From 'Doly's Ashes'

Daniel 'Dolomite' Mathis passed away in October of 1996... This is excerpted from my account of the scattering of his ashes from the cliffs at Agate Beach, in 1997...

"We pulled in, parked, and climbed out of the van; and quietly started up the trail leading to the edge of the cliffs. Danny Trembley began wailing on his sax, a forlorn bluesy improvisation, as Tattooed John laid out the beat. About halfway up the trail I stopped. I crouched down in the hollow of a large juniper that grew alongside the trail, and opened the box containing Doly's ashes. I opened his songbook to a page containing a song he had written 24 years earlier about the pain of his addiction, and his hope for eventual freedom. It was a personal song that he resisted performing publicly, but which I'd asked to hear many times over the years.
I wouldn't burn an original lyric of his, but had copied the song, and I pulled this copy out, and holding it immediately above the container, I set it alight ensuring that every cinder fell into Doly's ashes. I did the same with a copy of the death certificate, symbolic to me of letting go of his death and moving on, and again with his copy of the registration to the V-Max he'd bought from his mom's estate and named "Margie Bob"after her. Atop the ashes was the soil from my mom's grave site, and reaching in, I mixed the ashes & the soil together, then took the container the rest of the way to the top of the trail.

The breeze was offshore, just as it needed to be to carry his ashes over the reef, out toward the sea. Massive high cliffs stretched endlessly in both directions. Behind us rolled the lush green earth of Marin. The sun was perched behind a small cloud, shining through it and splashing a silvery light across the ocean. The tide was incoming, and strong waves broke against the reef, splashing and spraying foam two hundred feet below.

Standing at the edge of the cliff I found myself a little uneasy. I took a step back. Danny and Tattooed John stopped playing, and the wind took up the song. I recalled the many times I'd been here before - sometimes opening a can of tuna and enticing the gulls, who'd hover in space, diving for the bits of fish I'd toss out over the edge. Watching them from every angle in their aerial displays was amazing and inspiring, and I hoped that somehow, in whatever incorporation, Doly's spirit could be as free and gracefully unfettered.

I swung the container out at the sea, releasing the ashes. The wind swept them outward and downward in a white plume - spreading out across the cliff's face, down to the waiting reef. I watched the cloud dissipate, as it quickly joined the elements. I knelt for a long time there, watching the setting sun, and watching gulls pass below us on unbended wings - sailing in formations of twos & threes on the steady, gentle wind..."

Steve

Standing in the Flames

By Danny (Dolomite) Mathis 1972

Here stands a man in the sands
of the time
When he could not find a rhyme
I can't seem to reach me no height
I'm not right
but I know I'm not to blame
- standing in the flames... losing in the game
It's hard to be a man and I really can't stand the pain

Chorus:
One step at a time
Walk straight down the line
I've got to find a way
I've been wrong - at times I admit to it
I've got to walk on through it
I've got to walk right through it

‘Cause I've come too close
To overdose
It's true I'm sad to say
And if I can't start
A change of heart
Gonna throw it all away - throw it all away....