In Panama City, Brenda took Owen and Balder
to a lot of bluegrass festivals.
When Owen was in high school he joined the
Gillis Brothers band.
They played a lot of Stanley Brothers songs, and once,
when Ralph's fiddle player had to be out, Owen played with him and knew the book.
Ralph Stanley was impressed.
The high school Owen went to had an anti-drop-out
policy that only let a student be absent for so many days, no matter the reason,
even if he made up the work.
To go on the road with the Gillis Brothers,
Owen had to drop out of school.
The anti-drop-out policy forced Owen to drop
out.
Also, what this policy meant, in practice, was that if you attended
you passed, and, eventually, graduated. They were keeping the wrong students.
Successful studentship was based on attendance rather than achievement.
What
are you going to do if one whole class of students does worse than the rest of the
students, and the ones doing worse are a racial minority?
You can't fail
them.
Do you give them tutors? Extra help? Special coaching?
Do you
drill them on the answers to test questions?
I don't know what you can do.
It's a problem public education hasn't solved.
Perhaps it is insoluble.
* * *
Middle school didn't have an anti-drop-out policy yet, so Balder could miss
the days and make the work up.
He played upright bass in the Gillis Brothers
band with Owen on fiddle.
Brenda drove them both to gigs. Then after Owen
went on the road with the Gillis Brothers, she drove Balder to the gigs.
One summer he went on the road with the band and played mandolin.
They had
a full-time bass player, Andy Dye.
* * *
Once, at a Pizza Hut, a hostess asked Andy Dye, "Smoking or non-smoking?"
He said, "No smoking and no nigger music."
That wasn't on their
menu.
You can't get away from nigger music.
Except at a bluegrass
festival.
* * *
Mind you, black gospel groups were welcome, musicians like Ben Harper, or
Taj Mahal, and most bluegrass musicians liked jazz, blues, and rhythm and blues.
It's just that awful stuff on AM radio. On jukeboxes. Coming out of boom boxes, and
out of cars.
Again, you didn't go to a bluegrass festival to get away from
nigger music but it was a bonus that there wasn't any.