Anton Justs - Bishop of Jelgava, Latvia

Thank you Father Anthony . . .

More Photos from the Brunswick Concert - 21 November 2010

"Railroader" Moms selling home-baked goodies at the Big Concert

Jane Smith's cakes and pies - a hit at the concert

The next event is January 30th featuring The Lost and Found and Washington Junction (with Kenny Ray Horton and Friends.) Call (301) 371-5582 for tickets.

www.brunswickbluegrass.org

Coconut Cake, Corn Pone, and Total Commitment

Brunswick High Athletic Booster volunteers taking care of the concert crowd

Darren Beachley introduces the Dry Branch Fire Squad, 21 November 2010

Ethan Hughes is razzed by the "Old Guys."

The packed lobby at Brunswick High School, Brunswick Maryland

The Dry Branch Fire Squad, 21 November 2010

21 November 2010: What a beautiful, warm, Autumn afternoon in Brunswick, Maryland. We like to get to Brunswick early so we can browse the downtown antique stores. While walking the streets we were stopped by an old man from Culpeper, Virginia who needed directions up to the high school. In two antique stores I overheard groups of people talking about getting up to the high school before it was too late. By the way they were dressed I knew they were not locals. I smiled. In sleepy little Brunswick you could sense the early afternoon "Buzz" that there were more people in town than is per usual. Better get up to the high school before it was too late. Believe me, nothing much this eventful happens in Brunswick. The newly instituted Roundhouse Concert Productions group was having its first-ever, concert/benefit at 3:00 at the other end of town at Brunswick High School. What Darren and Sherri Beachley and Jill and Roy Hossler had worked so hard toward was coming to fruition. I've been following this story since the first concert in 2009 to benefit the Brunswick Junior Baseball League. From the start I had a gut-feeling it would come to this. More baseball benefit concerts ensued. The ticket-buyers multiplied. The music offerings got better. In an economic downtime when family entertainment dollars are being squeezed to the limit it didn't seem to matter when a few good people have a personal dream of doing something wonderful for the community. Darren's that kind of person (and artist). Always working on taking it to the next level of possibility.

We took the short drive uphill to the high school and was confronted with a full parking lot and a hand-written sign that said "over-flow parking in the gravel lot." I love this! And we were very early getting there. One of those pleasant surprises you don't expect. Any promoter has to be happy with the prospect that parking is going to over-flow. Offer good bluegrass and the fans will follow. At 2:30 the lobby was packed already and Jill Hossler and her army of volunteers (the school Athletic Boosters) were busy checking in ticket-holders and soon doing a land-office business in drinks, snacks, and sandwiches. The first thing I spied was an exceptionally large and beautifully crafted Coconut Cake that was up for auction. There were more cakes and goodies, all donated by Jane Smith. I wanted that cake badly - and so did everyone else. In the end we won the bid on some fudge which we'll enjoy over the holidays. You had to admire The Machine that was in operation. This is small-town volunteerism at its best, working toward raising funds for the high school athletic programs. But we were there for the music and there was no disappointment.

The show kicked off with the Dry Branch Fire Squad. I have to admit I've never experienced seeing them in performance and only know them from a historical point. Read any historical account of the growth of the bluegrass movement and you'll read about these guys. I had been forewarned (by my son who had just seen them in San Francisco,) that "They talk a lot!" True - Ron Thomason, one of the original founders has a tendency to get long-winded, and what sounds like down-home Corn Pone soon goes down strange twisted-logic roads about DNA strands and double helixes and comparisons of regional differences. Listen very, very carefully to what he has to say. He had me laughing in the aisles. Droll doesn't even sum up his sense of humor and timing - it's beyond droll. I can't imagine anyone in San Francisco understanding or even finding his Appalachian style of humor funny, but the Fire Squad recently performed at the enormous annual (and open) bluegrass event in Golden Gate Park and apparently they were a big hit. The Fire Squad did twelve pieces for this performance and they were brilliant. They like to show off their playing skills by constantly switching instruments. Two a cappella numbers were the best pieces in the set. They were "Tearing Down the Kingdom of the World" and "Power in the Blood."

The second half of the show was reserved for Darren Beachley and the Legends of the Potomac and the big, new surprise here is the departure of legendary dobro master, Mike Auldridge and his replacement Ethan Hughes. Mike was in the audience and Darren graciously recognized him. Ethan Hughes, at only 19 years old is already an accomplished player and fit right into the mix of veterans. The voice combination of Ethan Hughes, Norman Wright, and Darren Beachley is powerful and full of promise for some amazing future CD's. As is the whole future of the Roundhouse Concert Series. The Legends will hand it over to a new set of performers beginning January 30th, and will continue to expand the concert line-ups to March 20th and June 12th, 2011. The Legends will be back for the performance on June 12, 2011. Darren and Jill Hossler, and all the volunteers up in Brunswick are totally committed to bringing First Class entertainment to the Brunswick region. They need your support to recognize the various student activities at Brunswick High School (Brunswick, Maryland). The best way you can help is donate today to the BRCP organization so these great shows can continue up in Brunswick.

For ticket and donation information contact:

Jill Hossler, 4210 Wallingford Court, Jefferson, Maryland, 21755 www.brunswickbluegrass.org

Brunswick Roundhouse Concert Productions is also available on FaceBook

January 30, 2011: Lost and Found and Washington Junction

March 20, 2011: Bill Yates and Country Gentlemen Tribute Band and
The Little Roy and Lizzy Show

June 12, 2011: Darin and Brooke Aldridge and

Darren Beachley and the Legends of the Potomac

San Francisco Lyric Chorus Christmas Program

The San Francisco Lyric Chorus Christmas program for 2010 at the Mission Dolores Basilica and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Orinda. Not to be missed if you're traveling in the Bay Area during the first week in December. For further information go to: www.sflc.org

ishouldbeworking: Fiends of Western Buddhists

ishouldbeworking: Fiends of Western Buddhists

Jack Schoff of Maine - The Clock Guy

Jack Schoff and his award from Guinness Book of World Records

Just a small portion of Jack Schoff's collection

Jack Schoff, North Berwick, Maine, November 2010

Any visitor to Maine might think they had landed in Paradise if all they did was drive up and down coastal Route One or dropped in on the L.L. Bean Headquarters and Outlet at Freeport, which is what most Maine visitors and tourists do. It reminds me a lot of Australia: life, population, and marketing capital is on the coast with very little but great expanses of wilderness once you get off the Maine Turnpike. But even life on the coast is a charade, as watermen and lobstermen struggle to make a decent living off a life-style which has been a Maine tradition for hundreds of years. I love Maine and have spent a lot of time there. But I'm just a visitor. I'm not from Maine, and therefore from the Mainers' point of view, can lay no claims to really knowing anything about Maine except for what I've read in books on the subject. Get a bunch of locals together and they'll start arguing about which is the better town, or township, or who's getting screwed the worst through Maine's exhorbitant taxing policies. If you want a good lesson in American civics go to any local Select Men's or Town Hall Meeting - they go on for hours over literally nothing and every town malcontent shows up monthly to air his or her latest grievance against authority. I remember an argument in particular way back in the early 70's and it was over granting a permit for the first MacDonald's in Freeport. L.L. Bean had just moved from its original location down-town and was now located on Route One. An old geezer got up in the meeting and made the pronouncement, "If we let this go through it will be the end of Freeport. We'll never see the end of it!" There was much laughter. The geezer got the last laugh. So much for urban planning. Within two years after MacDonald's landed every other discount grease-joint soon followed. Within a few years the area surrounding L.L. Bean looked like so many of those mega-strip malls and gasoline alleys you see along Route I-95 South. So much for retaining "Quaint" over rampant bang-for-the-buck.

     But I'm letting negativity get in my way. Like any tourist destination there is always an upside to the story. The best way to utilize a tourist destination is first, get away from all the other tourists and try not to go where they are going. This is the way we've utilized Maine for the past 38 years. There is always something new to see and do in Maine and the baked beans, fresh lobster, and fried clams taste just as good today as they did 38 years ago. This is how we ran into the "Clock Guy" on our most recent trip to Maine in the first week in November. That's right - November! - another lesson you learn about traveling to Maine. It's a good idea to go there (and enjoy it privately and cheaply) when everybody else is NOT there. With a very cheap and very fast flight out of Baltimore's BWI we can be up on the coast of Maine (via Manchester Airport, N.H.) within two and a half hours. Talk about convenience!

     We had heard a story about a guy up in Berwick, Maine who owned a fabulous collection of clocks and they had to be seen to be appreciated. His name is Jack Schoff and the point of the story is, that living in a very small apartment, his obsession for clock-collecting kind of got the best of him. To the point of being recognized by the Guinness Book of Records people, who awarded him with the record for having the biggest private collection of clocks. The runner-up was some guy from Germany, who Jack says he's never met or been in contact with. The story of Jack's collection broke a few years ago and all the local news media came over to Berwick to see what was going on. Quiet and unassuming, Jack took it all in stride. When you meet him, you're immediately struck with his cordiality and his attitude of "It's just me and another day of living with all these clocks."

     There are clocks everywhere - on every inch of wall space, on all the furniture tops and shelves, and the small bedroom space, kitchen, and bathroom haven't been spared. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. We sat on whatever sofa space that was available and surrounded ourselves in Jack's world of his amazing clocks. You would think the noise would be deafening but it was not unpleasant. He owns every kind of clock imaginable - spring-driven, weight-driven, battery-driven; he hasn't an inventory of what he has and says he wants to get rid of all of them but doesn't know where to start. He says it's not about the value or collectability of what he has. "Some of them are worthless, some are expensive and maybe historic, I just don't care," he says with a small laugh. He says he spends a large amount of his income on batteries to keep them all going and spends most of his day setting them properly and repairing the ones lagging behind. Since daylight savings time was fast upon us, we wondered how in the world he re-set all of them.

     We had entered his place on the half-hour, so we waited in anticipation for all the walls to come alive with clanging and gonging and activated Cuckoo birds. It wasn't as glorious as we expected, but it was an experience, none the less and it was great talking to Jack as he showed off his award and talked about his hunting pictures displayed about his little apartment. There were pictures of he and his son bagging trophy black bear and moose, and especially interesting pictures of a big black bear he had to chase out of the back of his pick-up truck. That's life in Maine, away from Highway One and the Coastal tourist traps.

We couldn't leave without buying a clock from Jack, and it's a beauty - a Seth Thomas pendulum model which worked perfectly after the plane-ride back from Manchester, New Hampshire and looks great on our living room wall. After such an interesting afternoon I should have had Jack autograph it for me. I regret that I didn't ask him.

Maine: "The Way Life Should Be"

Just returned from another road trip to Maine and I'll be talking about "The Clock Guy," my experience at the Cabela's Store, and other matters. As it states on every Maine license plate, "The Way Life Should Be."

Hey Connolly - Beware the Ides of March

Well, here it comes. The e-mails are pouring in around noon as Fairfax County tries to decide who really won yesterday's election in the 11th Congressional District. Of course all the messages I'm receiving are from democrats who know me, and the rumors they're spreading is that Gerald Connolly has won the race fairly and squarely, even though votes are still being counted, and will probably be counted again and maybe a third time because the race was so close when we all went to bed last night. So much for smugness on the part of the democrats here in Northern Virginia. Symptomatic of the all the smugness, were all the yahoo democrat predictions that Connolly was a shoe-in and would beat Keith Fimian easily in this current election. Surprise, surprise! Connolly even had the audacity to make a pre-emptive (and stupidly mistimed) victory speech before the 11:00 pm news aired. The facts are clear no matter which party wins this contested race. Fairfax voters were split right down the middle on who they wanted to represent them in Congress for the next two years. And there was the great unknown - the independent voter - wouldn't politics be a wonderful adventure if both parties could figure out how he or she is going to treat them at the Polls? In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, the warnings about the mentality of the Mob are always lurking in every line. Don't let your smugness carry you away. You might wake up the morning after with a big surprise waiting for you. This is Connolly's "Ides of March." Only half the voters wanted Connolly in - the other half wants him to go away.