My 26th Sobriety Birthday and Housewarming Party!

My first party on my park-like acre of ground in Sonoma. If you weren't here, you all missed a great time: good music, tons of great food, lots of friendly people from all different kinds of backgrounds...but don't worry - I'll do it again...and again...and again...

Lotsa dancin'...

Pete picks out one of his love songs...

Good food...

More dancin'...

Happy Campers...

More music...

More dancin'...

More happy campers...

Look at that smile!

The Happiest Camper of all...

PETE'S NEW PLACE IN SONOMA!!

I just found this wonderful little place on AN ACRE OF LAND! at 19341 Linden in the southwest corner of Sonoma. It has 2 bedrooms, a living room, a big enclosed sunroom on the front of the house, a tiny little kitchen, and a bathroom with BLACK AND RED TILES...that look like Satan selected them... Gotta do somethin' about that... Oh, and there's a garage and a storeroom, too.

Anyway, I'm pleased as punch. There were several people contending for this place, and by some fluke the landlords chose the grizzled old cowpunk honky-tonker...and they're charging me less rent than the other people were willing to pay! Them people's crazy...! They just had a good feeling about me... shows you how it's possible for intuition to go awry...

It is very quiet here. The loudest noise is the wind rustling the tops of the 100 foot tall oaks. There are several fruit trees (including some accursed ornamental plums - another of the dark lord's influences, I'm sure...); the whole place is fenced; I can have a dog if I want one. It's easy access from here to the rest of the bay area, and even though I'm kind of out in the country, it's very close to the main part of Sonoma (where we just got a brand-new Whole Foods store...oops! Grizzled old cowpunk honky-tonkers don't care about such foo-foo nonsense...somebody might think I'm.......sensitive, or sumthin'. Fortunately, I've been so delinquent in my blog postings that everybody's given up on it, so no one will ever see this and blow my cover...).

The view from the front gate...

The kinda funky little house.

Mighty oaks...

The Back 40 - by itself as big as a standard lot.

View from the Back 40 back towards the road.

PETE'S POTLUCK MAY 27, 2007

Well, my party turned out to be a big success. We had a big crowd, and the two dance floors were put to good use. This is my backyard in Sonoma. I'm still eating the food that people left.

I built these dang things almost single-handed until right at the end when a bunch of guys showed up and helped me finish. Both dance floors are well-supported hardwood plywood.

The big dance floor.

A bunch of folks having a good time - the little house in the background is mine.

(Left to Right: Tim Orr - Was Assistant Director of the Brubeck Institute, now with the Monterey Jazz Festival; Marty Jara - Has a prestigious position at the Lawrence Berkeley Labs; Dennis Calloway - Landscape Architect with CalTrans, plays bass with Motordude Zydeco; Pete Olson - singer, songwriter, founder of the famous Pete Olson & His Honky-Tonk Band - retired...or just too-tired ex-paramedic of 23 years and 50,000-plus calls - now schlepping it full-time as a musician; and the redoubtable - in case you didn't doubt him thoroughly enough the first time - virtuoso and full-time Music Bum: Billy Wilson - who plays every instrument ever conceived of by the human brain, and some that were not - two of which are shown in the photo; was one of the pioneer Louisiana music players in the Bay Area; has played in at LEAST 1000 bands, and is currently in 46 of them...including Motor Dude Zydeco, Zydeco Slim, The Cottonpickers, Pete Olson & His Honky-Tonk Band...and God knows what else...)

The Cajun House Party Band is having big-time fun...

...probably because I am so danged amusing.

Back Home In Sonoma, California

I have been a very, very bad blogger: a not-even-close to daily blogger... But, here I am, back in Sonoma, where it's actually warm when it's sunny. Here's some pics of my little tiny cottage here; and some of the beautiful places I hang out; and a link to the very feisty baby rattlesnake I met the other day. Here's my living room/bedroom:


and my kitchen:


Here's some pictures of the Regional Park in Glen Ellen, where I hike most days from 3 to 10 miles, usually depending on the state of my knees:





Here's the link to the video I took of that baby rattlesnake that I ran across, lying in the middle of a trail oft traveled by kids and dogs; I couldn't in good conscience leave him there so I finally successfully shooed him off into the grass, but he was fighting and biting the stick the whole way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Affb9u2ER5o

Don't forget my party on May 27 - Potluck/Dancing to live Cajun, Zydeco, and Country music... Everybody's invited - see the calendar page of my website for details:

http://peteolsonmusic.com/page7.html

OK, here's some more pics of my house in Lincoln City, Oregon, and environs. This is the house I grew up in and inherited when my Mom passed away in October:

The front of the house.

Ain't this azalea gorgeous?

The side yard to the west... I bought this old Troy-Bilt mower for $60. It used to be self-propelled but all the guts are gone. BUT... it starts on the first pull and cuts the grass. Now it's Pete-propelled.

The backyard.

The view from the kitchen table, where I am working right this very minute...

Last Friday

Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know, this is supposed to be an Almost Daily Blog, and it's been several days since I posted anything...SO SUE ME!! Actually, I beg your forgiveness. It'll never happen again...at least not until the next time.

Friday night I drove down to the Kernville Steakhouse (where I played the previous Friday) to get a bite to eat. For the heck of it I took these rather blurry exterior and interior hand-held natural light photos because I failed to get someone to take pictures of me when I was performing there.

Above is the bar downstairs where I played, standing right about where the two people are hugging. The young man with the long blond hair was the violinist/fiddle player with the group there that night, Pieces Of Eight, and he's really good. He's 19 and can play just about any style. His name is Zach Konowalchuk, and he and his dad Dave are both in the band. I had a nice talk with them after their gig, and we talked about playing together sometime mebbe. Nice folks...they filled me in on other coastal venues to perform at.

This is another local venue: Roadhouse 101. The band playing Friday, Bond Street Blues, also plays at the Kernville in their alter ego of an old-timey band called Floating Glass Balls. Not seen, but sitting in for some songs, was Robin Remailey, formerly of the famous sixties' band The Holy Modal Rounders - an east coast group that wound up in Portland in the seventies. After they disbanded, elements of the group went back to Tennessee and gave birth to Rounder Records, Alison Krause's label. Robin, as it turns out, is a neighbor of mine, and we are planning to get together this week sometime and play. The guy playing harp in the photo is Johnnie Ward, who, I discovered, was a good buddy and former roommate of my good friend Steve Mork, who I met 32 years ago in Encinitas and now is a postman in San Anselmo. Steve was the jug player in the legendary Portland sixties' band, the P.H. Phactor Jug Band, that wound up in the bay area playing with the Greatful Dead, Big Brother, The Doors, etc. The connections and coincidences are getting mighty thick up here. Much more music going on than I ever imagined.

During the day Friday I drove around Devils Lake, which is only about a mile east of my house. This little park, Sand Point, is on the other side of the lake, and is where my dad used to take my sister Julie and me swimming when we were kids. Coming back up here has stirred up more memories and nostalgia than I had anticipated.

I decided to post some stock photos that I did not take of the area around my hometown of Lincoln City, Oregon. Above is another view of Depoe Bay, where my friends and I went to the crab feed and wooden boat show from my post last weekend.
The area of Lincoln City where I grew up and where my property is used to be called Oceanlake, before all these little contiguous coastal hamlets were combined into one entity. It was called Oceanlake because on the west was the Pacific Ocean, and on the east was Devils Lake. I've heard various stories about where that name came from, one being that Satan himself owns property on the lake, but I'll do more research and try to inform you in a future posting as to the honest-to-golly truth about the matter.

This charming little section of Lincoln City is called Nelscott.

This is the Drift Creek covered bridge, which used to actually be on Drift Creek, which empties into Siletz Bay at the south end of town, in the area which was the town of Taft before consolidation - and the location of Taft High School, my alma mater (that means Soul Mother - I don't know why...I don't really feel that way about Taft High School). Anyway, Drift Creek Bridge was replaced after I moved away 40 years ago, but since it was so picturesque and historical, it was disassembled and moved way to hell and gone up into the hills, and there reassembled. I drove up Drift Creek this afternoon, headed up to a waterfall up there that has a footbridge overlooking it, all of which was never known about when I was here as a kid, so I've never seen it, just pictures. It was too late in the day, though, and when I got about 4 miles inland, found the road closed because of extensive selective-cut logging going on there. The sign said the road's open on weekends, so I'll get up there one of these days.

Below is a photo of the beach at Road's End, which is at the north end of town, and is the most desirable neighborhood in Lincoln City, not the least because it is not actually IN Lincoln City, therefore not subject to its onerous rules and regulations, such as building codes and so forth. It's also very beautiful there.

It has been cloudy and sprinkling for the past couple of days, but after dark tonight - actually last night, since it's now past midnight - anyway, the clouds moved offshore and the moon and stars came out, so I walked from my house to the end of Road's End - a six-mile hike round-trip - in the moonlight. Very beautiful.

Somehow I managed to double-post simultaneously, so I'll just put some words in here to make it look less goofy - or does it? I would delete it, but it won't let me. Before I put these words in here, it just said:

POSTED BY PETE.
POSTED BY PETE.

Here are some more photos of my property in Oregon: top is a picture of the backyard, still showing the effects of my mother's wonderful green thumb, years after she became unable to work in it; next is to the west side of the house.

Today I spent some time trying to figure out exactly where the property lines are, at which I failed. It looks like they are about to widen the road bounding the west side of the property - some trees are tagged for possible removal, so tomorrow I'll go down to the city and ask what's up. Tonight I walked six miles, up to Road's End, and back.

The other pics are of my oldest friend Dick Fenske and his wife Linda, who came down from Salem for my gig last Friday, and during the day on Saturday we drove down the coast to Depoe Bay for the Crab Feed and Wooden Boat Show. Dick and I have known each other since kindergarten. He is now administrator for the entire Oregon Dept of Transportation motor pool: all the cars, trucks, and equipment, numbering in the thousands. If they only knew how much trouble he and I got into when we were kids, they never would have given him that job.

Dick and Linda on the dock.

Two Oregon boys out enjoying the weather they grew up with...

Consuming deceased crustaceans...

OK...this is my first blog entry ever. I'm in my hometown of Lincoln City, Oregon, ensconced in the home I grew up in, which is now mine. The picture at top is from my roof, and shows the western portion of my property, which reaches to the road you can see in the distance. The modern looking building at top right is a resort on the ocean front.

Last Friday I played another very successful gig at the Kernville Steak & Seafood House. Saturday I went to see a very good group named The Renee Hill Band at a dance spot called Roadhouse 101. I introduced myself and Renee invited me to play a couple of tunes, so I did one of my own, IF YOU WERE MINE, solo; and then the band joined me in a kick-ass version of that old Charley Pride/Doug Sahm classic, IS ANYBODY GOING TO SAN ANTONE? Sunday was a beautiful day and I slept in and then went for a seven mile walk up and down the beach, then tried to figure out how to add a blog to my website (if you are reading this, then I succeeded).