Date: 2004-10-15
From: monson, me

To: monson, me
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: mist

"friday nights at the monson general"sometime during the night the clouds came and the winds came and the rain came. what a great way to start off a friday. this kind of weather means an automatic zero day in my book. no hiking for me. especially, no hiking out of this town with this kind of rain. the rivers are sure to be swollen and i've played that game before.bob stopped by this morning. i told him i would probably stay another night. he said that was fine and that i'd probably have the place to myself again. we talked for quite a while about photography. it seems bob is a bit of a photographer as well.there was a note from shane on the message board in the laundry mat saying that he'd made it into town. i was glad to hear that.down at the monson general, tim asked me if i would be sticking around for another night. i told him it was looking that way because of the rain. he said i should come by the store for the friday night music. every friday night tim and a bunch of locals get together to play music. he said they'd had as many as 15 musicians and there was a time this summer when there were over a hundred people packed into the store to listen to the music. sometimes when hikers were in town they would sit in on the sessions. i told tim i wouldn't miss it.shane showed up and said that he'd gotten a ride back to millinocket from the guy at whitehouse landing. shane said it had cost him a lot of money for the ride. after getting to millinocket he hung out for a few days and rested his knee- which seems to be much better. shane got into town this morning and is staying over at shaw's.the afternoon was wasted away on the computer at the library and sitting in front of the tv back at the lakeshore house. tv rots your brain. i try not to get involved with it, but it just seems to suck me in. i'm not exactly sure where the hours went, but they went somewhere. i'm pretty sure i spent quite a few hours just staring out the big picture window at lake hebron.yesterday i came to the realization that i didn't exactly enjoy life on the trail this past week. physically it kicked my ass and mentally i just couldn't get in the groove. i wondered if maybe i should be doing something more worthwhile with my time. i know i came out here to hike and take photographs, but the hiking part has pretty much sucked. i put in a call to ross and amanda this afternoon and they said that i should come to their house for a few days and we could explore the coast of maine. they told me the maine coast would provide more photographic opportunities than i would know what to do with. i told them that sounded like a great idea.i walked down to the monson general around 7:30. shane had said that he might try to come up from shaw's for the music but he never made it. i entered the store to find tim and six other musicians sitting in a circle with microphones and amps dispersed among them. there were about fifteen locals sitting throughout the store in folding chairs and lawn chairs. tim looked up from his guitar and gave me a nod as i walked over to stand beside an old wooden barrel.when tim told me about the friday night music, i was a little skeptical as to how good it would actually be. but, i was pleasantly surprised. it was really quite good. the musicianship was tight. the vocals were on. the harmonies were impressive. the musicians took turns picking and leading songs. a lot of times when a group of musicians get together there can tend to be a lot of down time between songs trying to figure out what to play next. this wasn¢t the case.tim tried and tried again to get me to sit in on a couple of the songs, but i politely declined. i was having too much fun watching. i figured i¢d probably screw up the good thing they had going. so, i watched and i took pictures and i enjoyed myself immensely.tim switched off between the 12-string guitar, mandolin, and banjo; adding in with the occasional vocal. tom, a preacher from the nearby town of greenville, played a mean dobro and carried many of the tunes with a strong voice. gloria, the only female player of the night, played the six-string and led vocals along with filling in some amazing harmonies. pete, the oldest player in the group, was one of the best harmonica players i¢ve ever seen. robert, aka bobby, also accompanied on the six-string guitar and added vocals where needed. these were the original five friday night players and are the core of the music. there were a couple of other guitar players whose names i didn¢t catch. tim told me that the line up changes from week to week. sometimes there might be a fiddle player. sometimes there might be three fiddle players. sometimes there might be as many as 8 or 9 guitars.the songs of choice mostly fell into the categories of roots Christian and old country, with the occasional folk and bluegrass song. the group covered songs like ¢i¢ll fly away,¢ ¢silver haired daddy,¢ and ¢old glory.¢ they played a moving rendition of ¢amazing grace.¢ the john denver classic, ¢country road,¢ was a crowd favorite, as was bobby¢s original tune, ¢friday night at the monson general.¢ tom and gloria had amazing harmonies on ¢blue moon of kentucky.¢ but, by far, my favorite song of the night was the johnny cash classic, ¢folsom prison blues.¢ it takes a strong person to do that song justice and i thought bobby handled it quite well.if you¢re ever in monson on a friday night, you¢d be a fool to not stop by the general store and check out the music. it is nothing but a good time.tomorrow i go on vacation.