Sorry I’ve been absent so long.  I never lack for subjects to write about; the big problem is time.  It just occurred to me that time management is more likely the issue, but this week, it’s definitely a lack of hours in the day exacerbated by a lack of sleep.

I have been debating all day:  should I write, or should I seize the moment of opportunity to nap before the next onslaught of fun? 

The reality of the Transcendent New Nation of Appalachia first occurred to me one evening in the late 1990s when I was standing on the porch of Halliehurst, a magnificent remnant of the Gilded Age that stands on the campus of Davis & Elkins College, in Elkins, West Virginia.  The final week of five devoted each summer to traditional music, dance and craft was in progress then, and a more congenial, fun-loving, talented bunch of folks I had never encountered.   Augusta, short for Augusta Heritage Workshops, takes its name from the proposed 14th American colony that never was.  The story goes that George Washington was planning to decamp to this region if the Revolutionary War had not gone his way.  A substantial number of Washingtonians and their neighbors, along with others from a wide variety of places around the globe, escape regularly to Augusta now.

I’ll be back on the porch of Hallihurst this evening at some point, where multiple music jams will be occurring simultaneously, and singers will be forming in ad hoc groups to share harmonies.  If you’ve never sung harmony and have no frame of reference for understanding the total body experience that harmony singing produces, think of it as a full body buzz that’s a combination of massage and…well, let’s just say that it’s an intense physical as well as aural pleasure. 

So I’m at Augusta once again for a week that is packed full of singing and music and dancing and laughing.  I’ll post photos, and maybe even some video if I can get it together. 

It’s 7:18 p.m., and I’m on my way to a “student” show, where the folks who have paid to come here for a week to hang out with master musicians and dancers will strut their stuff.   Many of the students are accomplished musicians and dancers who have come to expand their repertoire.  At 10:30 the grand do wop begins in the Ice House.  More about that later, too.

My nap time is gone, but I feel better now that I’ve checked in with you.  Stay tuned for more reports from Ground Zero of the Transcendent New Nation.