Being in A Band

This is the "Just Happy To Be Here" band.

The lead guitar player, Rob Burkham, formed this group after I moved to Milwaukee. These musicians are also members of The Expansion Band. So named, the Expansion Band is an informal gathering of people who love to play music together. They gather one night a week, rotating from one house to another. Sometimes there are only a few. On other nights there can be a dozen or more.

There's little doubt that competence is not a consideration for membership, seeing I was accepted with my limited skill with a harmonica. But everyone gets to choose a number they want the group to play. 

I am not a huge belonger. I was a member of The Royal Order Of Toads (ROT). But that group was anti-belonging. Rot was a shelter for people who couldn't get membership in any other club or didn't want to belong to a group.

The Expansion Band is a fun-loving group of guys who know that music brings people together and allows them to express themselves in a way only musicians understand.

I miss that experience. In the winter of 2018 - 2019, I spent a lot of time in a rehab facility. With the permission of the facility director, the guys came to me, and we played for an apparent audience of about six. The next day, I found out that the nurses received requests from patients to open their room doors so they could hear the music.

I'm proud to say that even though I'm not in Appleton, I know I'm welcome and still a member of The Expansion Band as 2nd Chair Harmonica.

NOTE: I have not tattooed my arms. That look is just some crazy light effect.

A poem by Virginia Smalls about Bill Sell, who passed away on September 1, 2022.

William's Beloved City

In Memory of Bill Sell, 1938-2022

"We crave the simple:

benches, shade, rest, comfort, thoughtfulness, and breathing."

Bill's words, in an email sent to those in power in hopes of protecting a sacred grove across from city hall.

May 6, 2019

You imagined a city

in which we all belonged and then invited everyone to relish the street ballet, to frolic together in parks, to rest within urban oases.

You rode the bus through our neighborhoods, often reading a book,

sometimes chatting with strangers, because all types of stories interested you.

You showed up

in halls and basements and chambers where democracy might happen because you believed that

what each of us does matters,

that all voices can--and should--be heard.

You savored markets where neighbors mingled, and meals made by friends.

You cooked food from nearby farms and your own garden,

and sipped tea slowly.

You studied venerable texts and honored legacies

while embracing the cutting edge.

You saw no need

to sacrifice the old for the new.

In your late seventies

you once rode a bus all day and night

with other people who want the Great Lakes, and all lakes and rivers,

to be protected from inevitable spills

seeping through fallible pipelines.

You spent your life

nudging officials to build infrastructure to support your beloved community, and to keep our grounds for democracy safe from exploitation

or from casual whittling away through neglect.

You blazed trails,

 and then walked and biked them again and again,

alone or with others, taking in everything,

seeing beauty in all beings--

in grit and grandeur and green.,

Virginia Small September 3, 2022