I was often homesick for my home and family in Massachusetts while living in Texas for the first five years of the 80’s, but I came to love my first husband’s family, who relocated there during the construction boom, and so I have fond memories of those times and that place where my children were born.

When we moved to Virginia in 1985 we were looking to homestead and for home-schooling support.  We found an instant sense of tribe with the back-to-the-land transplants (alter-natives) who came before us.  Recently, while scanning photographs of the 80’s for the 30^th anniversary of the Blue Mountain School, the independent school where my sons went and where I taught creative writing for years, I was reminded of the strength of community here in Floyd and the longtime bonds that we share.

I named the photo scanning project “Old School,” but it soon became much more than a retrospective on Blue Mountain School. In an effort to save a collection of photos, I scanned a dozen-or-so photos from each of my hardcopy photo albums (which are falling apart) to tell the story of those early years building community in Floyd. Like the scratch of old album on a turntable, the photos have scratches and specks where the paper has already started to decompose, which gives me a sense of satisfaction to see them being preserved digitally (at least until the next technology comes along).

Old School also tells the story of family. I was touched to see how times my parents had visited over the years (my mother is now disabled and my father passed away in 2005). Siblings and their children also came, as well as my sons’ paternal grandparents. And we visited all of them. There was the yearly Labor Day cook-out in Massachusetts, where we stayed on the peninsula of my hometown, along with trips back to Texas for the Renaissance Faire and to see my brother Danny, who followed me there in the late 70’s when he was looking to make a new start.    

Two days later, I’m hung over from scanning, but I’m enjoying clicking through the images I’ve collected and noticing more and more details.  It’s amazing to me that the scanned pictures look better and bigger than the pre-4×6 originals. And the cross section of comments the old photos have received on Facebook have caused my worlds collide in a good way.   Soon, I will start on an early 1990’s pre-digital series. I’ll probably call it “Phase Two in which Doris Gets Her Oats.”

After that, like a Star Wars Trilogy, I’ll go backwards to the beginning and scan what I can.

Another highlight of the Ketch and Critter show at the Floyd Country Store last weekend was the deep dish home-made apple pie that I had during intermission. It was so good, heated and served with vanilla ice cream that I stopped to get another slice to-go when I was in town on Sunday dropping off my weekend houseguest to her foster-care family. The pie wasn’t the only thing I found I was interested in. There was a game of Scrabble going on in the booth near the checkout counter, and it brought back a hunger for the game. I haven’t played in awhile and would have invited myself to sit down, since they had only two words on the board, but I had a car full of groceries.

Thanks to Mike and Eileen for posing for this shot. I promised Mike that I wouldn’t put it on youtube.

Mighty Shakey played at the UBAN dance benefit to Keep the Ban on Uranium mining in VA at Dogtown/Sun Music Hall in Floyd. Watch a Shadow Shot Sunday video HERE  a blues number  HERE and Michael and Kari Kovick singing Michael’s new song about clean water HERE.

She told me not to stand too close or talk too fast, asked me to wash her toothbrushes and explained how to pour just the right amount of maple syrup for her meds, making sure I scraped the side of the spoon on the glass container so it wouldn’t drip and aimed any broken pills away from her mouth so the jagged edges didn’t hurt as they went down.

I apologized when, while trying to comb out the mat of hair on the back of her head, I accidentally bumped her sensitive skin.  The following week when Joe and I returned for our overnight shift, I made sure that my nails were clipped.

I reminded her of her generosity.  She had forgotten that when we first met she taught me to make hoop earrings that I sold at my friend’s bead shop. Later, she offered to do body work on me. She knew I had issues with chronic fatigue.   I think she called it “angel work.”  I never made the time.   I wasn’t sure I believed it, or maybe I felt I didn’t have the money to pay her if she needed it.

She asked me to look for her dog Dobbins, but I couldn’t find him.  He wasn’t in the laundry room where she thought he would be. Later that night, as I was drifting off to sleep on a mat on the floor next to her bed, I could hear the nearby tapping of Dobbins’ tail on the hardwood floor.

In the morning I wasn’t able to say goodbye because she was sleeping when I left. The week before that when I told her goodbye, she said, “I won’t blame you if you never come back.”   “It’s a privilege to be here. I’ll be back.”  I answered and then made a joke about the strong bond that’s formed after you sleep with someone.  She laughed and I kissed her.

She was dying but still held out hope for healing.  I felt clumsy, like a bull in her butterfly presence.  I liked to remember how excited she was when she stopped me in town before she got sick and invited me into her new art gallery and how beautiful she looked at her summer solstice wedding six years before.

At her memorial celebration last night, there was laughter, storytelling, dancing and singing.  It was odd to see the sunroom she died in filled with friends around a table of homemade desserts. I was standing on the porch with a group of woman talking about her and feeling that she was listening when I realized that Dobbins was standing beside me, tapping his tail against the side of my leg.

Christian Breeder, of American Dumpster and Floydfest fire-breathing dragon wagon fame, narrated a space landing at Dogtown Roadhouse on New Year’s Eve.

In a spectacle reminiscent of a down home Cirque de Soleil, we watched as Breeder, in his best his best Leonard Cohen meets Bob Dylan meets the Crash Test Dummies meets Tom Waits on whiskey voice, made some stream of consciousness predictions as a carnival troupe of people in capes, on stilts and swinging from the rafters spun around acting out his stories.

Lizards posing as girls with zippers down their back … wormholes … interchangeable heads … and the universal question: What are you doing here?

Some of Floyd’s best local dancers were invited on stage to dance. The rest of us twirled around on the dance floor, trying not to bump into the court jesters.

I especially enjoyed the band’s rendition of Lou Reed’s Sweet Jane and Cohen’s Hallelujah.  At midnight I hugged a few friends and kept dancing.  Life goes on. Or as my Asheville potter son, Josh, says, “2012 … It’s not the end of the world.”  Watch the video HERE and HERE.

The couple’s interests in community and energy efficiency have been long standing. Decades ago, and at different times, they each lived in one of Floyd’s first intentional communities, which Bauers describes as having been more of an extended family. She remembers the benefits of simple living and sharing resources, of gardening, cooking and eating together. “It was an inexpensive and healthy way to live,” she recalls.

More recently, Bauers and Wall have put their interest in clean energy into practice with a succession of building projects designed to reduce energy consumption through passive energy gains and provide needed energy through renewable sources.

In 2007, before breaking ground at the eco-village, they built the Hotel Floyd, a designated “Virginia Green Lodging” establishment in the heart of downtown Floyd. Constructed with the latest green technologies and sustainable building materials and furnishings, the hotel’s themed rooms showcase the art, furniture, music and culture of Floyd County.

Following the completion and success of the Hotel Floyd, the couple began construction at the Eco Village property of a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certified office building for Wall Residences, their regional business that has been providing residential foster care for individuals with disabilities since 1995. The 4,700-square-foot building with a timber-framed entrance and foyer is a model of green building technology with a geo-thermal heating and cooling system and 82 photovoltaic solar panels that provide most of the building’s energy needs.

Drawing on their experience in green building, Wall and Bauers began construction on the Eco Village, two miles from Floyd’s one stoplight, in 2010. “We’re getting better at understanding how to build cost-effective, energy-efficient buildings and buildings that basically don’t use any energy. Our intention is to be a net-zero energy community,” says Wall, who was director of Mental Retardation Services for a Virginia Community Service Board before founding Wall Residences.

Sustainable local economy is another interest the couple promotes through their own businesses and through the non-profit local boards and organizations they serve on, such as SustainFloyd and The Partnership for Floyd. As innovative business leaders, they designed the eco-village with an economic plan at its center as a way to ensure its success. “The objective is to create opportunities for jobs here on the land,” says Bauers.

Initial jobs will be in commercial gardening and food preparation. Working residents who are interested in food production will provide soups, salads and sandwiches, made with food grown organically on the property, to Wall Residences employees and other eco-village residents. Wall and Bauers also envision the development of Eco Village value-added products, such as fruit jams, salsa, pies and casseroles that could be sold to the public. “We’re putting the orchard in this year,” Wall reports.

The first two homes of a projected 25, clustered in co-housing style, are completed and occupied. A single family net-zero energy home is owned by Wall and Bauers. A nearby passive house duplex is occupied by two families that work on the property at the Wall Residences office. Options to rent, buy or build at the eco-village offer a range of possible fits, making community membership more accessible to more people.  

Wall and Bauers recently hosted an afternoon gathering of community leaders and individuals of the larger Floyd community to share plans for the eco-village and to hear what others are doing. As the sun lowered in the sky, a group of educators, small farmers, holistic health practitioners, artists, environmental activists and others passed the village chicken coop on their way up the hill from the clustered home site for a tour of the property. Wall led the group to the village campground and bathhouse and showed them the site where eight earth-bermed (partly earth-covered) efficiency apartments and five off-the-grid earth-bermed homes are ready to be built.

The off-the-grid residences will look down on to the eco-village pond and the community center that will be used for retreats, conferences and celebrations. The community center, which will be available for public rental, will house a commercial kitchen and a high school in its lower level. Wall, who serves on the board of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, describes the high school as “student-directed with a holistic model and a focus on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), as well as on academics.”  He says he hopes to have the school open for the 2012 school year.

The village’s close proximity to town is a plus as well. A back-road bike trail and the availability of a village truck and an electric car will make it possible for residents to live without the expense of a vehicle if they choose to.  “You won’t have to go somewhere else to work if you don’t want to,” says Bauers, explaining that home-based cottage industries are encouraged.

The property includes spring-fed creeks, mountain views and a nature trail, which runs along the perimeter. Plans include a commercial garden, a barn for animals, a stocked fish pond, honey bees, a greenhouse and a meditation cabin tucked into the woods. “It’s exciting,” Wall says, adding that he’s open to the possibilities and ideas that others will bring to the community.   ~ Colleen Redman

~ The following is reprinted from the November issue of Natural Awakenings of Southwest Virginia. For more information about the Eco Village, call Jack Wall at 540-392-4381 or visit FloydEcoVillage.com.

Walking on the rows of our garden like an astronaut looking for life on the moon, I discover a few volunteer kale plants that have survived the morning frost.  I transplant them into the cold frame, pick a batch of remay-covered Swiss chard and harvest what’s left of the parsnips with a shovel, soaking and scrubbing their long muddy tubers in cold water.

Inside, still scrubbing and cleaning up the muddy splash at the sink, my husband, Joe, is talking on the phone to a friend who’s complaining that her dog barked for hours and she didn’t get enough sleep.  “Tell her to thank him because he probably warded off a bear,” I say, not having been able to shake the feeling of vulnerability I’ve had since I found bear scat on our front porch a few weeks ago.

Our neighbor Bob comes over bringing Joe a copy of the article in Tricycle magazine about the teen mindfulness retreats Joe’s non-profit iBme puts on.  I hear them talking on the porch but I feel too busy to join them.  The sun is shinning brightly through the windows, so I drop what I’m doing to dust off the picture frames in the hallway and the bureau in its path.

After pulling our army green wool blanket out of storage, I decide to wash our sheets and the pillow case to the buckwheat pillow I take to a friend’s house on Thursday nights when I sleep on the mat next to her bed. She’s sick with cancer and appreciates friends in the community who will stay one night a week to give her family members a break.  “We’re all dying, only some faster than others,” I say to Joe when he reminds me it’s our night to go.

Lunch is delicious, chicken with parsnips and volunteer turnips greens mashed with butter into the last of our Yukon gold potatoes. I eat on the porch, purposely trying to soak up the sun for my recommend daily allowance of Vitamin D. I try to read about mitochondrial dysfunction and intravenous glutathione as it relates to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome but find it hard to concentrate.  Maybe The Floyd Press?

I’ve been running half the walk (about the length of a football field) to our mailbox on the front of my feet like my friend Katherine recommended after reading Born to Run, a book about the Mexican tribe of natives who run long distances in bare feet.  Carrying the local paper and Christmas catalogs in one hand, I collect kindling with the other on the walk back.

I spend some time fiddling with the story I’m working on about community theater, check my Facebook page and my blog.  I manage to get the Scrabble game to the top of the stairs, ready to put away, and made a copy of the two-letter-word list to give to my Asheville Potter son, Josh, when he returns for Christmas and wants to play.

We have mice!  I try to get started on cleaning the kitchen but discover that my traps of mouse poison have been raided, so I refill them and clean up after the critters that come to visit a couple times a year. The mice are a nuisance, but knowing they’re in the house is nothing like finding a copperhead on our rust-orange hallway carpet like the one I found in the fall when I was home alone and had to kill it with a yardstick, the leg of a kitchen table and lawn clippers.

By 4:00 the clothes are hanging in the cellar by the woodstove and I’m feeling exhausted.  I babysat my grandsons the day before (the highlight of my week), making the hour back and forth commute down the mountain.  Over the weekend we hosted 100’s of people in our house for Josh’s Sixteen Hands  Studio Tour (my one big yearly social event) and it’s all catching up with me.

“Teatime,” I declare while making myself a pot of Earl Grey Green.  Maybe a little Dr. Phil? (Ever since HD came to the mountains we only get one network channel.)  I dig into the marzipan Christmas stolen  that I buy ever year at this time from a local German baker,thinking to myself “I know I didn’t get as much accomplished as I wanted to, but at least I know one thing: life is good.”

He was thirsty, so we climbed the long winding stairway to the birds-eye view top of the Black Water Loft. I lifted him up to the bar, where he sat like a little man while the barista blended his fruit smoothie, apple and banana, peaches and berries.

Whenever I’m at the Loft I feel compelled to pick up my camera, to capture every beatnik’s corner, every inviting comfy couch, bohemian throw pillow and displayed work of art.

Sun filled honey and homey, the Loft is the epitome of coffee house hip that makes me want to break out in verse, sip tea or play Scrabble.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if I had a friend to sit with me here,” he said from the small children’s table?  I’m thinking, what a fortuitous convergence, two of my favorite photographic subjects, him and the loft.

Some come for the lattes and scones. I like the atmosphere, the post-it poetry, the view and the people I run into.

“Your town is small. I live in a big town,” he later said.  “Yes, I live in the country and you live in the city,” I answered, as we walked hand-in-hand like two tourists enjoying downtown.

~ Read more about the Black Water Loft HERE.

I don’t do Halloween costumes as much as I do “get-ups.” A hat, a wig, a prop (and it all has to be something I can dance in) is usually enough to get me into a Halloween party unrecognized.  This year I went to two dance parties dressed kind of poet/punk.  When people asked about my get-up I told them I was Yoko Ono meets the Bride of Frankenstein.   Here I am, taking a pause from dancing to pose with my friend Calamity Jayn.

I lent Joe the purple wig I wore for last year’s annual The Kind at the Pine Tavern bash.   He topped it with a neon green Dr. Seuss fur cap.  I’m surprised he didn’t dance his hat off because he really lets loose when The Kind play his favorite Grateful Dead songs. Watch him dancing HERE, the one with the glow in the dark Happy Halloween T-shirt who kept getting mistaken for a teenager scarecrow.

I took my yearly picture of doorman Grateful Steve (here in blue with Grateful Bruce).  I thought he was a Grateful Papa Smurf and didn’t discover he was a member of the Blue Man Group until I spotted the other two members.

My friend Kalinda Occupied the Pine Tavern. It was unnerving to me that she never stopped smiling all night because her smile was glued to her face (mask).

On the dance floor Yoko Ono meets the Bride of Frankenstein met Marilyn Monroe meets Lady Gaga and we danced together.  She was drunk and I was drunk on Grateful Dead tunes. We got a kick out of each other.

One of the literal highlights of the night was the poi glo light and hoop dance show by the Ilima Ursomarso and the Rhythm Fire Dance Company.  It was a Sly and the Family Stone kind of big psychedelic show that was very hard to capture with my camera but my video did okay, watch HERE.

The dancers changed costumes and did a fire show outside with lighted fans, sticks and hoops.  At one point Ilima balanced a flaming sword on her head.  The whole thing was fantastic! Clip HERE.

Near midnight we went over to the Dogtown Sun Hall to catch the Alliens playing and to check out the costumed people there.  The first thing I noticed was that Dr. Sue was in a wedding dress.  She had just split up from her long time partner who never married her and so thought it was appropriate, she said.   She got the whole thing at Angels in the Attic thrift shop and it was very convincing.

I was disappointed that I couldn’t get my on tap IPA because they stopped serving at midnight.  We hung out with our friend Rowan, who had a damn big 80’s hairdo and who I now have a new nickname for (see photo).

By the end of the night I was singing a version of the song that Donnie and Marie used to sing I’m a Little Bit Country …I’m a little bit Rock and Roll.   Mine went like this:  I’m a little bit little bit Yoko Ono … He’s a little Wizard of Oz.  Joe and I agreed that I could have been taken for Bullwinkle’s Natasha and the Addams Family Morticia.  The next day I went to a Halloween kid’s party.

~The following appeared in The Floyd Press on October 20, 2011

A group of citizens gathered in the Warren Lineberry Park Saturday to show their support for Occupy Wall Street (OWS), the ongoing protest of corporate greed and influence that began in New York City four weeks ago. Rallies in solidarity of the OWS protesters also took place in Blacksburg and Roanoke and in localities around the country and globe.

Attendee Micheal Kovick addressed the group, saying, “There is no leader here. I’m here to support the Occupy Wall Street protestors. I don’t want to participate in a gripe session. I don’t know what the answer is. There are a lot of things wrong.”

Kovick suggested that OWS supporters engage individuals in conversation. “What can we do locally? How can we make a presence and invite more people into the process?” he asked.

A young man commented that many young people can’t get jobs or afford college. A woman who attended the Washington DC OWS said communication, planned actions and visibility were all important components of being heard.

“The Supreme Court ruling that corporations can make unlimited donations to political campaigns is a big problem. That’s where we lose our voice,” said one attendee. Another added, “We need publicly funded elections so that lobbyists can’t buy politicians.” Other suggestions to address the concerns of OWS included returning the top 1% tax bracket to 1950-1980 levels and holding Wall Street bankers who committed fraud accountable.

Toni Lamberti, who spent a recent day at the New York OWS, said the issue was “the rich against the poor.” Holding a brightly painted red sign that read ‘We Are the 99%,’ she commented that she was impressed with how the New York demonstrators conducted themselves. “They had lunch tables and even libraries set up.”

Lamberti said protestors are building on the momentum of what’s been happening around the world. She suggested citizens google “Wall Street Occupation” or follow democracynow.org to get a different take on OWS from what the mainstream media is reporting. Colleen Redman

Is the grandpa keeping up with the kids or are the kids keeping up with the grandpa?

My weekend has gone at the speed of light with two dances at the Pine Tavern and three stories covered for the local paper.  The Rhythm Fire dancers were busy too. The band pictured  here is not Wildfire.  It’s Wildlife.   Other Sunday shadow shots are HERE.

Thanks to our tea party hostess Katherine and happy birthday to Jayn!

Watch a video of the Back Porch Cloggers performing at Floyd’s Harvest Festival and County Fair HERE. Another of Bernie Coveney and Chris Luster entertaining fair attendees is HERE.  Some of the above photos were published in this week’s local paper. That’s my friend Builder Bob in the blue ribbon photo.

Fire Dancers from the Rhythm Fire Dance Company opened the show for 7 Walkers Thursday night below Dogtown’s Sun Hall in the Warren Lineberry Park.  Led by teacher and Rhythm Fire Dance Company founder/director Ilima Ursomarso, the belly dancers, performed with fire cups, fire fans and fire sticks. Ilima danced with a fire hoop.   See a blog post about the 7 Walkers band (Bill Kreutzmann from the Grateful Dead, Papa Mali George Porter Jr. and Matt Hubbard) show below or  HERE.

I practically had a conversation with Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann. I mean I was that close and he smiled.  And I never stopped smiling.  Or dancing.

In the spirit of Jerry Garcia and the rest of the “7 Walkers looking down from heaven” (taken from one of their new song’s lyrics), the band 7 Walkers put on a smokin’ show at Dogtown’s Sun Hall in Floyd Thursday night.  It was jam sweet, funky and fresh with New Orleans musician Papa Mali, who has said he was inspired by Dr. John and others, whose voice reminds me of early Leon Russell and whose guitar playing can rival that of Garcia. Other band members are bass guitarist George Porter, a founding member of the 60/70’s funk band The Meters, and keyboardist Matt Hubbard, who occasionally pulled out a big old New Orleans horn or a harmonica, and who is best known for his work with Willie Nelson.

Kreutzmann’s mother was born in New Orleans so it’s a fit that works. I think Bill was smart to wait to find the right musical components to create a band that would embody such heart after Jerry died.  It’s like The New Adventures of Old Christine of Seinfield, the one that finally lived up to the original by being its own.

The stage was drenched in tie dye, which made a mind altering backdrop to the surreal light show.  I nearly lost it when they played Dylan’s Positively 4^th Street. I couldn’t hold my camera steady for Sugaree and just had to shout ‘steal your face right off your head’ like a bad ass when Papa sang He’s Gone.  Each band member was compelling in their own right. They made the old songs their own and sang new ones written by Papa and Robert Hunter, who wrote with Garcia before Garcia’s death in 1995.

See what I mean. Watch a video clip HERE and  HERE.

They come to fill buckets and pans, canning jars, freezer bags, pie crusts, and always, the everwaiting tongue. They come to visit and eat, to sate the hungers of loneliness and body. Though we offer only blueberries, they come wanting more. They come from the American Dream—CEOs and wealthy realtors, two kids piling out of just-washed SUVs, wives stylish in their special picking outfits. They come from communes named Left Bank, Abundant Dawn, and A Light Morning. They come tie-dyed, shoe-less, bra-less, bath-less. On a good day, thirty cars of pickers fill our one-acre field, strangers and friends all picking side-by-side …

So begins Jim Minick’s latest book The Blueberry Years, a memoir of his and wife Sarah’s years as organic pick-your-own blueberry farmers in Floyd County.

The book is not only a re-counting of the Minicks’ farming experience. It’s a snapshot history of Floyd throughout most of the 1990’s, recalling indirectly how Floyd’s back-to-the-land transplants, who began arriving in the county in the 1970’s, existed alongside its longtime natives.

So where was I, as a member of the back-to-the-land movement, during the blueberry years?  Unfortunately, I was not picking buckets of Jim and Sarah’s organic blueberries. I was living below the poverty level back then and didn’t have the money. By the time I was fully aware of the Minick’s pick-your-own blueberry field I was picking in my friend and neighbor Jayn’s large blueberry patch. She shared enough for me to bake a yearly birthday pie for my son Josh and for us to have some fresh eating.

I have to admit that I cheated. I know Jim and knew something of how the story would end. But I wasn’t sure exactly why he and Sarah decided to leave Floyd County, something I felt was the county’s loss. So I jumped ahead to the end of the story for more details before the full accounting of the planting, growing, picking and farmer’s market sales of the Minick’s 1,000 blueberry plants.

Jim changed the names of the pickers and market shoppers in his stories, but with just five words at the beginning of chapter 29 … Greta drives like she picks blueberries… I gasped. I knew who Jim was writing about and how that chapter would end. That knowing, along with shivers, aha’s, and some head nodding moments happened throughout my reading.

But there was also a lot I didn’t know. Sometimes I felt like Jim and I were like family members living under the same roof but with different perceptions and experiences.   He as a university writing teacher and blueberry farmer, and me as a single mother making jewelry for sale and teaching creative writing to the children at Floyd’s parent-run cooperative (Blue Mountain School) in trade for my young sons to go there. But we were both interested in becoming more self-sufficient, and, ultimately, as I discovered by reading Jim’s words, we had more in common than not.

I was surprised to discover that I’m briefly mentioned in the book, even though it was by way of a self-described alias that I sometimes used at the time to sign my poetry in our community’s homespun newsletter, the Museletter: Redmoon.

I enjoyed the intimate glimpse into the Minicks’ lives at the time, which happened concurrently with my own. Jim’s poetic storytelling brought me smack dab in the middle of his berry field that I sadly never visited in person. I found myself so drawn by his descriptions of blueberries that I wished it was July and that I was chomping as I was reading. I realized that the four plants we have in our garden now are not nearly enough.

Along with berry facts, lore and recipes, the bulk of Jim’s story – which I highly recommend – is about the hard work of small scale organic farming and the daily business of following a dream. There is also an underpinning of he and Sarah’s search for a sense of belonging in the county.

I’m not sure whether the Minicks slipped through the cracks in Floyd, between the old time local community and the transplanted alter-natives, or whether they were some of the firsts to begin to fill in those gaps, building a bridge to better connect the two. I know that since they moved out of the county, the bridge has gotten stronger, the community is more integrated, and the local foods movement they helped to pioneer is flourishing.

I think the Minicks would enjoy the Floyd of today. I think they were probably just ahead of their time.

~ Visit Jim’s webpage HERE. Read Anita Firebaugh’s (aka blogger Country Dew) review of the book for The Roanoke Times HERE. A story on a poetry swap at The Floyd Country Store that Jim, I and others participated in is HERE.

Floyd loves William Walter.  He’s been a Floydfest favorite since his band won “Best Emerging Artist” in a vote of 14,500 festival attendees in 2008.  He has also appeared as a model on ads for Green Label, a Floyd organic t-shirt company run by my friends Rain and George. On this occasion the Charlottesville singer songwriter followed two other bands that I missed. Playing with band mate guitarist Tucker Rogers, Walter incorporated some live looping jams into his cover and original songs, which means he recorded his own background music on the spot and then looped them into the performance.  I had to be told what I was witnessing. See HERE.

I first discovered William Walter & Co. playing on the Pink Floyd stage in the Floydfest beer garden the year before his band won Best Emerging Artist when my friend, one-time Blue Mountain School teacher of my son Dylan and Grateful Dead dance partner, Suzanne and I kicked up some dust to his heartfelt music.  I remember thinking that he looked like Kurt Cobain and, maybe because he sang a song called “When I leave for California,” I thought he had a California rock sound.

The Grateful Dead number he played at the Sun last night got everyone dancing like it was old home week, and Suzanne – who doesn’t live in Floyd anymore but had just arrived from the coast after a family vacation was cut short because of the pending hurricane – was there to enjoy it with us.

Post note:  Listen to an original Walter song performed at the Sun Hall HERE.

Four years ago I was one of a small group of local writers from The Floyd Writers Circle who helped design and decorate a writers suite at the Hotel Floyd, our downtown green lodging with locally themed rooms that showcase Floyd’s art and literature, handmade furniture, music and mountain culture.

An antique wooden desk with a pull down table, drawers and letter slots was the first item we purchased and became the centerpiece of suite. An early 1960’s donated typewriter with a local story, an Oxford dictionary owned by a writer’s circle founding member who had passed away, a book shelf filled with books by Virginia authors, a Scrabble game, a wingback reading chair, lamps and  doilies rounded out the uncluttered atmosphere of self-reflection and study that we were going for.

One of the finishing touches we made to the suite was the addition of a leather bound journal, placed on the antique desk.   A writer’s circle member made the first entry, inviting hotel guests to take up the pen to compose a journal entry or make a literary contribution.

And they did.  A couple of weeks ago, I held the leather bound journal in my hands after one of the hotel owners passed it on to me to read, full and full circle.  I learned that from October 2007 to April 2011 guests came for family reunions, anniversaries, funerals and weddings, the Friday Night Jamboree, concerts at the Sun Hall, antique hunting, wine tasting, Crooked Road touring, Floydfesting and more.  And they love it here.

One guest came by way of the Blue Ridge Parkway fog. Another wrote that she lived a half hour away and checked into the hotel after finding a snake in her house. There were several guests from England, one from Thailand and one from Germany. Others came from other parts of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois.  Someone left a book of poetry for the writers suite “library” another crafted a poem.

Many complimented the local eateries and the writer’s room décor and everyone spoke highly of the hotel describing it as “a home away from home,” “a get away from the rat race, “the lap of luxury,” “and oasis,” “the best hotel I ever stayed at” and more.

Journal writers included a retired newspaper man, a tattoo artist, a group of girlfriends, bikers and bicyclists, and a journalist from the Richmond Times Dispatch who was doing a story on the hotel, which has since then has added two pet friendly suites and the only electric car charger in the area.

Reading the journal was a heartwarming experience that gave a sense of fruition to what we set out to create when we designed the suite.  I felt proud of our town and almost wished I didn’t live in here so I could come as a tourist and vacation.

~ See photos and read more about the creation of the Writers Suite HERE and HERE. See more photos of the rooms at the Hotel Floyd website HERE. Other Floyd themed rooms at the Hotel Floyd include The Crooked Road, Blue Ridge Parkway, Country Store, Jacksonville Center, Floyd Artist, Floydfest, Harvest Moon, Winter Sun, Jeanie O’Neil, Malawi, Bell Gallery, Old Church Gallery, and Chateau Morisette Bridal Suite.

Kari Kovick and a chorus of children sing her adapted version of Pete Seeger’s This Land is Your Land for Floyd at the town’s 4th of July Celebration on Saturday.

It was an old school gathering of family and friends of the Zephyr community where Dolphin grew up.

There were bagpipes playing (by Mike’s dad), people wearing fake mustaches, fresh halibut on the fire-pit, and smoked salmon from Alaska where Mike and Dolphin met and now live.

Dolphin’s father Bob sang an original song that was inspired from a dream and her mother Jayn recited a poem she had written for the occasion.

A stormy wind blew in, adding a dramatic touch as Dolphin and Mike exchanged vows, lead by fellow-Zephyrite Katherine Chantal.

When raindrops fell during the hand-fasting part of the ceremony someone said, “ A wet knot doesn’t come undone.”

Fireworks and flowers, Chinese lamps and lights strung in trees, children playing at Zephyr pond and spinning on the dance floor, a funny and touching slide-show of Dolphin and Mike’s life in Alaska, she as a teacher and he in marine sciences, brought tears to my eyes.

The dancing at the reception, held in Jayn’s back yard, with homeboy Ben Bradburn mixing records at the turntable, was the closest I’ve come to a mosh pit.

It was a smoking party, the event of the summer, the year or the decade and plain to see that Mike and Dolphin were made for each other. XO!

Note: Watch a video clip HERE and  HERE.

Sometimes I follow Kari Kovick around.  I’m a fan of her work teaching music to young children and as a member of the band Windfall.  I’ve documented her children’s music programs for the local paper in the past and written about Windfall for the Floyd Compass (a one time visitor’s guide).  Recently, I spent some time with Kari at the local elementary school, where she was teaching a preschool class and helping them prepare for an upcoming musical performance, showing what they have learned for parents and family members. The circle of songs and rhythms Kari led that day was followed by a snowball fight!  Watch the ruckus HERE.

The National Music Festival’s family concert at the Presbyterian Church of Floyd (just one of dozens of concerts in the two week event) was geared towards children.  It not only appealed to the child and the early childhood educator in me (my primary job before I had my own kids), but I learned a lot about the instrument families, how they are made and played.   The French horn, clarinet and bassoon, and a version of Old MacDonald Had a Farm, in which stringed instruments represented animals, reminded me how formative Peter and the Wolf was to me as child (in an otherwise classical music deprived upbringing).  As if that wasn’t enough fun excitement, the concert concluded with a princess (Allie Berger) dancing to the jazz, tango and waltz rhythms of Stravinsky’s Soldiers Tale.  Watch HERE.

It took attending classical music solo performances like the one above at The Floyd Country Store to force me to figure out how to mute my camera beep.  Check out THIS double bass performance and a lively conducting style of the NMF Symphonic Wind Ensemble HERE.  More coverage and photos coming in The Floyd Press this week.

For me, hearing Martin perform was a perfect compliment to hearing Michael Meade, author of Fate and Destiny, speak in Washington D.C. the week before.  Both men share an Irish heritage and the traits of that bloodline, a penetrating way with words and a propensity to the dark and to humor.   Both have a depth of voice for making social commentary and delving down into the roots of humanity. Both have taken to the stage to share what their soul was made to do, and as Meade would say ‘whenever we share our unique gifts with the world everyone benefits from it.’

I for one was enriched by Martin’s skillful guitar playing, the originality of his musical arrangements and the turn of phrases in his lyrics that were never predictable and appealed to my own love of language.  He played to a small yet engaged audience, who learned that Martin has been inspired by artists like Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, to name a couple.   Along with a Cohen and Dylan song, he played a Van Morrison (also from Belfast) song and a rendition of the traditional Carrickfergus, which pulled at some heartstrings.

But the majority of songs Martin performed were “original” in the best sense of the word. At one point I took a stack of CDs to the well-lit bathroom to better read the lists of songs, looking for my already favorites.

When a few of us got up to dance, Martin joked that no one dances at Leonard Cohen concerts, so he must be doing something right.  Later he announced that Bob Dylan just turned 70.  “That means we are all younger than him,” he said to applause.

Adding to the richness of the evening was the fact that Martin sat at our table in between sets (having already made friends with some of our party who had heard him the evening before at the Hotel Floyd amphitheater).  We enjoyed talking to him and his U.S. traveling companion and fellow musician Mary Smith.

At the end of the night, Martin and Smith said they were off to another gig in nearby Lexington, followed by family visits up north and a booking in Maine.  They promised to come back to Floyd soon. I promised to read some poetry at the club that Martin runs in Birmingham England if I was ever in the country.

Post note: Watch a video of Martin playing at Dogtown HERE and THIS clip I found on youtube gives a good example of Martin’s talent (and it’s one of the songs on my “favorites” list: Pick it UP).