In Revelstoke, our first night in British Columbia, we ate in a pub called “Village Idiots”.
We were not aware how accurate this would prove to be, as in “the shape of things to come”.
Breakfast was served between 8 and 9 am. Let me tell you how wonderful the meal plan was: three times a day the gong would sound and we would line up on a porch outside of the kitchen and dining room. We would pick up a tray, load up with silverware and a plate, then help ourselves to cherry tomatoes, salads and rolls. Then we’d head outside to where we’d be served the hot entree, starch and vegetables.
The vegetables came from the Sorrento Centre’s eight acre farm.
Dessert was cookies or chocolate cake or pudding or cobbler.
Coffee and various punches and ice tea were available all day.
Breakfasts would be fresh fruit, yogurt, muffins, granola and a hot egg dish with bacon or sausage. One morning there were pancakes. Be still my heart.
DMP loved eating fresh vegetables without having to grow it or pick it herself. I loved eating anything that I didn’t have to shop for or cook.
Our fellow female musicians were equally thrilled. We bonded over the joy of not cooking. We daily praised the tomatoes. We shared our bread and served drinks to each other.
Anyway, back to Monday…
At 9 DMP set off to meet her mandolin class in the outdoor chapel, a three minute walk from our room. I trudged off to a far corner of the camp to one of three portable classrooms. It was going to be a very warm day.
My violin teacher is truly gifted, both as a fiddler and a teacher. My classmates consisted of two quiet 30+ men, a 20-ish wild-haired kid who didn’t believe in deodorant or soap (I only sat next to him once), 2 pleasant 20-somethings young women (one who had just graduated with a masters degree in jazz), a shy 14-year old girl, and two women close to my age, Elaine and Liz.
Teacher Miriam Sonesten and new friend Liz Crockett
Miriam believes in teaching songs by ear, so she carefully and patiently taught us the parts to a song whose name I can’t remember because on the last day my music papers were mixed up with someone else’s.
It was a pretty song. I kept up, though my brain was protesting having to memorize notes at the speed of light. We played the song over and over again (a good thing) and faster and faster (not a good thing). At the mid-morning break, Liz and I raced back to the cafeteria to load up on coffee for 10 minutes before returning to class.
I learned Liz was a retired music teacher from Oregon who, along with her guitar-playing husband Peter, was camping across Canada for six weeks in their car and tiny tent. One of her sons is a fiddler in a well-known band, Horse Feathers. We discovered we had been to SXSW in Austin at the same time, maybe even the same venues.
DMP was in the midst of her own challenges. The speed of the information was one issue, and her fellow classmates were another. One man continued to play his mandolin while the teacher talked, making it hard to hear. Another man sat far away from the group, obviously lost in his own private mandolin world. Lucky for DMP, there were also some women to laugh with.
Lunch was something to look forward to.
Afternoons were filled with workshops. Smarter student musicians than I took naps or practiced what they’d learned in their morning session. I’d also brought along my writing, thinking I’d have time in the afternoons to work up a chapter or two (yes, I am often delusional).
Monday afternoon I attended a workshop called “Fiddle Runs, Fills and Back ups”, which turned out to be an entertaining “listen to this” history lecture by cutie pie fiddler Matt Hotte.
The 3 PM workshop on Monday was called a band scramble. Our names were put in a hat and then randomly sorted into bands who would perform at the evening show. We were under a tree in a field, and it was hot. My group tried a few songs and settled on something easy, “Rolling in My Sweet Baby’s Arms”. Thank God I knew it.
Then it was back to the Old Time Fiddle class.
I’d forgotten the song, of course. We must have played it 15 times before it came back to me. Liz and Elaine were in the same boat. The portable classroom felt like an oven, despite someone dropping in to turn on the fans. By the time I walked back to the Lodge, I was hot and tired and feeling stupid and old.
DMP wasn’t close to heat stroke, but she was suffering from the “tired, stupid and old” stuff. By the time I got out of the shower she had fixed herself a giant rum and coke and was stretched out on her cot.
“I want to go home,” she wailed. “Take me back home. Tonight.”
“No,” I said. “We don’t get the t-shirts until Thursday. And I’m not leaving here without the t-shirt.”
“Are you in the #*!@#! band scramble, too?”
“Unfortunately. You?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna need more rum.”
I put a little tequila in my peach punch (compliments of the cafeteria), enjoyed another meal at the picnic tables and later on clambered onstage to sing “Rollin'” with six enthusiastic strangers. After that it was “snack time” underneath a shed across the field, where we drank coffee and ate cookies in the dark.
Back at the Lodge, the amateur banjo players started their nightly jam with microwave popcorn and great hilarity.
Two words: ear plugs.
Again.
I gave DMP a pep talk: we can do this.
She passed out.
