SAYING GOODBYE

giacometti

A few hours ago it came to me for the first time, of all my friends who have died, I've not had a conversation with any them at the end of their lives about glad-to-know-ya, or anything. It has stayed in my mind to the point I've almost come to tears a few times thinking about missed opportunities. At the same time, I can remember thinking about it, but feeling it presumptuous, or seeming so. I was with friend Jr Maxwell in his dying months. Even toward the end giving him tootsie-pop sponges on a stick soaked in water several times a day to keep his mouth wet and provide a bit of water. The times I thought about saying something like, I've held you the highest of anyone I've ever known, rationally more than emotionally, it felt presumptuous. It was saying, You're gonna die. I did not feel like he needed to be reminded. He knew it better than I did. He went with every day like this is what we're doing today. He had his own thoughts on his demise and needed no more. He didn't like anybody invading his mind. I never did with him like Hospice recommends, talk about death and God and Jesus, like nobody gets it about dying. The man was 87 years old. None of however many days he lived was spent in front of a television. He was baptized when he was 11. Grew up in Liberty church in Whitehead. We'd already talked about his belief. He said once he believed the Ten Commandments covered it all. Another time he said he prayed every day. Another time he said he prayed every day to be lifted out of this lifetime. 

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He didn't need a conversation about him dying. I went with the attitude that my behavior tells my meaning more clearly than talking. I felt like he spoke his version of the deathbed chat the day he said to me a few weeks before his mind went away, "We're more than friends. We're more like brothers." I felt his meaning. There was something to it. In one way of looking at it, close to his way at the time, all of his friends had betrayed him in one way or another in his last years. A niece shouted in his face one day, like louder is better, "Yer loosin yer MIND, Uncle Junior!" There wasn't much he could say. I said, "He doesn't need reminding." She was the same as the one who asked me on the day he died, "Where did Uncle Junior hide his money?" She'd already stolen so much from him, hidden money was all that was left of what she wanted. She wasn't the only one who believed he had hidden money. He had no money at all, lived as cheaply as I do. Every time she was in the house and he wasn't there, she'd find his liquor and pour it out. She thought she was stopping him from drinking, when she was only costing him a lot of money he didn't have much of. She, who lectured him about drinking as if from on high, was a pain-pill and "oxy-codeine" junkie. The ones who wanted money they believed he had hidden were suspecting me of being there to take advantage of him and get his money. They didn't notice their obvious motives were transparent. 

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Two half-great-nieces were the worst. Neither one of them knew him at all. I called them the Absentee Police. They dropped in for three minutes every month to inspect the house. One day they called Social Services and said there was shit in the bed. SS came to inspect. No shit in the bed. He knew they were there by, "Hello Uncle Junior," and, "Goodbye Uncle Junior." I'd see them drive up the driveway, go to my reading seat and pick up the book I was reading. They came in with such arrogant attitudes I learned to ignore them. They'd go all over the place inspecting while I sat and read. Going out the door, it was, "Don't work too hard TJ!" And I'd reply, "Don't worry about it." Calling them the Absentee Police was my PC way of calling them bitches. I saw one of them around five years later and was still so enraged I couldn't speak. I looked at the ground to say leave me alone, I don't have to put up with you anymore, and will not. Didn't have to put up with them then, though assessed it easier to let it go by than get more bitch-games going. I often remember what an aunt told me years ago, If you don't want it started, don't start it. In the time his mind was fading, a social worker said he seemed down that day. I told her he'd learned too many times who of his friends are not his friends. She looked at him for his assessment of what I'd said. He affirmed it with a nod. Then she turned sad. Every one of them had abandoned him or betrayed him. And then there were the surprises, the ones who showed they really cared about him, ones he had not known cared so much. 

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Toward the end, these were the ones I called to say if you want to see him one more time, come on today. One of the most moving moments for me was when I called his cousin, Richard Joines, the day before Jr's spirit left the body and told him today is your last chance to see Jr. He was there right away. He lived just over the hill, but two miles by road. They'd made music together, worked bulldozers on big projects together, known each other all the way along. That day, Jr was lying on the side of his bed farthest from the door, where he never slept. Jr was lying there, mind completely gone, body too weak to sit up, like a newborn baby aware of light and dark and not much else. Richard walked around the bed and Jr watched, puzzled by who this could be. He recognized him when Richard approached. Jr's arms went straight up toward Richard and I saw with my eyes two beams of light go from Jr's eyes to Richard's when Jr said, "Richard." The beams were like from a pocket flashlight. I left the room saying to self, this is for them, not me. Richard was moved deeply and thanked me from his heart later for calling. When Jr still had his mind and I had the radio show, I'd play his music from time to time and ask everyone who remembered him to give him a call or drop by. Those weekends he had phone calls all day and sometimes somebody from the past would drop in. Though I never spoke with him about how much I appreciated who he was/is, I was aware at the time of letting my behavior tell it. I asked people in the grocery store who knew him to call or stop by. Every call and visit gave a little light to every boring day waiting to die. He understood better than I did that dying is what we do.       

giacometti himself

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FIDDLER HOWARD JOINES

new salem regular baptist cemetery

 

Three years ago Richard Joines told me an awful lot about his fiddler dad, Howard Joines of Pine Swamp. I made notes as fast as I could scribble. That's one thing school is good for is learning how to make notes as fast as you can go while the professor talks. Richard talked and I wrote. I didn't get every word by any means. It's more like a long list of notes than something you just read through in story form. Yet all the notes together tell the story. I was aiming to write out my notes and email them to Lucas Pasley for the website of Alleghany musicians. http://sites.google.com/site/tradmusicalleghany/home I had this information in the computer and the computer crashed and I lost it. Then I didn't remember where I'd put the notebook I wrote in talking with Richard. I found it in the desk drawer recently, in the back, a "safe place." I've lost more things in safe places than anyplace else. Found, I decided to put the information here and then on the Alleghany site. I'm putting it here because it's interesting. Maybe 3 more people will see it here that might miss it on the website. Howard was a good fiddler and a good man.

 

Richard said of Howard's fiddling style, "he bears down on it, gets it out of it, doesn't just tickle it." He said Tal Holbrook, fiddler down the mountain at Roaring River has a style similar to Howard's. He said Howard and Art Wooten made a lot of music together when they were young. It would have been old-time as bluegrass was yet to happen. They were about the same age. Howard played at VFW dances with guitar picker Roy Martin, also guitar picker and singer, Clifton Evans. Ed Atwood played banjo in Howard's band. Ed lived in Whitehead on Air Bellows Gap Road, a white house across the road from the Peaceful Valley Trout Pond. Ed grew up on the farm there on that side of the road. And Kyle Smith played banjo with Howard a good bit. Kyle was killed when his dozer slipped off the truck bed and landed on him.

 

Jr Maxwell played banjo with Howard when he was younger. Howard was his uncle. Richard, Jr's cousin, played guitar with them. They played together for dances at Laurel Springs. Howard played old-time and Jr took up bluegrass. Jr could play old-time, but it bored him. Howard played bluegrass too. Jr liked him an awful lot and had nothing but praise for Howard's fiddle. When I was first here, Tom Pruitt told me about the fiddler Howard Joines in Pine Swamp. Tom and Howard fox hunted together in their fox hunting years. I believe they went to the same church too and were close to the same age. I knew of Howard the whole time I've been here, but never met him. Richard said Howard could hear a tune played once or twice and have it.

 

Richard's grandmother, Howard's mother, Lillie Holbrook Joines, wife of Beler, said when Howard was 6 or 7 he started playing fiddle tunes on a tin fiddle. When people came to the house and he was asked to play for company, he would play standing behind a door. When Howard was 18 he bought a fiddle from the Montgomery Ward catalog. That would have been 1926 when his older sister Loretta's boy, Wiley Jr, was 4. Fred Roupe liked this fiddle Howard bought from Montgomery Ward the best of any fiddle he ever played. Richard said the fiddle was a copy of fiddles made by a violin maker named Nicholas Amada, German. I'm not sure about the spelling. He is said to have worked as an apprentice with Stradivarius. It cost $50, which he worked for at 25c an hour helping build Roaring Gap. Richard said, "It was a big price then, a premier fiddle for the time." Howard's last fiddle he found in a flea market in Florida. He bought it for $10 or $15. He said Howard would find old fiddles in flea markets, put strings and bridges on them and get them going.

 

Richard said of Howard's playing of Sally Gooden, "He played it as good as anybody I ever heard play it." I believe I know what Richard means. First, he wasn't bragging or being partial. He was telling it like it is. He's heard many a Sally Goodin played at fiddlers conventions and around. He paid attention to about every one he heard, the better ones. Richard has heard an awful lot of fiddlers take on Sally Goodin. He knows the tune, knows how it's played. He said Howard liked Kenny Baker as the best fiddler he ever heard. Especially liked Baker's Big Sandy. Howard liked to play Kenny Baker tunes with Fred Roupe, bluegrass banjo, and Jr Maxwell, bluegrass banjo. Haywood Blevins, old-time piano player from Ennice, made music with Howard quite a bit. A field recorders collective album has some tunes by Howard and Haywood playing together. It can be found at http://www.fieldrecorder.com/. It's in the 2007 collection. I don't recall the title of the particular album, and I gave my copy to the Alleghany library. If you want to hear Howard, the library has some of his music. The library has a collection of music from this region, the Central Blue Ridge, that is remarkable.

 

Richard said Howard's mother's side of the family, Holbrook, is where the music came from. I believe he said Howard's mother played spoons. Beler, Howard's daddy, taught school in Pine Swamp when it was Brooks NC. He later had a store and the post office. Richard said of Howard, "He was easy going, always wanted to be a friend to everybody." His nephew Jr Maxwell was the same. Richard said of Howard's playing, "He kept the bow going--didn't take short strokes. Most of his playing and timing was done with the bow." He said Howard raised honeybees as long as Richard remembers. I'd say he always had chickens too. When he plays the chicken songs, Cluck Old Hen and Chicken Reel, I can see the chickens. He hits those chicken notes just right.

Alan Mastin, bass player with Big Country Bluegrass from the beginning 22 years ago, was killed last night in a car wreck on the way home to Elk Creek from a show at Rocky Mount, Virginia.

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BLUE NOTEBOOK

first applications of color

This afternoon I was looking for my Stanley Powerlock 12' measuring tape in the desk drawer. That's where I keep it. It wasn't there. I opened the drawer all the way. It still wasn't there. Then I realized it was on the table beside the reading chair. I spotted a a little blue 4"x 6" spiral notebook. It seemed like it had a light on it. When the computer crashed last year I lost my notes on Howard Joines from a phone conversation with his son Richard. I wrote down everything he said like taking notes in class, fast as I could go. I copied it into the computer and put the notebook in a safe place. The same as putting it in a black hole, which is what I've found safe places to be, and still use them. Like, duh. I'd looked everyplace I could think to look and places I wouldn't think to look, the same as lost. I didn't give up all the way. I don't often go to prayer for such as a lost notebook, but this was more than that. The notebook had a brief of a man's life in it. I felt like that made it ok for prayer. That was just a few days ago. When I saw that blue, I thought, if I'm not wrong, I wrote it on several pages in a small notebook. A little bit of memory coming in. It could be false memory too, so I didn't get excited. I opened it and there it was. Phew. Thank you.

I've read them over and thought I'd tell you about his life as told to me by his son Richard 3 years ago. Tomorrow I'll enter the notes on a website Lucas Pasley put up for information about different Alleghany musicians. I like Richard's description of how Howard played. It's a good example of musician language that says specifically what they mean, though to a nonmusician sounds like mush. Richard said, "He bears down on it, gets it out of it, doesn't just tickle it." To any mountain musician, that is perfectly clear. He bears down on it, obvious, lays it to it with the bow, digs into the strings. Gets it (music) out of it (the fiddle). He doesn't just tickle it (the fiddle). His bow doesn't just glide over the strings. He bears down on it. Gets him a full bodied sound out of the fiddle.

Of the very few tunes I've heard him play, maybe 5, every time I hear him play Cacklin Hen I can see the chickens scratching around, making their chicken sounds. Then there's the cacklin hen. Howard gets the chicken notes in that song like there's a chicken in the fiddle and he found it. I've noticed that the old timers who lived with chickens all their lives always get those chicken notes in Cacklin Hen, Cluck Ol Hen and Chicken Reel to sound just like a chicken. Fred McBride never came close to the chicken note and neither does Lucas Pasley. Neither does anyone else who didn't have chickens. I am only aware of it because I grew up with chickens, and had chickens here the first 10 years, until rambling dogs, one thing and another made it impractical. I especially like Howard's playing of Cacklin Hen because I can see chickens when he's playing it. They're everywhere.

Richard said Howard could hear a tune played once or twice and have it. Howard's mother said when he was 6 or 7 he started playing tunes on a tin fiddle. She said he'd stand behind a door playing for people when he was a kid. He bought his first fiddle for $50 from a Montgomery Ward catalog when he was 18. He was born in 1908, so that would make it 1926. Fred Roupe liked it the best of any fiddle he ever played. Richard said the last fiddle Howard bought he found in a flea market in Florida. He paid 10 or 15 dollars for it, put strings and a bridge on it and got it going.

Howard held Kenny Baker as the best fiddler he ever heard. Richard said he liked to play Kenny Baker tunes with Fred Roupe and Jr Maxwell, both bluegrass banjo pickers, both really good. All three of them had a lot of blue ribbons from fiddlers conventions. Jr and Howard made much music together through their lives, Howard Jr's uncle. But Howard played old-time and Jr played bluegrass, so they didn't make as much music together as they would have if they'd both played bluegrass or both old-time. Jr could play old-time, knew the tunes, but found it boring next to bluegrass. He played banjo when young, old-time. Then came a time when he quit playing because it was too boresome. Then bluegrass came on in the early 40s and he picked up the banjo again to learn bluegrass and loved it.

Howard's mother and dad were Lillie Holbrook and Beeler Joines. Richard said the music in the family came through the Holbrooks. I think he said Lillie played spoons. Beeler taught school at Pine Swamp, had a store and operated the Post Office for Pine Swamp. I believe Richard said Pine Swamp was then Brooks, NC. Lillie's sister Maggie played an organ like Heywood Blevins played piano, by ear, and played every note together with Howard on fiddle. Aunt Maggie sang Old Time Molly Hare every time they visited. About all the boys played an instrument. Mama said Howard was the most talented of the boys.

If I got it right, I think the last band Howard played with had Richard Nichols playing bass, Jack Handy, guitar and vocals, Kyle Dean Smith on banjo, Richard Joines, mandolin, and Howard fiddle. If these names have no meaning for you, I can give you a hint: they're all master musicians that don't stop short of making music. Ed Atwood, who lived at the bottom of the mountain in Whitehead, grew up in sight of Jr's farm, played banjo with Howard for many a year. They played a lot of dances. Clifton Evans played guitar with them. I used to know Ed. He smoked Camels by the carton. And he could pick the fire out of a banjo. I didn't know Ed picked for a long time. I was invited to a neighbor's house for some music and it was my first up close old-time music, Fred McBride, fiddle, Faye Brooks Wagoner, guitar, George Eller, banjo, and there was Ed Atwood clucking that clawhammer like nobody's business. And Faye, I didn't know she picked until that night and could sing so well.

Tom Pruitt knew Howard Joines. They both had fox dogs and foxhunted together. To both of them, the chorus of the dogs' voices was music. If I'd lived in that time, I'd have had fox dogs. I can hear that music in a dog's voice. I know what they're talking about, that appreciation of the music, but I've never had anything near the foxhunting experience as done in these mountains, or at all. Catching the fox was not the goal. If you catch it, then you can't run it again. The goal was to listen to the dogs run all night long. I expect every man brought his own fruit jar. You drink all night (if you're a drinker), listen to the dogs, talk with friends all night, listen to the dogs. Tom had mentioned Howard Joines to me over the years, a fiddler hard to beat, foxhunting friend, a good man. A Pine Swamp Joines.