Home again, briefly

I have returned from Irish Week at the Augusta Heritage Center at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, WV. Naturally, I am exhausted from so much walking (in an air cast, to boot!) and from staying up way too late at night singing at the nightly "seisiúns" that take place each evening. Unlike previous years, not too many people came to the singing sessions and as a result, they were far more intimate, as they should be. Still, I was lucky if I was able to get one song in. There seems to be a desire to hear the best singers with the best songs and I have long lacked for confidence in singing around such talent. I also don't think I have the best voice and I positively cannot remember song lyrics without them in front of me. You're supposed to sing by heart, but I don't sing enough as it is to be able to do that. I always come home wishing that there were a local singing session that I could attend on a regular basis in order to be able to do some regular singing so that I might have a chance to start memorizing some songs and collecting new ones as well. But unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything on the par of the Augusta nightly sessions that we have, so I will just have to start singing for and by myself when I'm not so tired that my sole desire is to just lie down and sleep, as I do most evenings after work. Sure, I was tired most of the day every day at Augusta, since that's the norm for most of us, but still, I did find some energy to stay up and sing, although this time, my nights were punctuated by regularly falling asleep during the sessions from the sheer fatigue of limping around in my air cast. People bent over backward to help me, though, giving me rides up the hill to my dorm on a regular basis when I was struggling to make the long trip from the lower campus area. I also made new friends, a lovely couple from Jacksonville, FL named Ty and Marguerite and their two children Seamus and Fiona. Marguerite was born in Ireland but is just now wanting to learn Irish songs because she doesn't know any, so I gave her some good sources for finding them, and her daughter Fiona wants to start singing as well. So next year, I fully expect to see them there with a good repertoire of songs. Marguerite and I are planning to stay in regular touch by phone and e-mail as she wants me to teach her some of the songs I know.

That is the great thing about Augusta - not only seeing your old friends, but making new ones. I've made lifelong friends there who I regularly stay in touch with. You start out strangers but rapidly become good friends in the space of one short week. There is something about the environment that seems to encourage that sort of thing. The campus is very small and the entire venue is very tight and compact and it allows you to walk everywhere and not ever need your car. So you end up seeing the same people day in, day out, either in your class or in the cafeteria. So before you know it, you've got new friends who rapidly become old ones year in, year out. And that's very special to me. Sure, I may only see these same friends once a year for a week, but I regard them as my "Augusta family". Sadly, a number of the old "Irish Week regulars" did not make it this year - Peg, Jeff, Candy, Bob and a few others did not come, and some of the regular instructors didn't come this year, either. They mostly brought in the instructors from the west part of Ireland, but given our economy right now, I don't think that was such a wise idea, frankly. The weak dollar combined with record high fuel prices made such a decision rather impractical when they could just as well have brought in people from the East Coast around the Washington-Baltimore, Boston, New York and Philadelphia areas which are teeming with Irish and Irish-American musicians. When Mick Moloney was the Irish Week coordinator (he retired from that job a few years ago now), his philosophy was to showcase the American and Irish born American musicians to demonstrate the Irish-American connection. Joanie Madden, the new Irish Week coordinator, seems to think that bringing in the real deal, musicians who are Irish who still live in Ireland, is the way to go, but that's very expensive and not terribly practical. But oh, well, we still got some very good musicians and dancers despite the expense. And as usual, I had a ball, so it was all worth it to go and I plan to return again next year at the same time. After all, it's just not summer without my annual trip to Elkins and to Irish Week.

Don't know when this blog will return - depends on when I leave for the Pennsic War, which could happen anywhere from tomorrow to sometime in the next few days, so keep checking back to see if I've written anything! If not, this blog will return on August 10th. Till then, stay cool and enjoy the next few weeks!