Pickin' in the Rain

It had rained this morining and was overcast all day. In the late afternoon, it became more threatening, but we ventured out for an evening of individual clawhammer banjo (122 registered competitors), autoharp (53), and guitar (295)--and rain. On our way to the 73rd Annual Old Fiddlers Convention in Galax, VA, it began to pour.

"Why are we doing this?" asked one in our party.

"It'll be an adventure," answered the other.

The skies opened up and visibility was so limited that I pulled into a church's parking lot to wait for the storm to let up. At that time, the radio program we were listening to was interrupted with an emergency weather warning for towns just to the south of Galax: "severe thunderstorms . . . winds could possibly reach 70 mph , , , advise people in the designated area to take cover in a secure building."

"Why are we doing this again?" asked one.

"People here need the rain. This will soon pass," answered the second.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, the rain had virtually stopped.

At 6:00 the person giving the invocation referred to the much-needed rain as a welcome blessing.

Competition then began and continued until the final string was picked. With playing time for each entrant limited to 2 minutes, 30 seconds--you do the math--we knew we were in for a long evening.

It is difficult to write about an auditory experience through a visual medium, so we have included two photographs to show some out-of-the-ordinary occurrences at the night's competition. In the first photo, the woman playing the washtub was accompanying the person in the clawhammer banjo competition. The inverted washtub has a cord attached to a broom handle driven into the tub. It is played by slapping the cord to produce a note. The effect is to simulate the sound of a string bass. This was the only one we had seen thus far in the competition.

This photo shows Wayne Henderson (right), champion guitarist and renown maker of guitars, playing back-up for a person competing in the autoharp category. Even the top people simply enjoy playing in any capacity.

As it turned out, about half of the clawhammer banjo competitors did not appear, so this category was completed in two hours. (Cancellations were the order of the day in the autoharp and guitar competition, also.) By the time the emcee walks to the microphone and introduces the next contestant (name, number, hometown, and musical selection), the previous contestant has walked off stage and the next contestant has arrived. No sound check, no set-up, and only a stage hand to adjust the microphone in that short time.

This photo shows the backstage area. The line forms on the left under the sign reading "No tuning or playing in the tent." Each person enters the stage on the left and exits through a door to the right (not shown). Very orderly, very efficient.

We took a walk around the concession area to capture these next photographs. We had been talking about how reasonable the prices of food have been in the restaurants in which we've eaten. In contrast, the menu for Outback Kate's shows prices that seemed a bit high--note the Gator Nuggets ($10), Gator Burrito ($13) and even the chicken burrito ($10).

The last photo shows people at the Convention. In a conversation with a fellow from Blacksburg, I learned that in the past when alcohol was served there were often fights and, in general, a less safe environment. Now, with a no alcohol policy, a very casual air is present.

At 12:03 am the emcee announced: "Good evening everybody."

A Drive Through the Countryside

"South on Route 620 for four miles" off Route 58 in Woodlawn. So stated our guide book in its driving instructions to the Crooked Creek Wildlife Management Area. Violating my own internal guide that stated "avoid routes in the 600s," I turned onto Route 620. For the first two miles, the road was winding, but, more importantly, it seemed to be narrowing. At the two mile mark, the paved road became a gravel road--a one-lane gravel road with no shoulders. After traveling about 50 yards and still not being able to see around a bend in the road . . . , I turned around and retraced our route even more convinced of my internal guide's accuracy.

We then took a drive through the countryside on Route 221 to Floyd. I made it a point to look for driveways to pull into when coming upon an interesting scene. Several times we've passed driveways that seemed to go up or down at steep angles and were one lane wide and winding. This driveway, while not as obscured from view as most, is a pretty good example of steepness. I hope the photo can convey that.

I don't know if I was being greeted or warned by the two observers as I was taking the photo above, but I assume it was the former because they soon returned to their routine for the afternoon.

As I drove on, there were many scenic vistas but no spots to park. Then we came upon the scene below and a narrow driveway. As I got out of the truck for the photo, there was a truck on the highway with its turn signal on. I had pulled into a driveway right in front of the homeowner. After I drove forward, I quickly walked to the people in the truck and began apologizing for blocking their entrance. I explained what I wanted to do and requested permission to take a couple of photos before leaving. Fortunately, because of my apology or my positive comments about the view or because we both drove trucks or because (and more likely) they understood my situation and wanted to be helpful, they gave me the "go ahead" on taking some pictures. I hurriedly composed the shot and drove on.

We headed to Floyd, VA, the town with the only traffic light in the whole county. The stores in the small town have been restored and maintained, and the downtown is thriving.

We stopped in the Floyd Country Store for an afternoon black raspberry cobbler and ice cream. We noticed the clothing pictured here hanging on the wall and wondered what could have happened to their last inhabitants.

References to "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" were quietly made as we exited.

Bits and Pieces

It's always good to have a Plan B. The clouds began forming about mid afternoon, and just as we were preparing to leave for the second night of the Fiddlers Convention, the rains came. Even if it stopped raining in a short time, we thought we would be walking through mud to get to and from the Convention parking lot. So, we opted for Plan B--fried chicken at Duke's in Wytheville.

This also gives me a chance to sneak in a few photographs and stories about some leftover topics.

My morning walk sometimes provides an opportunity to take a look at scenes that I would often rush pass. Such a scene is this one of a spider web on a barbed wire fence and fence post. Seeing this was a nice start to the day.
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There are many of these signs along Route 58 and other highways marking the designated roads as part of The Crooked Road Heritage Trail. This one was on a stretch or road that had space for me to pull over and take a photograph of the sign. They are beautifully designed signs and have become so popular that people are stealing them. At designated stores, these signs are for sale for $40; at that price, the photo was much cheaper.

While taking a picture of the sign, I noticed the road behind and in front of me. While this would hardly qualify as "really crooked," it shows some curves in the road where it is possible to stop for a photo. My aim was to get the road ahead and behind in one photo.

As further evidence of the relative straightness of this section is the reference to Shooting Creek Road (Route 840) between Rocky Mount and Floyd. I have learned to avoid many roads in the 600s, so when I read the following I eliminated all roads in the 800s: "Shooting Creek Road is the place where if you run off the road you'll starve to death before you hit bottom." The name comes from a history of trespassers and "revenuers" traveling this road.
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Back to Duke's. This is a barbecue joint, but it also serves some of the finest fried chicken we've ever had. It was really crisp, a crispness resulting from a thin coating of seasoned flour. The pieces had a light coating and a very moist piece of chicken underneath. And served with some of the great barbecue baked beans that are found everywhere in this area.

The walls of Duke's are covered with sports memorabilia, record albums, signs, and photos of country entertainers. A true neighborhood joint in all the specialness of that term.

Plan Bs are different, not necessarily more interesting than Plan As, but sometimes they present the unexpected.



The day ended with a nice sunset--and a prediction of rain for tomorrow.

Galax: "World's Capital of . . .

. . . Old time Mountain Music." And this is most evident from August 4-9 this year. Every year since 1935, except one year during World War II, old time and bluegrass musicians and nearly 50,000 fans of this music gather in the World Capital for a week's worth of musical enjoyment.

The line of RVs and tent campers begins to form at the parking lot entrance by mid-day Saturday. By early Sunday morning, the lot is full and the competitors are renewing acquaintances. Everyone in the lot will be staying the full week, because parking is so close that you no one exits unless everyone exits. The photo above shows about half the RVs in the parking lot.

Not only do the performers have a routine to prepare for the competition, but also the spectators seem to have a strategy for preparing for the night's listening. They arrive early (some walk from their RVs) to set up their chairs, thus staking their claims to seating locations. We arrived about 90 minutes before the competition began to find this troop of colorful sentries manning their posts (above).

Some of the younger fans bring some tools to help pass the time while waiting for the competition. This fellow became so engrossed in his world that he played through the first few competitors.

The third group preparing for the week-long reunion-party-competition are the vendors. In addition to the fried catfish (see the sign in the first photo above), there was the usual array of "fair food:" funnel cakes, bloomin' onions, hot dogs (barely warm), and "best hamburgers in town" (very small town). One of the next nights we will try the half-pound pork loin sandwich, but I think we'll pass on the roast corn on the cob. You can't beat the small, sweet kernels of Jersey sweet corn.

Tonight was the youth individual competition in old time fiddle, bluegrass fiddle, mandolin, bluegrass banjo, clawhammer banjo, guitar, and bands. Two contestants who really wowed the
crowd were Carson Peters (shown here), age 4, who played "Tennessee Waltz" on the fiddle (old time) and Samantha Snyder, age 9, who also played the fiddle, but in the bluegrass category. Each placed second in their respective categories. Carson earned his second place; Samantha should have been awarded first place. [For those of you who remember that Samantha is a member of the Snyder Family who played at the Lincoln Theater last Saturday (see August 2 entry), be aware that competition at Galax is open to anyone, both professionals and amateurs.]

Samantha is shown here being accompanied by her brother Zeb during her performance in the bluegrass fiddle competition. Later in the evening, Zeb earned a well-deserved first place in the guitar competition.

While attending jam sessions over the past weeks, we were told to catch the impromptu jams that occur in the parking lot during the individual competition on the main stage. We took this photograph of one of the several sessions as we were leaving the park. I'm sure these will continue long into the evening.

What did we learn tonight: we learned where to park, what not to eat, where to sit to catch a breeze, and that we need to bring our own chairs (sitting on concrete benches in the grandstand is not comfortable).

There are five more days of competition.

A Cabin in the Woods

The Sunday afternoon jam session at Christopher's Pizza in Meadows of Dan was just beginning its next to last selection when Maynard said, "If you're not busy, Sue and I would like to have you stop up to our cabin for a bit." Sue is the emcee for the jam, Maynard helps out with the food service, and both handle the landscaping for Shu's resort development. It was our sixth and last visit to Christopher's, and we were having a difficult time saying farewell to Maynard, Sue, and Shu, so we jumped at the opportunity to spend some more time with these folks. Besides, we had been hearing about this cabin with no electricity and no running water.

We follwed Maynard in his 1956 beautifully-restored Ford for about two miles to the lane leading to their cabin. We then drove off the road onto a grassy path that began the narrow lane. Not knowing if I could make it up the lane or if I could turn around at the cabin, I asked if we could park the truck at the start of the lane and ride up the lane with Maynard in his '56 Ford.

After arriving at their cabin, we heard--nothing. We walked to the site of the original home on this 32-acre property. Maynard had cleared away what I would guess was about 10 acres of land around the fireplace chimney of the home that had deteriorated over a period of 77 years. Maynard built a covered area over some picnic tables adjacent to the chimney. They still roast hot dogs and marshmallows over a fire in the fireplace.

We then headed to the porch to enjoy the soundless scenery (left to right: Sue, Kate, and Maynard). (My apologies to Sue for almost cutting her out of the picture.) Maynard and Sue built this cabin by first clearing the land and then taking some trees to a sawmill to be cut for building the house. Maynard had no experience in construction or architecture: "I just designed the space as we went along" was his explanation.

Their home was originally one room, but they added a second room over the years. In one corner of the front room was the cook stove which belonged to Sue's grandmother. This beauty still works fine, although the couple does not do a lot of cooking on the wood-burning stove.

Many friends brought antique boxes of food items or kitchen supplies to put on the shelf to fit a period of decades ago. A relative of the owner of the original home on the site brought an old cast iron tea kettle, saying that she thought "the kettle should return to its home."

In the opposite corner of the front room stood an old victrola. Maynard cranked it up and put on a 78 from his stack of 78s on the shelf below. The songs of Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys sounded surprisingly good.

Maynard built the chairs, benches, and a small building on the property. He also brought in old pieces of machinery and placed them around the property in such a way that it appeared that they were working on tasks several decades ago. He built the bed on this wagon. The tree branch shown at the corner of the wagon is temperarily taking the place of the wagon's brake lever.

Maynard mentioned that homes built 80+ years ago were built near natural springs. So when he found the chimney, he knew a source of water was nearby. Within 100 feet of the former home is a spring, which is the source of their drinking water. Maynard also found other springs which became the source of water for the pond that he dug and stocked with catfish and koi. Walking around the cleared acreage revealed many spaces where benches or chairs provided places to just sit and enjoy the scenery. With the number of jobs that both Maynard and Sue have, they have almost no free time to enjoy the results of their work. From the cabin, we drove to their greenhouse and drove past their "full-time" home.


It was wonderful to spend the time with Sue and Maynard. They have made us feel very welcome in our visits to Christopher's.

We will miss the Sunday jams and the conversation with some fine people at Christopher's Pizza. We have certainly felt part of the family at this little pizza shop.

Song of the Mountains

In between showers we were able to take a few photographs of the restoration work called "Streetscape" (see July 30th entry) in downtown Marion, VA. The exterior of the buildings seem to have been given a good cleaning, because there is crispness to the brickwork that looks like "bath night" was very recent.

I thought I would just show some scenes from Main Street while writing about Marion from Joe Tennis' Southwest Crossroads of Virginia. The first two photos are of store fronts on the opposite side of Main Street from the General Francis Marion Hotel (photo 3) and the Lincoln Theater (photo 4).

In October, Marion celebrates Mountain Dew Days, a festival honoring one of the town's biggest claims to fame. The late William "Bill" Jones formulated the flavor of the soft drink Mountain Dew in Merion, following a series of experiments in the early 1960s at Marion's Tip Corp.

But the story actually begins much earlier. Barney and Allie Hartman of Knoxville, Tennessee, originated the lime green beverage as a mixer in the late 1940s. That mixer was redeveloped in 1954 as a soft drink called "Mountain Dew," bottled in Johnson City, TN, by Charles Gordon, in association with the Hartman brothers. The three of them later sold the original formula and the "Mountain Dew" name to Bill Jones.

By 1961, Jones had acquired all the rights and introduced Mountain Dew to regional stores. Sales soon grew and attracted the attention of Pepsi-Cola Company, which bought the Tip Corp. and Mountain Dew in 1964. And the rest . . . .

Tonight's performances were being taped for airing on the program entitled Song of the Mountains on PBS stations nationwide. Since it was a four-hour performance with Dale Ann Bradley, Tim White and Friends, the Circuit Riders, the Country Saloon, and the Snyder Family Band and there is only one Song of the Mountains show at the theater this month, I'm assuming this evening's performance will be divided and shown in four episodes. [Check your local listings for "Song of the Mountain" on PBS and look for us in the first row stage left (and TV screen left).]

The two photos shown here were taken before the performances began and show the stage, the TV cameras, and portions of the Mayan-influence theater (see July 30th entry). The theater is beautiful and the sound system is excellent. The townspeople can be (and are) very proud of the restoration of this grand theater.

Regarding the performance, the evening was unusual in that the two opening acts were, in our opinion, the most entertaining groups. The Snyder Family featured 9-year-old Samantha on fiddle and 13-year-old Zeb on guitar. Bud, their father, played bass, but it was Samantha and Zeb who introduced each other to the audience, announced the selections, and played well beyond their ages. Zeb played a tune he had written that showed a complexity beyond the level of an early attempt at composition. Remember their names.

The second group that caught our interest was the Country Saloon from Russia. The program notes say: "The band plays a hard drive Bluegrass style influenced by Newgrass Revival." I would have described the playing of the band and the fiddle playing in particular as "fierce." I didn't catch any of the names, but the woman playing fiddle played faster and with more intensity than any other person in any other group we've seen.

It was very enjoyable to hear how bluegrass was "translated" by this very talented group of performers. (In 2006 and 2007, they took second place at the Europe Bluegrass Festival.)

I took this last photograph just to show the contrast between the decorative Mayan artwork on the theater wall and the television camera.

Quite a range of cultures represented in this theater tonight.

Comfort in Setting and Food

I like going out for breakfast. I mean I really like going out for breakfast!!! When we were in Wycombe, we didn’t think twice about driving a half an hour to get to our favorite spot – the Groveland Grill – for their omelets, pancakes, link sausage, and home fries. Since we were headed yesterday to the Music Center and planned to spend the entire day there ( 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and since they don’t have any food concessions, a late and large breakfast was in order. Chuck read about Tina’s Hub Restaurant in Galax in our Guide to the Crooked Road, and when the writer enthused about Tina’s pancakes and country ham--well, a stop here was a no brainer.

"What do you take pictures of?" asked our server.

"Food," I quickly answered.

Before I could expand on other subjects of our photographic interests, came this question from our server, "Have you been to Lexington, North Carolina? If you want good barbecue, you have to go to Lexington."

Another customer quickly jumped in with: "That (Lexington barbecue) has too much vinegar for me."

"I like my barbecue sweet," chimed in a second person.

Our served admitted she was from Lexington and tried valiantly to present the case for vinegar-based barbecue sauce. But she was outnumbered.

This conversation, like others in the comfortable restaurant where the locals assembled daily, extended beyond the boundaries of adjacent tables.

The informal nature of the setting was characterized by the young child crawling on the counter to reach for something behind it. The fellow in the center of the photo stopped by our table as he was leaving to ask if we planned to attend the Fiddlers Convention in Galax next week. He proceeded to tell us that he was going to be in charge of selling 50-50 raffle tickets for the Moose, the sponsors of the Convention. "I tried to get a different job this year, but they said I was so good at this work that they couldn't replace me," he added. He said he hoped to see us next week.

Before we leave Tina's, we need an Adler Report. Now Tina’s is a small and unassuming place. We must have driven past at least a half dozen times without noticing. Seating no more than sixty at tables and the counter, décor is basic to say the least. But, oh the food. When my plate arrived, even I doubted if I would be able to finish. But one taste of the pancakes and I knew this would be no problem. At first I thought that the batter contained corn meal but our friendly server with the cook and told us there was no corn meal. That’s when I discovered that the flour was coarse stone ground and this is what gave the pancakes their texture.

Chuck’s French toast was dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar, and Chuck is sure that this was no ordinary white fluffy bread French toast. And, is there ever a bad slice of country ham. Tina’s was a generous slice with a minimum of fat. There is something about the salty ham that offsets the sometimes overly sweet taste of syrup. Our only question was the home fries – not that they weren’t good. But the pieces seemed to be too uniform to be kitchen cut so we suspect that they came from a bag. In all, we give Tina’s Hub 4.5 out of 5 Addies and will certainly return if time and opportunity present themselves.

While at the Blue Ridge Music Center, we heard the words "country fried steak" from one of the people in the audience. We later learned she was from Texas and after we received some recommendations of places to go for good brisket barbecue in the Austin-San Antonio area, we asked about where she found country fried steak. She steered us to the County Line Cafe, another local favorite based on the number of cars in the lot as we drove in.

As is typical with the local eateries, before the order is taken, there is conversation about where-have-you-been, how-are-the-kids, and I-heard-your-sister-was-in-the-hospital. When these topics have been covered, the business of placing a meal order can begin.

Adler Report #2. I still hadn’t worked off my breakfast, so I went light with a piece of catfish with slaw and deviled eggs. They were good but the star of the evening was Chuck’s dinner. The saucer-sized piece of minute steak was dipped in a coating of batter that, when fried, was so crisp that you could hear it crunch when cut. And the meat was tender without any fiber or gristle--not always the case with minute steak. Their mashed potatoes, which they call creamed potatoes, were heavenly. The green beans were standard issue and long-cooked, but the hush puppies, subtly seasoned with onion, may have been the best I’ve tasted. I don’t know how fried batter can be both dense and light but these were. My only quibble, and a minor one, is that white pepper gravy is better made with pan drippings. (Being full from breakfast did not stop me for liberally sampling from Chuck’s plate.)

Since I didn’t have the chance to really sample the menu, I can only give the County Line 4.0 Addies. However, we will be in Galax every night next week for the Fiddlers Convention, and we’ll be going back, so I reserve the right to re-evaluate.

Like Tina's, the County Line Cafe is a comfortable place serving comfort food.