BBBH and I truly enjoy Merle Haggard's songs and his performance of them. He did a number that goes, "I'd like to hold my head up, be proud of who I am. But they won't let my secret go untold. I paid the debt I owed 'em but they're still not satisfied. Now I'm a branded man, out in the cold." And so on and so forth. I sing along with him betimes (through the miracle of technology, though he is no longer with us). Possibly inappropriately, for I've never spent a day in jail in my life. I sang his song "Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down" as a public performance one time. Back home that evening BBBH chastised me. "You can't do drinking songs. You've never had a drink in your life." Well, okay then, but call it empathy or whatever. I like the song." I sketched this as a tribute to Merle's plight
