July 3, 2024
Brian only works half a day today. So the plan is for me to take him to a couple of music places around town. Our first stop is Mountain View Music Store. It is a cool little shop where they not only repair and sell instruments, they also make fiddles and guitars from scratch. The main items for sale are fiddles, banjos, mandolins, acoustic guitars, and cigar box guitars. They have a variety of musical accessories as well. Emmeline was the only one that wanted to go with us so she had the chance to see various parts of a fiddle and guitar as they were being made. She thought that was cool.
I guess it is time for me to come clean and tell the truth. Back in March we visited the Music Store for the first time. I had decided that Mountain View was an ideal place for me to learn how to play guitar. So back in March I bought a guitar and got set up with weekly lessons from Albee Tellone. He is a great musician and teacher. It turns out he is from NJ and we had a lot of common ground. He was a roadie for Springsteen and played sax on one of Springsteen’s albums. So yes, I am slowly learning to play acoustic guitar., It is relaxing and enjoyable. Maybe one day I’ll post a video. Maybe.
After the Music Store we took a short drive to the Dulcimer Shop. Brian found this place very interesting also. The dulcimer is not an instrument you hear much about but the sound is very unique. In the right hands, it is beautiful. There are two basic types of dulcimers, mountain dulcimer and hammered dulcimer. Additionally they sell autoharps (Mother Mable Carter), and lap harps, bowed psaltery, recorder, dulci-banjo spoons and harmonicas. Yes, spoons and harmonicas are common around here. This is the folk music capital!
I had the chance to bake with the grandchildren this afternoon. I had made sugar cookie dough earlier in the day and divided it into 4 equal parts. I had purchased some patriotic cookie cutters and colored sugars. So one by one the grands would come in, and we would roll out the dough and they choose the designs. Each of them knew that they would have to give up one cookie for the guests at the Inn. We got the cookies baked and after they cooled they each chose the guest cookie and the rest of their batch got bagged up with their name. It was a fun and productive afternoon. And of course we dined in style on the pulled pork that I smoked yesterday. Everyone enjoyed it.
