THE HILLBILLY SHOW SATURDAY NIGHT

l to r, bruce molsky, charlie edwards, bill dancy

 

The Hillbilly Show happened Saturday night, a comedy and variety show, this year the 21st annual, local people entertaining local people. The Hillbilly Show is a fundraiser for the Alleghany Planning Committee, a branch of the Blue Ridge Opportunity Commission headquartered in Wilkes County. The money raised from admission goes to people in the county having a hard time. They give three $500 scholarships to high school graduates of slim circumstances. They pay electric and heating fuel bills for people at risk of losing their power unable to pay the bill. They give garden seeds to several people a year, seeds of the individual's choice. They arrange house repairs for people who can't afford to pay for the repairs. They buy books for the Head Start daycare center in town. No money is skimmed off for any reason. The money is carefully accounted for. All that is taken in is used for its stated purpose. It appears that more money goes out than comes in from the Hillbilly Show. Donations help too. It is a group of modest people, about a dozen, who believe helping the poor an important aspect of being a member of a community. These are people who answer yes to the question, Am I my brother's keeper? It does not diminish anything for anybody in the group to help somebody having a rough time. I have seen by observation and experience the one word that describes best the natives of Alleghany County is generosity.

 

dr roger arias

 

bruce molsky

 

Dr Roger Arias opened the show playing America on classical guitar.  He later played two classical pieces for guitar. He was good. The man could pick. Flowers were thrown onto the stage while he played. I believe the flowers were part of the show. The audience applauded him as enthusiastically as they applauded the country music and bluegrass. This week's Alleghany News mentioned the Hillbilly Show briefly in an article about different events going on in the county this fall color weekend like high school homecoming, a studio tour of the different craft studios in the county. The article introduced the Hillbilly Show thus, "As sophisticated as the studio art may be, Saturday night's Hillbilly Comedy and Variety Show is anything but." Two seats reserved for the press were empty. It struck me somewhat irresponsible of the editor to dismiss the Hillbilly Show so succinctly. I suppose classical music is not sophisticated either. Maybe he was thinking of Meatloaf for sophisticated.

 

the alleghany golden girls

 

the jubilee line dancers

 

Seems to me a responsible local paper might at least acknowledge an important charity in the county of all local people helping out local people, and raising money by way of an annual laugh for the community. It's about the only thing happening in Sparta not high school sports. I suspect unsophisticated has to do with the Hillbilly Show being working class humor that's not quite sophisticated enough for the middle class. Not near as good as television. The music is more of interest to the working class, the mountain people, country, bluegrass, old-time, than to the exurban middle class. Therefore, hardly worthy of notice to an editor who believes only the middle class is literate. Some of the better musicians in the county play at the Hillbilly Show. This year, Tim Lewis picked his banjo. Tim can pick some bluegrass. Charlie Edwards was picking his rhythm guitar and singing. Bill Dancy picked his banjo. Bill Joines picked guitar. Guest artist Bruce Molsky played fiddle, guitar and sang with the band of respectable local musicians.  

 







dottie dorsett the backstage director in red with gary joines

 

judy rimes and

patrick buchannan

sing sonny & cher

 

My role is to pull the ropes that open and close the curtains. I used to try to help out moving mics around backstage, but it messed me up with the curtains. They take some focus. Dottie, pictured above, signals to me and I have a program she marked with open and close throughout the show. It might be almost ten years I've been with the Planning Committee. It appears to me the Hillbilly Show is better each year. Last year and this year the back stage part was handled the best ever. Onstage flowed seamlessly. I like about my place that I can see what's going on backstage, what's happening on stage, and the audience. Like a good Taoist, I participate by not participating. First couple years with them I learned I don't have it for the stage. The stage is not the place for me. This show had nothing but good music throughout, good dancing, good singing, new sound system and lighting. I felt like it was an excellent show that connected with the audience well. The audience was with what was happening on stage from start to finish. Hillbilly Wes, an MC, kept the spirit lively and the audience laughing at his zany humor.

 

cheri choate's band

 

the house band with bruce molsky

 

 

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THE CIRCLE OF THE HEART

agnes

 

Pictured here is Agnes Joines, head knocker of our BROC group. That's Blue Ridge Opportunity Commission. BROC is involved with three counties, Wilkes, Ashe and Alleghany. Our branch is the Alleghany Planning Committee. Unfortunately, the county government started a totally unrelated committee called the Alleghany Planning Commission. It seems to me pointless to go on keeping the name we have, because it has been rendered meaningless. Commission or committee, which is it? Whichever. The group is partial to the name, because we've always used it and we had it first. It never meant much of anything before; we don't advertise, self-promote or appeal for money. Not high profile. The lowest of profiles. Stacy, our "secretary" (the S-word in the ABCs of forbidden words---I don't know of another word for her position---office person?), investigates sources for operating money, grants and such, and she helps the people who come through the door seeking assistance, like needing an electric bill paid in the winter when usage triples, firewood, needing repairs on a house, like replacing a window, fixing a leaking roof, and whatever else the need. This is among the poorest counties in the state. North Carolina has never been known for a money state. Our present republican government is consciously pushing the citizens of the state deeper in Depression, supplementing the national government's intent. I didn't realize the extent of poverty in the county until involvement with BROC. I prefer to call it BROC; it's easy to remember and specific to what it is. I, myself, am unable to remember if it is commission or committee. At the same time, I really don't care what it's called. What we do is my reason for being there.  

 

 

stacy

 

Stacy is one of my favorite people in my world. This picture doesn't show her face well, but her attitude comes through clearly. Stacy has a brilliant mind, she just doesn't know it yet. She's on her way, though. Ten more years and she'll be blowing her own mind. She'll be saying, Ten years ago I wouldn't have dreamed I'd be where I am now. I don't think it's exaggeration. Stacy is serious. I mean serious. She is of a mind that life is serious. She takes it seriously. In fun, I have called her Stasi, which is all the more fun because she knows what it is, East German secret police, and doesn't hold it against me as an insult. From my perspective, it's a compliment, because I know she knows what it means, and it wouldn't be any fun if she didn't know what it meant. It's not even teasing. It's playing with words, linguistic humor, among my favorite kinds of humor. I only called her Stasi once; more than once it's boring. I can talk about things with Stacy I can't talk with the others about. Like today, I told her I'd just learned last week that all of Russia from the Ural Mountains eastward is Siberia. I'd believed Siberia was a section in the northeastern part of the country. It's the name of Asian Russia. She said she'd recently learned it, too, and told me about a globe her grandmother has with names of countries she'd never heard of. We do not ever talk politics for reasons we both understand. If we did, we would not talk at all. That's how I like to be with everybody I know. Put that old absolutist mind in gear and look out. I know so few people who agree with me politically that I can't talk political nonsense with anybody. How blessed is that? I like to dwell in the color zone between the extremes of black and white. In light, black is absence of colors and white is all colors. In pigment, black is all colors and white is absence of color. It's the rainbow in between. And light is particles that travel in waves.

 

ernest

 

Ernest is Agnes's husband of sixty years. They've been in love since school. Ernest is fresh out of a very long stay in the hospital, where Agnes said he like-to died twice. Agnes is a refreshing spirit! Ernest is 81 and did not look over 65 before the hospital stay. Today he was slow. Today I saw him look his age for the first time. It doesn't feel right seeing Ernest so bereft of his spirit. He plays bluegrass mandolin primarily, banjo, guitar, and bass. He plays old-time and country too, and sings. Agnes is a good singer of the old songs. In my early years in the mountains, they made an LP together singing hymns with preacher Earl Baker. Baker was the step-son of Henry Whitter, guitar picker of old-time music of the 1920s and 30s, of Grayson & Whitter (GB Grayson played old-time fiddle--has the name the best there ever was--and Henry Whitter did some singing). Henry Whitter spent his later years in Whitehead, just down the road. Earl Baker's daughter gave Whitter's guitar to the Blue Ridge Music Center. I don't usually get a kick out of things like Jimi Hendrix's guitar or even Carter Stanley's guitar, but when I saw Henry Whitter's guitar in its Plexiglas case on the wall, I felt it was something special. I can't explain why. I just felt it. Ernest Joines plays mandolin in the local bluegrass dance band, The Rise & Shine Band. They are the house band at the square-dance place, The Alleghany Jubilee on Main Street. It is the only place in Sparta anything is happening. Tuesday and Friday nights Main Street in front of the Jubilee is loaded with parked cars. Ernest and Agnes ran the Jubilee until Ernest fell into the hospital. A new couple have taken it over who have the personality for it like Ernest and Agnes do. They are part of our group, too, Jack and Linda Joines, but couldn't make it today. Agnes looked tired and drawn from half a year of stress. Having her Ernie back is everything to her now. Nobody in this world could have more loving care than Ernest.

 

 ted, ernest, agnes, stacy, helen

 

It's Agnes's love that pulled him through. She thanked everybody for the prayers today. She said it's a miracle and she just wanted to give God the praise he was due. And that was it. No sermon, nothing political about Christian, no self-congratulations for going to church. This attitude is in the spirit of our group. We are about helping people having a hard time at helping themselves in an indifferent economy. We don't pat ourselves on the back for being righteous. Every one of us is one who  believes the poor need help. We are people who believe Jesus had reason for recommending we help the poor. Churches that praise themselves for being Christian seldom do. We are not church affiliated. Individually, we all have our lives and can't do a whole lot. But together as a small group with clarity of intent we get quite a lot covered. Our fundraising event of the year is the Hillbilly Show in the school auditorium. It's a hometown stage version of the tv show HEE HAW, five dollars a ticket. In my Flatland years I hated it. When I moved to the mountains I watched it every week with neighbor Tom Pruitt and learned to love it. It is a very different perspective seeing it from inside hillbilly culture. The Hillbilly Show amounts to comedy skits absurd to ridiculous, and bluegrass, country and old-time music played by local musicians. I think of it as Dada theater. We couldn't put the show on last year due to Ernest in dire straits and Agnes stressed. Agnes is the director of the show. This year we're a whole lot behind and concerned. The local electric co-op came through with a great assist. Everything's gonna be all right. We have our Ernie back. I wanted to introduce you to everybody, but am running out of space. If you don't mind I'll take a little more space for you to meet Gary and Jean.  

 

 

gary

  

Gary Joines, pictured above, is a Marine, retired bank branch manager, fiddler, guitar and bass player, and he's Ernest's cousin. He plays bass in The Rise & Shine Band. A Marine fiddler seems like an oxymoron, but Gary is no kind of moron. He's a humble man with a wide range of talent. He's good at making a living in this world and he's an active artist. Ted Dorsett is here from Winston-Salem. He has a couple of donkeys too. Jean Osborne, pictured below, is the daughter of country singer Del Reeves' brother, Homer. Del Reeves is from here. Just about everybody in the county named Reeves is kin to him to some degree. His full name is Franklin Delano Reeves. Reckon they was democrats? Jean is a woman of a beautiful heart and soul. When I'm around Jean I see (feel) the brilliant light of a woman of true compassion, one who cares deeply. I don't know if that's how she sees herself. She's too humble to have such lofty beliefs about herself. A Jean moment popped into mind. In the time I was looking up titles of land transfers for a lawyer's office, Jean was doing same for another lawyer. I was in the vault at the register of deeds, and Jane, a woman doing same work for another lawyer, was in there. Jane is someone with a sense of humor all her own and she gives you nothing to go by whether it was a knife or fun. You're on your own to make it what you want it to be. Jane doesn't care. Jean came walking through the door, saw Jane first and said, "How you doin, Jane?" Jane replied without looking up from her work, "Me and TJ was doin just fine til you walked in." Jean stopped like Jane had cocked a gun in her face, thought better of it, knowing Jane, and proceeded, smiling forgiveness. They started talking freely. Jane counted on Jean to get the humor and she did. I can't leave out Helen Crouse. Helen took care of her husband in a long, slow decline after a debilitating stroke. Helen has a bright spirit too. I tend to like to sit next to Helen; she's a light-hearted refreshing spirit. I'm honored to have a place among these people.

 

jean and helen

 

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THE IMPORTANCE OF MEETING ERNEST

mayor pro-tem agnes joines



Here is Agnes working the counter at Alleghany Cares Saturday, raising money for Alleghany Planning Committee's projects. After my spell of dread, it turned out to be a memorable and enjoyable day. We started it at the Pines for big buffet breakfast, the kind of breakfast we like around here; scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, grits, biscuit, coffee, butter, jelly, all the good stuff. I think there were 10 of us around three tables put together to make one long table. An hour and a half together at the table we talked with animation, conversationally even, the ones not talking actually paying attention to the one talking, whoever it was, whatever was said. This is something I didn't know I liked so much about our team until just now when the sentence wrote itself. We actually talk with each other. What we are doing is our agenda, so we don't have to talk about our agendas, freeing us to talk about whatever surfaces. At the table was where I learned about Eldon Edwards going over yonder, where we learned how Helen's husband, George R, was getting along.



We talk about politics, no one with an agenda, in mutual agreement that whether or not you like Obama, all that Washington DC mess isn't worth anything but complaining about, so we take care of our little corner of the world where what we do matters. We talk about what's going on in our lives, what's important to us in the realm of our hearts. We can't do anything to make that up there in DC any way we want it, but we can do something in the world we really do live in, at home, to make our world a bit more to our liking. What we do operates on a person to person level, instead of a bureaucracy you can't reach by phone waiting on hold all day long. Washington DC is Kafka world, a maze of bureaucracies. We don't do that. We work with that in a small town way, but we don't do that, nor do we embrace it. It's a 'small is beautiful' way of thinking without self-consciously calling it that. Much laughter runs around the table as we enjoy being together. Sometimes a decision we need to make as a group comes up conversationally and gets settled conversationally. Agnes will ask anyone to make a motion. Somebody does and she says, "A second?" Somebody says, "Second," we go on talking.



All of them are among my favorite people. They're people I feel at home with, people I don't have to smile a lot with. They're not people of the uncertain smile, the smile as self-advertisement. What you see on somebody's face is what they're feeling at the moment, not like they're gazing into an invisible mirror. Like I felt among the people at Millard Pruitt's Regular Baptist Church in Glade Valley, I feel among the people of Alleghany Planning Committee, honored they'll have me among them. Honored is the word. No matter how the word itself is interpreted, it carries my meaning. Every one of them is someone I look up to and enjoy being around. Every one of them would wonder why. It would be like, If he thinks I'm somebody special, then I know he's crazy. Maybe that's why I find them special in this time late in a life of experience with a tremendous variety of people, every race, a lot of nationalities, mean people, happy people, people that love cats, people that think a cat a target, people with fast, brilliant minds, people with slow, dull minds, most of us the rainbow in between the two poles. I like the rainbow.



Breakfast done, the last coffee downed, we filed out the door to the parking lot where we went to our separate cars and entered the flow of traffic on the way to Alleghany Cares. We were given a tour of the place by Jonnie Whitlow, getting us acquainted with the sorting rooms in one building, then to the sales floor in the adjoining building where you walk into a gallery of an infinite variety of stuff. In my childhood, my mother was bookkeeper for a TG&Y dimestore. Daddy and kids would get in the car and go pick up Mommy when she got off work. I got to know the inventory of toys very well, was allowed to pick up and play with toys understanding they're not to be broken or stolen. Even now when I walk through a variety store like that, I have a tactile need to pick things up and look at them. It's largely not allowed, so I go like in a museum, look but don't touch. They have a tremendous variety of knick-knacky little figurine dolls, just a couple inches high, of plastic and porcelain, everything. I'd never seen so many little toys. One that caught my eye was an especially lifelike leopard sitting like a housecat, maybe 3 inches high. Both my grandmothers liked little figures like that.



I went through the tour in amazement at what I was seeing. It was a museum of things. If you need a thousand coffee cups, they have them at Alleghany Cares. Time to start, Agnes sent all the men to the loading dock in back. She put Ted out front to open the door for everybody coming and going. I went to the back with Ernest and Jack. Two guys were working what little there was to do. We offered to help several times and were told there's nothing for us to do. We sat together in some chairs and spent the time talking. We also went around looking at all the items back there. Every kind of thing. Again, if you need a thousand golf clubs, Alleghany Cares is the place. Ernest found a ski without the clamps for boots. He asked what it was. A ski. It didn't compute. Somebody passing through suggested he could use it as a kind scythe to cut weeds with. We agreed that could be it's only possible function.



Jack left at 12 with Linda, who was recovering from serious illness and didn't have the strength to last the whole day. Somebody brought in a small roll-top desk, Ernest bought it. We carried it to the house in his pickup. Took a smaller desk out and carried it back to the loading dock. Ernest wanted some water and I did too. We went to the kitchen/break room where they had bottled water in the refrigerator for free. Everybody there is volunteer, so a bottle of water isn't much to begrudge. Johnnie and Barbara were in there talking. They both knew who Ernest was, but neither of them had ever had a sit down shoot the breeze conversation with him. Ernest, a mountain man, is shy of people he doesn't know. I was thinking it best to go on, because they were involved in conversation and I didn't want to break it up. Ernest sat down and opened up like with anybody he knows. He told them some jokes that had them bending over in their chairs. Right away I settled in, thinking, This is a good thing. They were having a moment of discovering the real Ernest Joines behind the blank face people he doesn't know see, the only face they ever see, because he doesn't know them. It was like when Ernest walked in the door a light spirit came into the room and lit everybody up.



It turned out to be a good day for all concerned. Agnes reported that we did very well. It hadn't been figured yet, but we'll know soon. I know she had a ball at the counter. She probably knew at least 100 people that went through there. And probably half the ones she didn't know, she knew by the time they went out the door. Somebody Agnes doesn't know is someone she doesn't know yet. Ernest is fine watching the Beverly Hillbillies or picking a tune on a guitar, mandolin or banjo. He was on a Gary Moore tv show in 1961, one of those every night shows before or after supper, wherever in the country you lived, playing his one man band. He was in early 20s. It was What's my Line or I've Got a Secret. I have a fair certainty I saw it, because at our house we never missed Gary Moore. I recall seeing on b&w tv a one man band played. It may be false memory, but it was from that time that I ever knew there was such a thing, and what it was. Never saw or heard of another one until my parachute landed me in Alleghany County. Ernest has it on video at home. The sound recording of it is on the 4-cd set of Alleghany County music Ernest put together a few years ago. When I say somebody is a true human being, Ernest and Agnes are both illustrations of my meaning.



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REMEMBERING ELDON EDWARDS

by robert ryman



Three things to do last night. Could only do one. Dori Freeman was singing at the Front Porch Gallery in Woodlawn, which I wanted to go to as the number one priority. Selma was having a wine tasting I wanted to go to. Alleghany Planning Committee was having a dinner and a meeting. Also, this week I can't afford the $14 it costs for gas to go to Woodlawn and back, alas, a real consideration. I'm out of money, so I needed the dinner. Thought I could go to the meeting first hour, then on to Woodlawn, but it didn't work out like that. I realized that my true obligation is with APC. They are my team. We had our meeting Friday night because Saturday we are working Alleghany Cares to raise some funds toward our projects for helping people in need of help. 8 Saturday morning at the Pines for breakfast, then to Alleghany Cares at 9 to be ready to open the store at 10. Alleghany Cares is a thrift store some people call the Sparta Walmart. All the money goes to charities. Also to pay staff and expenses of a business.



I wanted to get some pictures and videos of Dori, but it wasn't to be. I wanted to visit with friends at Selma's wine tasting, but it wasn't to be either. I did best staying with my friends at APC. These are the people I'm the most comfortable among. I'm comfortable among the friends at Woodlawn, too. And comfortable among the crowd at Selma's wine tastings. It was a difficult decision to make, but I made the right one. I feel like the Alleghany Planning Committee people are my church. In my own personal belief system, it is the role of the Christian churches to help out the poor. But they don't. Some do, but not the churches I like to go to. I do appreciate the old-time way of church where worship is the only thing church is about. I'm with that. But I'm also with helping out people who need help. The people in APC are all Christian people, by which I mean people on the spiritual path who integrate their spiritual beliefs of what's important into their everyday lives. That's not to say other people don't. Only to say the people of APC do.



Alleghany Planning Committee and Hospice are my only involvements in Sparta now. They are the only -- organization doesn't feel like the right word, but it's all I can think of -- organizations in town that I feel meet the criteria of what I want to do in an active, organized way with others. It's my own personal assessment that there is plenty of new, plenty of entertainment, plenty of meetings for the sake of meetings. The state of the "world" now I believe is harmful to human health in every respect, from spiritually, mentally, emotionally to physically. There are countless casualties overlooked by nearly everyone, especially in America where poverty equals leprosy. What can I do to make my world a better place? The only answer I can come to that rings my truth center is helping people having a rough time of it. Both APC and Hospice are about helping people who need help. Neither one takes a great deal of time, but they are where I feel I owe my allegiance.



I half dread the day at Alleghany Cares. We of APC will be working the store. The deal is we bring in a bunch of stuff to be sold and the staff puts it out for sale. We work the store a Saturday and whatever money comes in for the day we get toward our projects, such as helping people with electric bills year round and heating bills in winter. We give scholarships to deserving kids from families that can't help them financially. The Hillbilly Show in October is our big fund raiser of the year. We all get together to make fools of ourselves on stage to make the audience laugh. None of us are comedians, so we act stupid and it's funny. I think of it as Dada theater. Another thing I like about APC is it's mountain people helping mountain people. It's working from the heart instead of the mind. Though I dread the work all day, I know that once it starts it will be a good day all the way along. I'll take camera and get some pictures and tell you about it. I've learned over and over that when I go into something dreading it, the experience turns out to be a good time.



The worst news of the day, or possibly the best, depending on how you look at it, Eldon Edwards died Monday. I say "best' as in liberated from the body and all its attachments. All week long Eldon has been in my mind, aiming every day to go see him the next day. He's been fading for some time and I felt like he was getting close. I'd have gone to the funeral if I'd known. Eldon is one of the people I've looked up to for many years. A true human being. The only Republican I've ever voted for. And I voted for Eldon (County Commissioner 2 terms) with conviction. Mountain Republicans of his generation are not Reagan Republican lemmings. Eldon was the only Commissioner I ever heard of, before or since, who went around to all county employees once a month and talked with them about how they're getting along, what they need, what he can do to help their given needs on the job. County employees work "for" the Commissioners, but have no access to them. The Commissioners pay their employees no mind, whatsoever, like they're not there.



Eldon is someone I've respected as I have Jr Maxwell, Mildred Torney, Paul Reeves, Agnes Joines, Tom Pruitt, Millard Pruitt, Bessie Brooks, Faye Wagoner, Lorne Campbell, Donna Shumate, Jim Rhodes and a few others whose names don't come to mind right now. These are people I've felt blessed for the opportunity to know. I didn't know Eldon very well, but we shared a love for the mountain people, the mountain ways, mountain music, the mountains. When we talked, we communicated. Often I remember some wisdom passed to me from DeWitt Hanes back around 1988, to have done something is the same as doing it now. This is what I tell myself when I lose a friend or someone I respect, a pet, all forms of loss. I miss Jr Maxwell every day and remind myself to have known him is the same as knowing him now. It's true, can only be fathomed by the heart, not the mind. To try to get it by mind would be about the same as working out the mental geometry of hitting a golf ball. When I hold Caterpillar I miss TarBaby and tell myself that because I knew TarBaby, I still know TarBaby. Because I knew Tapo, I still know her. Because I knew all my friends who have passed through the veil, I still know them. They lived in my memory while I knew them in person. They live in my memory now. How I knew them continues.



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