Tunesday : Friends in Low Places

Friends in Low Places 

(Lee, E / Blackwell, D) Performed by Garth Brooks

Blame it all on my roots
I showed up in boots
And ruined your black tie affair
The last one to know
The last one to show
I was the last one
You thought you'd see there
And I saw the surprise
And the fear in his eyes
When I took his glass of champagne
And I toasted you
Said honey we may be through
But you'll never hear me complain
'Cause I've got friends in low places

Where the whiskey drowns
And the beer chases my blues away
And I'll be okay
I'm not big on social graces
Think I'll slip on down to the oasis
Oh I've got friends in low places
Well I guess I was wrong

I just don't belong
But then I've been there before
Everything's all right
I'll just say goodnight
And I'll show myself to the door
Hey I didn't mean
To cause a big scene
Just give me an hour and then
Well I'll be as high
As that ivory tower
That you're livin' in
'Cause I've got friends in low places

Where the whiskey drowns
And the beer chases my blues away
And I'll be okay
I'm not big on social graces
Think I'll slip on down to the oasis
Oh I've got friends in low places
I've got friends in low places

Where the whiskey drowns
And the beer chases my blues away
And I'll be okay
I'm not big on social graces
Think I'll slip on down to the oasis
Oh I've got friends in low places
I've got friends in low places

Where the whiskey drowns
And the beer chases my blues away
And I'll be okay
I'm not big on social graces
Think I'll slip on down to the oasis
Oh I've got friends in low places
I've got friends in low places
Where the whiskey drowns
And the beer chases my blues away
And I'll be okay

After the lead up over the past couple of Tunesdays, I thought that this was going to be the week that I finally got down to writing about my wedding day, but I realised this morning that there was one more story that needed to be told first. Now, I didn't choose Friends in Low Places because I necessarily thought that that was the right description for what I'm about to talk about, but: 1) Even though I've never been a fan of country music, I always liked this song; and 2) The Dennis of this story was an honest-to-goodness boots-and-cowboy-hat kind of a guy who would have appreciated the reference. (And I say "was" because this is the Dennis who would eventually die far too young of a heart condition.)

It must have been the month before we got married, so May of 1991, when Dave and I were invited to go up to Dennis' family's cottage with him and Delight. Dave grew up with a cottage on a lake, so he was pumped to go swimming and boating and whatever else would be offered, and I was just happy to get away with friends. When we got to the family compound, however, it wasn't quite what we had imagined: instead of a proper cottage/cabin, the family had a mouldering trailer (and strict instructions to take off our shoes before we entered, which gave me the heebie-jeebies) on the shores of a weedy, mud-bottomed lake that I couldn't imagine wading into (we brought along our big Bouvier Mo and he had no such standards: he spent the whole trip in that lake, swimming far out and having to make a wiiiide turn - due to a docked tail, so no rudder - to turn back towards shore. He loved it in there.) And Dave and I weren't given a bed in the trailer - we were put up in the loft over the garage, in a dust-choked area with a damp and musty mattress; and with no dogs allowed inside, we were told to let big Mo run loose at night with their Bouvier, Ben, and that sure didn't seem right to city girl me (but whatever mischief they may have gotten into overnight, both dogs did come running at a whistle in the morning.)

We drank and played euchre the first night, and Dennis and Dave made plans to go fishing in the morning. When Dave returned from that excursion, he was excited and disturbed to tell me that when they got out to Dennis' favourite fishing spot on the lake he had said to Dave, "Ever been hillbilly fishing before?", and followed up this statement by pulling some dynamite out of his tackle bag, lighting a stick, and throwing it overboard. As it exploded and dead fish began to bob to the surface, Dennis took a pull of his breakfast beer and told Dave to grab the net. Yee ha!

After lunch (not the fish), Dennis asked Dave if he wanted to go out on the ATVs - he did - and the pair took off on a couple of those three-wheelers that they no longer sell due to safety issues. Ahem. They roared off along the gravel road while Delight and I set ourselves up for some relaxing sunbathing, and when the guys finally did return some long time later, it was on foot, with Dennis propping up the bloody, limping Dave. As it happened, they had had a good, long ride, but just as they were returning, Dave took the last curve too fast, spun out and flipped over (as these machines were prone to do), and with the bike landing on top of him, the wheels kept spinning, tearing the skin from the top of one foot and driving gravel into his thigh. Dennis was able to get the ATV off of Dave but couldn't drive him back on his single-seater, so as Delight remarked at the time, they came hobbling around the corner "like the walking wounded from a Vietnam movie". Yee haaaa!

What was good about living in Alberta in the 90s was that the government had boasted that they had enough oil dollars to open up "hospitals" in most rural areas, but when we got Dave to the one in nearby Boyle, it was in little more than a trailer (at least it was antiseptic and bright), and the care he received there was less than optimal: the nurse (I guess it was a nurse in charge because she sure wasn't a trained doctor) picked out what gravel she could by hand, washed and bandaged the foot and thigh, and without even giving Dave a prescription for pain relievers (let alone antibiotics...), she sent him on his way; advising him to see his family doctor when he got back home. Dave was in so much pain that we stopped to get him a bottle of gin on the way back to the lake, and although he drank a whole lot of it throughout the evening (after half-climbing, half being pushed up the rickety ladder to the loft "room"), Dave never could get relief or go to sleep. No more hillbilly fishing the next day: Dave and I (and big Mo) hopped in the car at first light and drove the couple hours back to Edmonton and the emergency room.

When the staff at the hospital saw the state of Dave's leg and foot, they couldn't believe that this was the aftermath of "professional" care, and the first thing they did was to put him in a therapeutic whirlpool to dislodge the impacted grit and gravel. They also put him on an IV drip of antibiotics to battle the infection that had already set in, and over the next week or ten days, he had to return to the hospital every eight hours for intravenous antibiotics. At every visit more and more of the necrotic skin would be painfully debrided, and there was much talk about how lucky Dave was to get to the hospital when he did; he could have lost the leg. (And what does that say about the usefulness of these rural "hospitals"?)

When Dave and I were planning our wedding, I asked him once if he would be willing to learn the Texas Two Step for our first dance - as we were coming from Alberta, he and his groomsmen would be wearing bolo ties with their tuxes, and I thought it would be a kick to not only have something choreographed, but something that ironically nodded to our lives out west. I had it all planned out - I imagined us dancing to Forever and Ever Amen by Randy Travis (another country song that this "not a country fan" actually kind of loved) - but Dave didn't want the pressure of learning a set dance, and as he had never enjoyed the mandatory dance classes he had had to take at school, I didn't push. And it's just as well: this accident happened mere weeks before we got married, and in the end, I was simply happy that he was even able to walk on that day; to hold onto me and barely shuffle around to our first dance.

I've got friends in low places

Where the whiskey drowns

And the beer chases my blues away

And I'll be okay