During April we spent a good deal of time weaving our way northeasterly up and down, around, and through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Having been through the Smokies and Blue Ridge before in our lives we sought the places and spaces we hadn’t yet experienced. Another locale that fit that description is the mountain where we will spend May camp hosting. Pilot Mountain State Park, 20 miles west of Winston Salem, NC is our assignment.
On the first of May we dropped down from on high at New River State Park over circuitous country roads losing altitude quickly as we motored to Pilot Mountain. The Blue Ridge gave way eventually to the Piedmont of North Carolina, a land that resembles Missouri in its rolling hill nature. The land gently slopes towards the coast leaving the steep inclines of the mountains to the west. Driving eastward perhaps 20 miles or so from the true base of the Blue Ridge a small string of mountains juts up from the Piedmont dramatically and literally, pointedly. This little range, more along the lines of the St Francois Mountains in Missouri in height, is called the Sauratown Mountains. These peaks, and there are two main ones, Pilot Mountain and Hanging Rock, are around 2500’ in altitude and are named for the ancient Saura tribe of Native Americans who had towns along the Dan River below Hanging Rock. This tribe more or less disappeared in the late 1600’s, yet another victim of European disease. Dwindling to a few dozen individuals they merged themselves into other tribes south of here in South Carolina. They spoke a Siouxan dialect they say. There are to this day a few individuals who, through DNA tracing, retain a direct ancestral link to the tribe living in the Southeastern US. However, the tribe is basically lost to the mists of history with all the untold stories of their past, their lives, their joys, and their travails...mute ghosts in the hills.
Our new home for the month is Pilot Mountain, an anomaly of a peak that rises conically from the forest floor to a stark cylindrical bluff on all sides of solid rock perhaps a hundred feet tall or so. The peak is visible for miles around and was a guidepost for travelers in bygone days. A recent wildfire has scarred parts of the mountain but the forest is rapidly reclaiming the mountainside. It is supposed to. It’s doing a good job of it.
The Yadkin River laces the mountain’s base and is indeed part of the State Park, though reaching its bank takes a little driving around to get to unless you hike to it on a trail, about 3 or 4 miles. The sides of the mountain are steep and the first thing we noticed when we arrived was that there are scant level camping spots here. With 42 actual campsites, the campground is built more for tent camping than trailer or motor home camping. There are no electric sites and no individual site has potable water. There are spigots scattered around for fresh drinking water. As camp hosts, we have the only full hookup on the mountain.
This park is heavily visited due to its proximity to Winston Salem and other surrounding towns, though camping during the week is used sparsely. Weekends are crowded for sure, but during the early week the campgrounds are mostly empty which is a welcome treat for us as we enjoy the semi-solitude. In addition to the grand vistas you receive when you visit the top of the peak, the park has several excellent hiking trails that wind around and through the forest canopy. The forest itself is diverse with Oak, Hickory, Hemlock, Mountain Laurel, and Rhododendron all fighting for sunlight and rainfall along the steep mountainside. The Park is a perfect antidote for the city-living folks nearby and a nice place to get some solitude and get back to nature. Interestingly, when storms strike the mountain, and several major ones blew through here during our stay, lightening seems to be attracted to the place. There’s something about the geology I think that lures it.
Several times the keen crack of simultaneous thunder and lightening have shaken our nerves causing me to jolt out of my chair. One strike hit camp site #4 which had been reserved but the campers had not shown up. It struck a tree just two or three feet from the campfire ring and blew branches asunder in its fury. The telltale split down the trunk of the tree where it traveled to the ground attests to its strength. A nearby fledgling tree that was not struck was shattered from the blast as well. Had campers been huddling by that fire ring when it happened they would have had their shoes blown off their feet...and God knows what else.
As the wise person once said, “ Sometimes its the moves you don’t make that matter the most.” This camper in site #4 both received and followed good advice via their intuition. Stay home this night. They’ll probably never know how close they could have come to being a statistic.
Having spent so much time out West during the past four years we have lost our familiarity with so much rain and thunderstorms. We have probably seen more rain in one month here than in four previous years out West. Oh, if only we could shift some of this plenty to the parched land out there where it’s needed so badly. We recently saw a photo on line of a familiar landscape in Big Bend National Park. It was a photo of the Rio Grande there, except, there was no river. It had dried up. Diane found a photo she took of the exact same spot, it being a popular place in Big Bend. We compared the two photos. When we were there in 2018, the river was flowing freely, at least knee-deep in most places. Today...no river, just dried up river bed. Of course, that is the one over-arching reason why I keep this journal of the 50 Amp Vision Quest. I want my Grandkids and their kids to be able to understand what the country was like during these transitional days, perhaps the last dwindling days of the current epoch. I am an optimist, I truly am, but I see no urgency by our government or industry to change the course we’ve laid for ourselves. I hear the clock ticking and I worry about it a lot.
While we were here the Rhododendrons and Mountain Laurel erupted into full bloom. We especially enjoyed these beauties when we visited and hiked over at nearby Hanging Rock State Park. In fact, I wish we had more time to hike Hanging Rock. It’s a special place for certain. The floral displays, the wildflowers and flowering trees in this region, all continued to astound us. Even on a nearby overpass and exit on 52 Highway native flowers have been planted in super-abundance and are blooming like crazy this month. Poppies on one side of the overpass and purple spires of some as yet unknown by me, flower and bloom on the other side...acres of them in the bright, shining sun.
Floyd’s Barber Shop
Of course, no visit to this area can be called complete without a walk through downtown Mayberry, NC, the home of the Andy Griffith Show, or Andy of Mayberry, whichever you prefer. Mayberry’s real name is Mount Airy, NC and it really is where Andy Griffith was born, the real man. Close by is the town of Pilot Mountain, or as it was called in the show, Mount Pilot. So, now, I finally understand how the names of the two eponymous towns got their names, I never knew it before.
Mt Airy=Mayberry
Pilot Mountain=Mt Pilot
I swear, at least half the citizens of Mt Airy call their town, Mayberry. That’s what I encountered on the streets of downtown as Diane and I walked about searching out Floyd the Barber and the other characters of the show. Over there is Floyd’s barber shop. Down the street is Opie’s candy store. The squad car Andy always drove is parked out front. The Sheriff’s office and jail where Otis would let himself in is right over there. Goober and Gomer’s gas station is down the way, yonder. It’s all there just as we all imagined it would be in that corner of our mind’s eye where we hold on to cherished memories of the imagined America of yesteryear. Maybe Mayberry (Mt Airy) was all that once upon a time, just as it was when we all tuned in every week. Once the show ended, Thelma Lou really did choose to live here until in her mid-90’s when she passed away. Perhaps she was searching and found her Mayberry, too. As I sat down on a bench in the shade outside Floyd’s barber shop, the older gentleman next to me said in all sincerity,
“You know why Mayberry was such a happy place? I’ll tell ya. It’s ‘cause no one was married here. Not Andy, not Barney, not Aunt Bea, not the Darlin’s...no one got hitched.”
I thought about that a while. I thought about the Darlins. They, of course, were the family bluegrass band that always came in from the mountains and would strike up a tune or two during the episode while Andy would play guitar. They were really a band from Missouri called, The Dillards. Rodney and Doug Dillard were friends of Paul Breidenbach, my friend, Bob’s older brother. It was through Bob’s association with the Dillards, as well as John Hartford, another friend of Paul’s, that I got turned on to these musicians and artists, met them, and to this day love their art and music.
Bob and I used to go to John Hartford’s house for his annual weekend-long pickin’ party in Nashville. John used to call Bob and me the “Old Orchard Boys” when we arrived. That moniker was a reference from the little old fashioned shopping area in Webster Groves where we grew up and where John would come over to Bob and Paul’s house to play tunes or plot their numerous trips to the Grand Ol’ Opry. John would laugh out loud at his pronouncement of his name for us..."The Old Orchard Boys".
At these parties you may end up jamming with Hartford, Bill Monroe, Emmy Lou Harris, Roy Acuff, Benny Martin, Buddy Emmons and any number of old time fiddlers and musicians. It was at one of these parties that I found myself playing with Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass. I asked Bill to play "Footprints in the Snow" with me and he obliged. What a thrill that was! We played old Hank Williams songs with Emmy Lou and Sam Bush on mandolin. We played Wabash Cannonball with Roy Acuff, just like we was on the Grand Ol’ Opry some distant Saturday night in the 1940’s.
The old fiddlers John had gathered together got out rusty old mountain tunes so old no one knows who wrote them any longer, or whether they came from old England, or Scotland, or Ireland, or were made up in the Smokies. The sweeping notes and slides from their time-worn fiddles were dusty and old. Notes and phrases that brought out lonesome, ancient longings from a dark holler in the Appalachians. Notes, too, that set your feet and your soul to dancing steps of joy, simply happy to be alive in the moment. John knew all these emotions and how to summon them up through the brotherhood of music and he wanted all his friends to be able to share that with him on these special yearly occasions. I am forever grateful I got to attend these pickin’ parties. It’s how a little piece of the Andy Griffith Show became real to me and it’s how the Dillards, aka the Darlins, changed the course of my life and gave me musical inspiration. I had no idea when I watched the Darlins on the Andy Griffith Show when I was 8 or 10 years old, that I would one day meet them and play music with them. I still play some of their music to this day when I perform. Yes, those were jam sessions and times to remember for a lifetime at John Hartford’s house, high on a bluff, on the Cumberland River.
I can tell you first hand now that this little downtown of Mt Airy, NC, with all the visitors and nostalgic folks who come to visit, is a step back in time, real or imagined, at least for an afternoon. It surely was for me. When you visit, give my best to Barney Fife.
Paul McCartney
When Paul McCartney announced his 2022 tour in America I took note. I read through the locations of his concerts and lo and behold I saw he was coming to Winston Salem on May 21st, smack dab in the middle of our hosting period at Pilot Mountain. Shoot, we’re only 25 miles away from the concert venue, the football stadium in town. Could I possibly take in the show? I had never seen the Beatles, my absolute favorite band of all time. I had never seen any of them perform, as a band or individually. Here was my chance...maybe. But what of the ticket price? How much? That had always been the rub for me...It’s too expensive. A cursory look through the seats and the prices affirmed what I already knew. It’s going to cost too much for me to go. I mentioned it to Diane and put it aside in my mind so as not to dwell on it any longer.
“Too bad, we’re so close,” I thought.
This was back in January or February of this year.
There was a driving rain going on as well. I brought an umbrella, but was informed by another concert goer that umbrellas were not allowed in the stadium. Fortunately, an enterprising guy was selling cheap ponchos for $5.00 a piece. I bought me one. It was akin to wearing a trash bag, but, it would keep you dry in a pinch.
Now, the doors were to open at 6:00PM, but par for the course of that unorganized evening, they didn’t open until 7:30, giving 40,000+ anxious fans but a half an hour to get in line, find their seats and settle in for the concert. People were getting pretty fed up at this point and had it not been a Paul McCartney show and everyone being in such a positive mood to begin with, I do think there could have been some altercations between the staff and the fans.
The rain, thunder, and lightening, as if by sheer positive Karma, stopped and lifted towards the east. I got into the stadium and really began to feel the anticipation welling up inside. I found my seat. Holy Crap, it was beyond terrible. In fact, it should never had been sold. I was at the top of the stadium, way off to the left of the stage. Had I actually sat in that seat I never would have seen the concert. I wouldn’t have been able to see the stage or the giant twin video screens set up. I would have been relegated to just hearing it, not seeing it. I decided no way this was going to happen. I’m going to find me a decent seat come hell or high water, by God.
I started scoping out the scene below scanning for weaknesses in the security. I noticed there were limited entry points to the floor of the seating in front of the stage. The stadium proper was going to be filled to capacity and I knew I would not find a seat in the actual stadium seats. I had to get down to the floor of the stadium to have a chance at being able to watch the show.
My first gambit was foiled as I tried to bribe a guard with first $20.00, then $30.00. I was lucky he didn’t toss me out of the stadium and throw me in the hooskow. I scanned all the entry points again for weaknesses. I noticed that at one entry point there were about a dozen folks gathered who were all backed up while the two lady ticket-checkers dutifully scanned their phones for legal ticket tender. I was able to make myself invisible somehow like the Apache Geronimo, perhaps by sheer will power. I slipped magically down the stairs and onto the field of seats where I quickly moved to the concession area where I wouldn’t be noticed.
Now, the bigger challenge arose. Everyone in the floor area of the stadium had to wear these paper ID wrist bracelets so that they knew you were street legal to be there. The guards checking you in put them on your wrist. The rent a cops on the floor were eye-balling everyone to make sure they had them on. Security was really tough at this concert. The only thing I could think to do was to put on my plastic see-through poncho and place my hands behind my back grasping each other so that my wrists could not be seen by the prying eyes. I looked like an old judge walking around with my arms behind me clasped, but it was working. I knew eventually I would be found out, though. What to do?
Again, I searched for weaknesses in the system. Was there a central place where the wristbands were stored that I could raid? Did any fall on the ground in the pre-concert anticipatory excitement?
I noted that most of the checkers-inners were holding the wristbands in their hands and applying them one by one. Typically a box of them were off to the side, but close at hand. No chance to dip in there to pilfer one I judged. Finally, after an eternity of searching and scooting around from one entry point to another I found my situation present itself. In one particular entry point the checker-inners had a bunch of wristbands laid out on a table and they were grabbing them as needed. There was my shot. There was a patrolman standing very close by, though. I ambled on up to the entry point and at exactly the opportune three seconds, when the patrolman looked the other way and the two checker-inners were dutifully bent over inspecting tickets I snatched a wristband right off the table. No one saw me, no one knew...I Had IT! I was going to stay on that floor of the stadium and get to see the concert! I quickly found a Johnny on the Spot, went in, closed the door, locked it, and fastened my magic wristband. I was home...street legal.
I still had no seat and the show was indeed a sell-out. I managed to move around in the long aisles and watch the concert from several vantage points, but as I mentioned prior, security was air-tight. I continually got shushed away by the guards and rent-a-cops.
“Go back to your seat...now!”
“Yessir”
Eventually I found a seat about half way back from the stage, maybe 100 yards away where I could plant myself, relax, and dig into the concert without fear of discovery.
As for the concert itself, it was magnificent. Though at this point Paul’s voice is a little haggard from decades of wear and tear, and clearly not what it once was in all his shining clarity, the emotion and power of his artful singing were as strong as ever. He attacked every single vocal with all his considerable powers and after a song or two no one noticed or cared that he had lost a little luster on the top end of his voice. The band that he built is so monstrously good and tight that at times it was hard not to be fooled into thinking that the Beatles were performing. At other times they broke free and soared like so many hawks into the stratosphere of musicality. I was enthralled with their music.
As for the set list, it was magnificently balanced between “...old, new, and some things in between” as McCartney himself said. Songs from his latest solo LP. “III” were mixed in with Wings classics and his Beatles greatest hits. One highlight of the evening for me was his rendition of the song Lennon wrote called, “Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite”. The carnivalesque nature of the tune itself was augmented with surreal visuals and lights creating a dreamscape on stage that was nothing short of magical. Another surprise was Paul’s tributes to both Lennon and George Harrison, performing soaring renditions of George’s “Something” in which he started the tune on solo ukelele for the first verse. Later, Paul actually performed live as a duo with John, captured in film from the Get Back movie the tune, “I’ve Got a Feeling”. Stunned, the 40,000 in attendance went wild in their appreciation.
After so many, many years, Paul McCartney undoubtedly understands his fans, and I think perhaps he is one himself, of the love and magic that he, his band, Wings, The Beatles, and everyone else associated with him wove for all of us. This wasn’t just an oldies concert of old dusty hits trotted out from some museum on a backstreet somewhere. The music was new and fresh and alive, yet intimately and ultimately familiar, like a visit from a favorite family member. I was taken back in time by Sir Paul and his band to times of laughter and love, magic and psychedelia, even hardship and pain and the struggle to endure them, all with my feet firmly planted in the present. Paul McCartney is a gift for the ages.
Reuniting Again on James Lake
Our dear friends, the Geers, whom we met up with after so many years when we were in Davidson River Camground last month, joined us once again this month as we rented a pontoon boat on Lake James about an hour and a half south of us back towards Asheville. When we had last parted ways we had agreed that if we could meet up “on the water” somewhere it would be fun...so that’s what we did. We all packed up a passel full of good food, Diane having grilled up her famous southwestern flank steak for lunch. One thing for certain, if you’re going to hang out with the Geers and Diane you’re gonna eat real good. John arranged for a pontoon boat and we took off on the water for some fishin’ and double-good eatin’. While the fishing wasn’t great, the food sure was. We managed to catch one Kentucky Bass, a smallish one, but then we were fishing during the typically slowest part of the day, mid morning through the afternoon. It was a hot one, too, easily in the high 80’s, maybe low 90’s for a bit. It didn’t matter a spit, though. The fun was in reconnecting again and telling stories and laughing out loud.
James Lake itself is a beauty. It’s nestled amongst the hills of North Carolina with the Blue Ridge rising in the near background to the north. The water is very clear having been fed by mountain Rivers that run crystal down from the range and cut through the rocky escarpments to the lake. Monstrous cumulus war clouds gathered throughout the afternoon and formed all manner of creature and feature that you could imagine, transforming themselves one after another as the updrafts from the hills and hollers whipped them into grand elephants and winged serpents. I find it always magical to be on the water but that day was ever the more so with such warm and empathetic company and friendship.
Finally, the sun’s path gave warning that needed to get the boat back as we agreed to meet the owner at 5:00 PM back at the ramp. A storm, doing its best all day to gather steam, looked as if it finally just might explode upon the lake. All the signs dictated we had to part ways again but we deeply hope that this time it’s just for a while and not 20 some odd years. Friendships are so dear and often fragile. We vow we won’t let our friendships, both old and new, wither on the vine as we might have been guilty of during our working years. Fare thee well John and Ann, we will see you again soon.
The Holiday’s Remains
The Memorial Day weekend came upon us. In any campground or park worth it’s salt folks will come flocking. As Easter and Christmas bring out the sunshine Christians, summer holidays will bring out the sunshine campers. Small fortunes will be spent on camping gear for the upcoming family outing. Often times some of these items are used but once and then filed away for some future indeterminate day when the family might venture out into the wilds once again. Sometimes these self-same camping necessities never make it back on to the campground. We find the stubborn tent that won’t obey his master’s fumbling attempt at tent building. The skeletal remains of the shelter lie in a heap having been disgustingly thrown down in a fit of anger. The bent hot dog skewer will lie in its grave of ashes in the fire pit, perhaps the victim of a dispute over who forgot the paper plates. A sleeping bag whose mistress couldn’t find restful repose during the hot sultry night sits forlorn in the dumpster. Some folks, despite their best intentions to transform themselves into back to nature pioneer types, simply aren’t cut out for sleeping on the ground. The general rule for campsite discard-ation is, the worse the weather, the more camping equipment gets thrown away.
We’ve had our own share of miserable weather whilst camping in the woods or on the rivers. We’ve found ourselves in miserable shape out in the boonies soaked and tired many, many times. You just have to expect it if you’re gonna live outside for a while. It’s a young person’s game. Or at least, the young at heart.
One case in point...Once we took our kids on a vacation to Cumberland Lake in Kentucky. We rented a pontoon boat and had a splendid time during the day diving off the boat into the clear deeps of the lake. The kids frolicked all day long. Come nightfall we pitched our camp lakeside in a nice little cove carved out in the hickory trees along the bank. The first thing, though, that greeted us once we had camp set up was a persistent Cottonmouth who wanted his territory back. He kept trying to come ashore right into our campsite as if we were interlopers, a family of squatters whom he could not abide. He came ashore right at us rearing up with his head snapping and his tongue flipping in and out, his eyes fixated on anyone who came near. I shushed him back into the lake with a hickory stick. Undeterred he flitted and frothed in the water back and forth a couple of feet out in the lake. Back and forth he swam, surfacing to give us that evil-eye only a snake can deliver, then diving down, disappearing for a moment, only to surface once again to start the whole intimidation process over...again and again. He tried to clamber aboard the pontoon boat. I threw sand and gravel at him and he dove yet again. Finally, I threw as big as chunk rock as I could find in his general direction to create sonic booms and tidal waves. That seemed to do the trick and turn the tide as he knew I meant business just as he did. The last I saw of him he was swimming along the bank a good ways away, hopefully convinced we were as serious as he.
Thus, we settled in for much anticipated night of Slumberin’ on the Cumberland as John Hartford would have sung. Just as Mr Sandman left our tent the sky let fly with a thunderous flash greeting. The lightening began raining and the wind began to howl. Rain fell as if it were being chased down out of the clouds by that rascal Cottonmouth. Little did I know that I had pitched our tent precisely on a dry creek bed. Within the half hour a rivulet began to seep into our tent and drench us all from head to toe in our highly absorbent, old-style sleeping bags. The stuffing material was soaked and so were we. Not long after the little creek appeared in our tent, Raccoons began to try to get in the tent with us. Why is yet a mystery as it was probably worse inside the tent than out in the storm. Once again I was summoned to chase the critters off. They were stubborn little bandits. They finally settled for robbing us of the food in our cooler. It goes without saying that they left wrappers and trash all over the campsite which then washed soddenly into the lake. I spent a good deal of time next morning fishing the stuff out of the water, still watchful for Mr Cottonmouth.
We spent the better part of the next morning at a laundromat in nearby London, Kentucky washing and drying our sleeping bags and wearables. That stuffing in the sleeping bags was the hardest, most stubborn material yet created by man as regards to drying out.
This Memorial Day weekend holds the same promise as nearly every Memorial Day since the inception of the holiday. It stormed. I mean it really stormed. All night Thursday and yet again on Friday the night skies were alive with lightening and heavy, heavy doses of rain. I counted at least 4 or 5 inches in the buckets we carry in our buggy for trash and ash. As the Saturday morning dawned clear and bright over Pilot Mountain State Park, the campers ambled out of their soaked tents and surveyed the wreckage and ruin of the night’s fury. No trees down, no apparent injuries to report, but it looks as if we are once again going to find the remains of this family camping weekend left in crumpled discard on the forest floor. I see small lakes have appeared on the tent pads and new creeks have appeared that you could float on kayak on, snaking through some of the camp sites. We can only hope that the folks at least take the refuse to the dumpster.
A Culinary Postscript…
That would be all for this post if it were not for a glorious find I happened upon while cleaning campsites one damp morning after a hard rain. Packing away the plastic litter from a large group who left in a hurry during a break in the rain I chanced to glance off towards the outer ring of the campsite whereupon what did I spy but a very large flowering orange thing-a-me-bob. Sure enough it was a mushroom, the variety I did not know, for I am unschooled in the mysterious world of the fungi. I casually snapped a photo, it being more a curiosity of nature at that point than anything else to me, a study of colors, deep orange set against a backdrop of sparkling dark gray stone on the campsite floor infused with tiny crystals of quartz. It seemed to me one of those oddities of nature that both delights and confounds. Later, when I showed Diane the photo she claimed it as a mushroom. Maybe we could eat it? That was not my thought nor choice I have to say. Oh, I do love to eat mushrooms...from the store. Give me those Baby Bellas with the US Government seal of approval. Perhaps some Shittakes afloat in a delicate mixture of sauce. That’s my speed and craving. Just be sure they were bought in a store from someone who knows what the heck they are selling. I don’t need no deadly toadstools, no sir.
I will say, though, that there have been occasions deep in my checkered past whereupon I partook of the more, how should I say this, psychoactive variety of ‘shroom in unregulated and untested status.
There was the time when my roommate, nameless for this exercise, spiked the spaghetti he made us for dinner with the psycillicibean variety of mushroom, right before I had a band job to play. Midway through the first set my microphone began to bark at me and my guitar neck began to melt in my hands. Maybe I shouldn’t have had seconds. I had no idea what was happening to me and I don’t know what I played that night. The guys didn’t kick me out of the band so I guess it wasn’t too painful to hear. It wasn’t until months later that the truth came out about how I got so high.
Then there was the time in Jamaica when Diane and I visited the little hut in Negril amongst the thatched roof little bars and restaurants that served up mushroom tea. In those days Negril was mainly a long beach with Rastafarians mixing with European and Canadian adventurers, down for some fun in the Jamaican sun in the depths of winter. Huge spleefs were common on the beach at sunset and everyone was selling something for whatever they could get. Chemical compounds had not made the scene, just naturally growing and cultivated enticements. Bob Marley and the stalwarts of the 60’s and 70’s reggae scene held sway. Music was everywhere.
We ventured inside the hut, “Joanie’s Tea House” I believe it was called, though there was no shingle hung to mark it as such. The locals just pointed you there. Otherwise you wouldn’t distinguish it from any other thatched roof hut in Negril. There in the midst of the room was a cauldron, black and boiling with water and a watched fire underneath, tended to with bits of flotsam wood piled up in the corner.
“What do you want, darlins?” asked the round woman in a lilting brogue, somehow reminiscent of an Irish accent.
“Ma’am, we were told you might be able to provide us with some of your special mushroom tea.” I sheepishly replied. I couldn’t believe I was actually attempting to buy mushroom tea in a foreign country.
“Me name’s not Ma’am,” she affirmed. “It’s Joanie, and yeah man, I can make it for you.”
She motioned to a young boy who was hanging around behind a counter and off he ran to who knows where. For a quick moment my paranoid mind thought he was running to fetch the constable to have us arrested for even trying to buy hallucinogens. “We’ve been set up...” I thought.
But no, in about 5 minutes the lad came back into the shop with a handkerchief full of delicate looking mushrooms and he showed them to us enthusiastically. Joanie somewhat ceremoniously dropped them into the boiling cauldron.
“Me tea is very special. You will feel very good all day long.” Joanie assured us.
Some moments later, maybe it was 10 minutes or so, the tea was served up in tin cups. I have to say, without the benefit of sugar or other condiments added to the mix the brew tasted like old socks...not my idea of a flavor I would savor. We didn’t sip this tea. No, it was too nasty tasting. After the first exploratory micro-sip, we gulped it down. Joanie charged us some few dollars and bid us goodbye with,
“Now you have a good, solid day, ma friends. Now you know where to find Auntie Joanie. I be always here. You come on back to see me. I’ll be a waitin’ right here, mon.”
I can’t say the day was solid. It was anything but solid, but it surely was a good day, a colorful day, a musical and enchanting day filled with laughter and amazement amongst the peoples and scenes of Negril Beach circa 1982. Everyone and everything seemed hyper-alive, positive, and flowing through us as a stream of warm laughter and the appreciation of simply being alive.
Nightfall found us in a jungle clearing somewhere, again, amidst a carnival ride of people. There was no fear, but I do recall a man with a flat board with a candle stuck on it. His dreadlocks cascaded and framed his face. He was bare-chested but wore a red vest unbuttoned. His pants were black and white striped vertically and slightly too long for his build. Barefoot was his style. No natty shoes did he wear. He had the board draped from a rope around his neck so that it lay before him flat as a dobro player carries his instrument on stage. The man cut quite the figure there in the semi-darkness, lit only by his lone candle that cast shadows upon his angular face. He had dice and some sort of cards on the table and was peering into folk’s future with those strange tools as they approached him one by one. He looked straight at me and straight through me at the same time. Diane and I approached him. That’s all I can say about that moment.
Oh, that orange mushroom I found in the campground. It was amazing, too. Turns out it was the rare “Chicken of the Woods” variety of ‘shroom. Non-psychoactive, but the most flavorful and delightful mushroom I ever ate. Diane sauteed it and served it up in a beautiful bowl of chicken soup with homemade stock augmented with a handful of shittake mushrooms and light vegetables. This was a taste we had never ever delighted in before. Savory, satisfying, a most memorable meal, indeed. Adventure and good taste will present themselves if you allow them. I say seize them, but with a watchful eye.