by Curt Kovener
Friends come into our lives often without us knowing it. Then there is the realization that we have a lot in common and our circles of friends grow and intertwine.
This is a very abridged accounting of such a friendship.
My first recollection of Mike Brumett came when I was in Junior High School, he was a couple of years ahead of me. The high school was preparing from some school musical and there was a small group on the CHS gym stage that had the appearance of rehearsing. I walked over to get a good listen and there was Mike Brumett along with his cousin Dale playing guitars. Only they weren’t rehearsing what the choir director probably wanted them to.
Mike was singing “Where Have All The Flowers Gone” which I thought rather odd for a couple of red-necked country boys to be singing a war protest song. But I knew the words and joined in with Mike singing harmony.
It would be the first of countless times we would sing together in private, in church, in public, for fundraisers, a few times for pay…but mostly for our own enjoyment.
We reconnected after I finished college and he had an extended family stay in Minnesota. It was a chance meeting and he invited me to his place to “pick a few and an adult beverage or two.”
I got back home around 2 a.m. playing every song I knew and Mike was still going through his mental songlist…and probably made a couple up.
It wasn’t just music that tied us together. There was hunting, fishing, and work time.
Over the years he owned a couple of grocery stores in Crothersville having gotten his start as a teenage stock boy at the old Nolting’s IGA. He was also building contractor who I used on all on my expansion/new construction projects. In my spare time I was an unskilled grunt for him who helped where ever asked. And nearly every workday with him ended with one of those chilled adult beverages and a few songs.
His drink of choice was Maker’s Mark and Coke, though is frequently warned us “ Be careful— that Coca-Cola will give you a headache in the morning.”
Mike, Bill Burns and I would meet to play music over those adult beverages and developed some unique harmonies that…well, pleased us even if no one else said so.
One night Mike and I were frog gigging. He was at the stern paddling the boat and I was at the front with the light and gig directing him to the glowing eyes. Our tradition was that whenever the gigger missed, we would swap positions.
I had a string of several successful frog fetchings and apparently Mike wanted his opportunity with the gig. As we eased up to a bullfrog, I got a swat from a boat oar but still put that frog in the bag to his astonishment.
But friends being friends, we changed positions and before long Mike was guiding me to a pair of eyes frozen by his headlamp. Just as he was going to thrust the gig, I jiggled the oar in the oarlock. Anticipating a swat, he missed. “You wrong deed doer,” was his lament as we laughed.
He used that phrase another time. He found a couple of wasp nests in an outhouse at his woods property and I got him some newspapers to light to dispatch the stinging beasts.
He rolled up the newspapers into a cone, lit them and stepped inside the privy to eliminate the wasps. I slammed the door and held it shut. “You wrong deed doer” he yelled just before I went tumbling as he not-so-gently forced the door open.
And we both laughed: then and multiple times later re-telling the tale.
There was a time we were fishing at Potter Lake in Washington County and joined by long-time mutual friend Jerry Anthony. The water level was up and there were bluegill on the nest but difficult to get to because shoreline saplings now prevented us from casting into the nests.
There was about a six-foot clearing with multiple nests behind it as we saw the swirls of the panfish guarding their saucer shaped nests in the shallows. Because it was a narrow opening, we took turns casting in, hooking a fish and as we reeled in, the next fisherfriend would toss in a line and do the same thing.
This went on for a while and we were pulling in fish with every cast. But things died down and after Jerry’s bobber failed to dance and submerge, I threw in my line over the top of his saying, “Get out of there, Jerry. You’ve been in there long enough.” We had to stop fishing because we were laughing so hard. Later in life, we would frequently use that as a greeting when we saw one another.
Mike had a cabin in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota and was after us for years to go on vacation there. “The fishing is great and the people are starving for country music,” he told us.
So we rented a 15-passenger van, loaded it with fishing gear and guitars and made an 18-hour drive to Timberwolf Lodge on Bear Island Lake. There were seven of us on that trip. What we didn’t know was that he area had been going through an extended drought and the Land of 10,000 Lakes had lower lake levels. As a result, the fishing was not productive as it was at Potter Lake. We decided they were mispronouncing the state name. It should be Minnow-sota, we determined.
But Mike was right about the Minnesotans craving for music. We got permission at one bar to bring in our guitars for a free concert. It was all acoustic, no sound system but the folks there must have liked us as we got paid in adult beverages purchased by the crowd.
Most of us were drinking beer—lite beer at that— but banjo player Rob started out drinking Jagermeister shots. At one point late in the evening the crowd had about five of them lined up in front of him.
When he finally woke up the next afternoon, he told us not to let him do that again.
Circling back to the 1960’s shortly after our first impromptu singing on the school stage, Mike, Dale and Ed Brumett were in a band called ‘The Mustangs’. This was during a time when every community had a rock & roll band they followed. In the mid 1960’s the Jackson County Fair had a grandstand ‘Battle of the Bands” for such community musicians. Judging was based on crowd response.
This was at a time when most bands dressed alike and the Mustangs were durned impressive in their white denim jeans and long sleeved brushed denim shirts with a leather thong laced V-neck.
Teens from throughout the county had the old wooden grandstand a rockin’. The final two bands to compete for the top band in the county came down to the Mustangs from Crothersville and a band from Seymour in the finals.
The Mustangs came out for their final number playing the surfin’ rock classic “Wipeout”. Their skinny young drummer, Gary Myers, was a blur of motion on the iconic drum solos. As it is often said, “and the crowd went wild”: the Mustangs won the county fair Battle of The Bands.
The band they beat had a lead singer: John Mellencamp.
Mike didn’t really like for me to share that story, he said, “We won the battle, but John won the war.”
Mike was always jovial, nearly always smiling, welcoming family and friends as if they were his family, and in retrospect, we were. Each time as we departed he always encouraged us to come back and visit again. But work obligations, the miles and COVID kept us apart.
The last I visited with him was in the late winter of this year after we had both had our COVID shots. I took him some shelled hickory nuts from the fall’s bounty. Before I departed, we toasted to our continued health with his favorite chilled adult beverage.
I share with you these stories because my friend of over 50 years left us on Labor Day weekend. His obituary is in this week’s edition. And to answer—for everyone—the question asked in that song we sang nearly every time we got together: no, old friend, the circle will not be unbroken.