Hometow n By Bill Fields

Two Thousand Miles I Roam

Just t o m ak e this dock my h ome

By Bil l Fiel ds I have a modest stash of record albums, LPs that spark memories of people, places and parties. The number of scratches pretty much tells where each ranked on my personal charts, but no visual cues are required to identify the vinyl that meant the most to me.

Glen Campbell ’s Wichit a Lineman was the first a lbum I ow ned, and I thought it was 29 minutes of gold. It was released in November 1968, when I was 9 years old. Given that pop cult ure took the slow train to Souther n Pines in those days, I obtained it a bit later.

T he love of my first a lbum coincided w ith my loathing of four thg rade music and hav ing to lear n how to play the recorder. I didn’t like the teacher and couldn’t get the hang of the instr ument. T he combination caused me to loathe that class to a deg ree unmatched until ca lculus came a long.

A mid the unpleasantness created by a one- dollar piece of plastic w ith holes in it, put ting Wichit a Lineman on the record player was bliss even though there was a lot of melancholy w ithin the ly r ics of those 11 songs. Campbell had a beautif ul, pure voice and was, as I would lear n, a world- class g uitar ist.

As I listened over and over to the album, Campbell became an ob session, my first outside of spor ts. If, in the summer of ’69, you’d told me I could meet either Brooks Robinson or Glen Campbell, I might well have chosen the famous Arkansan who didn’t play third base.

My mother and sisters could sing, and the Campbell record conv inced me to see if I could, too, a lthough there wasn’t a boys’ choir in A mer ica that would have sig ned me. I made up for the ta lent deficit w ith enthusiasm. Santa Claus brought me a Tr ueTone reel-to -reel tape recorder, af fording me a make-believe oppor t unit y to be a spor ts announcer or, af ter Campbell ’s music became par t of my life, recording ar tist.

I sang the title track plent y of times, but the second song on side one, “(Sit tin’ On) T he Dock of the Bay,” became my favor ite. It was w r it ten by soul singer Otis R edding w ith Steve Cropper and recorded not long before R edding died in a plane crash in December 1967, when he was only 26 years old.

I must have heard R edding’s song played on the radio af ter it was released in early ’68, but Campbell ’s cover was what I tr ied to mimic. I recorded it on the Tr ueTone and forced my parents to listen to me per for m it live in the liv ing room. I was far f rom being a lonely child, but R edding’s song of loneliness, sung by Campbell, fascinated me.

W hen Campbell came to tow n to play golf in the pro -am preceding the U.S. Professiona l Match Play Championship at the Countr y Club of Nor th Carolina in 1971, he was the celebr it y I was most eager to see, even though Mickey Mantle and astronaut Gene Cer nan a lso were in the field. Campbell was dressed in yellow and of fered a w ide smile when I ca lled out f rom behind a ga ller y rope before snapping a pict ure w ith my Instamatic camera. A f ter the round, he sig ned my prog ram. I collected many golfers’ autog raphs that day — A r nold Pa lmer, Jack Nick laus, Julius Boros and R ay F loyd among them — but at home that evening I lingered over the sig nat ure of the man whose music had meant so much.

About 20 years or so later, when karaoke had become a thing, I was in an airpor t hotel in Orlando, having arrived to photograph a stor y with well-known golf instr uctor David L eadbetter the next morning. I hadn’t sung outside the shower or alone in my car in years. But it was karaoke night at the Marriott, I knew no one in the crowded bar, and I wanted to sing. T here was no doubt about the song.

I wa s wa it ing for my t ur n when I he ard a f a m i l iar voic e. It wa s my c ol le ag ue John Hug ga n, a S c ot w it h st a ndards a nd opin ions. Sudden ly, I d id k now some one in t he crowde d bar. My pla n for of f-key a nony m it y wa s gone. Hug ga n a nd I chat te d over a b e er a s a ha ndf u l of k ar aoke p er for mers g r abb e d t he m icrophone. My na me wa s c a l le d. T he ly r ic s scrol le d on a mon itor but hav ing sung “T he Do ck of t he Bay” over a nd over a s a k id, I c ou ld have done it w it hout a ssist a nc e.

I sang the song. A few people clapped. I war ily ret ur ned to my barstool.

“You weren’t the worst,” Huggan said.

I considered it high praise PS South er n P in e s n at ive Bill Fi el d s, wh o w r it e s about golf an d oth er things, m o ve d n or th in 1986 b ut h a sn’t l ost his a ccent.