Music in the Mountains: Allegheny Echoes

The peaceful roadside park in my last post was a stop on the way to our real destination: Allegheny Echoes in Marlinton, WV for the culminating concert by all the master musicians who taught classes during the week of workshops. It's a three-hour drive from home to Marlinton, but worth every minute--and the scenery alone along the way is worth the drive.

I was introduced to Echoes by poet Kirk Judd who teaches the creative writing classes for the workshops. In 2005 I won second place in the WV Writers annual contest, in the Emerging Writers category. That week was an awakening for me. I'd heard of Echoes before but had no idea of what it was really like. I wrote and wrote while we were there, and several of those poems went on to win awards in later writing competitions.

What I also discovered was another family. The people who run Echoes and those who attend quickly welcomed me into their fold, and I was hooked. I stayed up til the wee hours every night that week, listening, listening, listening, and writing, writing, writing. The music played sometimes until the sun came up; no one wanted those days to end. It was magic, pure and simple.

I returned two years later for the vocal class, learning, or trying to learn, to sing harmony. It was fun, but I snuck away for one afternoon and joined the writing class for a trip to the resting place of Edden Hammons and his family. The Hammons unknowingly preserved some very old music and language because it was just part of their lives in their remote mountain home. They were recorded,thankfully, and the Smithsonian has archived their work as well as made it available on CD. Dwight Diller is currently producing a DVD about the Hammons. To travel to their gravesides and contemplate what their life was like in the surrounding mountains--a hardscrabble life by all accounts, but one they accepted and enjoyed--was food for several more poems and some good photos.

Last year I was the creative writing master for Kirk's class, joining them for an afternoon at a riverside cabin to write and talk about writing. Again, the creative energy I discovered that afternoon fed me for several months. It also left me hungry to return. Since our finances this year are not really settled down due to my retirement, and since I sorely needed my Echoes "fix," we made the drive Friday to touch base once more with this creative "family," listen to their good music, and catch up on their lives. And I knew I would stay up until the music stopped.

The concert was fantastic. From the elderly Charlie Loudermilk's excellent playing to the fiddles of Chance McCoy and Jake Krack to the banjo of Tim Bing and his brother Mike's mandolin, the guitar of Robert Shafer, Pete Kosky's singing, Kirk Judd's poetry, Bob Shank's "manjo" (big baritone banjo, I think it was), John Blisard's performance of a Pocahontas county tune and an original tune...the list goes on and on. The concert is free (donations are accepted) and many local folks attend so that the Marlinton Opera House was standing room only.

Afterwards we returned to the Marlinton Motor Inn for the evening jams. I had asked permission to do so because the evenings at the motel are not open to all--but we were more than welcome, and beds were even found for us when we learned there were no vacancies. What a family. The music played on and on, old tunes like Sally Gooden, Ducks on the Pond, Going Across the Blue Ridge Mountains, and many others, and original songs by Pat Shields and others.

As the night wore on, the musicians drifted off one by one, until by 4:00 am there was a group of perhaps 20 still playing and listening. At 5:00 am, only two musicians and myself were left on the porch to watch the sky begin to lighten. I fell into bed, clothes and all, and slept like a stone until a banging on the door at 11:30 am rousted me out. Fun? Believe it. Tired? Absolutely! But worth it, completely worth it.

We had to jump up and leave quickly, though because I was due in Charleston to help with the WV Writer's table at the FestivALL event going on that day, so we said our farewells and left, with many a backward look.

Be it resolved: Next year we will be there for the entire week.

The Roadside Park

No words needed today.

Home again.

It's been a busy 2 days. I worked on research at the Sistersville Library, then we drove up to Wheeling for  dinner at the famous Coleman's Fish Market (I had their stellar fish sandwich) and browsing in the Center Market district of Wheeling with our young friend Anastasia before my storytelling performance at Wheeling's lovely city park in the evening.

We drove back to Sistersville through a tremendous thunderstorm that left us wondering from time to time where the road was. But we arrived at the Wells Inn safely and were soon tucked into bed as the storm cracked the skies outside. We had planned a midnight walk around town to get a feel for its older days but the storm effectively convinced us to stay indoors. This morning after breakfast we drove a few miles up the Ohio River to Paden City for more storytelling, and then back to Sistersville. I was on a quest to find, among other things, the old Wells cemetery, resting place of many of the founding family members of this pretty river town. We found the cemetery and were relieved to find that someone has been mowing it--online discussion indicated that this was not the case and we were prepared to find it overgrown with weeds. I could see that it had been in poor shape but that is slowly changing. I will post photos tomorrow.

I also wanted to drive around the town once more to just look at its lovely architecture and identify the original streets that were laid out by Sarah and Delilah Wells when they designed the town almost 200 years ago. I am working on some stories about this town so I spent more hours in the library and looking at microfilm. Reading newspapers from 1899 is more interesting than it may sound! For example, I read about:

• the very active oil and gas drilling boom in daily newspaper reports
• a boat loaded with nitroglycerin that was adrift in the Ohio River and causing great alarm
• sleigh-riding parties
• the passing of the city charter by the state legislature
• three boys being lost while groundhog hunting who showed up safely some 10 miles from home
• cucumbers and ripe tomatoes available at a store in March (where on earth did they get them in 1899?)
• men falling overboard and drowning, being injured on drilling sites and in explosions of all kinds
• several big fires
• people leaving to go to the gold mines in Alaska
• the formation of a local Women's Christian Temperance Union to combat the riffraff activities brought into town by the drilling boom
• who was staying at the Wells Inn each day
• who died from measles, typhoid, pneumonia, whooping cough and grippe
• ... so much more.

I had read online a few days ago that there was a slave cemetery located at Ben's Run in the cemetery I visited last March--this is, apparently, one of the oldest cemeteries in the area. I remembered well its impact on me on that visit, and I remembered an area in adjoining woods that looked as if there might be unmarked graves hidden in the growth of trees and vines. Could this be the slave cemetery? We stopped on our way home to see. The online comment said that the slaves were buried at the "back corner" of the graveyard, but it was apparent that all corners of the fenced-in cemetery were occupied and marked. There was no "empty" corner, or plain stones that might have been markers for slave graves. The wooded area is too overgrown right now to venture into, so I will have to wait until fall to investigate further.

Tonight I sat out on the porch to read a small diary I'd found in the Paradox Used Book Store in Wheeling. The diary sporadically covered the years 1936-1938 was apparent;y kept by a young teen-aged man who lived in Wellsburg, WV, which is north of Wheeling. He recounted snow, Ohio River floods, trips to Cleveland, Pittsburgh and other places, his first driver's license and sadly, the death of his father to meningitis.

His brief entries provided a peephole into the life of a young man at a time when the Great Depression gripped the country but not his family as they enjoyed many outings to movies, went on picnics and drives and even attended the Ice Follies and the Great Lakes Exposition. At the end of his diary he listed all of the orchestra performances he had attended, and his list included all of the greats of his time. For a small-town boy his world was pretty cosmopolitan.

Tomorrow it's back to the real world: catching up the laundry once again, cleaning the house, doing some weeding, and posting more photos from the past eventful week. See you then!

Weekend Road Trip: On the Road to Marlinton

This past Friday and Saturday we didn't plan any work: we planned to play. We saw friends, heard music, beat on drums, helped build a story, ventured into wild places and in general just had a pretty wild time.

The weekend started Friday as we packed to go to Marlinton, West Virginia to attend the Masters Concert that culminates the weeklong Allegheny Echoes workshops. In 2004 and 2007, I attended the workshops as a student. Last year I was there as a Master for the Creative Writing class; this year we went just to attend the final concert of the week which featured all of the week's instructors.

We drove up by our usual route through Webster and Nicholas counties, and stopped at a scenic overlook to view the place called Crupperneck Bend on the Gauley River.

 The Gauley is one of West Virginia's best whitewater rafting destinations, with good reason. The river has many rapids, twists and turns, and the scenery is fantastic.  Below the overlook is a bend in the Gauley that is more than 180 degrees, and a place called Ship's Prow that is a Class IV rapid. You can read a description of the river and see a photo of the Ship's Prow rocks on this website.

 This is part of the bend; and this is on the other side:

I wondered about origin of the word "crupperneck" so I dragged out my huge old dictionary and learned that a crupper is a deep U-shaped piece of harness that goes over and around a horse's tail. I suppose that "crupperneck" came from the shape of the river's bend, combined with the narrowness of the river--the "neck" of the river. If you have a better definition for the term, I'd like to hear it. I enjoy unusual words and their origins.

 The stone wall at the overlook was fascinating. I am always amazed when someone incorporates art into a functional piece, and this wall is a good example.

 Probably built by the Civilian Conversation Corps, or maybe by WPA workers, the detail and art put into it delightful and a reminder that even in hard times, people with skills and creativity produced work that stands today as a monument to their labor. I believe that there were stone balls topping the columns at each end of the wall, but these are gone now. In looking up Crupperneck Bend I also learned that there is a geocache hidden there. (Just in case any of you like to go geocaching!)

We stopped again just outside of Richwood at a lovely little roadside park that is within the Monongehela National Forest. There is an arched bridge over the North Fork of the Cherry River that leads to a trail into woodland that almost feels tropical, it is so lush and green.


The two-day trip was so filled with good things that I'll need to write more posts to cover it all: more about the roadside park, the evening concert, the evening on the hill, The FestivALL festival in Charleston where we spent some fine hours, the drum circle...you can see I have a lot to write about, and photos to share, in the coming days. Meantime the rain is falling softly, Larry is napping after weeding the strawberry patch and I need to make bread and unpack/re-pack for my next trip: I'm off tomorrow to Wheeling and Paden City in West Virginia's northern panhandle for storytelling performances. Maybe I'll see one or two of you along the way?

Just Plain Good: Rigatoni with Ground Turkey

I have no photos because I didn't think about posting this recipe, but it was so good I wanted to share it with you. Simple, full of flavor and it was enough for us to have for lunch/dinner for four days (and I didn't get tired of it either--it seemed to improve with time). The herbs make the ground turkey taste like sausage. Delicious!

1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 pound sliced mushrooms
1 onion, sliced
1 quart canned tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon dried crushed sweet basil (yes, it's a lot!)
1 tablespoon dried crushed oregano (a lot of this too, but worth it)
1 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves
1 teaspoon dried ramps (optional but a nice addition if you have them)
Salt to taste
Black pepper to taste
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 pound rigatoni pasta

Saute the sliced mushrooms and onions in the olive oil. Add the ground turkey and cook until the turkey is done. (You may need a little more oil). Drain.

Add the next 8 ingredients. Simmer while the pasta is cooking. If the mixture seems too runny, thicken with a a tablespoon cornstarch that has been dissolved in 1/4 cup of water.

Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain.

Pour the sauce mixture over the pasta. Add the grated parmesan and mix well. Serve with salad (and we had watermelon too).

A Hodgepodge Week

The days recently have been such a hodgepodge of events and activities. We returned from the Folk Festival on Sunday and on Monday Larry took off for a doctor's appointment and I caught up on house things. We were both still tired from the late nights and good times of the festival, but managed to get a little gardening done.

Tuesday was my birthday and we had town things to do. We did not plan a big celebration, just as we didn't plan one for Larry's 60th birthday or our 25th wedding anniversary in May. We do like a party, really! But just as when we got married, at this time of year gardens and other things take a high priority and we're so busy that we don't want to take the time out to plan a party! When we got married, we just came home and worked in the tomato patch, so you see we are still going on as we started. We went to the library, the grocery store, feed store, post office, and all the usual go-to-town places. Tuesdays are a good day to go to town too, because groceries are 5% off for seniors on Tuesday. I don't feel like a senior, but hey, I'll take a discount anytime.

We also went out to dinner with our son Derek and his family--and he surprised me with a gift from him and his brothers: a 32-inch flat-screen television and DVD player. Now we haven't had a television for about four years and we don't miss it. However, now that I am retired I'd like to watch a movie occasionally since I have more free time. Larry watches movies on his little portable DVD player and he likes it but I can't see or hear it. So now I can see movies in style! We are currently trying to figure out where to put it. One thing is certain--we won't be using it to watch TV programming. We have grown so far away from it that I cannot imagine that noise in my house again. But it will be nice to watch movies and actually be able to see and hear them.

On Wednesday Melissa Rogers returned to finish my interview for her West Virginia Storytelling Project. When she came before, we visited and ate blueberry muffins made from my first blueberries, then I taught her her how to make a lavender wand. I had to leave for a storytelling performance so we scheduled another meeting. This time we got right down to business, and about 4 hours later (she has a lot of video and sound recording equipment to set up when she interviews) the interview was done. Melissa is an interesting lady--a college student in a MFA program at Emerson College in Boston, pursuing a degree in Media Arts.

While we were busy, Larry worked hard in the gardens; they are showing the results of his care. We will have our first squash by this weekend, and beans before July 4th. Tomatoes have baby green tomatoes on them, the  carrots are ready for digging and the onions are nearly ready to be pulled.


Today we had to go back into town. Not by choice--but my driver's license was expired and the police are picky about such things. We also needed to pay taxes, get Larry's truck license, talk to the investment company about my retirement funds, pick up the tractor radiator (a bolt came loose and the fan kinda dug a hole in it) from the repair shop, and a few other errands. The weather continued its erratic pattern of sun, rain, sun, storm, sun, rain, storm, sun, all day long. I managed to cut some lavender before we left this morning and made a few more lavender wands when we got home and Larry checked on the gardens. He didn't like what he saw in one patch. Colorado potato beetles in the tomatoes!

The biggest headache this year is this beetle. While we were away this weekend they literally stripped the potato vines. I have never seen the like of the infestation this year. I saw them walking on the sidewalk and when I checked on one of my little pear tomatoes, it was covered with these beetles! I dumped some charcoal ashes on them and they didn't seem to like that but we are concerned now for our tomato patch. Larry had to break out the spray for the main tomato patch, something we don't like to do, and he also dusted the plants with wood ash. We cannot afford to let these beetles destroy our tomato crop, so we'll be fighting back. In the past few years we've had only a few of them, nothing to worry about but this year, good grief! It's incredible. We may be out with jars of kerosene and hand-picking them if necessary. This is W.A.R. and all weapons are fair.

We had a little fire in the firepit this evening and watched the birds diving at the feeder before the final storm of the evening arrived. I counted the following birds at the feeder:
black-capped chickadee
titmouse
goldfinch
blue jay
bluebird
nuthatch
cardinal--male, immature male and female
phoebe
peewee
chipping sparrow
mourning dove
woodpecker--a downy variety but I'm not sure which one. This one had no red on it that I could see
a bird I could not see well enough to identify, but could be a yellow-breasted chat
nuthatch

I think that's all.  It's a busy feeder, and the birds seem to pay little attention to us. As the night closed in, we could hear the melodic song of the brown thrasher deep in the hollow. I am sure he sings down there because he likes the way the hills echo and reverberate his singing. The whippoorwill soon started and the evening was officially over. A hoot owl may call soon, or a yellow-breasted chat might call out, but the birdsong is mostly still until daybreak. Only the lightning bugs are busy; the rest of us tuck under covers and rest.

Coffee 101

With the free gas hooked up, I got to thinking: why were we using an electric coffeemaker when the gas is free? Electric drip coffeemakers have been the standard for years now and I've owned my share of them. Typically they last a few years, then the element burns out and the whole thing has to be replaced. I've had expensive ones and found that they lasted about as well as the $10 pots. But the coffee was undeniably good.

I wondered, how did people make coffee before the electric pots? I remembered a percolator I had in the 70's, one made by Le Creuset that was red and orange. Perked coffee was okay but I really prefer the taste of drip coffee. And I'm not a big fan of coffee made with a French press either. What other options were there? Were there non-electric drip pots made back in the pre-electricity days?

Yes, there were. I remembered one I had seen in a junk shop in town. Was it still there? We went to investigate.

Indeed it was (for $16.95).

The Porcelier, as it is called, was made in the 30's-40's. Made of ceramic with a strainer basket on top, it makes coffee in a really simple way: Boil water on the stove, put coffee in the strainer, put the strainer on top of the coffeepot and pour the boiling water through.

The flavor of the coffee is unbelievably good--perhaps because it is made in ceramic?

 The only downsides we found were that it could sometimes take a while for the coffee to drip through, and the coffee got cool rather quickly. And you couldn't heat the pot back up on the stove. I think I can remedy the slow drip by grinding our own coffee like we used to so that it is a coarser grind that what I get at the store. Coffee beans have been ordered (I could not find decaf beans locally, so Amazon it is.) and we'll see if that helps. We can keep the coffee warm longer by filling the pot with hot water first, thus heating up the ceramic before the coffee goes into the pot. The last thing that could be an issue is that it only makes about 6-cups (I'm talking mugs here, not actual cup measures). That's fine if it's just Larry and me but when guests come we run out of coffee pretty fast.

Were there other options? I found this guy on eBay:

This pot makes 18 cups! Certainly it's big enough. And it can be reheated on the stove is necessary. For everyday, though it's, well, BIG.

Option 3: This little plastic funnel and filter is what I used at work to make my coffee. Simplest of the simplest, it just takes putting coffee in the filter and setting it in the funnel on top of the coffee cup, then pouring boiling water through. A cup can be made in a very few minutes, and two cups can be made at a time if 1/8 cup of coffee is put into the filter. So for quick coffee, or for my hazelnut coffee that Larry does not like, this is an easy solution. But it only makes one or two cups at a time. And there's that plastic funnel...it's still a handy little thing to have, and was really useful when the electricity went off.

What's next? Right now I'm bidding on a pot like this on eBay:

Made of stainless steel by West Bend and with a lifetime warranty, this one looks like it could solve the problem of not being able to keep the coffee hot, and it's unbreakable, unlike the Porcelier. I wonder, though, if the coffee will taste as good? Stay tuned.

Do any of you use something other than the electric drip coffeemaker to make your brew?

Build a Fairy House

At our family reunion in May, I showed some of my great-nieces and nephews how to make a fairy house. They loved it--it's not difficult to do, and the folklore says that if you make the fairies happy in your garden, they will reward you with beautiful flowers and vegetables. So why not make a fairy house--just in case you have some homeless fairies in your garden?

Here's the one we built:

And here you can see how tiny it is:

We used scraps of bark, twigs, stones, bits of moss, acorns, and other woodland debris to construct the house. The we moved a few wildflowers (violets, bluets, and cinquefoil) to pretty it up, and it was done.

Afterwards the kids made several more, I heard, but I didn't see them because they were in secret places.

As for how to see a fairy, here is some advice, as posted on the Herb Companion:

To enable one to see the Fairies: A pint of sallet oyle and put it into a vial glasse; and first wash it with rose-water and marygolde water; the flowers to be gathered towards the east. Wash it till the oyle becomes white, then put into the glasse, and then put thereto the budds of hollyhocke, the flowers of marygolde, the flowers or toppes of wild thyme, the budds of young hazle, and the thyme must be gathered neare the side of a hill where fairies use to be; and take the grasse of a fairy throne; then all these put into the oyle in the glasse and sette it to dissolve three dayes in the sunne and then keep it for thy use. -from A Garden of Herbs, by Eleanour Sinclair Rohde

And from Eleanour's book (published on the Gutenberg Project's website):

And what of the fairies in those gardens? We live in such a hurrying, material age that even in our gardens we seem to have forgotten the fairies, who surely have the first claim on them. Does not every child know that fairies love thyme and foxgloves and the lavish warm scent of the old cabbage rose? Surely the fairies thronged to those old herb-gardens as to a familiar haunt. Can you not see them dancing in the twilight?
Ready to make your fairy house now? I think I'll mosey out into the woods and see what I can find to make one for my garden.

Many people make these little houses now, and some get really elaborate. If you'd like to see others, here are a few links:

Simple, family-friendly instructions for building a fairy house, by Family Fun magazine.

Some pretty fancy ones on this website.


There are also people creating entire fairy gardens:


How to create a fairy garden--instructions!

A fairy garden from the Herb Companion website.

And of course, you can buy kits, fairy furniture and just about anything else you like!

Sixty

I remember when 50 was ancient
when people who were 40 were old
and I thought I would not live to be 30
because after that, well,
I'd be old. And at 20,
I was too young
to know about old.

As the years changed, so did I.
30 was just the beginning I found,
even though my son told me on my birthday
that I should be relieved
because at least I would not die young.
He thought 30 was old.
I did not.
Not when I was 30.

40 was a blur--
school, a son starting kindergarten
as another graduated from college
and another from high school.
Days slipped quickly into full-time work,
classes and assignments, homework
and home work.
Old? Who had time to think about age?
I did not.
Not when I was 40.


50 arrived;
At 50, life was complicated, with family
things--grandchildren, wars, and elderly parents
who had always seemed young
and were suddenly,
well, old. And not well at all.
50's were a time of loss, days of grief
and yes, much joy too, but the grief
overwhelmed all.
I did not feel young anymore.
Not in my 50's.

Now here is 60
greeting me on this hot Solstice day.
I look ahead and see the sun
and happiness, introspection,
a time to evaluate all that went before,
find some meaning and understanding
of this odd path that has been my life.

I know grief, have met sorrow face to face
and I know that it cannot defeat me.
I have known deceit and hurt
and I know it cannot destroy
what is real and true.
I have loved and been truly loved
by many that I call family,
and many that I call friend.
I have been blessed
with a life rich in every part,
and I am grateful today
to say hello to 60.

Happy Birthday to an Old Friend

Today was West Virginia's birthday--she's 148 years old. For her age, I suppose she looks pretty good, although mountaintop removal is creating ugly, fresh new scars. It used to be stripmining that destroyed the mountains; now mountaintop removal is making wastelands at an alarming pace and creating far more environmental damage than stripmining did. Away from the coalfields, the mountains are richly green and rolling, with fast-running rivers and streams, waterfalls and natural beauty at just about every turn.

I remember reading a book many years ago--1977, maybe?--that said West Virginia was the ideal place to develop a self-sufficient homestead. The author listed many reasons for his statement: availability of woodlands for heat and building, small coalbanks in many areas that could supply house coal, plentiful water, natural gas deposits, abundant wildlife for food, a wide diversity of wild plant foods, low real estate prices and taxes, low density population, temperate climate, rich soil. It's an impressive and accurate list.

He was right, too. For those looking for a place to relocate and develop a lifestyle that includes providing more basic needs from the land, this state is ideal. It does have its problems, like any other state, but for a homesteading state of mind, it's almost perfect.

That author missed some other aspects about the quality of life here, though. He had never lived here so he could not have known about the strong cultural heritage of the Appalachians that provides a richness of musicians, craftsmen and artists. he would not have known about the friendly people and slower pace of life. Even though employment is always scarce, drugs are becoming more and more of a problem and the coal industry continues to  wreak havoc in some areas, the good things still far outweigh the bad.

For those of us who call it home, West Virginia will always be our mountain mama. She will always be the place we want to come back to, the place that beckons natives who have left to live in other places. She's not perfect, but she surely is almost heaven.

Happy birthday, West Virginia!

Memories Like Music: West Virginia State Folk Festival, Day One

We're home again after a weekend that I have difficulty describing. Perhaps a recipe will do it best:

Take 4 parts music, add 2 parts singing, 1 part storytelling, 1 part dancing, 1 part friendly people, 1 part history, 1 part handicrafts. Add one ghost, 4 storytellers, 2 stunning concerts,  2 nights of music under the night sky. Mix well with good food, a little wine, a lot of laughter, a few tears. Sprinkle liberally with new friends, add old friends. Serve with a generous sauce of music, music, and music. That's the West Virginia State Folk Festival.

The festival actually starts Thursday but we were storytelling that day so we arrived Friday. After checking in to our dorm room (a steal at $25 a night if you're not a performer) we moseyed down to the singing tent. We listened to folk singer Mike Morningstar, and then I was on to sing and teach ballads to anyone who wandered into the tent.

We had a nice group of 10-12 people; I brought copies of the lyrics to some ballads I thought would be easy to learn. After a few songs I asked if anyone in the tent was a ballad singer. Two people raised their hands. I asked if they'd like to sing one for us, and the man stood up. I asked him where he was from, meaning which county or state, and his reply shocked me: "England." He sang beautifully; I wish I could remember his first song but its title escapes me; then his wife, who was from Gilmer County, where this festival is held, sang Silver Dagger. Her voice is pure mountain, just heart-rending. We sang a few more, and I cannot tell you what a pleasure it was for me to swap songs with them. Ballad-singers are few and far between, at least in this area, and I rarely get the opportunity to share songs with other singers. Their story  was fascinating too--a chance meeting when he was here on business, a long-distance romance, then marriage. They now live in England but come back to the States annually to visit her family.

After my session we stuck around to listen to Linda Moore and her partner Jack Greathouse. Energy and good voices, both. Following them was the Putnam Family Singers from Roane County. A family group of parents and three children, they sing a lot of gospel but also play some old-time tunes. The littlest son, Andrew, keeps them all hopping to keep him in line, but at 5 or 6 years old he's an amazing singer. Son Isaac plays guitar and mandolin and was a state youth guitar contest winner at Vandalia. Daughter Carolyn was also a Vandalia winner on fiddle. The whole family is just a fine group to listen to, a testament to good parenting and good music.

I was torn in the evening: go "up on the hill" (and it's a steep one for real!) for the evening concert and to hear Phyllis Marks who is one of the few remaining ballad singers of the older generation, and the other wonderful performers in the evening concert, or attend the ghost stories session. We ended up doing both. We raced up the hill to hear Phyllis who was on stage first, after the West Virginia Belles were onstage. These are ladies who are honored by their local homemakers' clubs and they come dressed in period costumes. We stayed for Lester McCumbers and then ran back down the hill to the ghost stories session. My main reason for attending this program was to hear the story of Sis Linn, the ghost who is said to haunt the halls of Glenville State College. After the storytelling session, we went back on the hill to the old cemetery, where storyteller Becky Baldwin told us Sis Linn's story. It's the sad tale of an unsolved murder of an older, single woman--probably a common enough story when the sons of prominent local people were suspect. No wonder the poor woman wanders the campus.

I thought I saw Sis as we walked down the hill...nah. Probably not...

We went back down to listen to the many jam sessions taking place in doorways, bank drive-thrus, on corners, porches, stoops and even in parking lots. The surrounding hills rang with music and laughter and the stomping feet of the square dancers. I got a sudden urge for food so we walked into the local convenience store (notice I said "the"--there is only one in town) and who should be there but Becky Baldwin, the evening's storyteller. We sat in a booth with her and chatted about storytelling, history, and other topics and came to find out her roots are not far from where Larry was raised in southern West Virginia. With a little time to trace it, I'm pretty sure we'd find a family connection!

We wandered around the square dance (look at all the young faces!) and jam sessions one more time before finally heading up to our room about 1:00 am. I didn't want the evening to end, but I also knew the next day would be busy and we needed to get some sleep. As I drifted off the waning moon shone in the window on me, a token of these long summer nights at the Glenville Festival.

A Storytelling Day

It started early. The alarm went off at 6:00 am, time to hit the floor and get ready. Shower, breakfast, animals taken care of, emails sent, lights off and a few more things loaded in the car. We were out the door by 7:30 and on the road to West Virginia's Northern Panhandle.

The quickest route is around the ridge and down Trace Fork, nine miles of beautiful twisty road until we reached the 2-lane highway that took us to the interstate. Now I know that it takes 2 1/2 hours to get to Moundsville; I've driven it many times. It's a little less if we go out by Trace Fork so I knew we had plenty of time to get to the library and set up by the 11 am showtime. Just to be sure I checked the GPS. And she said it would take 3 hours! I tried to recall--was that really true? Surely not; it takes 3 hours to get to Wheeling, another 30 miles up the road from Moundsville. Still, I was nervous. Maybe I didn't remember correctly? I did remember one time when I was hurrying to get to Moundsville and got pulled over for speeding! (A warning only, thank goodness.) Was I mistaken about the time?

Then the heavens opened and rain poured like an open hydrant. For miles. We slowed to 40 mph and I worried some more. The rain stopped, traffic picked up. It seemed to be taking forever. But we reached one of my mileposts (Sistersville) in only 5 minutes more than the usual time. Was the GPS wrong? Could that be? I turned her off and trusted my memory. Sure enough, we pulled into the library's parking lot only 10 minutes behind schedule at 10:10 am, with plenty of time to unload, set up for the program, visit with the library staff, prepare the craft and greet the audience. We started at 11 am, right on time. Yep--the GPS can be totally wrong.

We had a blast at that program. I say we because there is so much audience participation in my programs that it feels like we create the stories and the fun together. I also say we because Larry is usually with me, usually driving, unloading, helping me set up, taking pictures and just generally being indispensable. I remember the days of doing the programs without his help and am so appreciative of all he does to smooth my path. It's a team effort.

Today's programs included a craft activity--making a blue dragon. I had all the parts cut out. The librarians put all the parts into the main puppet body (a blue paper bag) so it was easy to hand out the craft and give instructions. Two small daycare groups took the craft back to their centers to complete. My blog friend Jessica was there too! One day I will not have to rush off and we can really visit.

About 35-40 blue dragons later, Larry and I packed up and headed to the next library about 20 minutes up the road. We set up again, got the craft ready and were ready to greet the audience by the 1:00pm showtime. This group also included a daycare group and I was impressed by the expert childcare management skills of the leaders of the groups at both libraries. One of the librarians from Moundsville came over too and helped with the craft activity. This was a smaller library, and the meeting room was packed. A sign of good publicity and public faith in the library's activities!

Stories today ranged from Africa to Tibet to Mexico to the United States to China, with a welcome song in Arabic and a closing song from Africa (both from Ella Jenkins' recordings). We also sang the days of the week in Spanish and learned Spanish words in La Hormiguita. Chants, movement, puppets, and more songs rounded out the action-packed 40-minute story sessions. We used rhythm instruments with the closing song, talked about rainsticks and matryoshka and daruma dolls and just had a great time.

As we drove home through Moundsville, I remembered that our friend and fellow storyteller Tom Tarowsky worked at the Cockayne house, a historic restoration project that includes an Indian mound in the back yard of the house that had been in the same family for 150 years. We stopped in on the chance that Tom was there; he was and we had an unofficial tour of the home. Never have I felt so strongly the presence of a person no longer living. It seemed that the home was infused with Sam Cockayne's presence. Should you ever be in Moundsville, WV, do stop by this fascinating piece of history. The Grave Creek Mound and the old West Virginia State Penitentiary tours are the main tourist attractions but the immediacy of history really comes alive in Sam Cockayne's home. Perhaps it was Tom's depth of knowledge that made it so?

We had two more stops to make: the Goodwill in Moundsville is one of the best :) I found a lovely kerosene lamp for $1.99, two small handcarved wood faces for $.49 each, white linen placemats for $.49, a black tin tray for $.49, and a few other neat things. As we drove south, we passed many barges on the Ohio River, heading north with their loads of coal, and this train with its many empty cars, probably getting ready to load that coal and head off to power plants somewhere.

Next stop: the Wells Inn in Sistersville for dinner.

We arrived too early for the prime rib dinner, a real deal at $12.95. We ordered from the lunch menu and Larry's Mad Cow Angus burger would have to be seen to be believed. I opted for Cottage Pie. The food and coffee was excellent, and the waitress was just superb. It did my heart good to see so many people in and out of the Inn. A Red Hat Society group was there for dinner as were quite a few other people, and gas drilling men who stay at the Inn were in and out. It was a bustling place. If you've read my blog for a while you know I love this old Inn and its history, and was ecstatic when it re-opened in the past year. I hope it continues to thrive.

As we cruised down the interstate toward home, the gas warning light came on. We'd been having so much fun we hadn't even noticed we were low on gas. We pulled off at Rockport, and since this happens to be Thursday it also happens to be auction day, so of course we stopped in at Blosser's Auction after getting gas. The place was packed. Good sofas and chairs were selling in the $20-$50 dollar range while we were there. We didn't see anything we wanted to stick around for so we left and continued homeward. As we pulled into home, the rain caught up again, but not before we unloaded.

Now it's quiet, the rain is gone, the car is resting and we're recuperating from a very full, fun day. Tomorrow is the West Virginia Folk Festival. I'll be in the Singing Tent at 3:30pm. I hope I see you there!

On the Storytelling Trail

Storytelling Monday and Tuesday, storytelling today. It's a busy week of stories! I'm on the road to the northern panhandle of West Virginia, with two programs scheduled. Then this weekend is the WV Folk Festival at Glenville, where I'll be in the Singing Tent Friday afternoon and in the Oral Traditions Tent Saturday. Lots of music, stories, good friends and good times coming up.


Yesterday Larry hung up the hammock we found at Goodwill last fall. He's been so anxious to get it hung, and no wonder! Like father, like...cat? Clyde is Larry's shadow whenever he's outside, always in the way in the gardens, under the truck with him, you name it. Apparently he's also Larry's naptime buddy.

We focused on house things pretty much all day--Larry thinned the carrots and brought a nice bunch into the house. I caught up laundry, washed pillows and sheets, dusted, worked a little in my gardens, made a couple lavender wands,

made some vegetable soup to use up odds and ends in the fridge, went to the store, had dinner with a friend and got the craft ready for tomorrow's programs. I really like this craft--it's a blue dragon, made with blue paper bags, cotton balls, and assorted bits. It's based on the blue dragon of Korea that guards the east. After researching Asian dragons I think that I am going to develop a program just on dragons. Fascinating folklore.

Off to tell stories!

Sweet Spring

Sweet days of spring when the humidity is low and the sun is soft. Dogs doze, gardens grow. We bask.

Life is good.

Where I've Been and Where I'm Going

Today was a beautiful day. Cool, no humidity to speak of, just perfect mid-70's weather. Honestly I cannot remember the last time we had such a day.

But...we need rain. I know. It rained and rained and rained in April and May, and now I'm saying we need rain? It's true though. I suppose because there was so much rain earlier, the plants have shallow roots and they're drying out fast, especially after the terrible heat of the past two weeks. We watered a lot today and still need to do more. My baby cabbage plants gave up and died while I was away from home this weekend, and other plants we put in recently--like the celery--looked terrible this morning. We had to replant some tomato plants too.

This has not been a good year for vegetable gardens, but it seems to be shaping up as a stellar year for fruit. Larry brought in a nice batch of wild black raspberries yesterday evening and tonight I picked about a pint of blueberries. The apple, pear and peach trees are loaded. So if it rains enough and if the heat doesn't return with the force of last week, we might actually have a record fruit year.That seems to be the way with gardening. When one thing does poorly, another seems to step up and take its place.

We thought we left everything in good shape when we left for the WV Writers Conference on Friday. Goes to show what we know! At least we were able to be easy in our minds while we were away! The grass was mowed, gardens weeded, tomatoes staked and all the new plants looked great. Boy. Were we fooled.

But the writers conference was awesome. Would you believe I only attended one session and that was a reading by poet Barbara Smith and author Meredith Willis. I also presented a workshop on using ballads as source material for story writing, presented a reading of my poetry and a short story, and was one of six performers for an evening entertainment, so I really wasn't just goofing off. And on Saturday we had to leave the conference to go to Princeton, WV, about two hours away, where I performed for the annual Street Fair. We made it back late in the afternoon, just in time for the Smith/Willis reading so I went to that and then rested before the banquet and awards ceremony.

The annual writing contest awards are presented at the Saturday night banquet each year. I did not submit any work to the contest last year and this year very nearly skipped it again because I didn't feel I had anything fine-tuned enough for submission. But I buckled down to it the day before the deadline and got a few things in the mail. I won three honorable mentions, two for the same poem that I submitted in different categories. I was surprised because I didn't feel that my work was strong enough to win anything this year. Next year I'll have to do better.

After the awards there is always a bonfire gathering. This year some of the group moved off to another location--the musicians included. We joined them and had one of those evenings that will live long in our memories. It was very like a ceilidh, with music, singing, poems, stories, all circling around the group. I didn't want the evening to end and very nearly stayed up to greet the sunrise. I fell into bed around 4 am, knowing there would be no early morning workshops for me! We even missed breakfast but stayed for the conference wrap-up and clean-up.

Even though I did not go to a single workshop I brought home a wealth of inspiration and encouragement. Conversations with so many people, listening to writers reading their work, and just being in an environment of people dedicated to the art of writing was enough for me this year. I came home relaxed and renewed.

There was no time to sit back and rest though! This morning was the first of the summer library reading programs. I had packed everything before we left Friday so it was a fairly simple matter to load up this morning and head out. We were at the library by 9 am. This year I've developed a pretty extensive display because the theme (One world, Many Stories) lends itself to a wealth of rich display possibilities. I had flags, globes, rich fabrics, puppets, multicultural items, and more to display and discuss with the children. I brought my storybag--a child would select something from the bag and we told the story or sang the song connected with the item. Each item had a story from one of the seven continents--yes, even Antarctica is represented in the bag! The program has lots of opportunities for participation and we had a great time.

Back home after the program it was time to clean up, put away and work in the gardens. Now I think we're caught up again and I am ready for an interview with Melissa Rogers tomorrow for her West Virginia Storytelling Project. The rest of the week: storytelling Wednesday and Thursday, and the WV State Folk Festival Friday and Saturday.

With maybe a little jam-making in between. And a little weeding. And maybe some lavender wand-making.

Tom Dooley: The Story Behind the Ballad