My Buddy "Scrubby"

"HI FOLKS-------COME ON IN AND MAKE YOURSELVES HOMELY!"

Just one of the many greetings you'd get when you walked into the smokehouse restaurant that Jim Birchfield built after his Air force days were over.

Captain James Birchfield was an old Air Force pilot who flew B-52's and B-57's over Vietnam. He'd gotten out of the service when I was in Italy, and built his restaurant right outside of the base. "Scrubby" was the nickname his wife Karen had given him a few years before that. It was sort of a "combination word" that stood for "Screwy Hubby," so he used it for his restaurant.

As I wrote a few blogs ago, I used to play guitar and sing with him in his barracks office area, and he would share "war stories" with all of us. When I returned from Italy to begin tour # 2 here, and heard he'd opened up this smokehouse, it was just a natural thing to pick up where we'd left off musically, and I would frequently join him out there on Friday and/or Saturday nights to do dinner shows. Don Dixon (my old pickin' partner from McChord would join in, and then sometime a little later, came Irv Levine, a singing/yodeling veterinarian from town. Irv was a retired Major who'd flown a number of different airplanes, including F-105's over Vietnam. (Scrubby's been gone now since 1992, but to this day, Irv & I still play music together on occasion).

Scrubby was Scrubby. He marched to the beat of his own drum, loved everybody and if he had an enemy someplace, I can't imagine who it might have been, He had a tremendous singing voice too. The Christmas before I left for Italy, (he was still active duty), he sang an unforgettable rendition of "O' Holy Night" in Chapel One on base. Without a microphone, and it filled every corner of the chapel.

A few years later at his restaurant, he'd sing old fighter pilot songs, and we'd all join in on some "special tunes" that was for........well, let's say......the "late night crowd"............

It was important for him to put out the best food, too. And he did. He'd drive up into the hills in his old Toyota Land Cruiser he nicknamed "Rand", take his open-bed trailer, and bring back loads of applewood for the huge smokers in the back of the restaurant. He always said that the APPLEWOOD was part of the reason the meat came out so good. He also had a certain smoking process as well. FOURTEEN HOURS, and at certain intervals, he would open the huge oven doors, "spear" the meat" and move them either up or down onto the next smoking tray, to "vary the heat range" naturally. It was a hot, sweatty, timed process, but when the smoking was over, you could cut it with a fork!

He also had a secret recipe for his baked beans, which a LOT of folks tried to imitate. The food out their was GREAT. Sometimes, I'd launch my airplane out, and drive out there for lunch. As soon as I'd walk in the door, he'd look over at me and yell LOUDLY, "HEY BRAD" (nickname)...."HOW'S YOUR OLD WAH-ZOO?"

(In "Scrubby" language, your old "wah-zoo" was never really defined-----it was just whatever you wanted it to be a on a given day.)

Then while the girls were heating up my sandwich, he'd put that old beat-up guitar of his in my hands, and say something like....."You see THESE folks over here at this table?.......they've never heard "Stars and Stripes Forever" played on a guitar......"FOLKS, THIS is my good friend Mike Bradbury, and you'll just be AMAZED at what you're gonna hear now......go ahead and PLAY, Brad......."

..................I just walked in, fresh off the flightline, fingers not even warmed up, or limber enough yet. and old "Scrub" has me doing this "command performance!"

"Stars & Stripes Forever" is an old patriotic John Phillip Sousa marching band song, and even when you're WARMED-UP, it's a difficult piece to play with just one instrument and no accompanyment..............(It's a song you virtually NEVER hear played on a guitar, and I'd made the "mistake" of playing it one night out there, and in HIS mind, I could just "do it on demand" whenever I walked in the door!)

Well, "back at the restaurant"..........I'd quickly "exercise" the strings a bit as I'd walk over to the table, and when enough blood rushed to my fingertips, I'd play the song!

But that's how he was. Then as I sat and ate, HE would walk around, table to table with his guitar and sing for the customers. You never quite knew what to expect when you walked into that place!

We deer-hunted together on a couple of occasions, and I'd listen intently as he would tell stories of his flying and bombing experiences. He particularly enjoyed his combat time in the B-57 Canberra dive bombers, with his back-seater and lifelong friend, John Eddy.

John Eddy would sometimes come up to Idaho to hunt with Scrubby, and one of the funniest stories I've ever heard was the "trailer fire" episode.

On those rare occasions when these two old flight warriors could get together, Scrubby would load up his small travel trailer, and they'd be up in the hills hunting for a WEEK if necessary, then sit around their campfire at night and "remember when."

Well........one night after they'd turned-in for the evening, Scrubby had a very bad case of "gas." It got so bad inside the trailer, John Eddy slid a small window UP where he was sleeping and stuck his head OUT of the window opening, so he could breathe FRESH air while he slept.

Scrubby was sleeping in the other end of the trailer, and was suffering in his own stench. He didn't want to stick HIS head out through a trailer window because it was cold outside. Didn't bother John Eddy, who was now laying flat on his back, head outside, facing upward toward the stars.

Pretty soon, Scrubby couldn't stand his own gas anymore, got his cigarette lighter out and started to "light 'em off" (like a LOT of us did when we were boys--------it's a "guy" thing). Fire tends to "sizzle" the methane gas and it pretty much vaporizes.

As Jim told the story, it worked the first few times, but when he tried to burn off a "heavy mist" of it, a FLAME shot out and ignited one of his blankets and a small fire started.

Unaware of John Eddy's position, Scrubby jumped up and yelled "FIRE.......FIRE!" as he scrambled to put it out. John jumped up out of his sound sleep, his head still OUTSIDE of that little slide-up window, and almost HUNG HIMSELF trying to pull his head back in!

Anyway, I guess Scrubby threw the blanket outside, and they put it out so nothing else caught fire! As I understand it, John never slept with his head out the window again!

Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, we did a very unique "dinner show", and I'm glad I've got pictures of it. Phil Batt was running for Governor & Butch Otter was running for LT Governor, and they were coming down to play music with us............Play MUSIC with us?

YEP. You heard right. And they DID............and they were pretty good too. Otter played pretty competent rythmn guitar, and he sings VERY WELL. Phit Batt plays the clarinet and can hold HIS own pretty well too.

Irv & I joined Scrubby, and the the FIVE of us "tortured the customers" all night. As expected, both Otter & Batt DID make short campaign speeches, but I have to say, the speeches were VERY short, as they just wanted to pick their instruments up and play some more............so we did. It was a fun night.

It would be nice if ALL political speeches were that short!

I'd like to have a dollar for every dinner show I ever played out there. I always enjoyed it, and the crowds were always good especially "late-night" when Scrubby would get the audience involved in a few of the songs. Jim Birchfield would always put a personal and human touch on some of those old songs like the "Cremation of Sam McGee" and the killing of "Dan McGrew" The old Roger Whitaker folk songs like the "Last Farewell" were always requested.

There was also a perceived mystery on what might be upstairs. There was a two-level staircase that seemed to lead up into the darkness upstairs, and Scrubby would always answer the curious folks by saying that "when you get to the top, the slot machines are on the left----the girls are on the right."

(Very few of us ever HAD actually been up there).

On the inside walls and beams, was one of the best military squadron patch collections I've ever seen. Visiting TDY folks would almost always make donations. The place REEKED of atmosphere.

In early 1992, his health began to fail with serious respiratory problems. Before long, he was gone, the town mourned, and the restaurant was never the same without him being there. Karen eventually sold it, but no one has ever made a successful go of it since, and today it sits desolate out there, with weeds filling the parking lot, where customers' cars used to be.

His old guitar.........battered, beaten & bruised from YEARS of "torturing the customers, now sits in MY collection, given to me in 2004 by his widow, Karen. There is considerable "pick-wear", from where a pick-guard would be if it had one, because when Scrubby got "wound-up", he would really "strafe" that thing!

When Karen gave it to me in 2004, my first thoughts were to restore it, taking it all down to bare wood, then do some wood fill-in, stain and refinish it.............but just as quickly, I just told myself "NO!" I want this guitar to look the way I REMEMBER it from the dinner shows.

But it sat in their basement untouched for over 12 years, and the wood was drying out, so I went over it thoroughly with my favorite wood wax. I rubbed every square inch, spend considerable time on the neck, polished buffed and re-strung it. Every now and then, I still get it out and play it a little.

I like to think ol' Scrubby would like that.