This weekend was the annual Old Timer’s Festival in Townsend (we went last year, too), and while it didn’t have as many pickers as last year it had the same wonderful quality. Around every corner of the Visitor’s Center was a little group of musicians pickin’ away on a song. Some of them only met that morning and decided to share a tune together, and some were in organized bands. They were old and young, playing gospel songs and Rocky Top. I just love bluegrass. It feels like home.
Yesterday we took the canoe out on the Little River for a short two-mile paddle. I wish I’d taken my camera, but with the water level a bit low and some rapids being uncertain, I didn’t want to risk it. The boys enjoyed seeing fish and birds and taking a dip in the water afterwards. Chuck told them the (edited) story of our 1999 Rio Grande canoe trip in college and how we camped and paddled for a six days straight. Obviously, it was before we were married and well before the boys were born.
“So you did that in college?” asks Jeremy.
“Was I alive then?” Jack asks.
“No,” Jeremy answers him. “We weren’t born yet.”
“I was dead??” he says.
“No, you weren’t dead,” says Jeremy. “We were in heaven waiting to be born.”
We kept paddling while the boys chattered, no doubt replaying two versions of the same trip in our minds. We were 20 years old and engaged. Our guide told us that six days of canoeing in the same boat would be the best premarital counseling we could ever have.
I would tend to agree.