From: jcm+@CS.CMU.EDU (Chris McGlone)
Subject: essay
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 16:43:44 GMT

Just for something a little different, I thought I'd inflict this upon the bboard
community.  The parts that sound like they're true, are.




                               The Queen of the Banjo

                                  Chris McGlone


        There's an abandoned church house in the hills above Tygart's Creek in 
eastern Kentucky, beside a long gravel road that I often drive when I'm back 
home.  The white building is quiet now---no more Sunday preaching 
and singing, no more revivals on hot summer nights or baptisms down at the 
creek---only the rustling of scattered hymnal pages in the breeze and an 
occasional passing car disturb the quiet.  A dirt road near the church leads up 
the hill to the gates of a cemetery, in a clearing among the trees. 

        There aren't many burials at the cemetery these days. Many of the 
families in the area have drifted away over the years in search of jobs or a 
better life, leaving the church and the cemetery behind. What used to be the 
town of Wolf is now a few old buildings huddled together, with dim signs 
advertising tobacco and flour and broken, dusty windows looking out at the 
road. Rusted machinery waits inside the weathered barns for a spring that will 
never come again. The church and cemetery, once the center of the community, 
are quietly fading traces of an earlier time. 

        I stop at the cemetery gate and turn the engine off, my car the only 
one around.  There will be more people here on Memorial Day, when the cars 
with out-of-state license plates bring those with roots in this area to tend 
the graves, pay their respects to their buried ancestors, and visit with 
friends and family. They make their long drives to bring a grandmother, now 
the only one left who remembers the faces of those buried here, or just from a 
sense of duty to the family ties that once centered here. 

        My feet are loud in the gravel as I walk to the gate, then inside to 
face the uneven rows of silent tombstones.  Neatly trimmed grass and vases of 
artificial flowers on some of the graves bear witness that their descendants 
still live in the area and remember them.  Other graves have weeds at the 
edges of the tombstones or the rusted wire frame from a wreath, those whose 
descendants no longer work the land here or make the long drive from Ohio or 
Michigan. The weathered tombstones have become part of the hill, gently 
leaning, moss rounding the outlines and grass growing in the cracks. A few are 
elaborately carved with lambs, angels, and barely-readable Bible verses, while 
others have only a name and two dates. 

        At one side of the cemetery is a grave with no marker other than a 
flat piece of creek rock; carved on it are the words, "Gertrude Phillips, 
Queen of the Banjo Players." 

        Gertrude Phillips was a young girl, about 16, when she died in the flu 
epidemic of 1918.  I'm told that she was well known in the area for her banjo 
playing at parties and dances. Seeing her gravestone takes me back to that 
earlier time and a life that is nearly as forgotten as the town of Wolf--
sometimes it seems I can hear her playing. 

        It's Saturday night and there's a party. The house is scrubbed clean, 
every lantern is lit, and the furniture is pushed back out of the way for 
dancing. The neighbors are all gathered in their best "bibs and tuckers," with 
slick hair and polished shoes. The women in the kitchen talk of recipes and 
babies while putting the last touches on the "pot luck" dinner.  Outside, the 
the men stand in groups and take formal, contemplative sips from a passed 
bottle, serious discussions of crops and politics interrupted by bursts of 
laughter. Through it all the children run laughing and screaming, slowing only 
momentarily for vain threats from their parents or the inevitable injury and 
tears. 

        Gertrude has been visiting in the kitchen with the women, listening 
with one ear for the rest of the musicians to arrive, anxious to play.  It's 
nearly dark when the guitar player finally comes up the road with the fiddler 
trailing behind, late and slightly drunk, as usual.  Gertrude meets them in 
the yard and steers them to a corner of the front room that should be safe 
from out-of-control dancers. They take out their instruments and then, after 
adjusting and re-adjusting the tuning, discussing and debating the relative 
merits of different tunes, and a couple of false starts, launch into the first 
dance. At first only pairs of young girls are dancing, but the women begin 
cajoling and threatening their menfolk, and a few couples take the floor, then 
a few more.  Soon the room is filled to overflowing, out onto the porch and 
into the yard.  

        The dancers are in full motion now, the circles colliding, 
intertwining, and separating in time to the insistent rhythm of the band. The 
caller directs the movements as best he can, assisted by those within the 
groups who know the dances and shout and point instructions to those who 
don't.  Cloggers along the sides of the room and out on the porch pound their 
work shoes against the floor, beating time on their bodies and contributing 
yells and whistles as the inspiration strikes.  Gertrude's banjo rings 
through, pushing ahead and laying back, agreeing with the fiddle then arguing 
with it, melody and counter-melody, rhythm and lead. 

        Saturday night becomes Sunday morning, and as people begin remembering 
church in a few hours and the sermon they must stay awake through, they start 
drifting home.  Sensing the end of the evening, the musicians announce "one 
more" and send the stragglers home with a double-speed medley, changing from 
one tune to the next as soon as anybody calls it out.  The dancers surrender, 
red-faced and gasping, laughing along with the band as the music dissolves 
into confusion then regroups for a final "shave and a haircut." 

        Good-byes are said but the musicians are slow to pack up.  Their 
fingers absent-mindedly play fragments of tunes, reluctant to let go of the 
music, and their faces glow from the spirit of the evening. They analyze the 
party and the guests and laugh while telling tales of other pickers they have 
heard.  Gertrude and the fiddler bend over their instruments, exchanging licks 
and tunes. Finally, the host pointedly begins blowing out lanterns; they put 
away their instruments and go their separate ways into the night. 

        As I stand there in the quiet of the cemetery, the late afternoon sun 
casting tombstone shadows across the graves, I think of that earlier time and 
of my own life now.  It's easy to idealize that "simpler" time and ignore the 
hardships brought by that simplicity.  Young banjo players died from the flu 
back then and their families couldn't afford a store-bought tombstone.  Now we 
live longer and more easily, thanks to our modern technology, but it seems 
that our every gain has come with a loss.  We've lost those Saturday night 
dances, those communities that could erect a homemade tombstone to the "Queen 
of the Banjo Players."  Rationally, objectively, I know that I'm better off 
now--still, I wish I could play banjo with Gertrude for just one Saturday 
night.