After a decade of family debate, two months of packing and a taste of hell in the process, several long drives and major expense we have relocated our home and business from Iron River, Michigan to Ponchatoula/Hammond, Louisiana. One reason we did this was to put the business where there were numbers of people, another was to finally get out of the snow…but the real reason, not shared with family was to go where my reeds are always humidified with no messing about. So, if any of you happen to be in the New Orleans area and North shore, drop me a line and we can get together.
Welcome to the land of perma-humidity…although I live in Central Florida, a wee bit further south…we share this reed friendly weather off the Gulf of Mexico. I am originally out of Duluth Minnesota by way of the Twin Cities, so I can understand where you are coming from…literally.
Welcome to the heat and humidity, I live in the Macon Georgia area and the pipes are quite happy here and fairly stable. Being over in Narlin’s area now affords you the chance to come to the Florida Tionol run by John Maze and Katherine Cavanaough. They have done a wonderful job over the past couple of years and this coming year (2005) should be even better.
There is also the Irish festival/tional over in Mississippi so a hardy
" Welcome to the DEEP South"
Glad to hear that Im not the only one in Ga that plays Irish music, outside of Atlanta. Im from Waycross, but now live in St. Augustine. If I ever move back up to Waycross, I may have to pay you to come down from Macon to get together and play some tunes, teach the local folks that country, grunge rock, and bluegrass is not the only kind of music in the world (although I do like some good bluegrass!) AND, I will take a good plate of grits with cheese on top any day of the year!
Good to hear that there are more and more people in the South who play the good music. I play with John Maze and the crew in Gainesville, and that tionol this past year was just lovely. Make it this coming year if at all possible. Rumor is that K. Crawford will be teaching our flute class this year. I will ask him next week when I meet him in Ennis.
Louisiana… I had this big crazy Cajun guy working for me several years ago. He had some great stories about “back home”. I used to love hearing them. He came from a place called Houma, LaFouche Parrish. His granny still only spoke French. Anyway one day he and a bunch of his pals were riding around in his van when they came up on a big old gator in the road. Of course, as in all stories like this, they were all drunk and stoned. So this guy decides to ride the gator. He told me that if you straddle one and walk up from behind it can’t see you. That’s what he did. And he made a noose out of his belt and slipped it around the gator’s neck, cinched it up and just sat down on its back. He said the gator started growling and walking around while he held onto the belt like a bridle. Everybody was laughing and carrying on and he was just riding around on its back. Anyway, along comes a cop. Of course the cop didn’t know how to go about getting him off the gator without a disaster. They called animal control and everything. He told me that as he started to sober up while waiting for them to come he realised what a bad spot he was in and got really scared. In the end they got him off the gator all safe and sound. They took the gator off into the swamp. The guy ended up going to jail but they let him go because the head cop was his cousin.
Anyway, Islandpiper, a big welcome to the south! Best of luck to ye.
Linguists now believe the original root to be the Gaelic craic, still used in Ireland (anglicized in spelling to crack) for “entertaining conversation.” The English meaning of cracker as a braggart appears by Elizabethan times, as, for example, in Shakespeare’s King John (1595): “What cracker is this … that deafes our ears / With this abundance of superfluous breath?” -The New Georgia Encyclopedia
Then there’s the slang term for “white person” - Kracker! This would be the term I was specifically referring to in my earlier post of interminable interest
