An American Songline

Journeys in Vintage Music with Cecelia Otto

Odds and Ends

My Interview with Propel Businessworks on Crowdfunding

by

Hello everyone!

I hope you are enjoying fall no matter where you are. Things here have been busy for me getting the word out about the American Songline book and CD, and I’m already starting to book dates for 2016.

While my main focus is on sharing American Songline with the world, I realize that I would not be where I am without the backers from my 2013 Kickstarter campaign. After my crowdfunding campaign was over, people came to me asking for tips on how to run a successful campaign. I have seen an increase in these questions about crowdfunding over the last few years, so much so that I have started consulting with others on their campaigns as well as speaking to organizations all over American. I am grateful to be able to help people with their crowdfunding campaigns, and this interview with Propel Businessworks is just another way of to share what information I’ve gathered over the years.

Click here to read the interview, “Raising Money for Your Business Using Crowdfunding” on Propel’s PRO Network. Interested in consulting with me directly? Click on this link and I’ll be in touch with you shortly. I’ll also be releasing a eBook with more of these tips, so if you’re interested in reading it, get on the mailing list. Thanks!

The American Songline Book is Coming! Here’s a Preview…

by

Thanks to all of you who have bought the CD so far! I hope you have been enjoying the music. While I was happy and proud of the the album being out, I went full tilt to work on the book and it’s almost done! The American Songline book will not only chronicle the 30 concerts I gave in 2013, I also share some personal parts of the journey as well. I sang songs about love and loss along the Lincoln Highway, and those songs became the inspiration for chapters of the same name.

Up first, I wanted to share an excerpt of the “Loss” chapter. Today marks the 5th anniversary of my father’s passing – I can’t believe he’s been gone for five years. The American Songline project was just a vague idea in my mind when he died, and I had no idea if it would be successful or not. Before I started my tour, I knew my Dad would play a part in his own way, and he did. Read more in this passage from the upcoming book:

***

I was a bit worried about staying overnight in Gettysburg. The rumors of the town and hotel being haunted stuck with me, and while I’m not afraid of ghosts, I have had enough encounters with the paranormal that I cannot explain away. I was curious to see if the rumors were true, but I wasn’t actively looking to find out.

There was a plastic candle in my window that lit up when the sun went down. I saw it and wondered if the candle was for the living or for the dead that may walk the streets. When I asked the front desk the following morning why it was there, the hotel clerk said, “It’s a tradition in this area to leave a light on in a window sill for those traveling at night, so they know they have a place to stay.”

I kept a low profile that night, eating dinner and working on my regular jobs. When I finally fell asleep that night, something strange happened.

No Civil War soldiers appeared, but I had a vivid dream that changed my outlook on the rest of the tour. I dreamt I was in an old house that had been converted into a bookshop. I walked into various rooms and combed through the stacks. At some point, I turned the corner into the next room, and there he was.

My father died unexpectedly from a massive heart attack at the age of 61 in 2010, about three months before Dan and I were to be married. While I had some major issues with my father during his life, his death was extremely devastating to my family and me. The one person who you thought would be the last to go was the first. To also lose him so close to my wedding (a supposed happy time) was, and still is, an extremely painful thing for me. After his death, he would appear periodically in my dreams, and tonight in Gettysburg he did just that.

 He was not young this time; he was older with his grey bread, glasses, and wearing his favorite blue and white flannel shirt. We talked as we wandered the stacks, and then when we got the comic book section of the bookstore he stopped.

            “Hey Cec, do you want a comic book? I’ll buy.”

 I remember my jaw dropping, mainly because neither of us really liked comic books. “No Dad, I really don’t like comic books. Why would you want to buy me one?”

            “Oh, I just want you to have some fun, that’s all.”

            What he said sounded so odd to me that I woke up immediately. For a few seconds, I did not know where I was. The candle was still aglow on my windowsill, and there was nothing and no one there. I eventually fell back asleep, but it took a while.  

***

I love and miss him, but what I miss more sometimes are the opportunities I wish I could have had with him – I’d give anything to have one more day with Dad again. If you didn’t do this over Mother’s Day this past weekend, please tell your loved ones how much they mean to you. You never know what can happen, and the secret to living a great life is to live a life with no regrets. Thank you for letting me share this story with you, and if you have any comments, please share them below.

One Year Ago Today…

by

IMG_1446

One year ago, a journey started with a concert in New York City. The cabaret room and crowd were small on this April afternoon, but they knew they were witnessing something that had never happened before – a birth of a historic singing travelogue that would months later finally make its way across the country.

My mind today is still reeling from the fact that I was able to accomplish this. I can tell you that the woman standing on a stage in New York City one year ago was both nervous and excited for what would be coming.  While I sang that first concert in New York, so many thoughts raced through my head, including:

1) “Holy crap, I’m performing this first show, and that show is in New York City!!”

2) “What will everyone think of these songs?” (Answer: They were very well-received. In NYC, “Second Hand Rose” and “Nobody Makes a Pass at Me” were the crowd favorites.)

3) “There’s still no accompanist for my performance in Indiana … there HAS to be someone in South Bend who can play it.” (Answer: There was someone, and he was confirmed less than two weeks before the show.)

4) “I hope this car holds out!” (Answer: It had to make a couple trips to a mechanic for various things along the way, but all in all I made it all the way across the country without getting into any major car wrecks.)

5) “Will I get sick of singing these songs?” (Answer: Nope. Not once.)

There were physical, emotional, spiritual, and literal “bumps in the road” along the way, but I knew I had to keep going. I had to see what was around the next corner, what was in the next town, what was in the next state. But doing this project wasn’t about what I saw, it was something more.

It was what I felt. Sure, there are some easy ways to tell visually if you’re on the various Lincoln Alignments (street names, telephone poles, and architecture always help give clues), but it was how the road felt as you are driving it. Within a few weeks of my tour, I could tell when I wasn’t on the Lincoln anymore by how it felt. It sounds weird, but it’s true.

The Lincoln Highway is a road, but it’s also a state of mind. What is that state of mind? Here’s hoping I can convey to you what that state of mind means to me in my upcoming book.

Thank you all for your support these last 365 days, and I can’t wait to share what lies ahead!

DSCN5030

 

Gifts and Things Found Along the Lincoln Highway

by

Happy Holidays Everyone!

The nomad in me never stops moving, hence my silence on this blog. After I finished the tour this fall, my husband and I took the plunge and moved 2,000 miles from Chicago to Portland, Oregon where we’ve both never lived before! We’ve been here now for a few weeks, and are spending the holidays here on the West Coast. So far my time has been great here, and I look forward to exploring the area more very soon.

But enough about non-Lincoln Highway things! I know many of you out there have been enjoying and celebrating your holiday season amidst the hustle and bustle that comes along with it.  I wanted to stop and take stock of the many gifts blessings I’ve received from people along the road this year, and I wanted to share these roadside finds with you all. Below you’ll find some really neat and unique items that were given to me as well as things I found along the way. You’ll also see a plethora of t-shirts in this collection as well from across the country (when you live on the road and laundry is scarce, new t-shirts are pretty much a necessity).

Without sounding too hokey, the biggest gift of all is nothing pictured in this gallery. It will always be the new friends I made while on my journey; they now have become “old” friends to me in such a short time. They are the true legacy of the Lincoln Highway, and I feel honored to know them. You will hear more about these extraordinary people in future blog posts as well as my book about my travels. So stay tuned-this is only the beginning!

Until then, may the rest of 2013 be merry for you all! –Cece

The Colorado Loop

by

Towns don't really exist in this part of Colorado, but ranches and businesses do.
Towns don’t really exist in this part of Colorado, but ranches and businesses do.

Ok, I’m admitting it.

I’m a little biased with today’s post. As most of you know, I lived in Colorado for five years to do my graduate studies in music. This part of my trip was as close to a “homecoming” as I got on this tour, so after my Denver performance I took a mini-break from the road to be in familiar surroundings with dear people who I’ve known for a long time.

That being said, there is plenty about Denver that is no longer familiar to me, even after only being gone several years. Restaurants and radio stations stayed the same, but so much has changed and grown in such a short time. I knew I couldn’t go “home” again when I came back to Colorado, but I still never anticipated how hard it would be to be back there at times.

Anyway, onto the history of the road…

The Colorado Loop only existed as part of the Lincoln Highway from 1913-1915, but since we are celebrating the centennial of the highway, we must celebrate all of the original parts of the road. This loop created great controversy from the get-go for the Lincoln Highway Association. This part of the highway was included due to the persuasions of people in Colorado, but also out of slight guilt from the association. After all, they held their initial meeting in Colorado, and then they originally decide to leave Denver off the route? Colorado wouldn’t have it! The loop was then created, but trouble quickly followed. The town of Greeley decided they wanted in on that action, and then there was an “unsanctioned” route created to include Greeley in that route. The LHA had enough of the state’s shenanigans, so they eventually and quietly changed the route to not include Colorado.

It’s a shame really. The high plains of Colorado have a serenity found nowhere else along the route. After living in Denver and always flocking into the mountains for an adventure, the Northeastern parts of Colorado have an adventure all unto itself. Much of this area still remains unchanged from a century ago, and you really start to feel the isolation a Lincoln Highway traveler would have encountered back then.

My performance in Denver was a good one, and it was wonderful to see so many lovely people again. Dan was able to come out for this show, plus there was an old friend who flew from New York to surprise me for this performance! There’s some great video of this show now on my YouTube Channel for your viewing pleasure.

Below you’ll see photos of the loop as well as pictures of Denver itself and Mt. Evans (while not on the Lincoln Highway, it’s a road that most everyone should visit while in the area). Let me know what you think of the pictures, and thanks for stopping by!

Kearney to North Platte: Exploring more of Central Nebraska

by

As I left Kearney, NE on the morning of July 4th, the road changed for me yet again. This time the road had a different buzz then before. The big centennial celebrations were over, but because of the holiday nothing had been taken down yet. Town still kept various things open not only for the holiday, but for Lincoln Highway travelers like myself. In one of my previous posts, I remarked about what the route looked like in advance of the car tours. Would everything go back to the way it was, or would it all stay up for the rest of the summer? Would the Lincoln still be prominent in people’s minds, or would it fade away again? I’d have to drive further down the road to see what happened…

It’s about 100 miles as the crow files from Kearney to North Platte, but in these parts it takes a lot longer to get there than one would think thanks to the famous “Stair Steps” along the route. If you drive US 30 in this part, you are NOT driving on the original highway. When the Lincoln was being plotted 100 years ago, it was tricky in those days to get across the South Platte River. They used the existing roads of the time, which followed section lines around farms. These lines formed a stair step pattern when you looked at a map. You can read more about this part of the route here. It winds and curves, dozens of times, but it a beautiful and historic stretch of road. Thanks to the efforts of Muriel Clark with Nebraska Outback (more about her in my next post), this section of the road now has signage directing you along all of these twists and turns. When I was photographing the road they were in process of getting all of the signs up, so it should now (as of today’s date) be fully marked.

Because I had to be in North Platte at a specific time, I had to drive this section on two different days. I followed the original route until Gothenburg on the 4th, and then I came back and drove the original route from Gothenburg to North Platte a few days later. I really loved driving this part of the route, and I’m glad I took the time to see it.

Summary of Eastern Iowa Highlights (Including a Special Trip to Belle Plaine)

by

The modern Lincoln Highway Association had its rebirth in Iowa, and for good reason – many of the historic roads and places on the route are still unchanged and/or in use today. Agriculture is still the prominent industry along the route as it would haven been across the nation a century ago. The road has been categorized as a “Heritage Byway” by the state, and the signage here is excellent. You even have the options to take special loop sections along the original gravel routes to really get the old experience of what the route would have been like long ago.

My travels in Iowa thus far on the original route have been tricky. Due to the excessive rain in the state, many low-lying areas and rivers have flooded, and this includes some of the original gravel stretches in Eastern Iowa. Now normally I wouldn’t balk at a little water on the road, but when it has a current running through it, I didn’t want to take the chance. Between the Iowa mud (known as “gumbo”) and the rain travelers faced on the Lincoln Highway 100 years ago, I can see why many travelers turned back at this point.

Before I left Illinois, I received an unexpected but very cool phone call. A 94 year old man by the name of John Schild (known as “Dick” by most), heard of what I was doing. He then asked if we were related, as he had a cousin with the last name of “Otto”. I told him I wasn’t sure, but between us being possibly related, what I was doing for my project, and just exchanging general pleasantries, I had an invitation to visit and tour Belle Plaine, Iowa with John who had spent his whole life in town watching the Lincoln Highway grow and change before his eyes.

I spent about whole day touring the whole city with him, plus I had the pleasure of also having lunch at the Lincoln Cafe and afternoon conversation with him and Bill Sankot, the owner of the Sankot Garage, a place that is on the National Register of Historic Places. The intermittent rain that day facilitated some of the deepest conversations I’ve had on this tour thus far. Back in the heydays of the highway, men would gather at the garage to talk about the news of the day. This particular gloomy Wednesday in June, a 94 year old (Dick), a 60 something year old (Bill), and a 30 something year old (me) sat in the same garage and talked for hours about any and every topic you can think of in society. What did I (Cece) think of the country’s future? Are computers really the downfall of human society? If you could have one modern thing to take back with you a 100 years ago, what would it be? Take these questions and sprinkle in fun stories and anecdotes from our lives (including a few famous people), and you have an amazing, living aural history right in front of you. By the time my day had come to a close my brain was swimming with so much information, I was relieved I had recorded about 80% of our conversations that day.

Before you check out all of the cool photos in the picture gallery below, here’s a couple websites that give more information about the pictures below.

1) Belle Plaine Museum: This museum is quite a find for the area, and has several wonderful collections. A must stop for any Lincoln Highway buff.

2) Youngville Café: Built in 1931, this was a fully functioning gas station, café, and small cabin court along the highway until the late 1960’s. It too is also on the National Register of Historic Places, and now is open a couple days a week for lunch.

And now onto the gallery!

There’s more posts about Iowa after this one, so subscribe to read more!

Living Gluten Free While on the Lincoln Highway

by

While I post mostly about the sights and experiences along the Lincoln Highway, I want to talk about something that unifies all of us humans, and that’s food. Food defines us as a culture and some of our best memories come through the food we’ve made and eaten over time. For those of us who have food sensitivities, journeys like the one that I’m on can be intimidating. Since 2002, I’ve lived a gluten and dairy free lifestyle for medical reasons (there are more sensitivities than this, but these are the big 2 for me). 11 years in the gluten/dairy free world, and so much has changed. I never thought I’d be able to eat pizza in public again, but there are restaurants that make gluten free pizza with non-dairy cheese! Awareness has grown so much just even in the last couple years, rural America knows more about food allergies than ever before.

I’m currently in Iowa, about halfway time-wise on my tour (three months so far, and three to go), so I feel like I can speak about the pluses and pitfalls about living on the road with multiple food allergies. I’ll be honest, I’ve been sick a few times from food I thought was safe that really wasn’t safe (those places will not be mentioned in this post), BUT there’s a lot of great “mom-and-pop” places along the route that are way more accommodating to food-savvy folks like us than typical chain restaurants. As people are becoming more aware about what’s in their food, local diners (especially in the heartland) will source more and more ingredients from people they know. The retro diner that looks like it will have nothing to eat might actually have something that’s okay for you. The owner or owner’s daughter might have Celiac disease, and whoa, the whole kitchen is dedicated gluten free.

There’s tons of people and bloggers who have written about how to travel safe while on a restricted diet, and there’s a lot of great tips out there. I won’t be overly repetitive about what they’ve said, but I will tell you a few things that have worked for me.

1) Bring your own food

In a future post you’ll see how I packed for a 6 month trip (it’s not as easy as it looks), but I can tell you I packed and re-packed my “safe food” stash to have with me when I wouldn’t have access to food. Having food that’s shelf-stable is key for a six-month journey, and then supplementing with local produce/deli is crucial.

A huge plus with a growth in gluten free awareness is that I’ve been able to find and buy loaves of GF bread from reputable companies in grocery stores that were in the middle of nowhere. Amish and Mennonite areas even have gluten free sections now in their stores, as people in their populations have Celiac disease as well. Brands like The Gluten Free Bar, Schar, and Kinnikinnick make shelf stable products (many with non-GMO ingredients), and GFree Connect provides care packs that have sample sizes which are perfect for travel.

2) Bring extra supplements

Those of you who have a specialized diet probably have a supplement routine to keep yourself healthy, including vitamins and digestive enzymes. I am NOT a medical or health professional, so this section can and should be tailored to what’s best for you. If you eat something that makes you sick, remember your body needs an extra “nudge” to get better, especially while dealing with the stress of traveling. When I did get sick from food, the key was hydration, rest, and taking extra supplements. I am happy to report that after three months on the road, I’ve been food sick only and not other types of sick (knocks on wood). I realize getting sick from food is not great, but I feel the need to celebrate small victories where I can. My supplements have helped me cope with the changes in climate, time zones, and weird schedules without getting even a single head cold. Either way, follow the advice of your health care practitioner no matter what I’ve written here, and if your symptoms are severe while on the road seek medical attention immediately.

3) Do Your Homework Before, During and After Your Trip

Anyone who lives this way knows your work is never done in regards to keeping optimum health. You’re always reading labels, looking at menus online, and calling restaurants in advance of your arrival to make sure everything is safe. If you have a smartphone, use those apps that will help you find what you need. For me, Find Me Gluten Free and Yelp have been a godsend and extremely crucial for my trip so far. I’ve been able to locate and read reviews of restaurants and grocery stores (again I like to give my money to local communities, not chains if possible) and use them to my benefit. When in doubt, don’t eat there!

4) Consider Alternative Housing Arrangements While on the Road

This tour has been a grassroots tour from the get-go, and that means I’ve relied on the kindness of strangers to give me a couch/bed to sleep on. One of those components of finding people to stay with is through CouchSurfing. With CouchSurfing, you can create a profile and note your food allergies. You can either be a host to people, or people can host you. Depending on where you are going, you can find people who can accommodate your lodging and dietary needs (i.e. cross-contamination free kitchens) plus get a local’s perspective of the community you are traveling through. Air Bnb also has affordable accommodations as well that might have kitchens where you can cook your own food as well.

Below is a few snapshots of some of my positive food experiences. I couldn’t put the web links to the restaurants in the pictures, so click below on the name of the place if you want to learn more about them.

Grandma’s Grotto

Little E’s Pizzeria

Mad Mex

*I was not compensated by any places or companies above to endorse their product(s). Please read all labels and menus before consuming any food to make sure it’s right for you.