My friend Bill (not his real name) is 80 years old and a deacon at our church. He is tall and thin but not as tall as he used to be, because a few months ago, he experienced some back problems and now stoops over when he walks. More than once, he has given me a bag of peas he not only picked from his garden but shelled as well.
On Sunday mornings at church, Bill hands me a program and sometimes slips me a CD or cassette tape to take home and listen to. Over the years he has broadened my listening pleasure to include oldies like Jim and Jessie, The Louvin Brothers, Jimmy Martin, Reno and Smiley, an all-instrumental by Don Reno, and other gems from long ago.
A couple of times, after listening to whatever music Bill handed to me, I became that musician's newest and biggest fan. That happened a few weeks ago after he slipped me a never-opened George Jones two-volume CD. After tearing open the wrapper and listening non-stop during a rare episode of dusting and swatting cobwebs, I became George's newest and biggest fan. He won me over with "The Window up Above" and "Brush Arbors by the Side of the Road."
Occasionally Bill brings bluegrass magazines for me to read, too, usually when noteworthy articles appear like when Tony Rice passed. Bill stores his collection of magazines in his barn, and while he sits in a chair ready to shoo groundhogs and rabbits away from his vegetable garden, he reads about Kentucky Thunders and Blue Highways.
Some of the magazines are old and have been in his barn many years. I know this not only because Bill told me but because one day I happened to be reading a story in one he had given me, and when I turned the page, I found a dirt dauber's nest stuck to the paper. It wasn't a big nest, but still a nest. I crumbled the dried mud and tossed the little petrified dirt daubers into the trash can, then I continued on with my reading.
I never told Bill about turning the page and finding an undesirable attachment. Having grown up alongside dirt daubers, I've never minded those harmless creatures at all. I just hope Bill keeps on sharing the George Joneses of the music world with me, and that my iPod does not explode from an overload of banjo plunkers and guitar flat-pickers.
Copyright © 2022 by Mary Frances