By Ryan Hilligoss, Eulogy presented at Sean’s funeral September 28, 2015

I would like to open with a poem by William Wordsworth.

 Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind
Thanks to the human heart by which we live
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears

William Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations on Immortality.

In his book Walden, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” Thoreau was writing about whether we as a person are destined to conform to the norms and values of the society around us, or whether we blaze our own path through life in our own way. As we all know, Sean was unconventional and non-traditional in every which way. If you look at life as a concert on the stage, not only did Sean march to a different drummer, he heard a stage full of 100 drummers each in their own style, that only he could hear, much to our own puzzlement and bewilderment. He heard the driving back beat of Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley’s rock and roll. He heard the Chicago shuffle of the blues in Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughn. He heard the freeform jazz rhythms of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. And he heard the Texas swing of his friend Dale Watson. And to all these, Sean marched to his own beat, in his own way. And usually that way was his way or the highway with him tearing down the road on some mission, with us standing on the road’s shoulder scratching our heads on what just happened as we watched his taillights disappear down the road thinking, oh that’s just Sean, he’ll be back to pick me up soon, won’t he? Sean….hey Sean……He’s coming back to get me right?

Sean with Dale Watson, his favorite country and Americana artist

A few things about Sean you may or may not know. When we were kids, our grandfather Barr had colorful nicknames for each of us. Kevin was Tevin, I was Barski and Sean was called Shagnasty.

L-r: Tevin, Shagnasty, Barski and Hubert Barr

When he was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 3, he didn’t understand, nor could he and all he heard the doctor talk about was the word sugar. With the Sean laying in his hospital bed, the doctor said he would only live to be 25 and a big tear rolled down his cheek, knowing what this meant for him even at a very young age. After the doctor left the room, Sean asked my mom if it was because he ate too many Hostess Ding Dongs.

His first car was a yellow convertible 1972 Ford Mustang which he quickly damaged by blowing the engine while he may or may not have been out racing in the streets.

While playing Little League, he was playing catch and started to day dream while looking off into the blue sky, promptly took a ball right into his eye for which he got a tremendous black eye, quit that team and never played baseball again.

The Hilligoss Wrecking Crew: Ryan, Sean, Erin, Kevin and Joel

We all worked at our parent’s Brown’s Chicken and during his very rebellious days, took exception to some orders from our father, quit on the spot and took a job at Central Hardware for a few years while he cooled off.

He had a good friend named Brian Sharp who passed away from an accident, Sean was devastated and spoke often of him throughout his life.

Brian Sharp

When he was about 12, he broke our mom’s brand new sun recliner and promptly fixed it with masking tape and said, “Oh, she’ll never notice.” Boy was he surprised when she got home and tried to lay down.

Around 1990, he adopted a German Shepherd/Malamute which he and I promptly named Spanky and took care of together while we lived at home.

Sean and Spanky

Sean took me to see Joe Cocker and Stevie Ray Vaughn at the Fox Theater in August of 1990 which was Stevie’s second to last show before passing away in a helicopter crash.

He was a collection of contradictions. For someone who was a germaphobe and did not like his food to be messed with, he loved nothing more than to mess with other people’s food.

His most common complaint was, “How come no one told me, I wasn’t invited,” which was ironic since he was famous for making plans and not telling anyone.
I’ve only been talking for a few minutes at this point, but if he were here, he would be embarrassed with all this attention and would tell me to put a sock in it, get it together and get back to business.

When we were all kids living at home, we spent all our time together playing whiffle ball with the neighborhood gang, riding bikes, and just generally tormenting each other. During the snowy days of winter, we would go sledding for hours and hours until all of our layers were soaked, go back home and dry off and then promptly go back out again until we got in trouble for being out too late. As Kevin got older, Sean and I were left to our own devices and our favorite activity was to go off walking in the woods behind our house. Like the true explorers we were, we would walk off into the unknown wilds of Godfrey, walking along a creek that runs behind our neighborhood and all the way over behind the Godfrey water treatment facility and points beyond. Each time we would go out, we would go further and further, pushing the boundaries of our endurance, always looking ahead to what would be up around the next bend in the trail. We may have stayed out too late, often returning as darkness fell, but we always made it home.

Sean and Ryan, Godfrey, Il 1980

In the summer, we would pitch a tent in the backyard and camp out under the stars. We would talk about things, laugh, share our deepest fears and highest hopes, and try to solve some of the mysteries of life as best we could in our young minds. The highlight of each of these sleep outs was once the lights were off in the house and mom and dad went to bed, Sean and I would slip out of the tent and go on adventures around the neighborhood and around Gilson Brown, walking and scurrying around under the cover of darkness, never causing any harm, just out playing as kids do, living out parts of a movie. Fast forward 30 years to last weekend. Sean took Audrey and Anna Lynn to the Apple Fest and afterwards came back to our parent’s house. Dad drug out our old tent from the garage and set it up in the front yard so the girls could play in it. They got into it for a few minutes and then wanted to get out but Sean decided to crawl into the tent with them and they wrestled and tickled each other and laughed and carried on for a long time. He loved his girls with all his heart and tried to pass down the good things from his own childhood. As we move from childhood to adulthood and take on new roles in life with careers and family, it sometimes is easy to get lost amidst daily life and lose track of what is important, but with a little help from our families and friends, we usually can find our way home again.

Graham Ronald Hilligoss with his Uncle Sean, 2008.

As we go through life, we collect a wide assortment of human souls around us, whether they be by blood or friendship, and once they are gone from us, they can never be replaced, no matter how hard we might try. Sean was many things in life to many people including a son, brother, nephew, uncle and most importantly, a father, just to name a few, but what I will miss most is my friend. So instead of saying goodbye, I will just say, I will see you further on up the road my friend.

Robert Sean Hilligoss with his girls Audrey and Annalynn, 2015

I would like to close out with this from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass:

I depart as air…

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,

If you want to see me again, look for me under your bootsoles

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall bring good health to you nevertheless

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged,

Missing me one place, search another

I stop somewhere, waiting for you.

Godspeed Seanie

Fly on brother, fly on

Songs Played at his funeral, selected by brothers Kevin and Ryan

Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Israel Kamakawiwo’Ole

Pilgrim, Steve Earle

Amazing Grace, Elvis Presely

In The Sweet By and By, Johnny Cash

In The Garden, Elvis Presley

How Great Thou Art, Elvis Presley

I’ll Fly Away, Jason D Williams

Blood Brothers, Bruce Springsteen

The Last of the Hardcore Troubadours, Steve Earle and Bruce Springsteen

By Ryan Hilligoss, January 15, 2015

And now he’s the last of the all night, do right
Stand beneath your window ’til daylight
He’s the last of the hard-core troubadours
Baby, what you waitin’ for

He’s the last of the all night, do right
Hey Rosalita won’t you come out tonight
He’s the last of the hard-core troubadours, Steve Earle Hardcore Troubadour, 1996

(Expanded and revised text from special programming  on Sirius/XM E Street Radio, Channel 20, Be The Boss segment. To be aired Thursday 1/15 5:00pm EST, Friday 1/16 9:00am EST, and Saturday 1/17 6:00pm EST.)

This is a special post dedicated to the musical connections between Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle who celebrates his 60^th birthday on January 17. For those of you who don’t know, Steve Earle is a songwriter, singer, musician, recording artist, political activist, poet, actor and author. Earle is also the host of the Sirius/XM show Steve Earle: Hardcore Troubadour Radio that airs on Outlaw Radio, channel 60 on Saturdays at 9:00pm est and well worth the listen as each week, Earle picks a theme and plays records from a wide array of artists, genres and styles that reflect his eclectic tastes in music that have inspired and influenced his own writings and recordings over the years. As we move well into the 21st Century, Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle continue to make some of the best music of their careers.Together, their music runs on parallel steel rails and highways that stretch from the ‘New York Islands to the Redwood Forest.’

In the last fifteen years, Springsteen has released the albums, High Hopes, Wrecking Ball, Working  On A Dream, Magic, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, Devils and Dust and The Rising. Many of these rank in my own personal top 10 Springsteen albums of all time, and Wrecking Ball, The Rising and Magic rank in my top 5. Conversely, Earle has released The Low Highway, I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive, Townes, Washington Square Serenade, The Revolution Starts Now,Transcendental Blues, El Corazon, and The Mountain. All these albums combined stand as one hell of a hitting streak for two recording artists in regards to the quality of songwriting, range of styles, arrangements, topics, soul and spirit covered on these albums.

Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle, Carnegie Hall, April 2007

While E Street regulars know that Bruce Springsteen was born and raised in Freehold, New Jersey, one thing they may not know is he grew up in a section of town called ‘Texas’ that included a lot of people from Texas and other southern states who moved to the north to find jobs at the many factories in the area. Due to his surroundings, Springsteen developed a slightly southern accent which you can still hear at times in his normal speech and in his singing from time to time, most clearly to me on the song Wrecking Ball. Springsteen’s musical roots include the music of Motown and Stax studios, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, The Crystals and Shirelles, and many more including artists in country and punk music.

Steve Earle was raised in and around San Antonio, Texas and his musical roots lean more towards singer songwriters like Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker and his friend and mentor, Townes Van Zandt. My friend Jeff Calaway from Texas has heard that Earle and his family were so proud of their roots that when Steve Earle was born, the family lived in another state temporarily and they had taken soil from home with them so the first dirt he ever stepped on was native Texan soil. While Earle definitely has strong roots in country, bluegrass and folk music, he definitely can rock with the best of them, often times backed by his band the Dukes. I believe Steve Earle to be one of two of the best songwriters in American music right now and I’ll stand on my computer desk in my black running shoes and say it for all the world to hear!!!!!!  For those of you that don’t know, I’m paraphrasing a famous quote where Steve said that Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the world and he would stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in his boots for all the world to hear. While Townes may be Earle’s biggest influence, Springsteen has played a huge role, directly and more obliquely through inspiration, in the career of Steve Earle.

Pancho and Lefty: Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt

After struggling in Nashville as a songwriter and musician for over 10 years, Earle finally recorded and released his first full length album in 1986, Guitar Town. And Bruce Springsteen had two direct impacts on the recording and success of that album. First, Earle has stated that he went to see Bruce Springsteen and The E Street band in 1985 in Murphysborough, Tennessee and it was a revelation for him personally and professionally. He said it was obvious that Bruce had written Born In The USA to open the album which would open the concerts on that tour and he wanted to do the same with his album. Here are Earle’s own words, “I mean, I was gonna make a record that had sort of a theme that ran from beginning to end that was designed to put on the turntable and listen to the whole thing.  I saw that tour two weeks before I started writing the songs and there’s no way in the world that wasn’t gonna influence this record.  I mean, he opened with “Born In the USA. It’s one of the best shows I’ve ever seen to this day and it influenced me as a performer for the rest of my career. I’ve always been a very unapologetic Bruce Springsteen fan.”

The second connection between Springsteen and the success of Guitar Town is the fact that a few months after the album was released, Springsteen walked into a record store and bought  a cassette copy of the album at the suggestion of Garry Tallent who knew a few guys in Steve’s band. Someone saw Springsteen buy the album, the news got printed in Billboard magazine, and the album sold out the existing 30,000 copies at the time and became a hit. Earle has stated that Springsteen’s endorsement of his record at the time greatly helped pave the way to a long, successful career.

Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby Now

Steve Earle and Bruce Springsteen, February 6, 1998. Sea Bright, New Jersey

My good friend Shawn Poole has mentioned to me that much like Springsteen who has stated he wrote Fire as a demo for Elvis Presley, Steve Earle wrote a song entitled Mustang Wine which was rumored to have been submitted to RCA as a demo for a Presley recording session around 1975. While we haven’t been able to confirm the accuracy of this, what we do know is that Elvis’ fellow Sun Record alumn Carl Perkins, who was a major early rock and roll influence, did record Mustang Wine in 1977. On February 6, 1998 at the Tradewinds in Sea Bright, New Jersey, Springsteen joined Steve Earle live on stage, only a few weeks after Carl Perkins had passed away. They played several songs together including Guitar Town, I Ain’t Ever Satisfied, Dead Flowers and  a cover of Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, a big hit for Perkins in the early Sun Record days.

A Land of Hopeful Wanderers

Over the years, I’ve walked into a lot of record stores and bought all the records of both of these great artists. One of the things that has struck me is their uncanny ability to write songs and record albums that speak to the times around us and what is going on in our nation and the larger world around us in a timely, prescient manner. Several of their albums have been released within a relatively close period of time and have had common themes, and some even have very common songs. One topic that has been important to both of them is our nation’s history of immigrants and the role they have played in the successes and failures of our nation. In 2010, Springsteen received the Ellis Island Family Heritage Award award which honors Americans whose families came through the Port of New York and Ellis Island and said, “With all the immigrant furor out there, it’s good to remember that we’re a nation of immigrants, of hopeful wanderers. And we cannot know who is coming across our borders today, whose story will add a significant page to the American story. Who will work hard, who will raise a family, whose new blood will strengthen the good fabric holding our nation together.”

In 2006 as part of the Seeger Sessions project, Springsteen wrote a new song American Land and in 2007, Earle released Washington Square Serenade which includes City of Immigrants. In Earle’s song, he sings, ” All of us are immigrants, every daughter,every son. River flows out and sea rolls in, washing away nearly all of my sins, living in a city of immigrants.” American Land was inspired by a poem written by immigrant steel worker Andrew Kovaly set to music by Pete Seeger and he writes of the nation’s ideals and hopes of the masses, “There’s diamonds in the sidewalk, there’s gutters lined in song. Dear I hear the beer flows through the faucets all night long. There’s treasure for the taking for any hard working man who will make his home in the American Land.” I’d like to dedicate this next set to fellow E Street Radio listener and frequent caller Patrick from Chicago who immigrated to America in 1985 from Ireland looking for a better life for himself and his family.

One Of These Days I’m Gonna Lay This Hammer Down

Some hard travellin’ troubadours: Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie

Pete Seeger, musician, folk music archivist, social activist, is one artist that both Springsteen and Earle have been inspired by, and each recorded and performed with him before he passed away last year. In 2012, both artists recorded with Seeger on his album A More Perfect Union, Springsteen on God’s Counting On You, God’s Counting On Me and Earle on This Old Man Revisited. The connections between them all goes back to the music of Woody Guthrie who chronicled the lives of those suffering around him during the Great Depression in the 1930s, the echoes of which have carried throughout the country to this day. Pete Seeger sang and recorded with Woody and picked up Woody’s spirit of activism and carried on his musical legacy. In his classic If I Had A Hammer, Pete sings about hammering out love between brothers and sisters. He sings about ringing his bell in the morning and evening. He sings about singing his song all over the land. And he sings about having a hammer of justice, a bell of freedom and a song of love. Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle have been asking the same questions as those earlier artists, and in their observations and recordings, they point out to their fans and listeners the problems they see around us and in essence, ask us what we are willing or able to try to help solve them. It’s like in Death To My Hometown when Springsteen sings “now get yourself a song to sing and sing until you’re done, yeah sing it hard and sing it well.” What all of these artists ask us to do is find our song whatever that may be, not in song or music necessarily but in whatever creative ways we are capable of, and to take action and help each other get through the hard times. These next songs best exemplify the work and music that continues the spirit of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and countless others who have used music to push the national conversation along whether on social justice, homelessness, hunger, crime and punishment, government or war. Springsteen recorded Woody Guthrie’s Hobo’s Lullabye for the album Give Us Your Poor and includes background vocals and banjo by Seeger.

I’d like to dedicate these songs to my grandfathers Robert Samuel Hilligoss and Hubert Barr, one who served in the USMC during WWII and the other who served in the Civilian Conservation Corps during the darkest days of the Great Depression. Both were men who came from hard backgrounds but who served their country in a time of need, worked hard their whole live to give their kids and families a better life and carried themselves with pride and dignity no matter the circumstances.

Steve Earle and Pete Seeger

Burning Down My Hometown

As their careers have continued, Springsteen and Earle have expanded their musical styles and songwriting topics to include matters of local, national, and international levels. Back in 1999, Earle recorded his excellent bluegrass album, The Mountain, with the Del McCoury Band. Six years later, after being asked to participate in a Pete Seeger tribute album, Springsteen formed a band that became the Seeger Sessions Band which he used to record many traditional folk and American classics from the Seeger/American catalog. While Springsteen was recording and releasing The Rising and Magic that spoke to our post 9/11 times including wars overseas and the costs to the troops and families back home as well as the lives of the people in those countries, Earle was recording and releasing the albums Jerusalem, The Revolution Starts Now, Washington Square Serenade and I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive which covered many of the same topics in an ardent tone. Springsteen’s release in 2012 of Wrecking Ball chronicled what had happened to the country since the economic meltdown of 2008 with its impact on hundreds of millions of citizens, their families, lives and bank accounts. In 2013,  Earle released the Low Highway which also spoke power to the state of the country’s citizens and their plight to make ends meet and for those citizens who remain ‘Invisible.’ In Springsteen’s song Death To My Hometown, his protagonist warns his friends, coworkers and neighbors that the vultures are here to pick their bones and beseeches them to do something about it, personified by the sound of a gun being loaded followed by a hearty….Hey!!!! In Earle’s song Burning It Down, his protagonist sits in his pickup truck in his hometown thinking about burning down the local WalMart using a homemade bomb because “things will never be the same around here.” Both characters feel overwhelmed by mysterious, outside forces that don’t have individual names and faces, but they want to take action and regain some semblance of control over their lives.

People lining up for something to eat, and the ghosts of America watching me along the low highway

There’s A Dirty Wind Blowing

In 2004, Earle released The Revolution Starts Now and in 2007, Springsteen released Magic.Both albums play as a scorched earth take on the first GWB administration, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the treatment of the soldiers and the citizens of those countries affected by the decisions of our nation’s “leaders”. On Magic, songs including Long Walk Home, Devil’s Arcade and Last To Die are essential listening for understanding the mindset and psychology of what was happening at the time. One line from Long Walk Home has been ingrained in my mind from the first time I heard it which may be one of his greatest of all time, “That flag flying over the courthouse, means certain things are set in stone/Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t.” The rage and condemnation are openly at a boil throughout both albums. While varying in styles, tempos and lyrical content, they both hold a magnifying glass to the horrors of what is happening and what has been lost along the way including our constitutional freedoms, lives, and spirits. Earle writes in the liner notes to The Revolution Starts Now, “The Constitution of the United States of America is a REVOLUTIONARY document in every sense of the word. It was designed to evolve, to live, and to breathe like the people that it governs. It is, ingeniously, and perhaps conversely, resilient enough to change with the times in order to meet the challenges of its third century and rigid enough to preserve the ideals that inspired its original articles and amendments. As long as we are willing to put in the work required to defend and nurture this remarkable invention of our forefathers, then I believe with all my heart that it will continue to thrive for generations to come. Without our active participation, however, the future is far from certain. For without the lifeblood of the human spirit even the greatest documents produced by humankind are only words on paper and parchment, destined to yellow and crack and eventually crumble to dust.”

We All Walk The Long Road: Dead Man Walking Soundtrack

Swing Low, swing low and carry me home

Another interesting connection between Springsteen and Earle is that both artists were asked to write songs for the movie Dead Man Walking, directed by Tim Robbins and starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn and tackled the hard topics of class, violence, murder, and capital punishment. Springsteen wrote and recorded Dead Man Walkin’ and Earle wrote and recorded the superlative Ellis Unit One. Another artist who recorded for the soundtrack was Johnny Cash, who heavily influenced Bruce’s writings during The River and Nebraska sessions. Johnny wrote In Your Mind for the soundtrack and Steve Earle who had been away from recording for a period of time while he worked his way through some dark days, came into the studio with Johnny and played rhythm guitar and got to duplicate Luther Perkins signature chicka boom guitar pattern on the song. Earle has said that when he walked into the studio, Johnny Cash was sitting at a table waiting for him with a picnic basket and instead of trying to talk to him about his recent troubles, Johnny simply reached for the basket and asked, “Hey Steve, you want some tenderloin and biscuits June made this morning?” Earle said he will be forever grateful to Johnny Cash and that moment in which Johnny didn’t push the issue a lot of other people wanted to talk about, and just let it play it out with his normal grace and humility.

Is There Anybody Out There, Deliver Me From Nowhere

Are you tuning in and turning on?

I want to close this out with a cover of State Trooper performed by Earle from Austin City Limits in which he introduces the song by saying, “This one was written by a pretty good hillbilly singer from New Jersey named Bruce Springsteen.”  On Magic’s Radio Nowhere, Springsteen sings of trying to find his way home but only hearing a drone bouncing off a satellite that is crushing the last long American night and wondering if there is anyone alive out there. From Washington Square Serenade, Earle sings on his song Satellite Radio, about wondering is there anyone out there…one two three…on the satellite radio and at the galaxy’s end where the stars burn bright are you tunin’ in and turnin’ on, and he begs some greater power to listen to him kindle the spark and answer his prayer. His lyrics reminded me a lot of the driver in State Trooper with his thoughts of radio’s jammed up with talk show stations, ‘It’s just talk, talk, talk till you lose your patience. Somebody out there, listen to my last prayer. Hi ho silver-o deliver me from nowhere.’ Earle’s version makes me think this is what State Trooper might have sounded like if Springsteen had recorded an electric, studio version with the E Street Band instead of the acoustic version we have on the album. We fans have heard of there being “electric Nebraska” recordings out there, and unless Springsteen digs deeeeeep into the vaults, we’ll never know the answer to that. But I do know that all of you are out there listening on the Satellite Radio…so on…. one…two….three, tune in and turn it up. Happy birthday Steve Earle, thank you for your music, artistry and voice. We’ll be out here waiting for your new album Terraplane set for release in a few months and maybe with any luck a new Springsteen album. Keep on rocking down Copperhead Road you hardcore troubadour.

State Trooper cover/Satellite Radio/Radio Nowhere

 Postscript/Notes/Miscellaneous

Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle, Carnegie Hall, April 5, 2007

New Jersey/Tennessee Blues

In 1989, after the Tunnel of Love and the Amnesty International tours were over, Bruce Springsteen decided to make some changes in his professional and private life and try another set of possibilities. He called the members of the E Street Band to let them know he was heading in a different direction without them. Then he moved from his beloved New Jersey, the area that had anchored his life and was the setting for many of his albums, characters and songs, and moved west. As we moved into the 21st Century,Steve Earle moved away from Nashville, his Guitar Town, where he had recorded and written for many years, and moved to New York City. In the liner notes of Washington Square Serenade, Earle writes, “As long as there’s been an East and a West, Easterners have been heading West in search of fortune and fame and Westerners have periodically appeared at the gates and reported that it is, indeed, big out there! Of course, most of those who took Horace Greeley at his word never returned and not everyone who came to the city stuck it out but one man’s frontier is, after all, another man’s limit and it takes all kinds and all manner of comings and goings to make a village. Now that I have finally arrived in my own personal city of dreams and walked streets with names that I’ve heard sung all my life, I still don’t have any answers.” Both artists wrote songs saying goodbye to their pasts and each reference their past lives and songs. In Going Cali, Springsteen writes, “Like his folks did back in 69, he crossed over at Needles and heard the Promised Land on the line.” In Tennessee Blues, Earle says goodbye to Guitar Town, both the town and his first album.

Nebraska: The scariest album ever!!!

Again, according to my friend Jeff Calaway, Steve Earle was teaching as a guest lecturer at a university, played Springsteen’s album Nebraska for the class and then described it as the scariest album he’s ever heard. He also referred to Bruce as a “pretty good hillbilly from New Jersey.”

I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive

In addition to all of his other talents, Steve Earle is one of the finest writers working today. In 2002, Earle published a collection of short stories entitle Doghouse Roses. In 2012, he published a novel, I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive which is written from the perspective of Doc Ebersol, the doctor blamed for the death of country music legend Hank Williams. It’s incredibly well written with lots of great characters and descriptions of San Antonio, highly recommended. His memoir I Can’t Remember If We Said Goodbye is to be published on June 30, 2015 and I’ll be first in line to get a copy.

One of my favorite passages from I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive:

“Lonely’s a temporary condition, a cloud that blocks out the sun for a spell and then makes the sunshine seem even brighter after it travels along. Like when you’re far away from home and you miss the people you love and it seems like you’re never going to see them again. But you will, and you do, and then you’re not lonely anymore. Lonesome’s a whole other thing. Incurable, Terminal. A hole in your heart you could drive a semi truck though. So big and so deep that no amount of money or whiskey or dope in the whole goddamn world can fill it up because you dug it yourself, and you’re digging it still, one lie, one disappointment, one broken promise at a time.”

http://www.amazon.com/Ill-Never-This-World-Alive/dp/0547754434/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421290948&sr=1-1&keywords=steve+earle

By Ryan Hilligoss, November 2014

Herman Francis Hilligoss and Ryan Barr Hilligoss, 2011

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass of glory in the flower
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind
Thanks to the human heart by which we live
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears

William Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations on Immortality.

The Broom Corn King

(This is an expanded version of comments I made at the funeral service for Herman Francis Hilligoss who passed away recently at the age of 86. Herman was my fraternal great uncle, brother to my grandfather Robert Samuel Hilligoss, and great great uncle to my two kids, Graham Ronald Hilligoss and Aurora Eva Rose Hilligoss whom we named respectively in honor of my deceased uncle Ronald Edwin Hilligoss and Eva Wright Hilligoss, out of respect to my grandfather and Herman and the rest of the family.)

In 1968, Simon and Garfunkel released their signature song, Mrs. Robinson. The song, originally titled Mrs. Roosevelt as an ode to Eleanor Roosevelt, shot to #1 on the record charts and later won them a Grammy. An earlier version was released the prior year as part of the classic movie, The Graduate. In the song, Paul Simon wrote the lyrics:

Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio

Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you

What’s that you say Mrs. Robinson

Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away, hey hey hey

Joe Dimaggio, who never suffered from a great sense of humor or irony, did not care for the lyrics or the song. Dimaggio told many friends, “I don’t know what he’s talking about, I didn’t go anywhere, I’m right here.” Paul Simon meant the lyrics as a tribute to the baseball legend and what he represented to so many. Simon later explained to Dimaggio himself at a restaurant that “the line was meant as a sincere tribute to his unpretentious heroic stature, in a time when popular culture magnifies and distorts how we perceive our heroes.”

When I consider the word hero, I think simply of someone you admire for one characteristic or another, someone you observe and say to yourself, there’s someone I can learn from and try to follow in their footsteps a little. I have a lot of heroes in my life, some famous from the world of sports like Lou Gehrig and Bob Gibson, musical artists and authors, but also some from friends and family around me. And Herman is one of those that I’ve admired over the years for his gentle nature, that twinkle in his eyes and his kindness. Empires rise and fall, dreams fall apart, farms fail, time passes, our lives are adrift, but kindness never fades. Herman’s kindness to me and everyone else will last forever.

from left to right: Herman Francis, Ronald Edwin, Robert Lee and Richard Eugene Hilligoss. Phoenix, Az 1988

He was a humble and modest and good and decent man, a true gentleman, and one of the nicest people I’ve been lucky to have in my life.  He lived a quiet life, a decent life, a good life, a meaningful life filled with family and friends. He knew what was important in life and did the best he could to raise a fine family.The measure of a person can be counted in many ways, but one of the most important is how they treat others as they go through life. And Herman treated me like a friend and a grandson and for that I will forever be grateful.

Once he and I were talking about some of the trips he had taken over the last couple of years including to Hermann, Missouri to attend his naval reunion. I asked him if he had any interest in visiting any sites overseas like Rome or Berlin. He simply replied, “No, I’ve seen everything I want to see right here in North Okaw Township.” My exposure to Herman and Aunt Virginia started in childhood through family reunions held in Tuscola, Illinois and trips to see him at home either with my grandparents or with my father. Once my grandparents took me and my brother Sean with them in their RV during one of their annual trips from Phoneix back to Coles county amd we stayed in the RV which was parked across the street from Herman’s house in Silver Springs. One memory I will aways carry is for looking for worms in the dry earth so we could fish in the Flat Branch behind Herman’s house. Finding no worms, we used plastic worms which we kept losing to a snapping turtle swimming lazily in the brown muck. As I grew up and got older and while attending Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, I decided to go see my uncle and aunt on my own volition without being prompted by anyone else. I guess what kept drawing me back over the years, especially after my own grandparents passed away, was how Herman connected me to past generations and the land from which my family had come from. He was a tangible reminder of where we came from and who we are as people. Without a connection to our past, we go through life adrift, cut loose from what anchors us to our center.

Four generations: Father’s Day 2010, Humboldt, Il cemetery

As we go through life, we collect a wide assortment of human souls around us, whether by blood or friendship, and once they are gone from us, they can never be replaced, no matter how much we try. Herman was many things in life to many people including a son, brother, husband, father, grand-father, uncle and father in law just to name a few, but what I will miss most is my friend.

From Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass:

I depart as air…

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,

If you want to see me again, look for me under your bootsoles

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall bring good health to you nevertheless

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged,

Missing me one place, search another

I stop somewhere, waiting for you.

While I know he’s no longer here on earth and his spirit has moved on, his love and the spirit of his memory will carry on because as a friend of mine likes to say, as long as we’re here and you’re here, then he’s here. As those around us that we’ve grown to love pass away, all we can do is take the best parts of them, those parts that we love and admire and pass them on to those that follow in our footsteps. In closing, instead of saying goodbye, I will just say, I’ll see you further on up the road my friend.

Herman Francis Hilligoss with Aurora Eva Rose, Graham Ronald and Ryan Hilligoss, Humboldt, Il

We stand together shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart

Well, surprise, surprise, surprise, happy birthday to you Mr. Springsteen on this very special day. Greetings from Illinois, the Land of Lincoln. My name is Ryan Hilligoss, better known as “Ryan from Chicago” to regular listeners of E Street Nation and The Wild and The Innocent. While the music and programming on E Street Radio are excellent, what Dave, Jim, Vinnie and others, but more importantly, the listeners have truly accomplished has been creating an incredible community and collection of friends who have come together through this channel and developed true, meaningful friendships through your music. And because of this community, I was given the opportunity to speak today.

I’ve been thinking and stewing about this for a few weeks because what do I say to someone I’ve listened to on a daily basis for a very long time? What do I say to an artist whom I’ve admired since I was a ten year old growing up in Alton, Illinois where I was fortunate to have a cool, older brother who drove me around with The River, Nebraska and Born In The USA blasting from the tape deck as we rolled down the windows and let the wind blow back our hair? What do I say to someone whose music and art I’ve listened to and absorbed as part of who I am as a person all this time. What can I say that at this point in your life and career, that you haven’t heard a million times over? In the end, all I can say and would like to say, simply, is thank you.

In 1951, JD Salinger published his classic The Catcher In The Rye, in which his teenage protagonist Holden Caulfield had this to say, “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.” And while most of your “books” have been albums and songs, the same applies to me and you. With each song and album, I’ve listened, absorbed the music and words, reflected and wanted badly to call you and ask you questions or just let you know how much I enjoyed the music and the moment. Despite the fact I’ve seen you in person several times in concert, we’ve never met and probably never will, but by Salinger’s definition, we share a friendship over space and time built on the moments of time I’ve spent with you over the years watching or listening to a master craftsman at work. The point of culture and art is to connect us to our core humanity through the artists we come in contact with, and when we share those moments with our friends and family around us, those artists and their work become the fabric of our lives, our minds and our souls.

Well down at the end of Lonely Street is Heartbreak Hotel

I have a blog site, unionavenue706 on wordpress.com where I write a lot about your music and a lot of other artists including Elvis Presley whom we both admire for his music, his impact on American and world culture, and for his personal story and his dreams of living in a better land where all my brothers and sisters walk hand in hand.  After Elvis died, you said “It was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody’s ear and somehow we all dreamed it.” One of my favorite songs of yours is Follow That Dream in which you took one of Elvis’s songs and made it your own. Just like in Jack of All Trades when the character says, “So you use what you’ve got, and you learn to make do. You take the old and you make it new”, you took an existing piece of art, rearranged the music, slowed down the tempo to dramatic effect and added new lyrics to make a masterpiece in which you sang about following our dreams no matter how distant they are and no matter where they lead until we can find the love we need.

You once said, “I believe that the life of a rock and roll band will last as long as you look down into the audience and can see yourself and your audience looks up at you and can see themselves, and as long as those reflections are human, realistic ones.” In 1965, Elvis met the Beatles  at his Bel Air home and the five of them spent  a few uncomfortable hours making small talk and playing a little music. Elvis was too racked with self-doubt and low self-esteem around the four Liverpool Lads who had stormed America, and the Beatles were in awe being in the same room with one of their idols. You’ve long played in concert with many of your inspirations such as Sam Moore, Darlene Love and Chuck Berry, and now, you’re returning the favor to those who grew up idolizing you such as Brian Fallon of Gaslight Anthem, The Dropkick Murphy’s and Eddie Vedder to name a few. You allow those younger musicians an opportunity to make a human connection, to “make that dream real.” That is the key difference between the two: Elvis’ artistry ended at a certain point in time, but you have continued to grow as an artist and as a performer. At the end of Elvis’ career, he could no longer look into the faces of his audience and see an accurate reflection because he could no longer see himself. Every night that you are on stage, you look into the faces of his crowd and make connections with the eyes and minds of your fans, bring fans onto stage to dance and sing, get help on vocals from younger fans on Waiting on a Sunny Day, and in the penultimate connection, literally puts your body and faith in the hands of his people by crowd-surfing from the back of the pit area back to the stage.  You put your faith in your fans, and as they pass you forward, hand over hand, they repay that faith and belief in the promise of rock and roll a thousand times over.

The Boss in the hands of his fans, literally and figuratively

Like Elvis and his music did for earlier generations, you’ve helped your listeners create true friendships that stretch across states, regions, the nation and across oceans. You’ve helped foster a sense of community filled with fairness, respect and concern for those around us, and that has formed what I like to call the collective unconsciousness of E Street Nation which holds all that is decent and true and righteous down on E Street!!!! On many occasions, you’ve talked about wanting to have a conversation with your fans on the topics and subjects that concern you and the world around us. Well, you’ve been having that conversation with us for 50 years now and it’s been one hell of a conversation, one filled with joy, laughter, tears, a lot of good times but also a lot of dark times. We’re always here with open ears, open minds and open hearts listening to you talk and in turn, you listen to us talk back whether in concerts, interviews, letters or messages like this. The next time you’re ready to start another conversation with another project or album, we’ll be here waiting.

During your concerts, often times we raise our hands in a sign of solidarity with you and the band but also in solidarity with our friends and strangers around us. As time goes by, together, with these hands, we’ll continue to search for the things that come to us in dreams, wherever they may lead and we’ll find the love we need. We’re all riding together on a universal Mystery Train towards a land of hope and dreams. A train that carries saints and sinners, losers and winners, the brokenhearted, lost souls and sweet souls departed, but in the end, we’re all good companions for this part of the ride.

Thanks Bruce. Happy birthday and may you have many more. We’ll be seeing you up the road.

(Expanded text of message recorded as part of a special project headed by Kevin Farrell and to be played on Sirius/XM E Street Radio to celebrate Springsteen’s 65th birthday.)

“I never doubted my ability, but when you hear all your life you’re inferior, it makes you wonder if the other guys have something you’ve never seen before. If they do, I’m still looking for it.” Henry Aaron

“I don’t want them to forget Babe Ruth. I just want them to remember me.” Henry Aaron

Henry ‘Hammerin’ Hank’ Aaron was born 80 years ago today in Mobile, Alabama. Aaron’s family was large and modest and Aaron spent many years as a child helping his family pick cotton and developing the strong wrists and forearms that later allowed him to hit a baseball with such power and authority. Aaron loved baseball from an early age, but his family could not afford proper equipment so he used items he found in the streets and hit bottle caps with sticks. After excelling in football and baseball in high school, Aaron caught the attention of scouts in the Negro Leagues. He started to play as a 6 foot, 180 pound, shortstop. After relocating to Indianapolis, Indiana, eighteen-year-old Aaron helped the Indianapolis Clowns win the 1952 Negro League World Series. As a result of his standout play, Aaron received two offers from MLB teams via telegram; one offer was from the New York Giants, the other from the then Boston Braves. Years later, Aaron remembered, “I had the Giants’ contract in my hand. But the Braves offered fifty dollars a month more. That’s the only thing that kept Willie Mays and me from being teammates – fifty dollars.” What a powerhouse that lineup would have been for years and years with two of baseball’s finest. Aaron and Mays were two of the last players to make the transition from the Negro Leagues to the Major Leagues before they were disbanded due to integration.

I won’t rehash Aaron’s entire career or all of the records but here are a few that standout:

– Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982

– Named as 5th best baseball player in history by The Sporting News

– 25 time All Star

-National League MVP Award winner 1957

– 755 career Home Runs, currently second only to Barry Bonds whose career is highly suspect at this time due to the alleged use of performance enhancing chemicals

-3 Gold Gloves

– Holds record for most RBIs with 2,297

-Top five in career hits with 3,771

Henry Aaron Quote

I have had a wide array of heroes in my life including writers, musicians, artists, family members and sports including Kurt Vonnegut, Miles Davis, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Gehrig and Henry Aaron. Henry broke Babe Ruth’s record for home runs months before I was born in 1974. Starting in 1973, Aaron received hate mail by the sack full, death threats and public taunting by narrow, small-minded and mean-spirited racists who were offended that a black man would try to break the most sacrilegious record in baseball held by a white man. Aaron did what he always did best, put his head down, worked hard and kept on swinging while he kept his pride, dignity and humanity at the fore front. Since his playing days were well over by the time I was cognizant, I think what attracted me to him as a role model was his quiet dignity and the way he carried himself as a man. With his wit, charm, personality, quick smile and decency, Aaron gives those who watch him a path to follow and try our best to follow in his footsteps. His humor, grace and humility can best be defined by his self-evaluation of his golf game, “It took me 17 years to get 3,000 hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.” Below is a video clip of Aaron appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman in 1982, shortly after he was elected into the Hall of Fame. And he tells of hitting his famous home run and the White House invitation he received from President Nixon.

In Search of The Hammer

About 10 years ago, I was reading a profile on Aaron and learned that he owned and operated a Krispy Kreme Donut location a few miles from Turner Field in Atlanta, Ga where the Braves play their home games. According to the article, on most days, Aaron stops in the store on his way to Turner Field where he exercises and holds an executive position with the team. On his daily stops, he checks on operations, talks with staff and stays involved. Knowing that there was a chance we could meet a legend and maybe have a donut and coffee with him, I asked my dad and Uncle Rick if they wanted to go on a road trip for southern sights, and was answered in a resounding affirmative.

We made our way from St.Louis down to Atlanta, a drive of only 8 hours with Rick in the back seat reading a Kinky Friedman novel and dad narrating the entire trip on all things historical, political and memories from his own trips to the south including an early family Christmas day trip through Atlanta on their way to Florida years ago, “I remember all the kids riding their bikes out in the streets that morning on their new Christmas presents.”

Robert Lee Hilligoss, Richard Eugene Hillligoss and Ryan Barr Hiliigoss. Krispy Kreme, Atlant, Ga 2005

Up early the next morning, we got some vague but promising directions from a maid at the hotel. After driving around for a few hours looking for one of many variations of a street, avenue, boulevard or place with Peachtree in the title, we pulled into the Krispy Kreme parking lot around 9:00. After buying our donuts and drinks, we sat around for a while, eyes peeled to the doors and heads jerking everytime someone walked in. The manager sauntered by, asked us if we were Braves fans and after telling him we were Hank Aaron fans, he told us hank had already been there today, really early in the morning and wouldn’t be back. After pouting for a good while and blaming all of our woes on Rick as we often do, we headed for the stadium to at least get some good scenery. We found the parking lot that covers what used to be Fulton County Stadium and found the spot where Hank’s record breaking blast from 1974 stands.

Robert Hilligoss and Rick Hilligoss, Atlanta, Ga

We also drove downtown and visited the boyhood home of Mrtlin Luther King Jr and the MLK Center with it’s history and resting place of the civil rights leader. The next day we headed for points south and visited Warm Springs, Ga where President Franklin Roosevelt often visited in an attempt to alleviate his polio symptoms in the warm natural waters. Roosevelt’s Little Whitehouse and museum tucked in the woods was a treasure to witness and to think of the beautiful surroundings that FDR enjoyed on his many trips and the trees he saw before he had his fateful stroke.

We went in search of a hero and legend and even though we came up empty on that score, we saw many other great things and enjoyed moments together as family and travelling companions. We didn’t get to meet Hank, but we talked about him a lot and that is stuff that legends and folk heroes are made of. Looking for one thing, we found others in their place. Searching for one road, we travelled a detour on the blue highways. All roads lead somewhere. And some are blazed by our heroes. Thanks Hank and happy birthday to one of the finest, classiest players and humans to grace the earth.

“Trying to throw a fastball by Henry Aaron is like trying to sneak a sunrise past a rooster.” Curt Simmons

Here stands baseball’s perfect gentleman. Ryan and Graham in front of the Henry Aaron statue outside of Miller Park, Milwaukee, Wi