"A Bunch of Heatherns Live Over There"
Updated: 2 days ago
"A bunch of heatherns", that's what my Dad said when I moved back to the mountains, living up on Old House Branch. I moved back to the mountains from the San Francisco Bay area in northern California. I was working in a school in the latino district of town- inner city school....good school...loved the kids and teachers...but I was singing songs like Old Groundhog and Whoa Mule, Whoa. I'd walk the halls and look out the window at all those city buildings and ask myself, "What am I doing here?" So I moved on back and worked as a counselor at Redbird Mission. I moved off the Redbird Mission compound to a place up Jack's Creek where I rented a little place on Old House Branch.
My dad....? Well, he grew up not far from there....over Phillips Fork, up Middle Fork, over Lonesome to Big Branch on the Beechfork of the Kentucky River. "There's heatherns that live on Jack's Creek" he said.
Our family moved off Big Branch when I was about 4. And I always wondered what it was like there ever since- a feeling that I missed out on something. Missing part of the puzzle. So I moved back.
I rented from Cully. He lived way up the head of the river. Sometimes I'd go to his house to pay rent. He had two boys. Cully said one time,"One of my boys got into it with another boy up the creek. And I was afraid something bad was going to happen. So I called the father of this other boy and says, 'Buddy, our sons are having trouble and I'll just tell you, I'm afraid that one of them is going to get killed.' "That father says to me, 'Well, one of them will go to hell and the other will go to the penitentiary.'"
I don't know how Cully came upon the property but I could tell from the drift of things that he wasn't very welcome on Jack's Creek. I soon found out why. He came to the porch one day and asks very matter of factly, " I just want to know one thing. Are you a Narc? Cause if you are I want in on it."
I guess some people couldn't understand why I had moved off the mission compound. So they started thinking the worst. Except in Cully's mind, he started thinking of some kind of good fortune that may have befallen him if he could turn folks in to a narcotics agent and make some money.
I went to my Dad. "Dad, this guy thinks I am a Narc. I don't know what to do?" Dad says, "Son, I wouldn't say a word of it to nobody, don't go around denying it ...it's like s..t, the more you stir it, the worse it smells."
I eventually got a gig doing folk music, stories, and dance in the local elementary schools- a tenure that lasted the next 25-30 years. Oral histories, music, dance, stories with children. Hands on publications about coal mining, herbal remedies, ghost stories, hunting stories, old time recipes. I loved the roads to the schools- solitary rides beside the creeks, the trees, the mountains.
It was a lot of fun.
One night I came home late from a gig and after a long drive I just didn't feel like packing all the instruments and equipment in the house. The next morning I went out to the garage and instantly knew something was amiss. The door on the passenger side was ajar and the dome light was fading. Someone got in my car and took my hammered dulcimer.
A hammered dulcimer is a rare breed of instrument. Of ancient origin with many strings and played with two little felt covered hammers, you just didn't find too many of these around. The maker was Malcolm Dalglish, a renowned maker and player of the instrumemt. I came across it from a lady who was in the middle of moving and had lost interest in keeping it. I needed some money to buy it so I asked Dad for a loan. I said to him,"Dad, she says that the instrument speaks to her everytime she comes in the room." Dad replied,
"And I know what it is saying. It's saying, 'Get rid of me!'"
First, I went to church and annouced that my instrument was stolen. I looked at the grannys sitting in the back of the church. I watched as their eyes narrowed into sharp focus, their jaws set. They were pissed. It came upon me in an instant...I'm gonna get that thing back. First, the local fence for stolen goods showed up. He owned a little store up the road that was a facade for stolen goods. He came to my house one day- a first. I thought, "Well, well, this is interesting." The grannys had been doing their own version of a shake down. He said to me, " Randy, when I first came back to the mountains I saw that people were poor and needy. They would come to me with a tire or a car battery in return for some milk for their babies....." I thanked him for being a great humanitarian....and waited for the next shoe to fall.
It did. Johnny called and said to meet him on Bear Branch the next day at noon. Now, there's nobody that lives up Bear Branch- a lonely place. I didn't have much trust in Johnny. But I trusted those grannys. So I took up the dirt road, up Bear Branch and there was Johnny with his trunk open. There was the hammered dulcimer. Johnny starts out like this, "Randy, I have been in trouble with the law all my life....." At one point I replied," It's okay, Johnny. It's okay. I tell you what. I won't mention your name in this matter to nobody. I'm just glad to get the instrument back. Look, I won't even tell people that I got it back for a month."
So, I got my hammered dulicmer back. The next day I went down to Bobby's grocerery store and picked up a Honey Bun and a Cola. Bobby said, "How you doing, Randy? I heard you got your instrument back." I laughed and said, "Bobby, I'll have it back in about a month."
Somehow, this experience and many more made it into a song. Here it is- The Stars Cry Mercy from my original southern blues album, Dirt Road Dark Night. Wanna go for a ride?
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