Novel

Wednesday, March 9 (cont'd)

Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver played at Clem's Shoal Creek Music Park, in Lavonia, Georgia. Brew drove up I-85 to hear them.

Owen told him his audient, which is what he called his first fan, back when he only had a few fans, almost lost a finger to a snapping turtle.

He had the turtle in a gunny sack.

He set the sack on the ground, and the mouth fell open.

The turtle leaped up as high as his hand and bit him on the finger.

Brew had always been afraid of snapping turtles.

On stage, Owen dedicated a Gene Autry song to Brew, and played it.

The band must have rehearsed it, because they played it flawlessly.

"That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine."

Owen went back to Tucker, with Brew, and spent the night.

Brew had moved from Lilburn to Tucker.

In the morning, Owen made a shrimp omelet, with some shrimp he had in his cooler.

Then Brew drove Owen to Ellijay, where he was going to bow-hunt with Barry Abernathy and some other boys for a week, then ride to their next gig with Barry. Barry was Doyle's banjo player.

Barry's now in Mountain Heart, with Steve Gulley, who played in Doyle's band with Owen and Barry.

Steve told about his uncle and a buddy picking up a wino on the side of the road with a sign saying, "Will Work for Food." They took him out to their sawmill and worked his ass off. Then they gave him a baloney and cheese sandwich. Then they took him back to where they picked him up, and said, "If you need work tomorrow, we'll be by."

Then went by but the wino wasn't there. He must have found a job that night.

Owen was the cook. He bought $200 worth of food. They expected to eat deer meat, but just in case, he brought plenty of food.

Once Barry shot a bear, with a bow and arrow, and had to pack the butchered bear down off the mountain, on his back.

It was a large black bear.

Once Doyle Lawson played at the Everett Brothers Music Barn in Suwannee, Georgia.

Brew took some co-workers with him, who were impressed. Well, he met them there.

Suwannee wasn't far from Brew, and sometimes he went up, by himself, on Saturday night, just to hear the house band, which was pretty good. Just to hear some bluegrass music.

They used to have a sign that said, "No Drinking, No Cussing, No Long Hair, Women Must Wear Skirts." But standards have slipped.

When Owen played with James King, the second time, King's band played Everett's Barn.

Jason Moore, King's bass player, now plays bass with Mountain Heart.

Ray Deaton, who managed King, and used to play with Doyle, his son played mandolin with the Everett Brothers house band. Jeff?

It's a small world.

Bluegrass, Florida writers. Folk artists.

Big Chief Visions, who was hosting the homegrown powwow, this month, had a booth at MagnoliaFest, where Balder was playing. As Brew walked up to the booth, the artist, who had never met him, but had seen his picture, on the Internet, said, "Oh, no--a folk art critic."

That's a joke. There are no folk art critics.

Or everyone's his own folk art critic.

After Balder completed advanced infantry training, where he was a scout, because he could orient himself, in woods and swamps, he went to the John Philip Sousa School of Music, in Norfolk.

The school wasn't just for Marine bandsmen, it was for musicians from all branches of the service. Balder graduated first in his class.

He got orders to New Orleans. Good duty for a musician. There was so much after-hours music to go listen to.

The food wasn't bad, either.

Balder got on separate rations and lived off base, with some musician friends, in Algiers Point, where William S. Burroughs lived, when Kerouac visited him, in On the Road.

Balder bought a car, a Toyota Camry with a sun roof and leather seats. That car was a pussy magnet.

One weekend Balder came to Point and Shoot on a visit, just ahead of Hurricane Opal. Brew drove down to help Brenda secure the trailer behind Uncle Wayne and Granny Brown. They went hurricane evac in Balder's car to Valdosta, Georgia, where they spent the night with Barbara and Lowell.

Lowell had won a new Martin guitar at a bluegrass festival. He had a pre-war Martin. He sold Balder the new one.

Balder had had a luthier build him a mandolin, in New Orleans. So now he had a good guitar and a good mandolin. And the trumpet the Marine Corps issued him.

Hurricane Opal came through Santa Rosa Beach.

Potter and Suzette went up to Andalusia, Alabama, to stay with Woodie Long and Dot.

The storm spared Suzette's house in Santa Rosa Beach and blew down all of Woodie's heritage oak trees in Andalusia.

Woodie and Dot were on Owen's route.

He had a route like a Kula ring.

Going north, he would give people Gulf seafood, and coming south, he would bring them deer meat, or goose sausage. Sometimes he would leave a ham or a game bird in someone's freezer and cook it next time through. A pheasant, maybe.

Woodie painted a bluegrass band on Owen's fiddle case.

Not every fiddle player had a Woodie on his fiddle case.

In fact, I think Owen was the only one.

Owen once described his job as, "Riding around the tri-states."

He meant on a band bus, but he could have meant on a fishing boat.

And tri-states could have meant Florida-Georgia-Alabama, North Carolina-South Carolina-Tennessee, Virginia-West Virginia-Kentucky, or Louisiana-Arkansas-Oklahoma.

Brew once saw Mark O'Connor playing fiddle with Jim and Jesse at a mobile home lot in Tallahassee. He was 14 years old. He said they'd played a rodeo grounds in Oklahoma the night before.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

Owen didn't go on the road until 16, but he went to crafts shows and street fairs with Brew when he was 14. He developed a taste for it.

The smell of lamb roasting on a spit. The pennants snapping in the breeze.

Fiesta!

A fried grouper sandwich at the raw bar near the turtle kraals.