One day, and a wagonload of memories.

I rode up with mom, dad, Terry and Susan Rhoades, to the 75^th fiddler’s convention in downtown Galax, in Felt’s Park, to be precise, where dad proposed to mama years and years ago.  He grew up in Galax. His parents grew up in Galax…and the place reverberates with spirit. Hard years. Community. Faith. It oozes out the pores of the culture, showing in the deep , craggy lines on the faces of the old timers, and the charming warmth of the shop keepers.

Speaking of the shops, (my aunt does love her antique shops) I ducked into Chestnut Creek Café for my caffeine fix, and I highly recommend their methods of fixing certain problems…

 

 

Mocha in hand, I ambled down to the antique shop where I’d left the grown ups and found Ms. Susan enamored with a friendly puppy. She licked my nose. The puppy, not Susan.  We left the happy critter behind and kept a’goin. Stoppin for a bit to listen to a street concert. Then it was on to the fairgrounds.

Apparently, I’ve missed out on a certain delicacy:

 

 

 

 

 

No. Really.

 

 

 

 

 

As I was in line for my nachos I heard someone casually remark that tums should have come complementary at every booth. 

Amongst the alleys of RV city there were little jam sessions everywhere. I’d never seen this instrument before, let along heard it LIVE…pretty cool sound actually.

I loved the pickin, toe-tapping tunes, IN CONTRAST to the mournful wailing of the folk songs. I shall give you a short summary of three particular ballads:

Fair Lady woke up on her wedding day and headed to the church. Groom didn’t show. He was impressed into the Navy against his will. Fair Lady dressed up like a boy and joined the Navy to find him. She found him. With another girl. Shot them both dead. Was promoted to commander.

****

Lady Margaret was a fine woman, with all the virtues you could possibly hope to name. Sadly, she died, and her lover, so heartbroken, kissed her cold corpsey lips.     THAT’S RIGHT, I said cold corpsey lips.

*****

Lord Thomas couldn’t decide whether to marry Fair Ellen or the brown girl who had all the money. He decided, as many men would, to marry the brown girl…..so after a verse or two, the brown girl gets angry at Fair Ellen, just cause she’s prettier, and takes her sharp pen knife and buries it in Fair Ellen’s heart, whose blood…(well it’s kind of gross)…anyway, Fair Ellen dies. Lord Thomas watches it all transpire, then, in a rage, he grabs his saber and lopes off the head of the brown girl and ….(well that’s rather graphic) and then he kills himself…..yeah. (This one ironically was sung by a gal who’d come all the way from Melbourne, Australia.)

*****

And of course you had the traditional Love Lifted Me, Poor Wayfaring Stranger and Amazing Grace.  To give the course of events a little upswing they moved on to the flat foot dance competition.

So pigtails flying, gradeschooler Macy danced her piece and cleared off the board to make room for ole Wilbur who’d sufficiently recovered from his last knee surgery to show off his flat footin skills. It’s kinda like a jig, kinda like clogging, and a whole lot of fun to watch! EVERYBODY in this community could cut a rug regardless if’n they were eight or eighty.  

Here’s a picture of the lovely people sitting with me…Dad’s not in the frame.

 

 

We wound up the evening with an exhibition by 16 world class cloggers and the bluegrass band competition.  WOOOO WEEEEE!! Now that’s some music!

I love the mountains. I love the folks. I love the music. *sigh* Virginia is for lovers.

The trailers for The Blind Side caught my attention. I love football and inspirational stories. Pair them together and it's a movie Bea's gonna love. So, my friends and I planned on going to see it opening night. As I was driving to meet them, I got a phone call--the tickets were sold out. We salvaged the evening by sampling five different munchie things at Starbucks and slurping down passion tea lemonades plus a bit of window shopping.

Then after Thanksgiving passed and all was calm I headed to the cinema once again along with trusty brother to see the movie. We were rather early, so we endured numerous commercials before the previews started. Then it began. A black screen with a voice over talking about Joe Theisman's injury. Before too long, I became suspicious. Rewind sound effects are less effective when you can't see anything moving backwards.

Sooooo...management commenced to fixing the problem. We sat about twenty minutes in the dark. Bro and I decided the point of the movie was to experience the movies as a blind person would. And then finally they restarted it with the visual feed. Much better.

I really appreciate the fact that Warner Brothers produced a movie which showed Christians acting on their beliefs. At one point the coach at the Christian school, trying to convince the faculty to let the below average student join the school says, "I'm not trying to get him in the school for athletics, I'm trying to get him in, because it's the right thing to do. Everyone else has passed him by. Either we do the right thing, or we paint over that word in our sign (Christian). They let him in and then follow up on their decision by spending one-on-one time with him helping him learn. After he gets his GPA up, he starts football. He has a high level of protective instincts, so they move him to offensive line to protect the quarterback. All along the way his adopted white family sticks up for him despite ridicule they get from family and friends...and I won't give away the ending, but I really liked it. (It's not a game for the national championship or anything cliche.)

I would have liked to see a little more life out of the father figure in the film...Sandra Bullock's character tends to steal the show with her bold personality, but overall, I give it five stars. Definitely a film worth watching--even if you have to go twice and wait in the dark

I put in an order at the take-out Japanese food restuarant and then strolled up to the grocery store to burn a little time. I had something in mind. I wandered up and down the aisles a while before I gave up and looked for an employee. I found an unsuspecting fellow stocking nine lives cat food. He looked bored.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for water balloons."

The guy bounced up with a grin, abandoned his tedious project, and promptly set out in search of the desired items. I followed him all around the store until he asked the manager where they were. She, poor lady, had memorized the exact location of the water balloons and directed us thither. Therefore, I was victorious in my balloon quest, and later on that evening had a glorious water balloon fight in the back yard with two good friends.

The end.