Blowouts and Bluegrass
The weekend drive was dicey – but part of a lifetime trip toward a passion
By Randy Fitzgerald
“I knew there was something wrong with the car,” Barb said, after we were safely back in Richmond a full 24 hours later than expected. “The steering wheel was shaking so much in my hands, I lost half a pound of flab off my upper arms between Marion and Roanoke.”
I was glad she had a sense of humor about a Sunday drive that might have been disastrous. At one point, we found ourselves 28 miles this side of Roanoke with a flat front tire on a narrow shoulder of Interstate 81 leading down to the James River bridge, trucks roaring past and blowing their horns as though there were somewhere else we could go.
Fearing that someone would sideswipe or rear-end us, we had scurried out of the car, over a guardrail and up a bank in knee-high grass, awaiting a wrecker for more than an hour on a 96-degree day. After a return trip to Roanoke (this time at $4 a mile) and a new tire, we got back on the road only to discover that a rear tire had a dangerous-looking bulge. It was 40 mph all the way to Crozet, where we abandoned the car and hitched a ride to Charlottesville with a good Samaritan. Barb then caught a 4 a.m. bus back to Richmond for work the next day, and I drove the car home that afternoon. Harrowing it was.
The good news was that the whole week before the nightmare trip home was perfect beyond all expectation. For 21 years, we’ve been making the trek through the mountains to partake of the
Galax Old Fiddler’s Convention, which features some of the best bluegrass and old-time music anywhere in the Southland — and the recent one was the best yet. The “amateur” musicians who attend and perform are jaw-droppingly talented. The sounds they get out of a stringed instrument are astounding; and the high lonesome tenors, four-part harmony and lilting voices of mountain women linger in my ears and thoughts weeks and months after Galax is over.
A number of Richmond area musicians are always there, including some of the event’s best performers — Ashland’s Paul Muller (I believe that at least five Muller family members performed in one competition or another) and Doug Shackelford and the Richmond band
The Hot Seats (formerly known as Special Ed and the Shortbus), always a crowd-pleaser at Galax. I noted 40-some Richmond area musicians and bands in the program, with many more there just for the jammin’.
With my retirement looming ahead, it’s comforting to know I have a consuming interest outside my profession. The academic world is a little subculture where I’ve lived my entire life, but now I’m also part of a very different subculture that I believe will sustain me for years to come: this world of mountain music. There’s so much historical significance, so much tradition behind it. I love the way whole families appear onstage with their assortment of instruments, from the tiniest to the oldest. This year, there were pre-schoolers playing fiddle in the youth competition Monday night, mostly making noise but warmly received and encouraged by the enthusiastic Galax audience, which always applauds anyone with the courage to step onstage.
For many years, I was a spectator in this world. Eventually, I picked up a guitar and learned to plunk at it, then a banjo and recently a mandolin. I don’t play any of them very well, but well enough that I now spend my spare time playing with a local bluegrass band —
East of Afton — that has some excellent musicians who more than cover up my inadequacies. I’ve never had more fun at anything.
Bluegrass is my passion, and I hope you have one of your own — or that you will develop one, whatever your age.
But before you take it on the road, I have one suggestion: Be sure to check those darn tires.
.....................................................
Randy Fitzgerald teaches modern American literature at Virginia Union University. He was a longtime public relations director at the University of Richmond and columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
