Hearth

I was hypnotized by the flames and drowsy from the heat of the stone fireplace because I sat so close to it. My feet rested on a wooden stool that was even closer, so I couldn’t keep them there very long because my flip flops were hot and thought they might melt. I didn’t know for certain, it hadn’t ever happened before, but they looked like they were starting to change shape, and my feet were hot, so I scooted back.

Our log cabin rental felt like a small lodge. It smelled like one too — good smells like wood, fire, smoke, and evergreen. It had huge roof timbers, log cross beams, heavy wood chairs and table, two vintage couches upholstered in leather, a couple of woven rugs on the floor, antlers, mounted walleyes on the walls, and large windows that were divided into thirty-two square panes. It was built in the early part of the twentieth century and felt like it could be in a national park, or a scout camp somewhere.

The light was low because there were no overhead fixtures. The main room had a few areas of warm ambient light scattered throughout from lamps, and the expansive glow of our fire. When I looked up from my drawing and my wife looked up from her book, our eyes met. Hers reflected orange just like the flames in front of us. I knew she was warm and hoped she was happy. Except for the sound of her turning pages, my drawing, and the crackling of the fire, it was quiet. Quiet enough that if we listened hard, we could hear wolves howling in the distance all night long. They were faint, but they were out there.

The moon slowly moved across the expanse of windows shifting the color of the glass from black, to dark blue, to light blue, before it disappeared behind the shore trees on Burntside Lake. We fed the fire until after midnight, when the wood I’d split was almost gone. Eventually we slipped into our hand-built log bed with a soft, queen size mattress, a thick homemade quilt, and pillows with perfect densities. We left the bedroom door open so the sound of the waning fire and occasional howling would soothe us while we slept.

Songs :: You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go and Buckets of Rain by Bob Dylan, See the Changes by Crosby, Stills and Nash, Spellbound by Poco, Steady On by Shawn Colvin, and The Book of Love by The Magnetic Fields

© C. Davidson

Eye of the Tiger

Fullerton Avenue Beach

One Friday afternoon in 1986, my boss, the owner of the design studio I worked at, came to me around 4:30 and asked if I’d stay late and help him with a project. We needed to design an album cover and generate a final comp for his meeting in our office at 7:00. I agreed. Shortly after 5:00, my co-workers began to filter out for the weekend, and I walked outside with one of them to smoke a cigarette. When I returned my boss said, “Ok, here’s what I’m thinking. I have this unused color print from a photograph we shot for the (Furniture) Corporation brochure. Earlier today I had a variety of transfers made in different colors and sizes and in various typefaces, for the album title, and the bands logotype. I’d like you to do a couple of layout options while I’m getting the final photo print ready. Do whatever you think works best combining the photo and the type, and then let’s meet about 6:00 and make a final decision.” I looked at the transfers and asked, “so the band is Survivor, you mean the Eye of the Tiger band… that’s the client?” “Yeh.” “So, we’re designing an album cover for Survivor?” “Yes.” They were huge at the time, so I got nervous.

I made black and white Xerox copies of everything so I could create rough layouts while preserving the ‘final’ color components. I made two and after I finished, we looked at them, picked one, made some adjustments and then proceeded to create the final comp. We mounted it on black presentation board, looked at it for a minute, and congratulated ourselves because we’d pulled it off with time to spare.

Since there were ten minutes until the meeting, I headed back outside to have another cigarette when the studio door flew open, and Frankie Sullivan and Jim Peterik appeared. They saw my boss and walked past me towards the conference table where he sat. Both wore tight, leather pants, shirts with the top three buttons undone revealing their tan skin and chest hair, and 3/4 black boots like the early Beatles wore. They met and I went out to smoke. When I returned, I cleaned-up the mess we’d made at the opposite end of the studio from where they were meeting.

When the three of them finished they walked over to me, and my boss introduced us. Sullivan and Peterik smiled, thanked me for my help, shook my hand, and they left as suddenly as they’d arrived. My boss was smiling too because they liked the cover. Then we gathered our things and walked out together—him to the nearby parking lot to get his car and disappear into a northern burb and me to the ‘L’ station on Chicago Avenue. Meeting two pop rock stars, walking out into the humid orange dusk and summer heat, with the rumble and squeal of the trains passing overhead was surreal. Everything happened so quickly and then it was over. I found a window seat on the train, settled in, and looked east towards Lake Michigan where I’d probably spend Saturday or Sunday afternoon tanning, swimming, and eating Italian Ice on the beach with thousands of other Chicagoans.

Later that summer, my boss told me that the album cover design had been approved by the record company and there weren’t any revisions. Then months later in November, I walked into my neighborhood record store on Belmont Avenue under the tracks for my weekly visit and saw the album sitting on the ‘new releases’ shelf. I’d spent hundreds of hours, hundreds of thousands of seconds in record stores in my life and felt a lot of things, but I never felt that.

Songs :: Is This Love by Survivor, Run Through the Jungle by Creedence Clearwater Revival, She Caught the Katy by The Blues Brothers, Sunshine In Chicago by Sun Kil Moon, Someday, Someway by Marshall Crenshaw, and I Feel Alright by Steve Earle

© C. Davidson