Good morning from Whiskey Creek, where the memo that today’s the first day of spring has clearly gone out to every living thing that calls this little patch of ground home. It’ll be a glorious day in the mid-seventies and, be still my heart, there’s even a little rain in the forecast. Yes, “little”, but hey, that beats a stick in the eye.
Today’s column, third Thursday, has for the past year and a half been handled by James Reams, a bluegrass band leader of some note (James Reams and the Barnstormers)(, documentarian, author and, as it turned out, a really good guy. Last month I received the following note from James…
“Hi Rick,
I’ve attached my article for the Feb. 19th welcome column. I’ve just been notified by the IBMA that I’m being considered as a candidate for nomination to the IBMA Board plus I’m hard at work on my new album. Since these projects are taking more of my time than I’d like to admit, I need to request a hiatus from column writing until after World of Bluegrass. However, I may still be able to submit an article from time to time that you can fit in wherever you have an opening.
Yours in bluegrass,
James Reams”
Now, for years and years this type of email had the power of ruining my day…sometimes my week…but fifteen years of managing our Welcome Column operation has taught me one very important lesson, which is that our CBA clan is large enough (not to mention talented enough) to ensure that there’ll always be someone JUST RIGHT waiting in the wings.
So, we were about half way through a killer line-up of showcase acts back at the IBMA in Raleigh last October when my dear, decades-long-time friend Maria Nadauld strode up and introduced me to Ellie Withnall. It was one of those rare an wonderful moments in life that happens just infrequently enough that one never is at risk of taking them for granted…in less than a minute, less than sixty seconds, it was abundantly clear that Ellie and I would be friends for life. I won’t explain because you’re a human being and all of us have had such experiences.
Ellie Withnall is a professor of veterinary anesthesiology at St. Matthew’s University in the Cayman Islands, an avid and dedicated fiddle player (who’s teacher is Megan B. Lynch Chowning, hence the Maria connection, a hopeless love-slave to bluegrass music and, beginning a week from tomorrow, our new fourth Friday Welcome columnist.
Now, you may be asking, how did I know Ellie has the stuff required for serving as one of our columnists? Here’s a Facebook post she made earlier this week, which should answer your question…
“I know a LOT about alcohol and drugs. Some from first hand experience but mostly from studying big fat textbooks or skinny little cutting-edge peer reviewed papers. There’s even a t-shirt on my office door that states that “drugs are my life” in case people wonder what my job is all about.
Ask me, and I’ll tell you, about drugs that make you feel happy, or sad, sedate or tranquil. Ask me what will allow you to feel nothing at all or everything in the Universe all at once. If you’d like to know, I’ll tell it to you straight.
Need a drug that will effect your affect? I know a couple.
I can tell you about drugs that help you cope with suicidal thoughts, or give you suicidal thoughts, or drugs that make you plot to “assist” the suicide of others (whether willing or not).
If you need to know about drugs that create euphoria, or dysphoria, or any old run-of-the-mill-phoria then I am your man. (I even know drugs that can make that literally true instead of just metaphorically wink emoticon )
BUT, I can honestly tell you that there are NO drugs that can give you the feeling of bullet-proof immortality I am currently feeling. After 5 years I just had the BEST fiddle moment ever. It’s not worth telling you the details (so don’t ask). If you don’t play fiddle it won’t mean anything to you, and if you do then you’ve got one all of your own already and you don’t need my moment to warm the cockles of your heart, But trust me, pour out the tequila, tear up the forged prescription, give your Granny her sleeping pills back, put down the crack pipe, hand the bong back to your room-mate, and TAKE. UP. FIDDLE!!”
Please folks, help me say WELCOME to Ellie Withnall