I was in desperate need of sleep and for some unholy reason known only to him, was set out to persecute me in the wee hours of the morning. For those of you who have never lived in the country and have never experienced the relentless racket of that noise-making zombie robot machine known as the Whip-or-will you have not lived. Chinese water torture would be a walk in the park compared to the nocturnal feathered fiends.
After a few minutes of trying desperately to ignore the bird by covering my head with the pillow and sticking toilet paper in my ears I decided to raise the stakes of our nighttime military engagement. I got my sandals on, went to the car, rummaged through my drum set until I found my cymbals.
"!&%@^%$# bird," I grumbled, "I’ll fix him good!" It’s amazing how normal level headed clear thinking adults morph into something closely resembling Yosemite Sam when it’s 4:30 in the morning and the brutal effects of sleep deprivation are setting in. As I quietly tiptoed around the edge of the house I immediately went into guerrilla stealth mode.
"Clang, clang, clang!" And the entire forest went deathly quiet with the one exception of my wife who was now quickly at the open window yelling, "Chuck, what the hell are you doing?" Followed by the ever popular, "Do you know what time it is?"
"Nothing honey, go back to bed," I said, like I actually expected that to work. After a few minutes of explaining to my blurry-eyed wife the events that led up to her rude awakening I finally calmed her down and we went back to bed.
As I crawled back between the sheets I realized there was something different. The devil bird from hell was no longer around. So, feeling a little smug I now felt safe to relax and finally get the greatly needed shuteye I had so desperately battled for.
The spring night breeze coming in through our bedroom window was wonderful as I settled into the soft covers. “Ahhh…peace at last!”
"Whip-or-will, Whip-or-will, Whip-or-will!"
Now I had always heard of shell shock, which if I’m not mistaken is temporary memory loss brought on by the horrors of war. Having never gone to war I had never actually experience it, that is until that bird started in again!
My memory failed me after that, but my wife later told me I stood straight up in bed, calmly walked over to the closet, pulled out my Remington 12 gauge, shucked a shell into the chamber, gently kissed my wife on the forehead and whispered, "I’ll be right back!"
As dawn broke over the Ozark Mountains, my wife awoke to the shadow of a broken man staring out the kitchen window gently cradling a cup of coffee in his shaking hands and peering out in the morning light at the extent of the carnage. Practically every tree within gun range was pock marked with pellet holes making painfully clear the severity of my sleepless rage.
In my defense I can only plead temporary insanity and throw myself on the mercy of my wife. I never heard the "Devil Bird" again so I must have been victorious but ever since that night when I hear the familiar spring sounds of, "Whip-or-will, Whip-or-will, Whip-or-will" I cringe and automatically reach for my medication!
