"Some things determine our lives through duration, some through frequency, some through singular impact."
"I was going to call last weekend, but couldn't remember if you were out of town," she said. AYT really doesn't travel much at least in terms of duration, but amongst friends he has developed a reputation for slipping through turnstiles, hailing a plane, or finding a busline. The frenetic energy with which AYT undertakes his travels occasionally has drawn comparison to Kerouac's Dean Moriarty. However, as one writer friend pointed out, without "sex with strangers in strange kitchens and hands off best friends' girls and don't let the cops hit you on the neck dragging you out of box cars," the comparison rings a bit hollow. AYT's travel has more to do with showing up in the lives of friends than any silly romanticism of the open road; there is, however, some experiential capriciousness, some resistance to boredom which impels his movement.
Though the road narrows as it approaches the horizon, the horizon itself opens ever wider and is never caught. Thus, if one were visually to follow the traveler from some high vantage point, one would notice the traveler diminishing in relative size as the traveler nears the horizon, that looming arc into which one can only witness another disappear. From this perspective it would be proper to say
—any traveler already intuitively knows this
—that travel makes the world much larger and more fantastic rather than smaller and easily domesticated.
It was late April when a car pulled up in front of AYT's house and he became the second of the soon to be three passengers. Four hours would bring the automobile to a familiar locale and familiar faces. Long after the sun slept, AYT is dropped off for the night in the alley behind a dollar store.
AYT's companions likely wondered what sort of accomodations this dark alley would produce and must have been slightly consoled when a friendly voice could be heard from the window of an apartment situated above a garage.
The hazy warmth of night was perforated by streetlamps which lit the paths of campus. The pulse of memories and affections were quickened as AYT and his friend walked to a
pub that was not long ago frequented.
In the morning, a short walk brought the two to another
place familiar and frequented. Almost a year has passed since that breakfast and the conversation has sunk beneath memory's grasp, but pictures float a bit longer on the surface. [AYT owes Colleen a hearty thank you for her hospitality and a slight apology for the delay in her showing up here for the first time.]
The same car pulls into the parking lot of the Doller General where it had dropped off AYT the night before. AYT takes one more drag and takes a scolding as well. Back on the road.
It wasn't long before AYT and his traveling companions had parked the car on the sidelines of a park district soccer field and were boarding the bus on which was painted Boy Scout Troop 343 of Mulberry, North Carolina. A little sweat, knees pressing into the back of the brown vinyl seat, and seatbeltless bouncing later, the foursome landed beneath the glorious sign which read:
We had gotten off the bus in the hills North Carolina in time to enjoy the day at
MerleFest - The Americana Music Celebration. The first time AYT heard about MerleFest was from the therapist he visited while at Duke. She and her husband went every year and from what AYT could tell it was definitely something from which he wanted to stay away. He had awkward visions of flannel and BudLight meeting Woodstock. A few years older, AYT was the first to delight in all sorts of surprising treats including, why not, Cheesecake-on-a-Stick.
To be fair, AYT wasn't the only one with a mouthful, right Molly?
MerleFest is more than a concert festival, as there are lectures, jam sessions, instructional events, vendors, and all sorts of folk walking around with their banjo or mandolin. AYT attended a lecture on racism in the history of bluegrass where the speaker discussed how the banjo, an instrument of African origin, came to be adopted by white artists, some who initially learned to play the instrument by imitating black musicians in blackface minstrel shows.
Outside, AYT enjoyed hearing
Gillian Welch,
The Avett Brothers, and
Bela Fleck. In addition to the music, there was time for square dancing, something AYT was subjected to every year in elementary school gym class. Sometimes childhood trauma does pay off. AYT happened to run into the aforementioned therapist. Startled by this familiar face, he let her pass without making eye contact. He wished he had said hello as she was a dear woman who had walked with him through tremendously difficult times. For a pastor or therapist, going through a difficult phase with someone and having them drop off the face of the earth because you are now tied to a painful memory has to be one of the most difficult aspects of those professions. AYT still regrets that spit second reaction.
AYT and his friends made their way through the darkness once the last fiddle had been played, back to the bus, back to the car, and then drove down the spine of the Appalachian mountains to the mountain home where they were sleeping. There was time to relax, play music, watch movies, hike, cook, and dine together. It wouldn't be too long before AYT and some fellow bluegrass travelers were reassembled in DC and climbing to the top of National Cathedral on that one warm May day when the public is allowed.
If you have a chance, MerleFest is worth a trip to the NC mountains. Nature, friendship, music, Americana, dancing, and desserts on a stick - simple pleasures of rural Carolina in late April.
I'm from Illinois, and think it's about time we killed Chief Illiniwek; making native Americans parade around barefoot for our entertainment is not what colonizers do...look to history, death is the answer. No, seriously, I'm glad to see the mascot go. When I attended Wheaton College as an undergraduate, we still had The Crusaders as a mascot. I suggested that we change it to The Muslim Slayers. You wouldn't even have to change the costume! Well, I guess I should say something worthwhile after those sentences. So, from George Lindbeck:
