Steve Miller Band - The Joker

A Meditation on Campfires and Ghosts

I don’t have a complicated relationship with death. It’s not a puzzle I’m trying to solve or a fear I’m trying to overcome. In the simplest terms: I accept it. I appreciate it. And yet, I’m not exactly jazzed about how my own exit strategy might pan out. I’ve earned the right to this ambivalence. I spent three decades mentally filing away the best, worst, and most efficient ways to end my life. I once read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest inside an actual cuckoo’s nest, which isn’t so much ironic as it is on-brand.

When someone punches their ticket off this rock, I make it a point to feel all of it. The grief. The memories. That existential cocktail of love and loss, shaken — not stirred. It’s a deliberate process: leaning in, embracing the fallout, becoming what annoying self-help people call “present.” Death, I’ve learned, is worth letting under your skin. It should shake you up a bit, rattle the cage, disrupt your algorithm.

Last week, my stepdad’s sister Denise died. She was one of the good ones — good in the way you don’t even bother debating. Denise lived to 66, spending 46 of those years in a wheelchair. I met her when I was eight, and she let me ride on the back of her motorized chair at Epcot. She steered us through Tomorrowland like it was a personal audition for Star Trek. Denise loved the occasional joint, Bud Light, and the 49ers. Also, Jeff Gordon. She practically lived at Michigan International Speedway, perched in the infield with her hearing protection on and a cold domestic in hand. Her wheelchair was motorized, so I suppose she was technically allowed to drink and drive, which feels perfectly appropriate for a NASCAR event.

Her celebration of life took place last Saturday in Lenawee County, Michigan, a realm of grain silos, “Pass With Care” road signs, and ponds ambitious enough to call themselves lakes. Denise lived on Round Lake, where only two boats are allowed at a time, as though it’s the Fight Club of inland water. One summer, my stepdad called me a pussy, so I swam across it on a dare —thrashing through weeds and freezing water like a lunatic. I brought this up to him on Saturday, and his response was, “Sounds about right.” That lake taught me how to skate in winter, fish in summer, and, apparently, win arguments fueled by adolescent stupidity.

That wasn’t all I learned there.

I learned a lot of lessons right here.

One day, I lugged massive stones from a nearby field to build the fire pit that still stands today. My stepdad called it “earning my keep.” Fair enough. That fire pit became my throne, my dominion. I was the Master of Fire, the Keeper of Flames. Over the years, it hosted more than 30 years of stories, embellishments, outright lies, and dirt-road wisdom — some of which was relevant, plenty of which was horseshit.

More than 30 years of stories, embellishments, outright lies, and laughs sitting here.

Here’s a quick detour that will make sense in a moment:
Musicians and Bands as Food Items

This is in Heartland USA, southern Michigan specifically, so Bob Seger is the chicken tenders of this menu - perpetually on. Bob and chicken tendies will never leave the menu, have never left the menu, will always be on the menu. John Mellencamp is fries with ranch. No. I’m sorry. I screwed that up. OBVIOUSLY Mellencamp is a chili dog. Creedence Clearwater Revival is a hot dog over a campfire. Springsteen is a bacon cheeseburger. The Steve Miller Band is Bud Light… as dinner.

Music was a constant during those campfire nights. I remember so much, so vividly. I recall the fireflies dancing over the reeds near the water’s edge, the stargazers - quiet friends and family members content to stare up at Orion, Cygnus, and the Summer Triangle, the orange and red faces in the campfire light, laughing and drinking, and the chorus of off-key singing along to The Joker. The opening beat signified to any and everyone within earshot that it was time to join in.

When Steve slides his fingers over the neck of the guitar after declaring that some people call him Maurice is the cue for some sweet air guitar action and maybe some sound effects of their own. You know exactly what I’m talking about.

Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah
Some call me the gangster of love
Some people call me Maurice

Naturally, when the song gets to that first chorus, the person with the joint in their hand is required by city ordinance to hold it up high and loudly proclaim, along with Steve, with added emphasis:

I'm a joker, I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker

The guitar solo is the perfect psychedelic break for the stargazers and midnight tokers among us those nights. And after a few Bud Lights even the crankiest folks were content to cuddle up to their sweethearts, give ‘em a squeeze, and serenade them.

You're the cutest thing that I ever did see
I really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree

I don’t go out of my way to listen to Steve Miller Band now —classic rock radio has ruined that — but when The Joker sneaks into my life, I think about those nights. I think about how obnoxiously singable that song is and how “pompatus” isn’t even a real word. I also think about how I wouldn’t turn down a Bud Light by a campfire, even though it’s not my beer of choice. I wouldn’t mind being called Space Cowboy though for unrelated reasons.

The original cottage was a two-bedroom shack that was a summer hangout. Denise and her mother later built a three-story haven that took in all comers. I never got to sleep inside that two-bedroom shack, though I did sleep outside on the ground on several occasions, and I have no regrets about that. I woke up once when the dew point settled on my face and that was an interesting moment I hope all young people get to experience at least once.

Her wake was pure Midwest — a buffet of warmth and nostalgia, with casseroles as thick as the accents and enough Bud Light to float a pontoon. It was a gathering of ghosts and neighbors, the living and the dead mingling under the wide Michigan sky. Again, this is small town Midwest, between the village of Addison (pop. 573) and the city of Hudson (pop. 2,415) just off of U.S. 127, which means everyone knows everyone, or at least their cousin.

My 7th and 8th grade football coach was there with his older brother, both of whom played record-setting football in the ‘70s with my stepdad. This little town’s football team won 72 consecutive games from ‘68 to ‘75. It was a national public school record for more nearly 30 years. They even made it into Sports Illustrated once upon a time.

I saw a lot of people I hadn’t seen in 30 years or more and they’re still warm and friendly. Most of them have quit smoking and their waistlines have expanded a bit, but so it goes. Lot of chicken tenders ‘round there.

I gave a well-received toast along the lines of “Denise had to rely on the kindness of others for the majority of her life. We don’t have to rely on others, by and large. So what I ask for the next week or so, or maybe for the next several years, be kind. You don’t know what someone is enduring. Denise taught us all that, because she had to rely on us, and we’re relying on each other at the moment. And we’re doing it with kindness.”

My sister was quite close with Denise and cared for her for several years. She couldn’t bring herself to be there for the toast, and that’s okay. I still managed to get a lovely photo of my brother Josh, her, and me together.

Later on, as the crowd thinned out, I stood with my stepdad on this same deck and remarked how many great memories I had right there. He replied that he was more interested in making new memories, and I understood the point he was trying to make. He’s had two bouts of cancer and is confronting his mortality, especially now with the death of his mother and sister in consecutive years. He realizes time is fleeting and he’s not invincible. That said, I think he missed my point.

I’m not stuck in “let’s remember,” though it’s fair to say I appreciate a bit of nostalgia from time to time. It IS okay to stop and say “I have a lot of fond memories in this place with these people.” Of course, I’m on to other things, dreams and designs of my own, but I’m also comfortable with those memories and those ghosts.