Best of the Welcome Columns


Best of the Welcome Columns

Author: Varner, Mark
Vines

Dear friends, Up here in Boulder Creek, the loveliest town in the Santa Cruz Mountains, if I do say so myself, there are blackberry bushes everywhere. My daily walks or runs along the country lanes that radiate out from our little burg take me by long stretches of the vines that have grown there for generations. In July and August they offer up their delicious harvest to any passer by who doesn’t mind having little seeds stuck in their teeth. This year was crazy. For some reason we had few mosquitoes and mountains of blackberries. I guess that would be related to the weather. But what is surprising to me is how much fruit wound up not being picked. The bushes are now covered with desiccated berries no one had the appetite to pluck. Is that a waste? I guess not, since everyone had their chance to grab as many blackberries as they could eat or bake into a pie. There were just too many. That’s kind of how I’m feeling this Monday. There was so much going on last week musically that I imagine that the notes are still hanging ripe in the air, untasted. Perhaps on some stage somewhere there is a ‘32 bone or a ‘23 Loar, still leaning in its instrument stand because the crop was so big they could not all be harvested. The lucky ones went to Nashville for the IBMA bluegrass party. Having gone last year for my first and only time I can say it’s a little like the way folks explain what having a child is like to expectant parents: you can’t imagine how much it will change your life. The IBMA event is beyond one’s comprehension as far as the scope of fun and excitement. No doubt we will be regaled with tales of the CBA’s contribution to the party and who saw who do what and what hot bands will be booked for FDF in the future. We do in fact await the booking of the 2009 Father’s Day Festival “Emerging Artist”, plucked like a ripe blackberry from the endless vines of talent one encounters in the center of the bluegrass and old-time world. But I don’t get to brag on any of that cause I was here, at home, working. Sigh. Likewise I will not brag on the acts I saw at Hardly Strictly because I didn’t make it there either. My wife and son went and had a blast. Sounds like the Infamous Stringdusters where their fave. We’ll hear much more about that event and we will have many of Mike Melnyk’s photos in the November Bluegrass Breakdown. So here I am, having missed some pretty large events in the music world, crawling into another week. Oh! What could possibly brighten my life in the wake of these failures of scheduling? I know! The CBA Campout at the Stockton-Delta KOA, that’s what! The friends I see there may not be up on some big stage, thrilling throngs, but they are famous among the moonlit campsites in the land we call home, our beautiful Northern California. Can’t wait to see y’all there! Your pal, Mark Varner mrvarner@ix.netcom.com

Posted: 10/6/2008