We awoke to snow.
Nothing that would stick, but snow all the same. In the mountains around us it is whispered that they got over a foot of the fluffy white stuff. For the better part of the morning it alternated between snow and rain. A nice late-April surprise for desert-folks like us. The kids finished their schoolwork and lunch while I worked in the next room. Classes wrap up this week so there is lots of grading to get caught up on.
After lunch, we headed out for a drive in the drizzle. We found a bookstore a couple of towns over which was a good pretext for the drive. We found a great book on the American Revolution that Alec is quite delighted with. Great to see him diving into history instead of being dragged through it by his whack-o father.
The kids enjoyed playing with the Thomas the Train setup the bookstore had, but were hankering for something more exciting. We headed to the Kellerhaus , about a block from where we're staying. It was $1 ice cream cone day - woohoo! The kids and I enjoyed home-made Cookie Monster cones, with crushed cookies embedded in a bright blue vanilla ice cream. Gena opted for the more serene cherry & chocolate chunk.
We returned home to begin preparing dinner. Somehow, it had gotten a lot later than we realized. Our goal for the day was to go to a bluegrass/Gospel jam on the other side of the lake from us in Tuftonboro at 7pm. We figured it would be worth keeping the kids out a little later for the experience. I started cooking around 5:45pm, which is when we realized that the jam started at 6pm, not 7pm.
Dilemma.
Dinner (local sausage, ciabatta rolls, and sauteed mushrooms, onions and green peppers with mozzarella cheese) was halfway done. The kids were grumpy and hungry. It would take us 45 minutes to get to the place. We had no way of knowing if it was still on for tonight or had been cancelled for some reason.
Do we go, or do we opt for the mundane option of cooking the rest of dinner and missing out on the jam? We waffled for several minutes back and forth. But in the end, we decided that we both really did want to check it out, and that we weren't going to get another chance here.
We forced the kids to pee then socked and shoed them. I stuffed the food in the fridge for Thursday's dinner, we jumped in the van, grabbed a few $.49 McDonald's cheeseburgers and drove around the lake. I was relying on visual memory from Google maps to get us to the place. When we were nearly there (by my calculations) I began to worry that perhaps, being over 40 and all, my memory might not be as good as I liked to think it was at times.
However, at the last minute - there it was. The Old White Church. Lots of cars around it. And when we got out in the dusky blue, the sound of music. Literally, not the movie. We were a little disappointed to see the sign out front indicating that tonight was country jam, not bluegrass/Gospel, but what the heck. We weren't going to turn around and drive home defeated.
The church was a large square building. The outer door led us into the ante-room where coats could be removed during snowy and muddy times. I peeked in the inner door, and saw the front of the church lined with musicians, and the traditional box pews about 1/2 filled with all manner of folks at least 30 years older than us.
Awesome!
We slipped in as inobtrusively as possible. But it was clear that these folks weren't used to having visitors. Especially visitors with kids. Every head in the place turned around to watch us make our way to a rear pew and settle in. At the end of the current song, the man sort of leading things encouraged us to come sit up front so the kids could see. We appreciated the invitation, and that would have been cool - if not for the fact that everyone could watch our kids the whole time. Our kids are great, mind you. But Caedmon had been a real grump and stinker all day, and we weren't going to bet that being at the front of a church building was going to magically cure that. We stayed put, and returned the many smiles and nods we received as best we could.
It was amazing. The interior of the building was completely covered in the old tin ceiling type panels. These had been painted a uniformly beige-ish color. Two large black pipes for heating ran through the building from front to back. There were several small jars out for donations, and there was coffee and light refreshments at the front near the musicians.
It seemed that each musician in turn got to select a couple of songs to do, and everyone joined in. They were close to the end when we arrived, and a few folks from the audience got up and called the tune and key and then sang it. Skill levels were all over the map, and it was wonderful. The audience - which probably doubled in size after we arrived - would sing or clap along. If a particularly popular song was picked, there was a smattering of applause before folks settled in to enjoy the music.
The kids were thrilled when a woman who identified herself to Gena as "Big Mouth Mary" encouraged the kids to go up and get cookies. The only problem was that neither Gena or I wanted to accompany them up to the front of the church to do so. It was clear that the regulars were fascinated by the young(ish) family. The kids lobbied us for a while, but I assured them that they could do it all on their own. I gave Alec a few dollars to put into the contribution jar right next to the cookies, and gave him instructions on what to do. All three of them marched up there and we watched the smiles ripple through the building. The kids were even more excited when Big Mouth Mary brought them another one each a few minutes later.
There were over a dozen musicians. Most looked like locals. The emcee played a big bass. There was an electric bass guitar, multiple acoustic guitars, a banjo, a dobro, a harmonica, a fiddle, a mandolin, and a tiny, aged woman on an electric keyboard of sorts set to sound like a piano. I had fun pointing out the instruments to Alec & Caedmon. I didn't recognize most of the songs they played, but here and there was a familiar tune, and we left after they played "Will the Circle Be Unbroken", which I knew. They were preparing to start back with the first musician in terms of requests when we decided we probably ought to go.
We stayed not quite 90 minutes of the three and a half hours the event lasted. By the end, Alec could pick out the bass line and join me in "bowm, bowm, bowm"-ing along to it. But it was late, and a long-ish drive home.
We were so glad that we went. The air was redolent with woodsmoke as we exited the building to head back to the van. The night sky was mostly midnight blue edged with light blue on the western horizon over the pine tree tops. It was brisk and beautiful. There were a few flare-ups in the car between Caedmon and his siblings. But things settled down. We laughed most of the 30 miles back to our place. The kids didn't get to bed until after 9pm, but they fell asleep just fine. And we have wonderful memories of this tiny, old church in a tiny, lakeside community. We have the memory of an older man leaning over his wife to tell us as we were leaving "Come back again. It's lots of fun."
I wish we could. We know it is. And I pray that they find some folks to carry on the beautiful tradition when they aren't able to any more. It was beautiful to listen to that building as we got the kids settled in the car to depart.
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