A Whisper of Creation

"All creation had a language,

words to say what must be said.

All day long the heavens whispered,

signing words in scarlet red."

-- 'Anthem for Christmas', Michael W. Smith

The cozier, snugg-lier girls camp

 This morning, I had the opportunity to eat breakfast over at Forest Acres, which is the girls' camp in our community.  This camp is a couple of miles down the road back toward Fryeburg, and there are a lot more trees surrounding the main living areas.  This is not to say that Indian Acres doesn't have trees, for it has them in multitudes, but Forest Acres has a cozy, "nestled" feel to it... unless you go down to what FA calls the "lower field", you really do feel more like you are living in... for lack of a better term...a forest.

Although we now make berth at IA each summer, Forest Acres has a special place in my heart...  Allison and I spent our first summer here living in a cabin at FA, and I got to know the staff there well... they are good folks.  And you could not ask for prettier surroundings... it truly is a beautiful camp.

Only half the road
I walked

But back to this morning.. as I was leaving the dining hall, and walking back down the long road to the parking area, I was surrounded by the gauntlet of trees.  It was rather breezy this morning, and the sussurration of the wind in the treetops was an incredibly gorgeous and spine-tingling melody.   Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, James Taylor, Bob Dylan... none of them has ever written a line of notes that came close to matching that sound on this fine morning.

I was Enya-videoed
the whole way....

And the pine needles!   They were being carried around on the breeze, floating gently past me as I strolled down the lane.  No king or prince of Zamunda has ever had rose petals trailed in front of him that could match the honor done to me this morning by the pine trees of Forest Acres.  It was like walking through an Enya video, although even that cannot do it justice.



On a morning like this... if you listen to the whispers in the trees.. if you read the messages shown by the pine needles as they flit by... and if you feel the hope of another Maine summer day.... it is not so hard to believe that there is a creator, a Master Artist who painted and sculpted this world, and did so in order that we might enjoy this beauty, and know that we are loved.

On the advice of cousins, apocryphal Albert stories, and Maine time to contemplate...

He looks like *he* has
something to say...

I have a confession to make:  I don't write in this blog as often as I should.  It says right there in the title bar, that "like Alfred, I only show up here when I have something to say"... but that is not the whole truth.    That line is based upon a story (which unfortunately I cannot accurately source) in which Albert Einstein was supposedly invited to give the keynote speech at a college commencement ceremony.  After he was introduced, Albert got up, headed to the podium, and stated "Ladies and Gentlemen, I have absolutely nothing to say.  I will return to speak to you when I do."   And he left!  Some time later, he contacted the college and said he had something interesting to say, and so they gathered, and the great physicist returned to share what he had.

I put that line in the title bar as a way of warning the handful of people who might actually stumble across my blog that it would not be updated on a regular basis... given that I don't really try to increase my readership or anything like that, I figured it wasn't much of a loss if I was not "pushing enough content."

And so my writing here comes in spurts.  I have been told that folks enjoy reading my updates from our summers in Maine, so some summers I decided that I am "going to blog about Maine again this year"... last summer I began to do just that, and then I felt like I ran out of ideas for fresh comments on Maine, and the writing dwindled to a stop after a few entries.

Then, just a few days ago, a very dear cousin reached out through a text, bonked me upside the head, and told me (in effect):  "You are too good of a writer.  You should write more, whether in a blog or not."

You know what?  She's right.  Thanks, cuz, for making me think.

The problem is that I'm trying to find a subject about Maine to write about.  What I should be doing is writing... if I happen to be in Maine, then the topics covered might happen to brush up on that.   I should write wherever I am.  Sometimes the writing may make it into this very public (yet dusty and unused) corner of the cortex, and sometimes it may stay hidden safely in my Evernote notebooks.

Maine gives you time to
contemplate the important
things... like your toes.

But my cousin is right... I need to write.

There is one thing about being up here at camp, nestled among the tall pine trees--the pace of life is different.  Even though I work my normal job here, my life is a lot less hectic and "go! go! go!"...  there's no regular TV to serve as a distraction, and there's more time to just think about things.

So, when my cousin prodded me, I was on fertile ground for the idea to take hold, and for a revelation of sorts.









The hurly burly of life will take care of itself, or fade away into non-significance.  Writing feeds my soul, and I shall write.

Time to use these more!

My thanks to the lovely, idyllic and pastoral State O' Maine.   And my thanks to you as well, my lovely and impertinent cousin.

Hey, this really is a vacation!

Human life, where ever it might be, often settles into a routine–and routines can be both comforting and stifling.  Even up here at camp, it can sometimes be hard to see the forest for the trees (see what I did there?)  Allison works very hard for IA/FA, often driving long hours to Boston or Portland to transport campers and staff to and from the airport, and doing many other miscellaneous things that are requested of her... and I have to do my real job Monday through Friday as well.  Plus, it involves a great deal of work to relocate a family of 5 for over two months.

(Now, before you Texas friends start sending the daggers my way, hear me out... I'm going somewhere with this)

The point is, it's easy sometimes to get wrapped up in the day-to-day, and to forget to count your blessings.  That's true whether it is in Maine, Texas, or any other spot on this celestial orb.  But one of the magical things about this place is that I find it a lot easier to do that refocusing.. that "retraining of the mind", so that I can truly absorb the goodness that God has placed all around me, for me to enjoy.   I don't know whether it's the "slowing down of time"  that one feels here (I literally had to remind about 4 people the other day that it was, indeed, Friday), or just the natural beauty of a place where the predominant substrata element is not concrete... but all I have to do is get out from behind my work desk, step out the cabin... and if I give it any effort at all on my part... the vacation is there.

To feel like you're taking a vacation when, technically, you are not.  How cool is that?

On the other hand, the week before camp starts is (for me) a true vacation-vacation.  I often take the whole week off when we are traveling, and have several days up here before I need to resume work.  The boys are also milling around, having nothing to do until camp starts, so we go play.  And all the camp staff get a day off right before camp starts, so there is a family vacation day in there as well.  And we used it.  And used it well.

Down East Coney Island

For Logan, a perennial request is to go to coast, so we packed up and headed to Old Orchard Beach.  OOB might not be everyone's cup of tea–it is sort of the Coney Island of Maine, but the boys love it and there is a lot of culture there.  It is a favorite "weekender" spot for many French Canadiens... so much so that it is not uncommon to see street signs (deep in the interior of Maine, including here in Fryeburg) that point visitors from up north to OOB.

Partaking o' poutine

If you keep your ears open, you will hear plenty of French being spoken on the streets and the sand... and then there are crepes...and poutine–a rather unique dish of french fries, brown gravy and cheese curds...and Ryan likes to get some every time we go.
I like poutine... but this time Logan and I went after the fried dough.  For my Texas buddies, this is basically a funnel cake without the gaps. :)

Doesn't that look healthy!?!

The only thing about coming to the coast this early in the summer season is the water temps...who am I kidding, it's cold all year in the North Atlantic... but even the few degrees difference that a month or so makes is significant.  This water is COLD.  In mid-June, the historical average is about 54F.  So, I sit on the beach and read. :)  So does Matthew.  The only one of the boys who does not care is Logan, which is why he is the one who requests the beach trip each year.  He cavorts in this frigid water almost non-stop.  I swear that boy is part seal.

Da Boys on Da Beach

After the beach visit, we rushed back to camp just in time for the first campfire of the year.  This one is always special because it is the pre-camp version, made up of counselors and staff from both camps, and incorporates special traditions from both the girl's side and the boy's side.  I would consider my year grossly incomplete if I did not get to hear "My Mom Was A Lifeguard" and "Illinois Song" by the FA ladies– I wouldn't miss this campfire for anything.

A couple of days later, the whole family bugged out for some fun.  For the first time, the boys got to enjoy my favorite breakfast spot in North Conway, Priscilla's.  Three teenage boys in a place with good breakfast food and large combo plates?  They went to town, both on Priscilla's food and my pocketbook!  Afterwards, we stopped by to get Ryan a haircut to last him for the summer (and he put me in deep kimchi with several Friends-Who-Will-Remain-Anonymous back in Texas), then headed out to Echo Lake State Park on the west side of North Conway.

Could you spend a day here?

This idyllic spot is a great way to spend the day here.  With only a $4 entry fee to the park, lots of shaded picnic tables and a great sandy beach, this is a wonderful place to while away the afternoon swimming, reading, or doing art at one of the tables.   Unlike the sea coast, which is at the mercy of the Labrador Current, the water here is merely spring-fed, and thus is a more tolerable temperature in the mid-60s.  Just right for cooking yourself in the sun, jumping in, rinse, repeat, etc.

After a full day there, we went up to Cathedral Ledge, which is a lookout point at the top of that there sheer cliff overlooking Echo Lake.  This is pretty much a standard-canon visit if you are up here.  One must go to Cathedral Ledge.  We chose to use the road and drive, but when we got there, we met a couple of guys who misunderstood "rope" for "road"... they came up the hard way.  Looks like they were having fun.

A picture might be worth a 1000 words,
but the words that went with this picture were Allison's...
"Ryan!!!! Don't go so close to the edge!!!

I think Matthew has always been
part-aborigine

Then we traveled just a few minutes south of Conway to visit the Madison Boulder.  I had read about this in one of my "northeast" magazines.  This is a huge... and I mean huge... glacial erratic.  It was breathtaking standing next to this monstrosity, a 5,000-ton oddity so out of place in the surrounding woods.  This truly is a wondrously beautiful world with so much designed in it for our enjoyment.

That is one big rock

Talk about enjoyment.. our final stops of the evening were for food.  First, when the rains came and washed out our first choice of restaurant (with it's outdoor seating), we tried a new place that had just opened in North Conway.  And the burgers were indeed, Wicked Good.  We will be returning to this place.

More healthy food

To cap it all off, we stopped at our favorite Fryeburg ice cream place, Froagies.  According to the boys, we waited far too long to make our appearance here.  The ice cream was really good and the bugs were pretty much non-existent.  Always a nice combination.

And with that, thus ended the pre-camp vacation.  The following day promised a long Boston trip for Allison to pick up some international campers; for myself it was my computer job and a night of Abuse-The-Umpire at the annual pre-camp counselor softball game.

But while I am here, the vacation is not far away.  In the fantasy series The Wheel of Time, those who can use magic can always feel saidar and saidin (the male/female sources of power), just waiting to be drawn in and used, and doing so makes life more vibrant and complete for them.

Up here, vacation is like my saidar.  All I have to do is relax for a second, find my center, and it rushes in to fill me.  This place truly is magical.

Where ever you are this fine morning... take some time... find your center, and see if you can't find a little vacation in your day.

East Bound and Down, Loaded Up and Trucking, Vol 3

Ol' Smokey's got them ears on he's hot on your trail

He ain't gonna rest till you're in jail

So you got to dodge 'im and you got to duck 'im

You got to keep that diesel truckin'

Just put that hammer down and give it hell

This time, dear reader, you get a two-fer-one special.  Last two days of the migration in one blog post.  Mainly because there isn't a whole lot to tell about 3/4 of the third day.  :)  I could delineate the exact cost that the State of New York exacted in tolls for the privilege of driving over three hours on their freeways, but this blog is already boring enough, and you might be eating while reading this.

Two lovebirds (agapornis) spotted on the shore
of Hinckley Resevoir

We left the not-so-freeway near Verona, NY, and headed up through the Adirondack Mountains towards Plattsburgh, on the east coast of Lake Champlain.  We drove through beauty, and could tell we were closer to our summer home in Maine:  verdant mountain forests, lakes surprising you around a sudden curve in the road, and small towns dotted here and there with interesting features.

The as-the-crow-flies distance was less today, allowing for the occasional pullover at a lake or short trail headed down to a river.  Allison is especially susceptible to the call of a short (sometimes) trail.

The mountain river here was beautiful, but we had no bug spray handy, so we did not tarry long!

As we neared Plattsburgh, NY, I had a one-on-one with TripAdvisor.com, looking for an affordable place to eat with good reviews...that lead us to Bazzano's Pizza, about which the locals raved.  And yea verily, we partook of the Pizza and the Stromboli and the Calzone, and it was Indeed Good.  And the Calzone was mammoth in size for the price.  Amen.

About to do some serious damage to Italian food

For the first three days of our trip, most of the US was under a blanket of unusually warm weather, and when it turned out that the A/C was wonky in both rooms of our suite, it was looking like a miserably warm night... and here we were, only 52 miles or so from the Canadian border!  (Many signs in Plattsburg are bilingual, but unlike at home, ç'est le française!)  Fortunately, the identical suite across the hall was unoccupied, and the very helpful staff green-lighted our transfer.  And three teenage boys were tasked with hauling everything across the hall.  (See, they can be useful sometimes!)   We probably looked like one of those hallway bits from Scooby Doo.

Then it came.. the last day of the trip.  This was the morning we reserved for ourselves, to do something fun, in a part of the country that we had never seen before.  The morning started out with a short ferry ride on Lake Champlain...and I mean short.   14 minutes.  But we crossed the imaginary dotted line into Vermont while afloat, and were deposited on Grand Isle in the middle of Lake Champlain.  That's why it was a 14-minute ferry ride.  This is a big island in proportion to the lake.  

We went to visit an orchard in South Hero, at the (can you guess it?) southern end of the island, and we bought apple cider donuts and looked wistfully at the apple groves where we could not pick apples because it was to early in the summer.

Not quite ready to eat

A hop, skip and a jump over the bridge to the Vermont mainland, and it was on to Burlington, where we visited a chocolatier store for the SOLE PURPOSE of going to the bathroom.  (Ok, that might not have been the only reason.)  After being served coffees by the nicest barista I have ever met, we drove around Burlington to look at the waterfront and the central market area.  Unfortunately, there was not time to linger, but we have definitely added Burlington to our list of return sites someday.

From Burlington, we headed to Waterbury, VT, and since lunchtime was approaching, we needed a vector to some good food.  Logan wanted to do the searching this time... he fancies himself a connoisseur of food.  Based on the parameters he was given, he chose the Park Row Cafe.  As soon as we walked inside, we knew we had a winner, due to the long line of locals waiting to order their lunch.  We took ours to go and sat in the town park right across the street.  It was a lovely way to eat a good burger and fries.  Logan did us proud.

Then it was off to the place that put Waterbury on the national scene... the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory.  We paid the coin for the tour, and got to watch as they made several hundred pints of Cherry Garcia.   Out of the 240,000 pints they would make that very day.  That's a lot of ice cream.  It was amazing seeing the size of the plastic bins with cherries in them, and the large boxes of chocolate chunks.  I can't show you any pictures because they were verboten during the tour.

After we got our free samples from the previous day's run (Americone Dream), we headed up to the "Flavor Graveyard", a fun little spot where B&J memorialized some of their flavors that flopped, or at least got retired for one reason or the other.   Each flavor was marked with headstone, with a cute poem bemoaning the demise of a flavor.

And then it was time... the last leg, with no further tourist stops.  We headed up through the Green Mountains, crossed into New Hampshire, and went north around and into the White Mountains.  With Mount Washington serving as our guide, we traversed the Crawford Notch and headed down into North Conway, NH...our first time ever that we approached camp from the north!  We pulled over at a scenic outlook, and let Matthew take the wheel for his first drive into camp.  I sat in one of the middle seats, and thus could safely capture the exact moment we crossed into Maine:

We passed through the totem poles and into our summer home.  Over 1900 miles in less than four days, and not a single stop by Smokey Bear.

We did what they said could not be done!

East Bound and Down, Loaded Up and Trucking, Vol 2.

Keep your foot hard on the pedal. Son, never mind them brakes.

Let it all hang out 'cause we got a run to make.

The boys are thirsty in Atlanta and there's beer in Texarcana.

And we'll bring it back no matter what it takes.

 Day two of our annual migration is always the longest–after stopping to stay with family or friends, we try to cover as much interstate as we can before calling it a night.  1,900 miles is a long way to go, and there's no way to avoid one very long driving leg if you are doing it in less than 5 days.  To make matters worse, our vector guarantees we will "add" an hour when we cross the galactic barrier into the Eastern Time Zone!

Since we are going to see Lake Champlain in Vermont on the way, the far-northern route is this year's itinerary...in fact, it would actually be quicker to go through Canada, but Allison and I need to get and/or update our passports, so we must stay in the US for now, eh?  After making it through Indianapolis (which has one of the most messed-up Interstate Loops around it that I have ever seen), we pointed our nose toward Toledo.  The home of the Mudhens is actually slightly out of the way if one isn't actually going to go through Canada, but it does have the advantage of being able to stop here for dinner:

I have been a M*A*S*H* fan for most of my life, and Tony Packo's is mentioned in 6 different episodes.  Jamie Farr, who played Klinger, was actually from Toledo, and he put Packo's on the international map by including it on the show.  This is the original restaurant, and the walls are covered with memorabilia, from signed hot-dog buns (in special sealed containers) to items from the famous TV show.  I had been here once before on a work trip, but it was fun to introduce the rest of the family to Hungarian style hot dogs and sausages.

After dinner, we headed towards Cleveland, hoping to get on the NE side of it before we stopped so we wouldn't have to traverse it during rush-hour traffic the next morning.  While Allison drove, I watched the NBA finals on my tablet, until she got just too tired and I had to take over.  To help me out, Allison decided to "commentate" the game to me...although it was much appreciated and kept me updated on the game, I don't think Mike Breen (or Bob Costas, Eric Nadel, et al) have to worry about keeping their jobs.....sorry, honey!

Shortly after the GSWs were putting the finishing touches on their victory and ending the Cavalier's season (sorry, Strader family!), we were getting close to the hotel that marked the end of our second leg of travel.  How do the folks in the Eastern Time Zone ever stay up and watch sports?  It would be hard on a night owl like myself.   For this day, the needs of travel dictated my bedtime, and it was a late one indeed.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

"Stopping by woods on a snowy evening"-- Robert Frost

East Bound and Down, Loaded Up and Trucking, Vol 1.

The Welch clan started a new tradition a couple of years ago... I remembered the old Jerry Reed song from "Smoky and the Bandit", and we adopted it as our "headed to Maine" song.  Every day on the trip, we start the morning by playing that song on the stereo system as we set off for the next waypoint on the way to  44.0472545°, -070.9555544°... otherwise known as Fryeburg, ME.

After the annual game of "Luggage Tetris" (wherein I try to fit way too much stuff into way too little van and overhead Yakima), the banjos started playing this year early on a Sunday morning, and we headed up towards Missouri via Hwy. 69 in Oklahoma.   Your intrepid blogger was adamant about trying to cut travel costs this year, so we brought along lunch-type food in bags and cooler and stopped for lunch at a city park in Chouteau, OK.

The family decided it wasn't such a bad lunch after all, and Matthew even had time to shinny up a tree.

Then it was on to Missouri to stay with some wonderful friends in St. Peters... they were most gracious to put our clan up for the night so Allison could have time to visit her Dad in St. Louis the next morning.  On the way, though, we made a late-afternoon stop in Springfield.. Allison wanted to show the boys the building where her grandfather's furniture shop used to be.. it is now a graphics firm.

The building is parceled out differently in the row of shops, and looks very different, but that is the nature of time and progress.  But as Matthew discovered when we looked at the alley, to see the door that Allison always remembered going into as a youngster, we all just need to:

After the trip down memory lane, it was time for some Mexican Villa before heading to the St. Louis area.  Allison found a "Mexican Villa" on Google that was much closer to I44 and would not delay us as much, but when we pulled up, it looked quite different from what I expected.  

Turned out this was a counter service version of Mexican Villa rather than a full restaurant.  The "Burrito Enchilada Style" may have come on a paper plate rather than a ceramic one, but it tasted just as good.

When we arrived at our friends house, we had a relaxing evening, and I even got to watch the NHL finals match between Pittsburgh and Nashville.  Our hostess hailed from Pittsburgh, and her family are Penguins fans, so it was fun to watch them win the cup from the couch at their house.  The perfect relaxing end to the first day.

The next morning, we headed over to the assisted living facility in St. Louis, and Allison took the boys in to see their Grandpa, while I went to Walmart for some replacement supplies.  On the way, I noticed this old railroad trestle bridge.

I love the railroad components you see in some of these older towns in the U.S.  The slogan that was painted on this one is showing its age, but the whole vignette smacks of a different time, and this kind of thing is a model railroader fan's delight.  If you look closely at the picture, you will find another clue about some historicity of this location... not only is the railroad old, but the actual road has an interesting past as well.  After the Walmart trip, I found a place to park the van where I could safely take a picture from beside the road... I couldn't pass this up.

After picking the family back up, we traversed Ol' Man River (the Mississippi), and headed east by nor'east to Toledo, OH.  And Jerry sang to us again:

East bound and down, loaded up and truckin',

We're gonna do what they say can't be done.

We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.

I'm east bound, just watch ol' "Bandit" run.

Winter is coming....

It began, as does many of the most wonderful things in life, as a coincidence, a serendipitous convergence of time and place.  What some would call chance, I would call Providence, and that autumn day in 2002 would turn out to be one of the better days in my life.   I was attending the State Fair of Texas that day, with my wife of five years and 2 wee boys.  There are a plethora of eating venues and opportunities at the State Fair, but that day we chose to eat lunch at the huge vendor pavilion on the south side of the Cotton Bowl.

As we were eating our corn dogs and nachos, I noticed that a small band was coming out onto a nearby stage.  They took their places on the platform, which was a rectangle a few inches off the ground and barely large enough for the equipment and the five members of the band, and I did note with interest that the attractive lady was holding a fiddle, and just to the side of her was a bagpiper.  The piper began to play by himself, and I remember having the thought that I was rather surprised to see an Irish band doing a gig at the State Fair of Texas.

Don't get me wrong... I love Irish music, Scottish music, and lots of things Celtic.  But I was used to seeing such things at festivals dedicated to those cultures, or around St. Patty's Day.   But then a strange thing happened... after the bagpiper finished his opening monologue, the drummer beat the time measure with his sticks, and the music took off, and carried me with it.

Little did I know it, but at that moment, my life had changed.  I had been exposed to the greatness of The Killdares.

Now, before you accuse me of melodramatic hyperbole, you must understand something about my personality and nature.  I am not, by the very fiber of my being, inclined to be a "fanboy" of anything or anyone.   I am introverted and often taciturn (on the door of my office in my home is a Magic the Gathering card—"Ancient Crab"...I'm trying to collect enough to use them as calling cards); cursed with a sense of literalism, and at times fatalism and cynicism, I just do not become enamored of musicians, celebrities, and the like.  By this point in my life, well into my 30's, I could probably count the number of concerts I had ever attended on both hands.  I can't tell you the current rosters, save for a few famous players, on any of my favorite sports teams.  I enjoy the music, or the sports, or the TV shows and movies but all the extra "fan" stuff was never my thing.  I am more inclined to leave a celebrity alone even if I happen to encounter them.  In fact, I have in the past, sat right next to one and didn't know who it was!

Which makes what happened that day, and over the subsequent years, so utterly shocking to me.  For the first time in my life...I became a groupie.

It began with the music.  As I listened that day at the State Fair, the prevailing thought in my head was "WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?"  It was different.  It was rock and roll with a Celtic twist.  I found that my foot started tapping and I really couldn't make it stop.  I saw young children began to gather in front of the stage under the watchful eyes of their parents, and the kids were dancing and moving and enjoying this unique music I was hearing from that little rectangular stage.

That Christmas, I asked my wife to try to get me some of their music as a gift that year.  This holiday pre-dating the online download era, she purchased me a CD of their "Live" album, and I began to wear that thing out.  The obsession had begun.

Over the next few years, as I attended as many concerts as I could, I began to discover another important aspect of this strange dynamic I found myself in—this band was made up of great people.  Wonderful folks who were down home, friendly, and committed to their craft and to their fans.  As I got to know them, I learned the many things that I would later share with people as I proselytized for "my" band:   their concerts and their songs were clean, no filthy lyrics or on-stage comments to be found;  they were approachable and friendly; they often took gigs that allowed people to enjoy them for free in addition to bigger events at the House of Blues or the Kessler Theater.  And every year save one, there they were at the State Fair, entertaining their fellow Texans at our yearly party.

(About that one year... I wrote a long letter to the powers that be at the Fair, urging them to bring back The Killdares—what were they thinking?!?)

These strange "groupie" thing continued.  I read articles about them on the internet, listened to interviews they did in far-away states while they gigged on the road, and tweeted with the band members.   There was one concert in North Richland Hills... I had invited a friend of mine to join me and see The Killdares for the first time.  He's one of my best friends, a very quiet fellow, a computer programmer with advanced degrees in Physics and other science-y endeavors.  Before the concert began I turned to him and warned him that he might see a Rob he had never seen before; afterwards, he told me that I was right... he was not sure who this "thing" was that his friend metamorphosed into when the music began to play.

I can never sit through a whole concert, no matter how tired I am, nor how hot or humid it might be.  In the early years, the song that always triggered it was "Long Island High," but when the band added "Gravelwalk" to the end of "Secrets of the Day" in live performances, that usually became the point at which my personal "Mr. Hyde" would make his appearance.

But my favorite song in their repertoire has been and always will be their rendition of "Whiskey in the Jar."  Begun with a long, mournful intro by six-time National Fiddle Champion Roberta Rast, it is a beautiful and engaging rendition of an ancient Irish tune in its own right;  but one magical night at the House of Blues, when the Killdares were playing in the small, intimate, Pontiac Garage room, served to forever imprint this song, and that experience, into my memory.

But that night is one of a multitude of memories.  This is my blog, and my farewell to this band, so indulge me while I share a few:

• Sitting on the grass next to the Dr. Pepper Stage at the State Fair of Texas, in a circle with several of the band members and assorted "usual suspects" of their fans, talking for almost an hour.  It remains one of my favorite memories.
• Tim Smith telling a joke on the first day I saw them about why he no longer wears a kilt while playing drums.
• A picture of Matthew (who plays guitar) with Tim at the State Fair, doing the "rock on" symbol together.
• Being at the State Fair one year, and running into an online friend that I had never met, who was from Honduras.  I knew she had gotten married and moved to the U.S., but didn't realize she was in Dallas!  And I saw her IRL for the first time at a Killdares concert.
• The night in Bedford when the rain started gushing at the very end, and Roberta missed the visual signal from Tim that they needed to wrap up the final song without another coda.  She blew right into another one with an increased tempo, and then when it was over, they had to scramble to cover the equipment.  A few of us fans stayed and helped them put things away after a long delay to wait out the shower;  we pulled our vehicles around the stage in a circle and turned on the headlights so we could see to work.
• That night at Lochrann's in Frisco, with that tiny little stage that really was only 2 inches higher than the floor.  I had my usual spot right up front, next to Roberta.  One of my "Killdare's Friends" said his mother, safely ensconced back at the bar, said I looked like security as I stood up there with my black Killdares t-shirt on... that was the same night that I played Roberta's fiddle during intermission—she insisted that I play her a song, and I forgot that she plays a 6-string fiddle, so I played "Turkey in the Straw" on the wrong strings.  Thank goodness it was unplugged and the intermission music was so loud.  It must have sounded awful.  We were so close to the stage I could see the f-post inside Roberta's fiddle as she played, and at one point, I had to do a Matrix-style backwards bend when Matt whirled around with his bagpipe.  Had I not bent backwards, the longest drone would have whacked me in the face!
• The look at Matt's face when I showed up at the Mucky Duck in Houston one night.  I had traveled down there to see some friends and take them to see my band.
• The night the DVD was made.  I think my sons have still not forgiven me that we did not take them that night.   We were so exhausted as fans after that concert... the energy was overwhelming.  When the final curtain went down, I just kind of laid my head on the stage to rest, and then a pair of lovely hands snaked out from under the curtain and took my hands in a friendly grasp.  Roberta knew who was there on the other side of the heavy curtain.  Tim tried to throw me a drumstick after the concert, but my wife snatched it out of the air before I could grab it.  THIEF!  She later gave it back as part of a Killdares shadowbox she gave me for a Christmas gift.
• The night that Allison and I were invited by Tim and Roberta to attend a screening of The Devil's Box, a documentary on Texas Old-Style Fiddling in which Roberta and her sisters were featured.
• Opening a package that came in the mail one Christmas holiday season.  It was from Tim, and inside was a recently-dusted off copy of Broken with a Word, the debut CD of the Killdares from back 20 years ago, which could not be purchased anymore.  That completed my CD collection.
• Watching Tim's younger sister, and one other young lady, who often did Irish dancing during some songs.  It was always a treat when it happened.
• Seeing mine and Allison's name in a list of fans that the band wished to thank, inside the booklet that came with the DVD/CDs from the concert at the Grenada Theater.
• All the wonderful people I met at these concerts.  After a while, it became a bit like Casablanca:  "round up the usual suspects".  I've made some good acquaintances over the years, and these are people, scattered all over the state and country, that I don't run into except at Killdares concerts.   Should the busyness of life make it unfeasible for us to cross paths again, rest assured that I cherish you all, and look forward to keeping up with you on social media and the like.
• Being insanely jealous of one of those friends when he won the backstage pass for a House of Blues concert.  Dog.
• And last, but certainly not least...the band themselves.  
• Tim Smith (founder, drums, lead singer), with his quirky t-shirts, his stuffed "Animal" tied to his drums, and the great sense of humor 
• Robert Rast (fiddle), with her charming smile, engaging stage presence, and easygoing friendly nature.. no one should ever be gifted with fingers that long or that can move that fast—it's just sick, I tell you!
• Matt "The Mad Piper" Willis (Highland bagpipes + anything that has air moving through it) with his commanding presence on stage and absolutely stunning skill with the pipes (who has ever heard Jethro Tull or Black Sabbath on bagpipes?!?  He makes it work!), and he's just a nice guy.  I call him "The Mad Piper" because he always has some of the greatest facial expressions as he wrestles that Scottish Octopus under his arm....
• Mike Urness and Gary Thorne rounding out the group on guitar and bass guitar
• Former guitar player Brek Lancaster, who played for a good deal of the time I knew the band,  and his precious wife hold a special place in my heart.

Over the past few years, the demands of being the father of multiple teenage sons have decreased my attendance at their concerts.  Every season, I would put their gigs into my calendar, and time and time again, something would arise that made it impossible to attend.  It saddened me every time time I had to delete that item out of the calendar.  But I never stopped listening.  I would play their concert DVD  in places like Maine, at our summer camp, on the big projection screen in the field house.  I even purchased and sent a copy of the DVD to a friend in Australia!

And then, this year, the unthinkable happened.   A post showed up in my Facebook timeline, from the band.  In the year of their twentieth anniversary, they were calling it a day.  They would play gigs through the fall, and then... there... would... be ... no ... more .... Killdares.  Except as a memory.

Tonight, Friday the 18th of November 2016, I will attend the last Killdares concert ever.  It will be at the lovely venue of the Kessler Theater in Oak Cliff.  This time, the whole family is coming (lest my sons kill me in my sleep); we have had the tickets since a matter of minutes after they went on sale.  This concert is going to be a very special night—I know of people flying in from all over the country to be here.. many of the usual suspects.  It will be, I am sure, breathtakingly enjoyable and poignantly bittersweet.  "I swear to you, I will get very choked up.  Honestly, there could be tears."

To my friends in the band:  thank you.  Thank you for 14 years of incredible memories and fantastic music.   Thank you for somehow being the key that unlocked a different side of me, a side I did not know ever existed, nor was even possible.  It has been fun being your groupie.  It has been fun being your friend.  I will miss these moments with you, both as the music played, and the quiet moments before and after.  I will cherish every single memory that I made during this journey.

In the last year or so, the band has incorporated a new tune into their repertoire—the theme song to "Game of Thrones."  (Yes, it works with fiddle and bagpipe... trust me).   I've been a fan of George R.R. Martin's books long before the HBO series, and I have a particular fondness for House Stark.  In the world of these books, the seasons are not like ours... they are not regular, neither in occurrence nor duration.  The Starks, who live in the far north of this imaginary land and must deal with the interminable cold season, adopted as their family motto "Winter is Coming."

Indeed.

Winter is Coming.   It falls tonight, and it will be long and cold.  If you are a Killdares fan, may the warm embers of the many wonderful memories sustain you.

If you have never heard the band, come on over.  We'll put the DVD on and have a grand old time.  It will have to suffice, for never again will I be able to introduce a friend to the greatness of a Killdares concert.

Winter is Coming.   Bundle up.

The shadowbox.  Notice the Christmas
card and the purloined drumstick, now
returned to its proper owner.