West Virginia Rest Area

13Sept2006
Today we had an amazing meeting. First of all to set the scene, Peggy and I woke up in McKeesport, PA, a suburb of Pittsburgh, where we were to dump our load of stainless steel scrap. There was some delay - our delivery no. was missing, which delayed us about an hour till 8:00. Fine… We picked up the next load just 6 miles away. As we started out toward Henderson, KY with the new load, I asked Peggy to stop at the rest area in West Virginia, just 35 miles away, to see if a young man who works there, whom I’d met once several months ago, might be there today. I had stopped to fiddle at this rest area once. The young man was moved by the music because his grandfather who had died within the past year, had been a fiddler. The boy had inherited his grandfathers instrument, because he was the only one in the family interested in using it. Anyway, I never forgot that encounter, so today was a good chance to stop by to check up on the guy. When we got there, I ran into the restroom and stayed in there a long time. When I left the truck Peggy was starting to replace a headlight. When I finally emerged from the restroom, Peggy was inside the building along with a couple of whom I did not take any notice. I was focused on renewing my relationship with the young man. He was there! But here is the amazing part. As Peggy was working on our truck, a motor home pulled in right next to us. Peggy noticed the woman in the motor home seemed to be getting very agitated, which immediately caused her (Peggy) some concern. The door of the motor home flew open and the agitated woman flew out. It was Terri Smith - Peggy’s ‘cousin,’ whom she grew up with but hadn’t seen for 18 years. They last met at Terri’s grandmother’s funeral in Dallas. I remember Peggy going there with her dad shortly after we first met. Anyway, this was just incredible to meet Terry & her husband Tom, retired from police work in San Diego, and now relocated to Paris, TN. Tom & Terri were traveling with another couple in another motor home. It seems so incredible that every circumstance came together in perfect timing to bring us together at this rest area. Peggy and Terri were weeping and hugging. We visited for maybe 1 hour. I fiddled for them as well as for the folks working at the rest area (welcome center.) We had the best time at this serendipitous meeting. Some other folks who just happened to be there, were also blessed by our music. (Peggy sang ‘Touch of the Master’s Hand’.) Just amazing that God cares for us enough to direct our paths in this way. The college boy who was my reason for stopping there in the first place, had been very moved by my fiddling the first time I met him. Today his coworker - an older woman, told me that he had been having a hard time getting over his grandfather’s death, and she had told him at that time that my music was a gift to him from God. Now the second time I stop to see him, God brings us an amazing reunion. I think we’ll try to stop by at this West Virginia rest area more often just to see what happens next!

9/11 in NYC

Sept. 11, 2006
Peggy and I have just had a most inspirational experience. Because we are not allowed to deliver our current load to the consignee in Hatfield, MA until Tuesday morning, and having picked it up on Friday, we decided to run it out to the east coast and use our weekend to visit New York City. We couldn’t leave till Saturday morning from Mt. Vernon because we had some work done on our truck at Freightliner Friday night. Peggy and I teamed last week, but I dropped her off in Goreville on the way from Rosiclare, IL (on the Ohio River E. of Paducah) to Mt. Vernon, IL. Peggy went home for a few hours to work on the house and met me in Mt. Vernon about 6:00 a.m. Saturday. We drove almost continuously all day and arrived in New Haven, CT about 4:00 a.m. EST Sunday. My brother Jeff, Renita and the four kids picked us up at the Pilot Truck Stop promptly at 6:30 and took us to breakfast at a cozy diner. We had a nice visit. I fiddled while waiting for the food to come because I knew I wouldn’t have a chance for the next couple days. Though I seriously considered taking it along, I decided not to tote it on the train, and for all that walking around NYC. Jeff & family took us to the train station in New Haven about 8:15. We arrived in Grand Central Station at 10:30. The actual commute was about 1 hr. 45 min. We got off the train and bought a street map ($7.00 - and we found a comparable one later for free.) We walked west past the huge public library on 42nd str., past thousands of people speaking other languages, never getting out of the jungle of skyscrapers, to Broadway and discovered hundreds of police and many streets blocked off. We had hit the day of the once yearly ‘Broadway on Broadway’ show - how cool. Right in the midst of Times Square was a big stage set up on one side of the square. There were cameras and huge TV screens to project the actors’ images hugely, several stories tall, high up on the side of a building for the thousands of people to see from blocks away. It was wonderful. If we had paid attention for the whole time, we’d have heard excerpts of ALL the musicals being presented on Broadway this season, which is just now beginning. We heard a lot, but we did not stick around the whole time. In fact en route from IL, I had looked on the internet for tickets to a Broadway show; that would be one of my highest priorities for a trip to NYC - to see a Broadway show. But I was discouraged by the high ticket prices, and besides none of the shows had opened yet this weekend, so it’s a moot point. Someday we will go again with that purpose in mind - to see a show. If you want to see why I was so discouraged, go to Ebay - Broadway or NYC tickets. There are 49 pages of tickets including sports, music and theater. A pair of Streisand tickets are going for upwards of $2,000. Unbelievable. We passed the small B.B.King Theater & Buffet on 42nd Str. Hmmm, looked interesting, so we bought tickets for that afternoon. Then we walked up to ‘Broadway on Broadway,’ found some cheap T-shirts and postcards on the way, and walked back for the dinner-show at 12:30. “The Harlem Gospel Choir” performed! Wow! We had church! The place was packed. We shared our table with a young couple from Australia - Hettie and Don - jazz musicians from Melbourne. They had never heard gospel singing and they loved it. It was tremendous. Those women have amazing vocal range. And what energy! There were 6 women I believe and 2 men., plus a drummer, bass guitar and keyboard. The director, who started the group in 1985-ish, did not sing but acted as MC. He’s much older than the rest. He told us about the touring they have done lately and will be doing - Russia, the Vatican, South Africa, British Aisles… And these are overweight, black women & men who aren’t going for glamour and glitz, but who are aggressively pushing the gospel in the marketplace. It was cool. Only I’m sure many of the people were oblivious. Everyone appreciated the excellence of the music and the energy, but I got the feeling no-one caught the gospel that was strongly present. Sad. Afterwards we started thinking about where we might sleep. We had about 3 hours before the church service would start at Times Square Church, so we walked to the YMCA which is near Grand Central Station - they are sold out through November. OK. I called another place - $189./night. Uh, no… We walked over by the U.N. Building and saw a policeman on the corner. He gave us advice about looking uptown, north of Central Park for cheaper rates. He said the further north, the cheaper the rates. We stopped in at another place to ask rates - $219. Don‘t think so… But that place had a helpful concierge who looked up some places for us and found us the LaQuinta on 32nd Str. That is still pretty far downtown - way south of Central Park, but we took it - $100. That solved, we went to church. I had remembered that there was someone at Times Square Church who had belonged to our church in Carbondale when he was a student. I called Cathie Paull to ask who that guy was, because I knew it was a good friend of her son’s. She told me it was Warren Carr; I remembered him singing at Craig & Elisa’s wedding. So I went backstage before church to ask around. Unfortunately, he had been there in the morning services but not now. That church is great - meeting in an old, ornate theater from the vaudeville era. Very lovely. The gold-robed choir has about 70 voices - more black gospel. We loved it. There was a guest speaker from Canada. David Wilkerson was on the stage and spoke a little but not mainly. BTW, this was at the end of a long day of walking, so our feet were killing us. I took my shoes off and rubbed my feet during the service. The theater was nearly full and very mixed racially. When it was time to leave, a kind Indian man walked us all the way to the train and down into the terminal to be sure we got the right tickets and gave us detailed directions about how to get to our hotel on 32nd just across from the Empire State Building. He did save us a couple bucks by getting the $10.00 pass rather than per ride. We found LaQuinta in the middle of Korea town, which made us feel right at home, having spent 5 years in Seoul. We checked in, set our knapsacks down and went back out to the Korean market next door to buy some common Korean snacks - salty kim (seaweed,) Tin-Tin cookies, Yakult (drinkable yogurt) and ’Milkas’ (a soft drink that was my favorite in Korea.) Whoa, this stuff was much cheaper back in Seoul! We took our treasures up to room 1005 and settled in to watch a Jennifer Lopez movie on TV - “Enough.” Never heard of it, but it kept our interest through to the end. Underprivileged girl marries rich guy who beats her until she leaves with small daughter, learns self-defense, confronts thoroughly evil husband and must kill him or be killed… There, now you don’t have to see the movie. We were so beat at the end of this day, we slept like logs and didn’t wake up till 9:10 on Monday. We had planned to get out early, but needed the sleep. After our comp breakfast, we took the train to Ground Zero. Isn’t God good! We couldn’t have afforded to take off work for a trip like this, and this was the first time we had ever picked up this same load on a Friday. We have always picked it up on Monday or Tuesday. The Friday pick-up allows us to run out to the coast and use the weekend on that end in any way we like. We decided to take the opportunity to see NYC, and it just happens to be 9/11. President Bush was in town, staying at the Waldorf Astoria. We overheard that just walking around on Sunday. We were in the vicinity of the Waldorf, so we decided to walk through the lobby of the finest hotel in town - world class. There were FBI and police everywhere. It was intimidating. I felt afraid to enter the lobby, thinking our backpacks would be searched and my dirty underwear would be found! Peggy on the other hand is fearless. Embarrasses me sometimes… We also walked into a most lovely, old Anglican church next to the Waldorf. The church has tall stained glass windows, one huge round one, heavy stone interior with carvings at tops of columns. I told Peggy I wish our church could worship in such a lovely building. This beautiful place is wasted on a lot of prideful people. Sorry, that’s over-generalizing, but we did see some awful signs of pride and, well…wealth. At Ground Zero, there were thousands milling around, and of course plenty of political statements, placards and news media. It was just great to be part of this. We were awe-struck by the testimonials, flowers, pictures, mementoes, photo-journalism. Very moving. We heard this ceremony on the TV before leaving the hotel - the reading of the list of 3000 names. We had intended to go to the service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral which we had walked past on Sunday in uptown Manhattan, but that was too far since we had gotten up so late. We did happen across another service at a nearby St. Francis of Assisi Church. People were coming out; bagpipes were playing. It was for the firemen. The World Trade Center is near the river. After leaving the ceremonies, we walked along the Hudson River south to Battery Park, with a view of the Statue of Liberty to our right all the way along the walk. Lovely day. Near the old fort at Battery Park was an old man from Trinidad on a bench with his fiddle. I asked him to take it out and play. He is quite good. He reads music, had classical training from age 12, had played in orchestras, but now he plays all kinds of popular tunes, show tunes, national anthems of various countries… He was a neat old guy named Dave. I played “Jolie Blonde” for him on his fiddle. He didn’t know it or even identify it as Cajun, but said he likes that droning style - playing 2 strings together. Now it was about time to make our way back to Grand Central for the trip back to CT and our truck. We took our final subway ride, ate Indian food at Grand Central’s food court and boarded the train at 3:07, arriving back in New Haven about 5:00. We had a nice dinner with Jeff & Reni, Jessica, Trenton, Dillon and Ivy. And here we are back in our truck ready to start our work week. My excellent wife loves to mess with anything mechanical, so as we were doing computer chores, paying bills, etc., she was messing with my new digital camera which she gave me for my birthday a couple weeks ago. We haven’t figured it all out yet. We had taken lots & lots of pictures and some video in NYC with the new camera. Peggy was trying to edit and figure out how to download and view the pictures. Well…she deleted everything in an instant with one press of a button. She was much more upset than I was. It’s okay; we’ll get it figured out and will eventually be able to send images of our adventures on the road to you by email! Blessings Always, Ken & Peggy (Fiddler & Ladybug)

Summer's End

The summer has flown. Amongst all the driving of our big red semi, there were a couple noteworthy breaks from driving. Fourth of July week we spent lots of time with the grandkids. We had 5 of the 6. The youngest, Echo, stayed with Mom & Dad in Urbana. But we took the rest to Branson after 4th of July in Goreville. Those kids would not me let out of the pool for about 4 hours that first day at our time-share. It was great - except that Aspen and I got sunburned pretty bad. Zach (11) was the only one to catch a fish when everyone (except me & Treighton who was sleeping) went fishing. We shot a few fireworks off on the waterfront just below our window. I practiced violin with Zach every day to help him get ready for Fiddle Camp a couple weeks later. We were at the time-share on Table Rock Lake only 3 nights, and we took the kids home to Urbana. The new “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie came out that week. It was Jacy’s highest priority to see it. We tried to see it in Branson, but it was sold out. So we saw it in Rolla, MO on the way home. In fact that one was sold out too, but I had dropped everyone off at a restaurant and went early to buy the tickets. Peggy took Jacy (10) out with her on ‘her’ truck for a week, and then Aspen & Jadyn went with her another week. (She drove our friend Floyd’s Peterbilt for several weeks while he was getting over cancer treatments - he’s back on his own truck and back to his old self & excellent health.)

Zach has been taking violin lessons this past year in Urbana. I arranged it, and we are paying for it. His teacher has been Robin Kearton, whom I met about 20 years ago in Springfield Sym. and in the music school at U of I. Robin took some of my students when Peggy and I left for Korea in 1995. I got reacquainted with Robin through Zach’s lessons and am very impressed. She teaches in the Suzuki style, but quite a bit more eclectic than just straight Suzuki. She teaches lots of styles - Beatles, Klezmer, old time, bluegrass, blues, jazz… She runs a summer camp - the “Bow-dacious String Band World-on-a-String Camp.” I took Zach to it myself July 16-22. I was very interested to see how it was done, so I volunteered to help out in any way, and I wanted to be there to help Zach because he is at the very bottom of the heap. Truth is he has done little on fiddle in the past year but always says he wants to stay with it. It’s frustrating for me, but I do understand the ups and downs of kids learning violin. My highlights of the week were: making some new music-friends and reconnecting with old ones, jamming with good guitar players, playing in the faculty recital (East Tennessee Shuffle & Beaumont Rag with Will Hope on guitar,) and lots of good conversation with various folks in and around the camp. It was held at the Historic Lincoln Hotel (formerly Jumers.) Most of the kids were local, but there were some from St. Louis, Chicago and southern IL. One of my former students, Amber Bailey, was there on my recommendation. She was one of the most advanced students there. Some people slept at the hotel, but Zach & I stayed with a host family, which I arranged through our former church - Urbana Assembly. That was a separate, positive experience, though we didn’t get to see very much of the Breitenfeldts. We left early and got home late every day, spending about 12 hours a day at camp. There was an excellent bassist at camp, Alex McHattie, who was at U of I when I was there 20 years ago and is now back to do his DMA. Sometime during the week, Zach was drawn to the bass. He has kept up that interest ever since, so now he is switching to - cello. That’s just easier to do right now in school. In fact he has a cello provided at Liel School in Urbana. I had a wonderful time with Zach that week. It was special being able to spend so much time with him. Of our six grandkids, Zach is the oldest and an only child of Racheal, unless you count his step brothers and sister, as well his new ½ brother at his dad‘s house. But he lives with Mom. Our other five grandkids seem comfortable with hugging and saying “Luv U.” Zach doesn’t like to be touched - never has and seems nervous about the “L-word.” He is smart and comes up with very good questions. He’s a thinker. Of all the grandkids, I’m most concerned about Zach because he doesn‘t seem secure about being loved. The week we spent together did seem like a turning point for him though. He showed real interest in God, and we had some great conversations about prayer, baptism, salvation, Jesus, heaven - all that. On the last day of camp early in the morning Zach was baptized in a swimming pool in Urbana by a youth pastor of Urbana Assembly - the same day Zach’s ½ brother was born at Carle Hospital, and that‘s where I dropped him off after our final recital.

The last special event of the summer was a 50th anniversary of a friend’s parents in Springfield. on Aug. 26. Kregg asked me and another friend, Jim (guitarist extraordinaire) to play for the event. So Jim & I had to get together a couple times and make some plans by phone to prepare for the event. Jim came to my house for a weekend to practice, and we played at the local restaurant in Goreville - Delaney’s on Broadway. Our core music is my fiddle repertoire, but we added some of his stuff, including a couple songs and a strange arrangement of ’Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring.’ It wasn’t strange to him, but I had to figure out what bars to cut out and what sections to repeat to fit with him. It was worth it though. We want to keep building on this experience. I play regularly with a guitarist back home - Cathie Paull. We play at least once a month at Delaney’s on Broadway in Goreville. I can’t make a regular schedule with Jim, but we should be able to get together occasionally - when I play in Illinois Symphony or when he comes down to visit.

Those were the summer highlights 2006 of ‘The Trucking Fiddler.’ Now orchestra season is upon us. The first concert of Paducah Symphony is 9/16, and 9/23 is the first concert of the Illinois Symphony. I have stepped up my practicing lately to get in shape for the heavier repertoire. Every day I’ve been doing 3-octave major scales and arpeggios in every key. That is the least I do, and then move on to new tunes to internalize. Now Cathie and I are working on Texas Swing Style using a book & CD set by Matt Glazer. Lately I’ve been playing through a book of Telemann Solo Sonatas for violin. I’ve had them for a long time and just dug them out a couple weeks ago. Very fun! I’ve only read a couple of them just a little in the past. Now I’m really digging into them. I guess I’m a Late Bloomer.

I dream about getting back into teaching music. Along those lines I’m thinking about how music should fit into my and my students’ big picture. As important as music is to me, I don’t believe it should generally take 1st priority. There are several things that should come first, before giving time to music. The list may not be quite the same for everyone, and if someone has become hooked on music as I have, he might neglect the higher things on the list to get to the music. A couple of the obvious top priorities are - taking care of the body & health, relationships with people & God, working to support self & others (which may involve music…) The reason I’m thinking this way is based on a life-time of being around serious musicians, some of whom seem to ‘sell their souls’ for the sake of art. I’ve been there myself. As much as I think it’s so worthwhile to work hard to be the best musician possible, it’s not worth it if it means losing one’s soul. Lots could be discussed on that, but - time to say good-bye, and may God bless you and keep you.