I just returned home from another great seasonal campout at Lodi and I really appreciate the job Joanne did in making it happen for us all. She was all over everywhere in her golf cart making sure everything was OK, often with her side kick Deb Livermore who has made so many past events special.
What a great thing it is for people to organize in a way that people can play music together, socialize and just have fun together! With all the problems our world has today people need that release. Our bluegrass community encompasses people of various political persuasions but I rarely hear any mention of politics at our gatherings and if I do there is never any of the rancor you would hear in our nation’s capital. People are here to play music.
i was very sad when many of our best CBA members left the organization over a political issue some years ago. We signed on to participation in the Pride Parade and many conservative members did not like that idea. When I ran for the CBA board a couple of years ago I hoped that I could heal that wound in our community but I didn’t make much headway so I did not run for reelection.
Our new CBA board has been elected and inducted just now at the Fall Campout. Wish them all luck! I hope they will encourage participation by anybody who just wants to play our music with others. We need to be an inclusive community but we also need to be apolitical and not offend sensitivities.
That said, now that you have stuck with me this long, I would like to share with you a memory that demonstrates just how inclusive our bluegrass community can be at its very best.
The scene is Parkfield I don’t know how many years ago. A certain genetic male who is trying to learn the banjo comes to our campsite and shares with others how he is cross dressing now and wishes he were of the opposite sex. He has children and he worries how this might affect his family. This seems odd but it is a true story. I’m not making this up.
Anyway, on the sidelines some friends of mine are making jokes about banjo pickers and they cook up a scheme to torture a neighbor who is not particularly fond of banjo playing so they post a sign on a tree right next to his campsite “Banjo Workshop 9 AM” as a joke.
Sure enough, our eager banjo student cross dresser shows up the next day at 9 AM and everybody breaks into laughter! I was there and it was a very uncomfortable situation for me. What would happen next? Are these people laughing at you? That’s would I have thought had I been in those shoes.
What happened next was truly amazing. My friend John Erwin who is one of the best banjo pickers I know (he played with Rick Cornish’s band the Grass Menagerie) stepped in. He was not a party to the joke but he recognized the problem and he sat down with the aspiring banjo picker and gave an hour long personal lesson.
That’s what a bluegrass community is. We look out for each other. We support each other. It doesn’t matter what your gender identication is our your politics is or anything else. If you want to play music with others and make new friends that’s all that matters.
