It came with them. They brought it with them. The came from “across the pond,” and they and it were aboard the Pinta, the Nina, and the Santa Maria. But those three ships did not know it, and they did not know it, but it knew it. The whole thing started out innocently enough, but slowly and surely it spread. It spread from the lowest pilgrim to the highest government official, back when everyone believed in everyone else. Oh, not everyone was infected with it, most weren’t, but enough were. Enough to make a difference, so that justice was not always blind, and the truth was not always well defined.
And as the years went by, and the country grew, many of the leaders and followers looked into the mirror. And if they opened their eyes wide enough they saw the lies, cheating, corruption, manipulations, killings, power and control, and everything else that diminishes or takes away the richness and fullness of life that every single person who draws a breath deserves. Yes, they whom it consumed, who saw their dark reflection in the mirror, quickly looked away, and never looked back.
And the “do-the-wrong-thingness” spread like a virus, infecting those from the lowest in stature to the most powerful of people the earth has ever witnessed. It was unstoppable, and still is. But this virus, unlike a tsunami, could not and cannot penetrate everything in its path.
No, it cannot penetrate the power of the five-string banjo. It cannot penetrate the sweetness of the acoustic guitar. Or the majesty of the double bass. Nor the ethereal voice of the fiddle. And it cannot penetrate the wonder of the mandolin, or stop the cry of the dobro.
Most of all, it cannot penetrate the blueness of the Blue. It cannot stop the music that is whispered and shouted by three chords and the truth. And it cannot stop the June 15th – 18th, 2017 Fathers’ Day Festival that celebrates the lure and entrapment of the Blue. The bluest of all Blue, that is simply know as BLUEGRASS MUSIC.
