Good morning from Whiskey Creek, where we’ve welcomed yet another mammal into the household, this time an eight month old kitten whose name is Stewart. Lynn and I tend to be frugal with pet names, which is to say if we can find the least bit of an excuse we’ll use an old one instead of inventing a brand new one. In this case it was pretty easy. Fourteen years ago, when we’d just pulled up stakes in San Jose and moved up here to the Mother Lode, my wife came home one evening with two kittens, a brother and sister who we immediately named Stewie and Mimi. The girl remains here to this day; Stew, however, barely made it a week before he was grabbed up by a big barn owl. Stew #2 will not be going out of the house until he’s too big to be plucked by a bird. Given his voracious appetite, I’m guessing that won’t be long.
So, today’s Friday and I can honestly say I’m finally feeling like I’ve caught up with my sleep after the Great 48 in Bakersfield. This was our eight year and, far and away, it was our best attended. Just days after hotel registration began four months ago we gobbled up the lion’s share of rooms at the Doubletree, and by the time folks started arriving in Oil Town on Thursday, bluegrassers were checking into all of the five hotels surrounding 48 Central. I don’t know how many people attended the Great 48 2016, don’t even know how anyone COULD know, but I know it was way more than last year, and I know that we had people fly in from out of state. One entire band came out to play Blythe a week early so they could do a non-paid showcase at the 48. And one couple, an autoharpist and her banjo-playing boyfriend, traveled from Connecticut on my recommendation at the IBMA last October.
In late summer we were alerted that a new General Manager had been hired by the Doubletree and that he brought three new department heads with him. Almost immediately my worst fears were realized; the new guy wanted to revisit “certain aspects” of the contract we’d already settled on in the spring. I traveled down to Bakersfield in September, frankly full of dread, and though the meeting ultimately went well, I drove back north with a sense that we wouldn’t know the full extent of what “new management” really meant until the first day of the 48. And I was right. When I pulled up to the Doubletree early Thursday afternoon I was greeted by a 10 X 5 foot banner welcoming the California Bluegrass Association. Wow. And that, I’m delighted to say, set the tone of the entire long weekend. From the General Manager on down every single staff member went way, way out of their way to make our crazy, raucous group feel welcome. (And I’m also happy to say that our group, even though it was the largest yet and included many first timers, was a little LESS raucous and more sensitive to the rules we’d laid out. And, no, there was no balcony singing this year.)
If I had to pick one story that for me sums up how 2016 went, despite early trepidations about new management, it would have to be my interaction with the head of hotel security as I was loading up my car early Sunday morning. He was driving by in his golf cart with an assistant when I flagged him down and introduced myself.
“So,” I asked, “how’d it go this year? Any issues?” I braced myself.
“Hm,” the young uniformed hotel cop said, “there is one thing I could mention.”
“And what might that be,” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.
“Well, last night, about eight o’clock, I was talking to a guy up on the second floor, somebody from way, way up north, Shasta I think. I told him that when my grandpa died he left me his five-string but that I’d never been able to tune it. Damned thing just wouldn’t stay in tune. So he says to me, you go get that axe after you get off work and bring it down here and I’ll fix it for you. I know what’s wrong with it. Needs a truss bar adjustment.”
“And?”
“And that’s just what I did. Went home, got it, brought it back, the guy took the whole banjo apart and put it back together and restrung it with new strings. Can you imagine that? And wouldn’t even let me pay for the strings. Can you imagine?”
“Yep,” I said, “I can.”