( No fair writing anyone's but your's please..)
Eric J Lundgren of Portland died_____ at ______ of a________ ______ ________.
He was a local musician that went by the name of Eric West, which he took from a now deceased mentor, Don West.
He played as a sole means of support, such as it was from '79 til '86, with a corresponding hole in his SSGLI contributions. Mostly in local bands that sometimes travelled, from Tenino to Tonopah, from Gervais to Vegas. Some were damned good, some he just took the money..
Playing music from his earliest years on seemed to be the common thread of his small but special life, for better or worse. It always seeming to be a reason for taking "non career" jobs, mostly construction, that allowed his schedule to include it. This excluded any jobs with retirements, union representation, or shift work, though he took many that had schedules that conflicted.
While in the USAF in 75-9, he was able to take pedal steel lessons from a kindly fellow that played for a famous travelling group of troubadors.
After taking an exit to his four year military tour and coming back to Portland, he started playing steel for any band that he could, and was never successfully discouraged, played with more than a hundred bands, and thirty or more at the local truck stop. In his years of working steady construction jobs, he often worked more full week/month music jobs than he did when he did it for a living. This probably made him older than he looked, and/or actually was. Kind of like "dog years"..
In the later years starting in 2002, he found a Pedal Steel Guitar Forum, and was able to meet, trade stories with, gain instruction, and sometimes torment the more stuffy of his community. Some of his best friends, he met there, he claimed. His interaction on the forum took him on his "Motel Six" pilgramage to Nashville, where he met Lloyd Green, Lynn Owsley, Tommy White, Russ Hicks, Bobby Knight, Mr Sweeney, et al, picked up his Marrs Retrofit, and kissed Bobbe Seymour's balding head.
Overall, he went happily through life like s#it through a goose, whistling in any graveyard he could (In Equal Temperament), tormenting the cruel, and helping the helpless as he found time to. In the midst of violent surroundings, he always strived to be a very gentle soul. Sometimes it was easier than others.
People that thought he liked them, were often those he liked the least. People that didn't think he liked them were sometimes the ones he thought the most of. He garnered and treasured low class insults from some pretty important people, returning them in the form of time-release put downs when possible. He never told anybody he loved them unless he meant it. He told many people that.
His family and friends, he always considered the greatest source of his wealth, and his pets, his connection to his humanity.
His goal in life was to become a Humorous Campfire Story, and not a Tragic Figure, as many musicians seem to become.
He died leaving _____ to ______ and was survived by ______, his______-time _____.
Cremation was held_____the ashes scattered in Sugar Creek, in the Paulina District of the Ochoco Nat Forest, on a sunny day, to eventually float to the ocean or be tracked and strewn elsewhere by varmints or critters.
Now he is hopefully able to travel out into the cosmos with the music he played, and spend time perusing the best of it, skipping the worst of it, on his way to Glory in God's own time, ultimately reedeemed by his Son. Possibly after taking a few years as we know them to commune with the pets he liked so much..
(Subject to future edition if done in time..)
EJL <font size="2" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited yet again by Eric West in plenty of time on 18 June 2006 at 07:46 PM.]</p></font> <font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Eric West on 19 June 2006 at 09:49 PM.]</p></FONT>
