Op-Ed Columns

Everything was perfect but the moon.

Should have been a harvest moon — big and yellow and bright.

Wasn't.

There was hardly any moon at all but the stars were out, so who am I to complain?

This was my second visit to the Foggy Hollow Bluegrass Gatherin'. The day was warm in the sun and cool in the shadows. The night was pleasant. The music came up from the stage down in the bottom, rolled over the crowd, collected in and around the tents and RVs, and made us all feel good.

Being a historian, I usually get a little miffed at folks who talk about tradition when they have only done something once or twice, but barring any and all unforeseen circumstances a twice-yearly trip out to the Hollow is gonna be a tradition for me and my family.

Why?

Well, I have a graduate student who is doing his master's thesis on bluegrass festivals. He is about to conclude, or might conclude, or could conclude if I let him (and you know how I am) that folks are attracted to events like Foggy Hollow because they are trying to reconnect with their roots. Or what they would like to be their roots.

Makes sense. Here we are today, urbanized and civilized, raising kids who turn up their noses at turnip greens and don't believe us when we tell them what chitlins are. Ask them what they want to eat and they say Taco Bell or Wendy's or such — since when was "McDonald's" a food group? They listen to music without a melody chanted (not sung) by the inarticulate — the only good thing is that their iPods have earphones.

Little wonder we want to get back to something before this, even if we are not sure what it is or should be.

Foggy Hollow offers that something.

Now, honestly, if I went back to my musical roots I'd be listening to the young Elvis, Jerry Lee and the Everly Brothers — all of whom were country and none had a banjo behind them. But somewhere between then and now I came across Flatt and Scruggs, the Blue Sky Boys, Bill Monroe and the others, so if I want to claim them as my roots then who is to say I can't?

No one at Foggy Hollow, that's for sure.

It almost looked like fall when we got there.

I love fall. Growing up in south Alabama, I didn't get much. It would be late October before the cypress down in the swamps turned a dull gold. Sweetgums added a sorta burnt red. Poplar leaves turned yellow one day and dropped off the next. But up here … Folks, you just don't know how good you've got it. Sourwoods and blackgums are already turning. Maples and oaks are not far behind. And hickory. Ah, hickory.

You drive to Foggy Hollow through communities that today are spots on maps of memory, places identified with family names that reflect a Welsh-Scotch-Irish heritage. Churches there run heavily into Baptist and Holiness, and I like to imagine that in their Sunday pews sit folks who could have played and sang at the Hollow the day before if they had wanted to, and some probably did.

You can get religion in both places.

Foggy Hollow is a modern camp meeting. People packed together waiting for the spirit to move among them. Gathering and greeting and getting right. You could smell the season changing. Wood smoke from fires rising up until a high breeze turned it. Food cooking. Kids playing.

And the music.

Camp meetings have preachings.

Foggy Hollow has music.

Everywhere.

On stage.

Off stage.

Out by the tents and the campers.

Although gas prices are skyrocketing, most folks made it to the Hollow on half a tank. Wall Street may be having a meltdown, but that's up in New York. The Associated Press reports that crack addicts with HIV are having unprotected sex, but not at the Hollow. And "they" say the Chinese have walked in space, but I looked up and didn't see a one.

All this matters, but then, there, not so much.

For a weekend, at least, there was a place safe and secure where worries could be checked at the door.

At first, I didn't want to make so much of this, fearing if I did then my many readers will probably say "let's go next year" and would, and the Hollow would get crowded and lose its charm. But guess what: you can't crowd out charm. If more come then Glen, the guy who runs it, can just bush-hog some more places to park and camp and we can all just get closer together in front of the stage.

So we sat and listened and wandered and talked and ate and sipped through the day and into the night. Then, after the stage shut down I followed my student around as he and a friend looked for folks to jam with. Soon, I headed back to the camper and to bed.

And as I lay there in the dark, off in the distance came the skirl of a bagpipe and I thought how ancestors from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and all would have been proud of what their descendents have done.

Then I drifted off to sleep, and when I woke the next morning the Hollow was Foggy.