Tuesday 15 September 2009

Sunday 13th September 2009 - And So to Bed

Despite having got to bed after four, I managed to get up for the ten o'clock gospel singing. It was pretty nearly a rerun of "Oh, Brother, Where art Thou", but I managed to get through it without feeling too mawkish. It ended with Down to The River to Pray, and everybody stood up to circle round shaking hands. The local newspaper reporter chose to photograph me shaking hands with the star. She being a grown-up lady, one can but guess at her motives in picking me.

[mikeslavin]
But she then wanted to know my name for the caption, and soon my story was out. I have now been introduced to almost everyone in Rockbridge County.

I had promised to run someone home after the festival, so they could stay till Sunday. Having had so little sleep, of such poor quality as I get in the saddle, I wasn't looking forward to it, but she had arranged a break for more music and a BBQ half way. The BBQ was at the fine antebellum house of the bookshop owner at Buchanan (the first syllable as in Bunter). We had a discussion about Ellen Glasgow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning local novelist from the late nineteenth century. She is from the same family after which Glasgow VA is named.
They had an Old-Time group playing all afternoon, having stopped on their way home from Buena Vista (the first syllable as in Beauty).
We spent some time talking to a local couple, she originally from Georgia, he from New York. They had lived a long time in Boston. She complained that "yankees" heard her accent and assumed she was stupid. I told her that wasn't so bad, "they hear his accent here, they'll think he's going to rob them". I stiffled my guilt about the lovely southern belle in the Irish bar near the Second City Theatre in Chicago.

I had booked into a very reasonable motel in Buena Vista, and when I finally got back, I was quite exhausted. So later that night, I restricted myself to a lovely hot bath and ten hours sleep. There are a very few things which, in the right circumstances, are better than beer.

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