I arrived home yesterday afternoon (Saturday July 25th) from my travels down to Elkins, WV for Irish Week at the Augusta Heritage Arts Center. It was, as always, an amazing week, albeit far smaller than in past years. I remember when the Riverdance craze hit, Irish Week was busting at the seams with over 400 students enrolled, many in the step dance classes, but this year, we were only about 141 students all told, and there were numerous class cancellations due to lack of enrollment, so I suspect that the economy played havoc with our numbers this year. Still, it was kind of nice to have a smaller, more intimate crowd this year, and it certainly benefitted the singing "seisiúns" at night. At most, only about 20 people came to them, but more typically it was between 12 and 15 of us each night. That allowed everyone to get in a song or two before weariness ended each night prematurely early. None of us are getting any younger and the facilitators of the nightly song gatherings, Jim Flanagan and Robbie O'Connell, called it an early night for themselves since Robbie, at least, was in his second week of music camps and has found that to be overly taxing unless he gets plenty of sleep during the two weeks he's teaching each summer. Jim's back was bothering him all week so he called an early night of it due to that, and when they both left, the energy seemed to wane from the sessions and as a result, they broke up early as people headed back to their rooms and a good night's sleep. The latest I stayed up all week was on Thursday night, the traditional stay-up-till-dawn night because so many people leave on Friday and it's the last night we'll all be together. That evening when the session broke up early, I went over to the Ice House, a little on-campus pub in an old stone ice house adjacent to the Elkins mansion, Halliehurst. There was a good session going on and I wanted to hear some instrumental music and take some photos, which I did. I think I finally ended up back in my room a bit after 2:00 a.m.
I lucked out on the rooming situation as my usual dorm, Booth Hall, was closed for renovation, and the other dorm most folks stay in, Darby Hall, was closed as well for renovation work. Most people were being housed this year in Presidential Center, a dorm on the other side of campus way up on top of a very steep hill that takes 68 steps to get up to. Frankly, the idea of going up and down that many steps all week did not appeal to me one bit, so I asked if there was any way I could move into something not only with fewer stairs, but more central to where my class was going to be held. I was promptly transferred to Gribble Hall, where most of the instructors who are teaching for the week are housed, at least those who don't stay off campus in a hotel or at the Conference Center, D&E's former dorm Allen Hall, now a student run hotel/conference center for those who are majoring in Hospitality Management to get some hands-on experience. My room in Gribble was positively spacious, as I had it to myself and there was only one bed. It also had more storage space than I knew what to do with, which meant I could spread out and not feel claustrophobic in a tiny closet of a dorm room. It was also, much to my liking, on the ground floor, making moving in and out a breeze. Gribble is conveniently located right next to Booth, so the location was good and it being slightly downhill from Booth, it is also midway between upper and lower campus, since one part of the campus is up on a hill and the other is down at the bottom. I typically spend more time on upper campus but the concerts, the Augusta Store and Office are all located on lower campus in Hermanson Hall, so it was necessary to walk down there once in a while. My class was held in the breathtakingly beautiful Elkins mansion, Halliehurst, in the library, a perfect location for someone such as me who works in a library. This was an added bonus on top of having a dorm room that I fell in love with and hope to stay in again in the future. So between my housing location and my class location, I could not have asked for a better week, and on top of it all, I wrote a new song while driving home yesterday called "My Dear West Virginia Home", inspired by how I feel each year while driving out of the mountains and back to my home in Ohio. If I do say so myself, I think it's one of my better songs, born of many years now of songwriting experience and a knowledge of how to construct a good song. That was the icing on the cake of a positively wonderful week, and so now, it's on to the annual Society for Creative Anachronism's Pennsic War in western Pennsylvania, for which I will be departing sometime this week, so having just gotten home and unpacked, it's time to start repacking for the second half of my summer travels! After that, it's off to Dayton for a family reunion. Can you say busy summer?
I arrived home yesterday afternoon (Saturday July 25th) from my travels down to Elkins, WV for Irish Week at the Augusta Heritage Arts Center. It was, as always, an amazing week, albeit far smaller than in past years. I remember when the Riverdance craze hit, Irish Week was busting at the seams with over 400 students enrolled, many in the step dance classes, but this year, we were only about 141 students all told, and there were numerous class cancellations due to lack of enrollment, so I suspect that the economy played havoc with our numbers this year. Still, it was kind of nice to have a smaller, more intimate crowd this year, and it certainly benefitted the singing "seisiúns" at night. At most, only about 20 people came to them, but more typically it was between 12 and 15 of us each night. That allowed everyone to get in a song or two before weariness ended each night prematurely early. None of us are getting any younger and the facilitators of the nightly song gatherings, Jim Flanagan and Robbie O'Connell, called it an early night for themselves since Robbie, at least, was in his second week of music camps and has found that to be overly taxing unless he gets plenty of sleep during the two weeks he's teaching each summer. Jim's back was bothering him all week so he called an early night of it due to that, and when they both left, the energy seemed to wane from the sessions and as a result, they broke up early as people headed back to their rooms and a good night's sleep. The latest I stayed up all week was on Thursday night, the traditional stay-up-till-dawn night because so many people leave on Friday and it's the last night we'll all be together. That evening when the session broke up early, I went over to the Ice House, a little on-campus pub in an old stone ice house adjacent to the Elkins mansion, Halliehurst. There was a good session going on and I wanted to hear some instrumental music and take some photos, which I did. I think I finally ended up back in my room a bit after 2:00 a.m.
I lucked out on the rooming situation as my usual dorm, Booth Hall, was closed for renovation, and the other dorm most folks stay in, Darby Hall, was closed as well for renovation work. Most people were being housed this year in Presidential Center, a dorm on the other side of campus way up on top of a very steep hill that takes 68 steps to get up to. Frankly, the idea of going up and down that many steps all week did not appeal to me one bit, so I asked if there was any way I could move into something not only with fewer stairs, but more central to where my class was going to be held. I was promptly transferred to Gribble Hall, where most of the instructors who are teaching for the week are housed, at least those who don't stay off campus in a hotel or at the Conference Center, D&E's former dorm Allen Hall, now a student run hotel/conference center for those who are majoring in Hospitality Management to get some hands-on experience. My room in Gribble was positively spacious, as I had it to myself and there was only one bed. It also had more storage space than I knew what to do with, which meant I could spread out and not feel claustrophobic in a tiny closet of a dorm room. It was also, much to my liking, on the ground floor, making moving in and out a breeze. Gribble is conveniently located right next to Booth, so the location was good and it being slightly downhill from Booth, it is also midway between upper and lower campus, since one part of the campus is up on a hill and the other is down at the bottom. I typically spend more time on upper campus but the concerts, the Augusta Store and Office are all located on lower campus in Hermanson Hall, so it was necessary to walk down there once in a while. My class was held in the breathtakingly beautiful Elkins mansion, Halliehurst, in the library, a perfect location for someone such as me who works in a library. This was an added bonus on top of having a dorm room that I fell in love with and hope to stay in again in the future. So between my housing location and my class location, I could not have asked for a better week, and on top of it all, I wrote a new song while driving home yesterday called "My Dear West Virginia Home", inspired by how I feel each year while driving out of the mountains and back to my home in Ohio. If I do say so myself, I think it's one of my better songs, born of many years now of songwriting experience and a knowledge of how to construct a good song. That was the icing on the cake of a positively wonderful week, and so now, it's on to the annual Society for Creative Anachronism's Pennsic War in western Pennsylvania, for which I will be departing sometime this week, so having just gotten home and unpacked, it's time to start repacking for the second half of my summer travels! After that, it's off to Dayton for a family reunion. Can you say busy summer? 
1 comment:
Willkommen Zu Hause! Sounds like another fulfilling trip. You can play me your song when I visit in a few weeks! Have fun at Pennsic - I'm sure you will.
Post a Comment