WyzWmn's World©

the sound: Minnie Riperton – Loving You, AC/DC – It’s a Long Way to the Top, Paul McCartney & Wings – Let Me Roll It, The O’Jays – I Love Music, Hall and Oates – Sarah Smile, Olivia Newton John – Angel Eyes, Billy Preston – Nothing from Nothing, Helen Reddy – I am Woman, Tony Orlando & Dawn – Tie a Yellow Ribbon, Rush – In The Mood, Barry White – My First My Last My Everything

There’s a huge barn/garage to the left, peeling red paint and triple sliding doors, with a hay loft door open above…and there’s more bikes and old cars and trucks in different stages of repair than I can count at a glance.

There are more people than I’d expected to see and dead ahead of us is some kind of race track, in a field marked dead centre by a huge flat top boulder the size of a small car.

Along the right side of the tree line there are numerous tents and cabanas, cars, trucks and trailers and with people milling about. At a glance I see, canvas tarps, and clothes lines, and a couple of fire pits, I smell smoke and bacon fat, all of which make me think of a “gypsy” camp from those bodice rippers/fantasy books Mike used to say I had a lien towards.

To the left of the barn/garage there’s an old red clapboard farm house…more than a little worse for the wear. The garage/barn is in much better repair. It sits on a little rise, there’s a cement pad like drive up to the huge open sliding doors in front. It too is red, but newer and has what looks to be a brand spanking new red metal roof.

I can glimpse through the open barn doors to see more tool boxes than you’d usually see at the hardware store, there’s pulley’s hanging from the ceiling, an old fashioned coke a cola machine, and the ever present music.

To the left and slightly behind the farm house there is a huge old oak tree and I spot some other rather dilapidated old buildings and shacks behind them. Running free everywhere, there’s chickens and the occasional pig…and goats, about 30 small goats noisy goats.

As BarnYard pulls up in front of the old house a group of people begin to move towards us from all over the “farm”. BarnYard and Boomer hop out and BarnYard advises as I should “get my arse up and meet people”.

[ok kiddies..another note from Wyz….don’t be surprised if this stops for a while…I think I’m getting the blahs…besides…I ain’t even sure anyone’s reading the damn thing anymore…and sometimes all this remembering isn’t pretty over here….so…don’t be surprised~I’m just sayin]

the sound: America – Ventura Highway, Barbara Streisand – The Way We Were, ABBA – Waterloo, Three Degrees – When Will I See You Again, Grand Funk Railroad – Heartbreaker, Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody, Chicago – Just You n Me, Argent – Hold Your Head Up, Rory Gallagher – Messing With the Kid, Loggins and Messina – House at Pooh Corner, Jim Croce – Operator

Conversation and laughter comes to a stand still as we drive along the side of the house and round to the back past the old white wooden 3 car garage with it’s almost French style doors. Sun flits through the leaves in the trees and I feel like I’m in a movie…a “B” flick.

As we pass the garage I begin to wonder again just where the hell we are going. We pass a huge garden, rows and rows of vegetables and flowers and I have a quick thought….“how civilized”.

Once we are completely past the garden we come to a large double wide, white, wooden gate between two very old stone palisades. Boomer hops out of the car to walk once again and walks ahead, pulling out a key ring and unlocking the padlock to open the gates.

We drive through the gates and Boomer closes and locks them behind us. He jumps back into the car and we descend down a long winding, rutted, dirt and grass road into a small valley. I turn around and look behind us and I can no longer see the house for the trees and the hillside and I begin to get that feeling in the pit of my stomach again.

“We must be getting somewhere”, I think, as I begin to hear the strains of music. We continue forward and the music gets louder and louder. It has to be loud to be heard over the roar of engines.

Lots and lots of engines and music getting louder and louder.

We break through the trees at the end of the dirt road and I am at once assaulted with sights and sounds.