The Story of Music and a Dulcimer

Today I went up to Kelso, WA to attend a Veterans Resource Fair being held by the local Congresswoman, Jamie Herrera Butler. The ceremonies were nice, and we handed out a ton of booklets and information, but the event and the drive back left me feeling empty afterwards.

After stopping by the office to pick up some paperwork for a meeting tomorrow morning, the bus almost blew past me, and left me disgruntled, angry, and just simply in a terrible mood. After coming home, I discovered that my instruments had finally come in the mail, along with chocolate and a note from my cat (and family) for valentines day.

The package simply made my day.

After a quick inspection and a chocolate dinner, I got to fiddling, tuning, and playing my instruments.

There is no feeling quite like picking up something you love, and have practiced so much, for a reunion. I quickly found myself tuning the instruments, remembering the knobs and metal strings involved.

The fiddle is of low quality, a simple, elegant looking thing, but poorly made. I take pride in this. I have rocked the fiddle at different concerts, and I don't think one needs high caliber to enjoy music and entertain others. I acquired the fiddle from my sister for taking lessons at college, or at least both classes offered, and I simply fell in love with it. I am not the best player, but it just thrills me to find the customization in sliding, changing your fingers every so much, and getting the strains out of the notes as you slide the bow across the strings. And there are equal parts in mastering the position of your fingers on the board (without frets, a challenge all to itself), and handling the bow to get the perfect sounding note. Besides Lego's, and perhaps the occasional really enjoyable video game, I don't think I have ever experienced the joy that comes with sawing out squeaky notes on metal strung across wood.

The dulcimer on the other hand has a lot more behind it, but has some of the richest local stories behind it:

When looking for a dulcimer, my mother found this beauty on Craigslist offered for $20. She inquired immediately, since dulcimers at this point have become a relic for nostalgiaists to spend lots of money on to play a shiny recently made instrument. The woman got back with her, and said if they could organize a way to meet, she would go halfway and sell the dulcimer.

The weeks never worked out from either of them, and one day the dulcimer just showed up on our doorstep in a fake Christmas tree box, wrapped with brown paper. No note, not explanation, just a dulcimer. My mom inquired, and eventually the woman got back with us and told her she thought I was determined enough and it would be better when played in my hands than hung on a wall. Because my mom exchanged addresses with this woman for meeting up half way, she decided to mail her $40 for the trouble of packaging it up, and shipping it to us with no expectations of payment or explanation.

When I finally came home from college for a break, I saw it, and immediately started messing around with it. I shook it, and there was a piece of paper wrapped up inside. My mom gave me a photocopy of what it said:

What a history this dulcimer has. After much tracking down, and the investigation of the engraving in the dulcimer, we figured out it was made by M. J. Amburgey (Morris Amburgey in the note) in Hindman, Kentucky, who was a student at the folk school in Hindman and was locally and regionally known as a dulcimer craftsman. This one is #37, so I can only assume it is number thirty seven of the 200 or so he made (or at least reported in the sources we could find).

At one point M. J. must have worked with the engineering department at the city of Lancaster (Ohio, it makes the most sense regionally) and given this particular dulcimer to Cleo M. Lanier on M. J.'s next to last day with the city. There are two more clues to who the Cleo is in the story: His/her name is written on the inside of the tuning peg chamber on the dulcimer, as well on the outside of the same chamber on the end piece of the duclimer.

Eventually, the dulcimer must have been given to Don Swick, presumably by Cleo, three years after M. J. gave it to Cleo. Don was the father of the woman who we bought the dulcimer from, so now we have a direct connection to the present...

But there remains one striking question: How did Cleo put his/her name on the inside of the peg chamber, if he did not build it, and who was he/she? What is their connection to this story? Another great observation is that this dulcimer has had an incredible geographical journey:

It started out in Hindman, Kentucky, where it was made in 1974, and eventually brought to Lancaster, (Ohio?) in the early 1980's. This is the same Lancaster where I would spend many of my years of my childhood and adolescent life just a mere twenty years later. It then found its way to central southern Ohio, to rest upon a wall as a decorative piece until 2011 when it would be discovered via the internet, and shipped closer to its 1980 home.

Then the dulcimer would be driven back and forth to North Carolina, passing within 20 miles of its origin point of Hindman, Kentucky many times. Finally, it is currently in Washington state, shipped over 2500 miles from its origin, to be tuned up, strummed, and still enjoyed by a person who most likely met direct decedents of its creator in person or in passing within the small city he enjoyed before he set off to college.

We put lots of value on physical things in this world, and I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing. Physical objects help qualify our current condition, and help us to enjoy and understand the temporary presence we enjoy in this increasingly nonstop world. And this dulcimer, through its stories and relatively modern history, still fulfills this promise via its nailed together body, and staples for frets. 

Three strings are a simple setup, and the smell might not match a 100 year old instrument, but its good enough for me, and makes me ponder the unknowns. Everyday tomes hold so much weight behind them, and as much as I like to look at personal relationships and interactions throughout time, its always good to step back and look at some of the more permanent static things.

The Realness of the Small Town Diner

So I'm blogging on the road today, from Stevenson, WA. Being here feels like going back into my comfort zone. As soon as I got out of my car to enter the diner I get into the swagger of the rural, walking in like I own the place.

I look around to observe the setting. The sheriff and some county workers are having their lunch together and a family talks among themselves about what to do with the rest of the week.

A new family comes in and orders their food. I see an older man come in, and replace a walking stick he was apparently testing out. As he starts to leave, a young boy calls out and says "Hi Grandpa!" They chat for a minute, and as he leaves the diner, the waitress says "Bye Grandpa!"

Finally, an older couple comes in and decides to push away the dishes to get the rare but dirty seat by the window. No complaints, no difficulty to the staff. Just a friendly chat about the mess.

I am in my element.

I don't want to leave.

Sunday Escape to the Forest (Part 2)

So we left out last time as I was leaving Lucia Falls and on my way to Yacolt and Amboy. I figured the last post would be too long, and seeing as though we are switching geographical regions, its a good time to split the posts.

Yacolt and Amboy are outliers in the scheme of Clark County. Amboy fits the stereotype of small towns, and is smaller (naturally because it is the farthest community before you hit Gilford Pinchot National Forest. Its main street is comprised of two or three dilapidated buildings, and houses that are so old and far outside the city they still used wood burning stoves. The entire town had a hazy smoke to it as I drove through it.

Yacolt perplexed me the most. As I drove into the town it was painfully obvious the main reason it was there was as a stop on the rail line for the lumber industry. The main stretch of road paralleled a still in use train track for the fizzling industry. The restored train station was beautiful, and the railroad was obviously a source of pride for the town. Not much different from my hometown of Thurston.

The part which made me do a double take was the development that had taken place on the eastern side of the tracks. The tracks literally separated the "new town" and the "old town". Brand new houses, built most likely in the early 2000's, were arranged in typical subdivision style, as a miniature place to raise 2.5 kids. The houses looked exactly the same: all white siding, all with a garage, all with a white picket fence. Its one of those things that looks so out of place in a small town with houses that have been there forever. (Thurston also has this, although it's development consisted of really nice double-wides and carports.)

West of the tracks, each house had a history. It was like the walls and the architecture of the structures were literally speaking to you as you drove by. The roofs were aged, the chimneys with a small stream of smoke coming out of them. And porches! Some of the houses had beautiful porches, something you don't find in the modern design of houses.

This contrast baffled me while I was driving through the town. I had never seen such a shocking developmentally divided town. I wonder what the residents though of it. Was it a nuisance that these people had moved in and completely redeveloped an area of the town so quickly? Or was it that the town was happy to have more residents move in, and welcomed them with open arms into their community? Have the integrated? If only I could live there and get to know the town...

Regionalism and my definition of rural have both changed as a result of this chapter of my life. I have come to realize that regions are much more difficult, and significantly easier, to define. The "Northwest" has so many commonalities across its urban and rural areas. The lives people live, the industry that ties them together, the general increased accessibility and attitude of acceptance towards new ideas. It pretty much jives with all of the people I have met here.

Rural areas encompass much more than just farmland also. I loved studying the "industrialized rural areas" of America in many of my college classes, and learning how industrialization is not only limited to the city. But I never lived the experience. Most of the rural areas I have seen to this day are financially impoverished, and suffer from brain drain to the extreme. The very life source of many communities I've seen has simply disappeared, for better or for worse.

Yacolt and Amboy defy this. They prove that logging is, albeit diminishing, still a very strong income earner for local residents. The industry holds seemingly responsible view on many things.

After Amboy, the sun was setting, but I decided to press on, to get some shots of it from Gilford Pinchot. All of this reflection about industry and identity shows how we can come to get views such as this:

Sunday Escape to the Forest (Part 1)

Winter has finally come to the Northwest. I sit here writing a post about a perfectly sunny day in a beautiful park, and outside the snow is relentless:

View from Street Outside Work

View from Outside My Window at Home

If you didn't read the time signature, I am posting this around 3 PM PST. That means I got out of work early. But it is such a beautiful site.

But on to my other adventures. Last Sunday I visited a regional park called Lucia Falls. It boasted an impressive set of rapids and waterfalls, like the name said. I used it as a good excuse to escape from the suburban confines of Vancouver. It was a nice escape.

The drive around Clark County can be surprising. I always thought of it as this weird mixture of leftover farmland which hasn't been developed into suburban housing yet. I never really comprehended there were the foothills of the Cascades and a National Forest in the county. Upon arriving at the park I found a beautiful moss covered deciduous tree:

The tree looked out of place in the middle of the vast majority of the coniferous evergreens. It also had a little area cleared around it, like it was a relic which withstood the little pasture which would come to be.

The park invited me in, and I found myself reverting back to one of my most common methods of collecting myself: Running away to the woods.

This was a technique I would use often when I was in Barcelona. The beautiful thing about that city is that it had so many parks, small and large, to go run away too (that also didn't require a car to get to.) I had at my fingertips any number of wooded areas with lots of paths and hiking. I was also fortunate enough to have Park Güell basically at my doorstep, so that invited me many times as well.

The access to parks and green space here exists, and it is well represented. But it is not the same type of green space one would find in Barcelona, or in other cities for that matter. Many of the parks in Vancouver are just open fields with a picnic table and some sort of sports court, and nothing more. There are rarely any trails, and rarely are they forested.

For that exact reason I had to use my car to go out and explore.

Well actually, lets back up. Originally I wanted to go grocery shopping, which did end up happening. But the day was so perfect, sunny, bright, and somewhat warm, so I decided to run off. I heard about Lucia Falls Park, so I decided to venture off in search of it. After driving about 30 minutes past the last large town with regular bus service I crossed into another version of Clark County.

Previously all I had seen of the city, and county, included a concave structure of dense urbanization, thinning out to a mixture of empty lots, some farmland, and apartment complexes. Lots of trees compared to what I had driven through to get here (see earlier posts), but not necessarily a forest. Here was an environment similar to my alma mater. There were pastures, forests, rolling hills, complete with beautiful streams and rivers:

Path Through the Forest

The East Fork of the Lewis River

Small Stream Leading to the East Fork

Eroded and Flood Area of the East Fork

Rapids on the East Fork

I really appreciate the fact that Clark County has protected these areas. These falls, and their corresponding rivers, are so important to the ecosystem and salmon population of the area. There were signs all around the park saying to not make contact with the water, less it disturb the salmon or transfer a potentially harmful disease to the habitat.

The falls themselves were also very impressive. It amazes me that rivers here are so huge, and that this is considered a "fork" of the main Lewis River... Which is also massive.

The falls bid me goodbye as the sun began to sink below the mountains around me. But I didn't let that stop my exploring. After seeing the falls, I began to drive farther out, to see the communities of Yacolt and Amboy. See Part 2 for reflections on the few small independent towns that remain in Clark County.