The Olden Times

This weekend was a weekend of simple pleasures, of experiencing the joys of the past. And by that I mean banjos. Lots of banjos.

The weather was not promising (I wore my winter coat this morning, how ya like that?) so on Saturday I dragged Ray up to Kamilche to the Little Creek Casino, where there was a convention of 4-string banjo players. I wanted to see the set of the Grays Harbor Banjo Band (which I wrote about not too long ago, and which was noticed not too long after, and yes, I can do more than seems, people, I can be obsessed with banjos myself). They were playing with Montana Red, aka Dick Lewis aka someone whose picking and grinning does not seem to be caught up on the internets like so much other cultural detritus with far less redeeming value. Montana Red was nominated for the national 4-string Banjo Hall of Fame in Guthrie, Okla., but his name does not appear to be in their online repository of banjo heros. Still, the guy must be able to play to call himself Montana Red, no?

For the record, Montana Red was in a cowboy hat and a bright red shirt with a southwestern pattern across the middle and a belt buckle with a ginormous red stone in the middle of it. The other GHBB members wore white shirts and blue satin vests.

We were a little late getting there because after we ate lunch we stopped at the home of a former client of Ray's who regaled us with his tribulations getting his garage built. It will be massive, with a slab of concrete he said is on the order of 72 cubic yards and way above street level. He's convinced it is ridiculous and he has locked horns with so many officials about it he said he has been told not to come back to city council meetings. He also told us about shooting at a nearby meth-maker's shed with flaming arrows. Ted Nugent can't touch this guy.

As it turns out, the banjo festival, held in a small event center/conference room style thing. It wasn't in the main event center, because that's where the Capitol Jubilee or something like that was being held. There were all these people milling around with badges on, welcoming us in and everything. They were so friendly and all seemed to know each other so well I was half expecting to see some sort of cult figure come by to lead them. I Googled, but nothing. Maybe it was a multi-level marketing thing? So we find the kind of distant room with the banjo band.

Well, instead of having one banjo band play at a time, all five bands are seated in a semi-circle and they are gone through in rotation, one song at a time. I have to say, the local band was the best. The GH band not only has banjo skillz, they have a guy who plays what appeared to be a straight soprano sax, which didn't sound like Kenny G but like those old timey territorial band recordings, a washboard, a bass and more non-banjo instruments than the other bands, which contributed sonic interest.

The songs that were played were so old the copyrights had expired when Bugs Bunny was singing them in cartoons. "Red Roses for a Blue Lady," "Dinah," "By The Sea," you name it, the tunes were familiar and old timey. There was an older couple, a woman in pink and a man in green, and they danced as much as their mutual inflexibility and possibly arthritis allowed them to. The man's moves were pretty limited, but then the pink lady got a new partner and they totally were getting down. There was almost an emergency when they tried to do the two-person turn, where they lifted their arms up and turned back-to-back, because their shoulders weren't flexible enough. It explained the ambulance sitting out in front of the casino.

There was also a woman from the "Orphan Band" who did a hula to "Tiny Bubbles," which I totally intend to do next time I go to a winery. And there was another woman from the Tacoma Banjo Band who got up in a cowboy hat with fake braids and a washboard around her neck and thimbles on every finger and did a kind of dance while banging out a rhythm while the band played. For some reason she reminded me of my mom.

Hugely entertaining. Then we went to the town's history museum to take in an improving lecture on women's history and getting the vote. Very Depression-style entertainment, and we had a dinner Sunday of porcupine meatballs, which is meat mixed with uncooked rice, browned and then cooked in a sauce where the rice absorbs liquid. Mom said that was very Depression-esque, and I guess we're about being prepared. I will have to learn to love beans, she told me. So be it. I can love beans, but I hope everyone around me has sufficient love for me to put up with my bean-digesting!

Maybe it was all the old timey stuff, but I was on a real trip about the upcoming Depression (reasons I think it's coming: Energy prices going out of control, food prices getting insane, generalized global instability, global warming thwarting traditional seasons and water patterns, I'm basically one of those people who swings between wild optimism and pessimism and I'm on a downward spiral without lots of great outdoor days) tonight. I was even trying to think of ways to thwart local cats from using a garden I'm likely never going to plant as a litterbox, short of killing them dead.

I was all on about how I have to hit Safeway before Tuesday, they've got the 24 oz boxes of FMWs 2/$5; I have to stock up. Like a crazy person with Great Depression issues. And at the improving lecture, in one of the "living history vignettes," I learned that in 1935, when a man could expect to make a dollar a day, a box of Bisquick cost $.30. Way to make me feel guilty about that totally unopened, unused box of Bisquick I've got in my cupboard that cost me about $1.29.

But I was also all on about ways we could entertain ourselves without electricity or anything: I could take up the four-string banjo (plectrum or tenor, however, eludes me) and Ray could play his clarinet and we could just have all-night Dixieland jam sessions. Who said the Depression has to always be completely awful?