Where to Now, St. Peter?

Listen while you read:  I took myself a blue canoe . . .

I took myself a blue canoe
And floated like a leaf
Dazzling, dancing, half enchanted
In my Merlin sleep

Crazy was the feeling
Restless were my eyes
Insane, they took the paddles
My arms, they paralyzed

So where to now, St. Peter
If it's true I'm in your hands
I may not be a Christian
But I've done all one man can
I understand I'm on the road
Where all that was is gone
So where to now, St. Peter?
Show me which road I'm on
Which road I'm on

It took a sweet young foreign gun
This lazy life is short
Something for nothing always ending
With a bad report

Dirty was the daybreak
Sudden was the change
In such a silent place as this
Beyond the rifle range

So where to now, St. Peter . . . 

I took myself a blue canoe

~  Bernie Taupin & Elton John

I'm still in Colorado with my son and Andrea and Luna, the coolest dog in the Rockies. Upon waking this morning, I asked Sam what the plan was. He said that we would probably go canoeing. Okay. Getting dressed, I glanced up at the wall to notice a framed record album cover, something I'd given Sam when he was still a kid living at home. The album cover was Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection. I'd had two things in mind when I selected that cover to put in the frame all those years ago. For one thing, it was Sam's dad's favorite album. And because Pete had played it so many times, scratching it beyond repair, he'd had to buy a second copy. So I had an extra cover. And then a line floated into my head: I took myself a blue canoe . . .  So I made the connection, and it's only 9:00 a.m. Tumbleweed Connection was released in 1970, the third of Elton John's thirty studio albums.

From what I can gather, Bernie Taupin had a fascination with the American Civil War, something shared by many people, historians or not. We visited a number of Civil War historic sites back in the day, none of which was as compelling as Gettysburg. If you can leave that place without being moved by the horror of war or humbled by the sacrifices made in that war, you are missing some part of that which makes us human. So Taupin wrote a song about the death of a Confederate soldier (or so my research says) and does so in a haunting and powerful way. Suddenly, the war isn't about the Union and the Confederacy, but rather, about the death of one man.

And putting aside the backdrop of war, that is why I chose this song as part of the soundtrack for Pete's memorial service nearly fifteen years ago. In the face of my sorrow, the lyrics offered some comfort, describing death as something dreamlike and hazy and soft.

Which might also describe a canoe trip. I can recall several dreamy canoe trips on the Delaware with Pete when we were young and healthy and looking toward our future. And now here I am, ready to spend some time on Carter Lake in a canoe with Pete's son, who is now the same age that his dad was when I started dating him. And I am looking toward Sam's and Andrea's future, hoping that it stretches far beyond the future I had with Pete.

Connections.

I took myself a blue canoe.