Only a River
Have you ever won concert tickets off the radio station? The thrill is unmatched, and the stakes are high. You need quick fingers and perfect timing.
The window for victory lives somewhere between caller eight and caller nine. Half a second on either side, and you’re out of luck.
My mom has this skill. She routinely wins tickets and prizes from our local radio station, Ann Arbor’s 107one. By now, the DJ probably knows her by name.
A few months ago, she got us into a small studio performance by a singer-songwriter named Josh Ritter. I had never heard of him before.
But he played a song that day that found me at just the right moment in time.
It was a midday show in late fall, just as we were starting to dip our toes into winter.
I met my mom in the parking lot, and we shuffled inside, grateful to be out of the cold November wind.
The girl at the door checked us in, and smiled. My mom knew her by name.
“She’s the one who runs the email list,” my mom said. “She’s very nice.”
Mother approved.
We continued up the stairs, past concert posters from old shows - G Love, Iron & Wine, Shakey Graves. Down the hall was the studio, a space that felt warm and inviting with dim lighting, oriental rugs, and flickering candles.
The venue was small, it only held about 100 people. To sit in there and see an artist perform just a few feet away, on a cold November afternoon - it felt special. Like you were in on some kind of secret.
I had a lot on my mind that day.
About five years ago, my brother Brian and I bought a rental property together, a little house on Bagley Avenue, in Ypsilanti. We formed an LLC - Hollowell Homes.
It was the beginning of something we planned to build together, a way to work a little less and enjoy the pleasures of what Brian liked to call “mailbox money.”
It gave us a reason to call each other in the middle of our busy work days. To talk about repairs, tenants, improvements - plans for the future.
Just a few years earlier, I had borrowed $1,000 from him to pay rent. Now we were buying houses together.
When Brian died, those plans came to a halt.
The tenants were moving out, and I had to decide what to do with the house - and the business. My sister-in-law Becky trusted me to do what was right.
I kept thinking about something my brother Greg had written, the week after Brian died;
He has always been and forever will be the light to which I hold everything up to, to determine whether it's good, bad, right, or wrong.
I found myself talking to Brian - asking him what I should do with the house, what was the right move. Sometimes I would be driving around, asking him out loud.
“C’mon, Brian,” I’d say. “What am I supposed to do here, man?”
Other times the question would run through my mind over and over again.
It always came back unanswered.
As my mom and I sat in the studio, waiting for the show to start, I watched the DJ adjust his mic stand, and set up to record.
Josh Ritter walked onstage in jeans and a white button down, holding a guitar.
When he spoke, his voice was sincere, and honest. The kind of person who, in another life, might have made a good carpenter.
He started working through some songs, and they sounded familiar - though I had never heard them before.
Ritter is a true American songwriter - like John Prine or Guy Clark. He sings about love and loss, the road, and the desert. He sings about America.
Halfway through the show, he introduced a tune called “Only a River.”
“I wrote this song in a stairwell at my dorm in college,” he said. “And it sat in a drawer for a long time.”
Years later, Ritter met Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, and they began working on some new music together.
He played him, “Only a River,” and Weir loved it. He recorded it for his next album.
Eventually, Bob Dylan caught wind of the song, and covered it live.
Ritter leaned into his guitar, and began with the opening lyrics,
I was born up in the mountains
Raised up in a desert town
And I never saw the ocean
‘Till I was close to your age now
A few months before my wedding, my brothers and I took a trip to Seattle. A brother’s weekend. No wives or kids - just the three of us. Like old times.
Brian and Greg handled all the details - all I had to do was show up. I quickly fell into my role as the youngest brother, and followed their lead.
Brian had gotten us tickets to see the Seattle Mariners play the Detroit Tigers. He sported his Fielder jersey I had sent him for his birthday a few years back. Go Tigers.
Before the game, we stopped into a dispensary and loaded up on edibles and pre-rolls. These days, I don’t partake like I used to, and it doesn’t take much to send me adrift.
Naturally, I took a little too much.
I was cemented in my seat for the duration of the ball game. I couldn’t tell you who was winning or what inning it was, but it was a beautiful day, and I was with my brothers.
After the game, we strolled around the docks of the Seattle waterfront. You could taste the salt in the air. A cool breeze rolled in off the ocean as the sun went down, and we ate dinner at a restaurant overlooking Puget Sound.
My mom, as always, checked in.
I texted her a photo of the three of us at dinner. She noticed Brian’s martini glass.
“Is Brian okay??” she messaged back.
This was a common refrain whenever Brian wouldn’t answer his phone. It had become a running joke.
Us brothers had a group text going - we called it the Ho Bros. Most days, we would message back and forth - sharing music, or bad jokes. Lots of toilet humor.
Whenever Brian didn’t respond, Greg and I would write,
“IS BRIAN OKAY??” in all caps.
The week before he died, he was hard to get a hold of. I had to call and text him a few times before I could get him on the phone.
Brian wasn’t okay, and hadn’t been for a while.
It was the weekend after Fourth of July. We usually talked on Sundays.
I was out in the backyard, tending the vegetable garden. Zucchinis were starting to come in, and I had just picked a few fresh off the vine, to make fritters.
“Sorry I haven’t been texting in the Ho Bros lately,” Brian said. “It’s been really hard for me to focus on anything.” He had been struggling, and couldn’t sleep. The meds weren’t helping.
He asked about the boys, like he always did.
We talked about our Fourth of Julys. No fireworks mishaps this year. All fingers were intact.
Brian had gone to a rodeo.
Before we hung up, I told him that I loved him - not something us brothers said very often.
I felt like he needed to hear it.
Maybe I did too.
That was the last time we talked.
That weekend in Seattle, we went for a hike outside the city. I followed my brothers along the trail, like I always did.
When you’re born without a sense of direction, it’s nice to have older brothers lead the way.
At one point, Greg stepped ahead. His allergies had been acting up, and he kept blowing snot out of his nose, pressing down on one nostril to blow out the other. Brian was right behind him.
“Hey Greg, would you quit farmer blowing on me back here?” Brian yelled.
Three brothers out exploring the world together, just like old times.
In the weeks and months after Brian died, I kept coming back to the tribute Greg had written.
Time is an endless river with no bank, Greg wrote.
We cling to one another in its unstoppable current. If you’re as fortunate as I have been, you had a big brother who knew how to build a boat great enough to carry everyone he loved.
It was a sick-ass boat too. Pro kitchen, wired for sound - the whole nine…stylin’.
Sitting in that small, dimly lit studio with my mom that day, the answer came to me.
I didn’t want to be a landlord anymore.
It was time to let it go.
I had been working with a young couple, helping them find their first home. Pat and Maddie.
Our little house would be perfect for them, I thought. Perfect for their new life together.
The show ended, and we made our way down the stairs and back out into the cold.
“What’d you think?” my mom asked as we stood in the parking lot.
“It was good,” I said. “It was really good. I liked it.”
She agreed, and we made plans to come back for future shows.
My mom and I said goodbye, and went back to our days.
Over the next few weeks, I worked on getting the house ready. Cleaning the gutters, touching up the paint. I decided to get the roof done - something that Brian and I had planned on since we first bought the place.
It’s a strange thing, getting sentimental about a house you never lived in. As I swept up the floors one last time, I had my Airpods in and I was listening to the Grateful Dead - Europe ‘72, an album that has always reminded me of my brother.
Riding shotgun in Brian’s baby blue ‘87 Ford Taurus as a kid, one day he explained to me that the song “He’s Gone” was about how Mickey Hart’s dad screwed the Dead out of a ton of money, and then split town.
The summer after he graduated high school, Brian took me on a camping trip Up North, just me and him. A little farewell to his younger brother before he took off for college.
We hiked around the dunes, swam in Lake Michigan, and spent nights by the campfire. I had just finished seventh grade.
I kept bugging him for a cigarette, but he wouldn’t give in. He said if I wanted to smoke, I was on my own.
One day we were driving along the back roads of Northern Michigan, and Brian was flying. He must have been going ninety. In an old Ford Taurus, it felt a whole lot faster - especially when you’re 13 years old.
He didn’t see the patrol car driving in the opposite direction until we blew right past him. Without looking back, Brian swung a sharp right down the next dirt road, through the trees, and sped off down twists and turns, until we were a couple miles through the woods, sure that the cop wasn’t behind us.
Since Brian had gone, I had Europe ‘72 on repeat.
From a young age, the music of the Grateful Dead had always been a bond among the Ho Bros. We grew up with an old cassette of Skeletons from the Closet, and listened to stories from the road from our Uncle Bobby, who spent the better half of the 90’s on tour.
I remember thinking that “Mexicali Blues” was a neat old timey cowboy tune when I was a kid. Songs like “Uncle John’s Band” and “Casey Jones” felt antique, and special. Like they came from somewhere else.
After Brian moved out to Montana, he sent me a mixtape with some Garcia / Grisman tracks on it from Shady Grove. Acoustic guitar, mandolin, and banjo.
When I listen to that album now, I picture Brian in his forest green ‘94 Bronco, an upgrade from the old Taurus.
In my mind, he is driving with the windows down in the great wide open of Montana, Shady Grove playing over the Bronco’s car stereo. The smell of sage and sweetgrass in the air.
We cannot reverse the river’s unstoppable current, we can never go back.
But with the right song, at the right time, perhaps we can visit for a while.
Only a river gonna make things right
Only a river gonna make things right
As I swept up the last bit of debris from the rental house, I said my goodbye, and locked up.
I had always liked that little house.
A couple weeks before Christmas, we closed on the sale, and I handed Pat and Maddie the keys to their new home. They were excited to move in, already making plans.
I had been feeling a need to create, and I needed a project. I wanted to make something meaningful.
Greg and I talked.
We threw around the idea of doing some sort of creative project together. With 500 miles between us, there was only so much we could do.
One day it came to me.
“We should start a podcast,” I told Greg. “About the music of the Grateful Dead.”
Greg wasn’t so sure at first.
“I don’t think I have much to say,” he told me.
But the idea grew on him, and we started recording.
We called it Ramble On Bros, after the Dead song, “Ramble on Rose,” from Europe ‘72.
“I feel like that’s what we’ve been doing these past few months,” Greg said. “Just ramblin’ on.”
The podcast gave us something to talk about, and something to plan for - a reason to call each other.
One Saturday night about a month ago, Greg and I were getting ready to record. I was standing at the butcher block island in our kitchen with Lizzie, and we wondered if the Dead had any shows coming up.
Lizzie checked her phone for tour dates and saw the news.
“Bob Weir died,” she said.
He was 78.
It was quiet in the kitchen, the boys were already asleep upstairs. Sam, our tabby cat, sat by his food bowl, watching us, hopeful and patient. Just like the day we found him.
I looked back.
“Are you still going to record?” Lizzie asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re still doing it.”
Greg called a few minutes later, he had heard the news. We agreed - we would record, and dedicate the show to Bob.
There’s this photo of Greg and Brian from that trip we took to Seattle together. They’re standing in the sun, the two of them - with the ocean behind them. They have their arms around each other, and they’re smiling back at the camera.
A moment in time, from what seemed like another life.
Brothers through it all.
As we came to the end of the episode, I told Greg I had a song in mind for a closer.
“There’s this song I heard a couple months ago…” I began.
As the opening chord of “Only a River” rang out, Greg signed off.
“It’s been a hoot,” he said.
A nod to the last words that Jerry Garcia ever spoke to Bob Weir, as they walked offstage for the final time.
I agreed. “Always.”