Alice

When Alice got her camera, Charlie told me this was how he met her. My first years of co-teaching with her, there wasn't a lens in front of her at all times, but when she purchased a camera, then this image is what I saw of her most often.

Yesterday, friday, Alice called.

Traditionally, such a night usually meant that she and Charlie were picking me up and we were heading to the Rover. Now, the calls are for catching up and re-establishing how much we miss teaching side by side. I realize that the years I was fortunate to work with Alice will be extremely hard to replace. The wisdom, the humor, the intrinsic understanding of being intellectually homeless on the land of misfit toys, and the traditions were institutional to our work and occurred naturally.

Hearing from Alice now that I'm no longer teaching in the bluegrass always makes for a more karmic day. I often said that I felt like the tap dancing bee people in the Blind Melon video who, when finding Alice and the Brown, found a field of other tap dancing bees. I've been away from that hive for over three years and pushing four. And Cat Stevens Trouble plays on.