Day Trip to Rising Fawn, Georgia

A good time was had yesterday. Bread was broken, tunes were played, songs were sung, lies were told and at one point the ladies had figured out, separately from the men of course, the problems of the world and what course of action was to be taken to get humanity back on track. Whether there has been any movement on their plans today is not known but the evidence should be unmistakeable if so.

The alarm went off at 7am but I was up before it and Heidi before me which is her usual schedule. We finished off the large coffee pot and set the smaller for the arrival of The Wood Butcher and Miss Jo. At 8 of the clock the knock came on the front door and the game was afoot. We all settled into hot bowls of oatmeal, fruit, nuts, honey, maple syrup…whatever condiments were at hand…and Heidi served up another perfectly good breakfast frittata with a variety of hot and not-so-hot pepper sauces , the green one made on premises and the red by none other than master luthier Hugh Hanson (Hugh and I swapped condiments when I last went out to have the tailpiece on Gil #03565 (“Red”) tightened up and the deal was done). After we did our duty of finishing off as much of the grub as we could we jumped into Heidi’s black Toyota Highlander called “Darth” and we headed southeast on the proverbial gallop to Georgia.

The day was sunny and pleasant enough. Lots of signs of way too much rainwater along the way. There were quite a few lakes where there are usually fields. I’m thankful we live on a hill. We headed down I-24 East until we came to I-59 South and stayed on it until we saw the sign for Rising Fawn. Another half dozen turns and we’re standing in Norman and Nancy Blake’s driveway stretching out the kinks from the 2 1/2 hour drive and admiring Nancy’s small motor home that she’s just had overhauled and painted very green. :-) Steve grabbed all the mandolins out of the Highlander and we headed down the walk to the back porch where usually there is a small herd of cats but I didn’t see the first one. I reckon they were all under the house trying to stay warm. A knock and in a minute Norman’s face appears. A couple minutes of leg pulling and greetings and we were invited in to sit down in the living room “where it was warm”. It is apparent that the room is enjoyed quite often because there are a number of instrument cases around which look like they’ve been brought and laid down strategically so a person can just lean over one direction or the other from a couple chairs near the heater and grab one without having to go far. Steve took out a newer F5 he’d built last year and supposedly calls it his mandolin although I think it’s more his ‘current’ mandolin. He and Norman talked about it for a while and I’d say within less than 30 minutes of our arrival there was music being played. Nancy came around after a bit to say hello and asked if we’d like coffee to which most everybody said yes. She was being followed by her dog Jack who is half Jack Russell and the other half wolverine. He’s mighty big for his britches like most all small dogs and a little grouchy so he was let out to guard the perimeter.

Being in a house where people are playing music makes it pretty much impossible to not play along. Before mid afternoon came around everybody had played a bit. Everybody except Heidi that is. She was listening to the music and interacting but entranced in a bit of crochet she was working on. I mentioned a few times that she plays mandolin and tried to get her to romp down on one of those choro pieces that she does but I think the request fell on deaf ears. Jo played some bass and Nancy went back and forth between cello and mandolin and a bit of guitar. Norman played mostly guitar but did a goodly bit of mandolin playing as well. One of the Blake’s neighbors named Joey came by and played some guitar too. Lots of good old-fashioned tunes and songs and old-time fellowship. Steve and Jo have been learning a lot of the songs off one of Dr. Ralph Stanley’s recordings that was done around the “Oh Brother…” era, so they did some of those. Good creepy numbers. I hadn’t thought of the album for a long time. It has a couple of Washington Phillips songs on it, some songs that I believe Dock Boggs did and some very old English murder ballads. Both Norman and I played on it as did Stuart Duncan and Dennis Crouch and some vocals by Suzanne Cox. The album is called “Ralph Stanley” oddly enough.

We all took a break to eat some supper and talk. The other two dogs (who are the offspring of Jack but with none of his Mr. Hyde characteristics) came in and got their share of petting. The humans decided not to talk about politics around the table. After supper Steve and Norman disappeared into the living room and the sound of banjo playing began. I went in after a piece of pumpkin pie and a couple cookies and found Norman playing the fire out of a very nice old Vega banjo. I had no idea Norman even played banjo much less that well, but all things considered, I don’t know why I was surprised. His style is a little clawhammery (is that a word?!), but with finger picking and roll patterns reminiscent of Uncle Dave Macon mixed in. A very nice and full sound. After an hour or so everybody else came back in and we all jammed on for a while longer. By about 7p I was toast. I didn’t want to quit but I was starting to get too tired to pay attention or show enthusiasm and I started feeling like maybe I appeared bored and in turn was being insulting. So I played it safe and just put the mandolin up. I think most everybody else was getting tired too because we were all packing up before long and headed out the door. But it was a really good day of visiting.

Interesting what you learn about folks being around them for a while. Nancy said that she has her letter opener sharpened up because Norman likes to open his mail with his thumbnail and she can’t stand those raggedy edges. Now I’ve found a kindred spirit because I am the same way. I like the top of my mail opened clean. People are funny. And I knew that Norman is a fan of railroad watches and railroad memorabilia but last night listening to him talk some about the trains that used to come through his home town when he was a kid was very cool. He could describe the color and sound of some of the old locomotives and said that when the trains were not pulling hard and coming down that straight and flat part of the track they were so quiet that they almost would slip up on you before you knew they were coming. He said it used to scare the daylights out of his mother knowing the kids were out playing around the railroad tracks. So many other things to laugh and talk about over the course of the day. I think a good time was had by all.

It was a long 2 1/2 hours back. I jabbered on and on to Steve to keep myself awake. When we got in the driveway Steve and Jo still had to drive to the other side of town. I was glad my driving was done for the day. Heidi and I came in and had a couple big bowls of Heidi’s famous popcorn recipe and watched a detective series for a couple hours and then things got a lot more quiet.

I dreamed this morning that I had packed a trailer behind a red pickup truck with a Troybilt tiller, a walk behind lawnmower, a mandolin, another mandolin belonging to Raymond Huffmaster and a couple other things and walked off with the truck in park only to hear a noise and turn around just in time to see the trailer pulling the truck down through a long winding gulley full of kudzu. Only the tiller was damaged. I can’t think of anything that happened yesterday that would have brought that on but the internet says it means my life is in reverse. Whatever. If this is reverse I’ll just stay here.

Life is good. MC