Let Me Tell You About My Friend… To say that Date Saburu Yukiie had a reserved demeanor would be to say that Mt. Fuji was just a mountain. Like the famed peak, Date was a presence without ostentation. He did not feel the need to announce his presence; he was simply there, and one felt better for it (in the vein of “at least there’s one fellow in the room who knows what he’s about.”) When others chuckled, Date would smile. When others laughed, Date would chuckle. (Remember this, it’s important.) It was at one of the SCA wars at Potrero, when God was in His Heaven, all was right with the world, and I was apparently in my cups after a long meander through the war site, where my bardic abilities was well rewarded with the fruit of the vine, the water of the barley, and the squeezings of the corn, I found myself in the encampment of my favorite samurai and his lovely Lady. Among the songs in my repertoire, Dater appreciated my rendition of “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”. It was an easy song to play on the guitar, and during the ethereal ghostly calm of a campfire, the story came to life in the flicker of the flames and the minds of the listeners. Every time I performed that piece, it was in reverence to the men who perished on that Great Lake under circumstances far beyond their control. Unfortunately, there are times when the Muse throws curveballs at inappropriate times. News anchors suffer giggling fits while reporting tragic stories (it even happened to Paul Harvey, I understand.) Being deep in the bottom of a mead horn, I suffered a similar fate, with a filking spirit for garnish. (To “filk” is to replace the original words of a song with different ones; Weird Al is famous for filking anything and everything.) Thus it was that my esteemed host requested “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”, and I, your humble scribe, did my level best to comply. I did mention that I was in my cups, didn’t I? I launched into the song with full intent to do it justice, as I had a thousand times before, but the words that came out went far beyond the pale, and like a good ale, it just flowed. Mercifully I only remember the first verse of this new construct, but it is reported that I carried through the entire song: “The legend lives from the Chippawa on down, of the good ship The Screaming Green Gecko. That good ship and crew, all vatos but two, and they were two guys from Chiacago…” And it went downhill from there… Remember when I said that Date was “reserved”? You could take him to any of a dozen celebrated stand-up comedians, and you might get him to chuckle a few times, and maybe get one decent laugh out of him. But when I looked over at him during the middle of the song, he had fallen out of his chair, curled up in convulsive mirth, scarcely able to breathe, guffaws and snorts being the order of the evening. It was the sort of moment so removed from the norm that one might start looking for the murder of white ravens to fly overhead. I don’t remember the rest of the song, but apparently I went big on it, and while the specifics cannot be recalled (thank goodness), what is remembered is the evening where Date Saburu Yukiie departed his normal reserved, and was verily carried away in the arms of Mirth. It was the greatest gift I could give him, and remains one of my favored memories.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 16:43:59 +0000
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