Some of my fondest memories are of Summer days spent on the James River with my friend Cathleen. I met Cathy when I was 15 years old. Hard to believe its been 22 years, but it has. Cathy lived right down the road from me and we instantly became best friends. I can’t tell you how many times we went to the James and spent hours sunning ourselves, exploring the river and singing to the fish. Yes, singing to the fish.
For those of you who are not familiar with the James River, the James is a river that runs through Richmond and back in the day, the river was where it was at. We spent all of our time there, hanging out, just doing what teenagers do. Here is a picture I found of the James River Rocks so you get the idea..
Cathy and I used to go to a cluster of rocks we called the Bread Basket down at the 43rd Street entrance. It was kind of hard to get to, so only on a rare occasion would we find that someone else had taken over our rock. We would come equipped with towels, sun tan lotion, river shoes (if you’ve been to the James, you know what I mean) snacks, a battery powered ‘boom box’, diet coke and/or beer if we were lucky, and cigarettes in a ziplock bag. We had so much fun on those rocks.
One of our favorite things to do was to sing to the fish. I know it sounds strange, but Cathy and I often listened to Steve Miller Band and loved to harmonize to the song Dance, Dance, Dance. One day we thought we’d hang on the side of the rock and start singing and sure enough, all these little fish swam up to us and just stayed there while we sang! We did this all the time and ever time we started singing, fish would appear. Mostly guppies, but fish none the less. It was pretty cool.
For those of you that know, I recently started taking Mandolin lessons. During my last lesson I asked my teacher to show me how to play Steve Miller Band’s Dance, Dance, Dance, and here it is. My dedication to all those wonderful days on the James. I told Cathy that the next time I see her we are going to record us harmonizing it together. She doesn’t think Im serious.
