Jamboree
In the town of Floyd, Virginia, there sits a place called the Floyd
Country Store. Every Friday evening they host a dance called the Jamboree. They
do a special type of dancing called clogging (some call it flat-footing as well
as other names). Clogging in the Appalachian Mountains is a type of social
dancing. Joe took a few lessons on how to clog before we left for the trip and he
even packed along his cloggin’ shoes!
The band began to play and we worked harder on that dance
floor than we did carrying our packs on the trail. The people ‘round here must
really be in shape because they weren’t sweating as much as we were. Or maybe
we were just having more fun. Hard to say. One thing’s for sure; we learned a
thing or two about square dancing.
Elizabeth
We met a remarkable musician named Elizabeth LaPrelle during
our continued exploration of Appalachian music. We got to sit down with her at
her home in Rural Retreat, Virginia. She played some songs with us as well as
told us about her interest in old-time Appalachian music. She particularly
likes old ballads. Ballads are songs that tell a story (like the story of when
old Justin spilled pipin’ hot beans on his foot at dinner time).
Now, Elizabeth—we call her Elizabeth for short—has really
taken to the old time music tradition despite being quite young. She told us
that one of the reasons she likes the old mountain music is because it helps
her connect to the folks who lived a long time ago. It can be hard to
understand what life was like before there were microphones, video cameras, and
Denny’s. However, Elizabeth finds the old songs of the Appalachian area to be a
very helpful tool. She says that the songs she sings have been passed from
person to person through the years. Kinda like a gigantic, multi-generational
game of telephone.
Sun!
The rainclouds finally cleared and we hiked through 4 days
of sun. We climbed up rocks, walked through a cave, slept in the wind, and met
a lot of cool people hiking the trail. We began to notice that nearly every
single person out hiking the Appalachian Trail had a story. Their reasons for
hiking were all very different, but all wanted the same thing; adventure.
Adventure becomes easy to find when all the distractions of
your normal life begin dissolving away. The things we normally worry about such
as, “how cool is my phone and does it have internet and how fast is that
internet and how much money does it cost and how am I going to get that money?”
all become very heavy to carry on your back. What becomes important is the simple
stuff. What am I going to eat? Where am I going to sleep? How far can I walk
today? That’s when we start looking for things to leave behind in order to
lighten the load. I don’t need that MP3 player—I’ll sing my own songs. I don’t
want to carry my video games—the screen looks too dull anyhow. I don’t need
that e-reader—I’ll make my own story.