Duck lives in a camper in Phoenix

Duck stands next to Steve the Star and Becky Home Eckey.

January 8, 2024

Phoned Duck today to ask him if I could write about his life.  He and I are on opposing political sides at this late stage of our lives, yet in the seventh grade we were tightly aligned.  We were good friends.  We still are.  Duck is a Trumper. This put me in such a depression that I couldn’t talk about it. I still feel ill in my stomach. The trouble is, I love and admire Duck. We grew up together, although for many later years, we’ve been far apart geographically and politically.

I told Duck I wanted to interview him because I am fundamentally certain of his good will and his personal honesty.  Along with our deep roots together on this globe, somehow he is on the north pole and I am on the south.

“But we’re on two ends of the same earth,” he said.

I ended my pitch noting that I thought if I could understand his view of the world, of the universe, it might make sense and I would be better off somehow.

Imagine a world of bubble people.  Each one projects a unique mental “reality” superimposed on the world as he experienced it.  This model includes the concept of (1) an ultimately true phenomenal existence (reality). And (2) many people who experience that the world differently, based on the above mentioned mental states.  The potentiality is called an “entelechy” in the I Ching.

I’m exploring the basis of our differences.

He felt sorry for me when I first moved to Dillon, Montana, because I was alone and Kirk gave me the daily “Struckman treatment” whenever we walked home from school.  Jim Feathers was another who walked with Duck and me. I don’t even remember what the Struckman treatment was.  I’ll ask Duck about that the next time I call him.  Duck said he didn’t like that I got the “treatment.”

We talked for about an hour.  Finally, Duck told me his dog, Louie, that he’d feed him soon.  In favor of Duck feeding his hungry dog, I excused myself and hung up.

I mentioned that I long admired Duck for his truthfulness.  He said something happened to him before puberty that made him want to tell the truth.  He declined to tell me until later.  I thanked him for that. 

The way Duck mentioned the “Struckman treatment” and his regret that he didn’t protect me, made me think maybe Duck has thought about it since with repentance.  I barely remember it. I think I was bullied.

Duck remembers when Jim Feathers, he, and I were exploring the buildings at Western Montana College in Dillon in the 8th grade.  He noted the custodians had trouble with us.  Duck said we were hiding in a men’s room from the custodians.  Suddenly, Jim made noise and ran to a window and wriggled out.  Duck and I followed him, he said.  (I have a slight memory of this.  Did it happen that way?)

He suffers from chronic heart failure bad enough that he is short of  breath.  Also, emphysema, but not severe enough to require oxygen.  He said he monitors his vital signs and weight fairly closely.  He has to.  He also complained of gynecomastia.  I observed that I have large breasts too.  I told him I wear a bra.  Then I told him I lied about the bra.  I’m thinking he lied about the gynecomastia also.

I enjoyed speaking with Duck today.  He played his bass guitar yesterday at church.  He played his fretless bass, not his five-string.  He mentioned that he has only six guitars.

His brother, David, visited him several weeks ago at his home in Phoenix.  Well, a little north of Phoenix.

We reminisced about Jim Feathers and Larry Felton, two acquaintances who became archaeologists of renown.  Also, people from our hippie days who continued to make music.  Bob Bartmess and Doug Sternberg, guitarist who played a red Epiphone, then bought a gold Gibson Les Paul.  Both Bob and Doug have died.

This is what David Lenhart posted in an email or text.  I can’t remember which.

Timeline of Drummer Dave

Mr. Mirage and the Illusions: Dillon, MT 1966

David Lenhart, Crest drums

Steve Elwood, guitar & vocals

               Ed Moony, guitar & vocals

Brad Briggs, bass (started with playing bass on a reg. six string guitar until he got a bass guitar and amp. He had to quit a short time later as his dad wanted him to concentrate on other things [Mormon upbringing]).

The Phyne Lyne:  Dillon, MT 1966-7

David Lenhart, Ludwig (Oyster Black Pearl) drums

Steve Elwood, guitar & vocals

 George Miller, guitar & vocals (replaced Moony)

 John Walker, bloody keys piano, and then electric piano

Mike? , bass, preacher’s son from Deer Lodge, MT

Osprey: Helena, MT, 1968

David Lenhart, Ludwig drums

Doug Sternberg, guitar & vocals

 Bob Bartmess Weaver, bass

3 Farthing Stone: Missoula, MT, & 1st time to Richfield, ID, 1968 

David Lenhart, Ludwig to Double bass set Slingerland (Champagne Sparkle) drums

Doug Sternberg, guitar & vocals

 Bob Bartmess Weaver, bass

Manager: Steven Spoja (Spoge)

Then we added a 2nd guitarist;

  (can’t remember his name) guitar & vocals (Ralf’s friend from Miles City),

 and changed our manager to: Ralf Compton

Hornbeam: Missoula, MT, 1968

 David Lenhart, Slingerland drums

 Doug Sternberg, guitar & vocals

 Marilyn Sternberg, guitar 

 Doug Pollard, Hammond keyboards

 Bob Bartmess Weaver, bass

Blackfoot River Family Band: Missoula, MT, up the Blackfoot River (cabin/tipi living), 1968-9

 David Lenhart, Slingerland drums

Doug Sternberg, guitar & vocals

 Marilyn Sternberg, guitar 

 Doug Pollard, Hammond keyboards

 Bob Bartmess Weaver, Bass

Jack & Lillian Sturgis, back-up singers and roadies

Wayne Silversonic and the Cranistones, Missoula, MT & Seattle, WA 1969-70

We played several gigs at The Univ. of Mont., Missoula, MT; 1st billing under Eric Burdon and War at Montana State Univ. in Bozeman, MT; Sky River Rock Festival 1969, WA; and Eatonville Rock Festival, WA in 1969 or 70.

David Lenhart, Slingerland drums

Steve Leach, vocals, lead guitar, flute

 Leon Gulbro, vocals, 2nd guitar

 Bob (Bartmess) Weaver, bass

 Don Gilbert, Hammond keyboards, xylophone

 Michael (Milo) Carbis. Technician

1970: I left Wayne in Seattle, moved to Yakima to again be with Doug & Marilyn Sternberg, Allen Lenhart & Doug Koontz. No real performing band was developed.  A group of people (Doug & Marilyn Sternberg, Jack Cheshier, John Gooderl (RIP 2014), Stanley D. Hooker, Allen and I moved to the old Richfield Hotel in Richfield, ID . The first few floors had been converted into a gymnasium. There was a basement and top floor for living quarters. Vern Webster of Pocatello, ID was the owner. Lots of good times there and then boredom set in. Our only real guitarist, Doug Sternberg, had lost the will to play for a time.

2nd time to Richfield, ID, 1971

Allen may know what we called ourselves. I remember playing a one- nighter in Sun Valley during the summer and another at a bar near a University. A big fight broke out there and we played “Give Peace a Chance” until the fight ended and we finished the night out. 

What was the name of this band? Missoula, MT, 1972-3

David Lenhart, drums

Ron Taylor, lead guitar, vocals (from Livingston, MT (my local postmaster in Cowiche, WA was his groupie in their younger years.

Barry Walden, guitar, vocals

Mike ?, bass, vocals

I then moved back to Yakima, WA. Why you ask? To find work in the fruit industry and play on the side.

I joined some hic country band in Yakima and lastly,

The Arkansas Travelers, Yakima, WA, 1979-80

After 15 years of being a starving musician, I retired from playing at 30, got a steady job, married my

 love, Jeanne (Summer) Kezele, and raised a family. YES! I was now comple