Dear Momma:
June 16, 2000

As a boy growing up in Starkansaw, my summers were always spent miles from home at some sort of camp for wayward youth. My mother would pack up a knapsack full of clothes and cans of Spam, lecture me about clean underwear and make me stand in front of my dad until he would kiss me goodbye.

I hated this part and so did my dad. Boys in the Starke family don't really cotton to that sort of affection; we only did it to silence Mom. Dad would make me wait for 30 minutes while he read the sports pages, cut his toenails and kept clearing his throat with a sound that always reminded me of a big bullfrog in mid-road kill. Eventually Mom would grab the paper out of his hand and point a .38 right at his forehead and begin to shriek: "Give him a #$%%^ kiss, Al. For God's sake he's your son and you won't see him for two months."

Dad would finally reach over and, with breath that smelled like gasoline spilled in a locker-room, kind of pass his cheek by mine like two magnets turned opposite. He would then hold me close and chant a song over and over that went something like "One-two, three-four-five, six, seven-eight-nine, ten!" (I didn't know it at the time, but he was actually teaching me how to count!)

In a way the ritual of saying goodbye to my dad worked, for whenever I would feel homesick, I would remember the legendary breath of Alcatraz Starke and it would cure my blues real fast.

Then, right as Mom put me on the Greyhound bus, she would hand me a stack of stamped envelopes, a pad of paper and a box of pens. "Write me, Raiford," she would say earnestly. "You never know if I might drop dead while you're gone and I don't want you to feel guilty about not writing your mother before she died."

Looking back on it now, this is where my writing career began. I remember it just like yesterday, sweating beneath a canvas tent while all the other boys were running around playing Sasquatch. They were playing and having fun while I strained by the beam of a flashlight to think of the right words to let my Mom know I missed her.

This is also where my lifetime problem with writer's block began.

It's been a good three years since the last time I went to summer camp. To be honest, I couldn't take saying goodbye to my dad anymore, so I put my foot down and told Mom: "I ain't goin' back, Mom."

I know it hurt her not to receive those summer letters. So, this year, just for old time's sake I thought I would write her one more letter and tell her what I've been doing with my summer hanging out with Chief Billie of the Seminole Indians:

Dear Momma:

So here I am your son, Raiford Starke with another terminal case of chronic writer's block. As we go careening down the runway in an airplane the Chief says used to belong to King Hussein, I look out the window over Navaho Country and realize this place reminds me of Florida, except for the buttes, prairie dogs and sagebrush. But I'm getting ahead of myself, Mom.

It all started in White Springs, Florida at the Florida Folk Festival. I was hanging out at the Seminole camp and trying to order some frybread from Lorene Gopher, and she gave me a watermelon instead - and I mean it was a big watermelon. I ate as much as I could, and saved the rest of it in my beard. All of the sudden it was show time. "Man, what's wrong with you," said Pete from Sunset Beach as he pointed over towards the Marble Stage, "the Chief and the band are waiting for you over there."

"Uh, tell 'em to do a couple of warm-up numbers," I told him, "while I go down to the Suwannee River and get this watermelon juice off my fingers . . . I mean, I can't get this stuff all over my guitar."

But before I slipped away, I could here some chanting: "Raiphord! Raiphord! Raiphord!" It was some Phish fans who recognized me from the Big Cypress millennium concert. I couldn't just leave now, Fame was a-knock-knock knockin.'

As I made my way towards the stage and my guitar, I saw children's performer Shana Blueberryana. I said in my most genteel country gentleman-like manner, "I would surely be pleased as punch if you let me do the honor of wiping my fingers across your pretty, orange and white plaid dress."

As I commenced to rubbing,' she quickly responded with a stinging left hook to my right jaw. The show must go on, however, so I jumped up on stage as Chief Jim Billie was explaining to the audience how when the temperature gets real hot in the swamp, "my people don't wear underwear," before going into "Old Ways Will Survive."

Before the slack-jawed audience even had a chance to catch their breath, I immediately kicked into a Cajun-sounding ditty that I wrote. It went something like " . . . Nothin' can compare when a- pushin' comes to shovin' . . . nothin' shows that you care . . . like a good Dutch Oven . . ."

I'm telling you, Mom, for a song that wasn't even noticed at this year's Will McLean Songwriting Festival, "Dutch Oven" sure caused quite a stir at White Springs. After I saw it, next thing you know I'm approached in back of the amphitheater stage by folk legend Ramblin' Jack Elliot, bluegrass legend Vassar Clements as well as Florida State folk impresario Crawfish Ken.

"I smell a hit with that one, Raiford," said Ramblin' Jack. Meanwhile his fiancee, Ramblin' Jane, is begging me to teach her the chords.

"I predict," old' Craw proclaimed, "that 'Dutch Oven' will be the next 'Hold Back the Waters of Lake Okeechobee' of the Florida Folk Festival."

Ramblin' Jack and Vassar both nodded in agreement.

String Wizard John McEuen was suspicious of me from the start, however. "I would like to know," he said, "what's Raiford Starke's name doing on such a personal song about a kitchen appliance?"

I've got to give credit to you Ma. Ever since you told me the story about the Dutch Oven that Dad gave you the night I was conceived. I guess I owe you two a lot - at least half of the royalties - or would you settle for an honorable mention on the liner notes on the next Raiford Starke CD?

Well Mom, I've got to run now. This big bird is about to land, and I'm feeling mighty sick. Thanks to you making me write those letters from summer camp, I am now a world famous columnist for the Seminole Tribune.

Because of that, I have been asked to appear at the Native American Journalists Association party at Alligator Andy's and recite all of my writings to music - and I almost forgot - I uh, think Chief Billie might perform there too. He's my opening act. Anyway, take care, Mom.

Love,

Your #1 Son

Raiford Montgomery Starke

-- Raiford Starke's first CD 'Speak Me' can be purchased online at Big Cypress Records.

© June 16, 2000, The Seminole Tribune