I can’t believe that this Thursday night is our last Close To The Ground concert at Kaylee Hall for the year. Time does indeed fly when you are having fun and there have been many highlights to the 2011 season. I am sure that everybody has their favorites and I for one enjoyed the variety of talented guests that graced our stage this summer. I do have to admit that I sort of save my favorite for last. Anyone who follows our concerts would know that I have always been a fan of country music. Our three guests this week are among the most popular country musicians on the East Coast. I have had the pleasure of performing with them all in the past and I consider many of those shows to be highlights of my music career. Collectively, these guys have probably raised more money for charity than the Red Cross by performing at local benefit concerts.

I am sure the idea behind candidates in the provincial election putting up signs along the road is to get folks to consider voting for them. But when I drive by the smiling face of a particular candidate on one of those signs I always think about the time that he asked me to sing at his wedding ceremony. I have played hundreds of wedding dances over the years, but I am less comfortable singing in church. That’s probably due in part to the fact that I don’t know many hymns and some clergymen are pretty fussy about having contemporary music in church. That was indeed the case at this wedding.

I had the honor of singing a farewell song at the funeral for Mary Bell MacDonald this past week. St Mary’s Church in Souris was packed with family and friends whose lives had been touched by the kind and generous spirit of this exceptional woman. All who took part and attended the service seemed determined to deliver a tribute worthy of such a well-lived life. Between the beautiful eulogy and the spirited music, my mind wandered as the mass was read. No one ever left Mary Bell’s house hungry. “Eat lots and give the house a good name,” she would say while serving up a meal to her house guests. I would have to think that if all things are equal in the universe, the lifetime Mary Bell spent serving others will be repaid with an eternity of peaceful rest. She will be fondly remembered and sadly missed.

I spent Labor Day weekend in awe of just how fast summer goes. The Gold Cup and Saucer has been won, The Queen Of The Furrows has been crowned and the chill in the night air is like a signal light warning that the season is turning. As I look forward to an exciting September lineup of musical guests coming to Kaylee Hall, I can’t help but heave a sigh for the passing of the summer season. There were many musical highlights in the crazy blur that was my schedule for July and August But this past week, I felt especially privileged to be able to share a few songs at a special event.

So I had a rather interesting job offer this week, but after some careful consideration, I decided to stick with the garbage run.

I guess I should explain that this particular job offer came in the way of a prank played on me by musician, writer, and devilish practical joker Todd MacLean.

Folks who attend our concerts at Kaylee hall would know Todd as son in law of popular Island troubadour Gordon Belsher and would have enjoyed the sweet sounds of his saxophone.They might also know the back story of the ongoing practical joke feud between Todd and I that began some years ago when he made mention of my “famous green St. Patricks Day boxer shorts” in his weekly entertainment column.

I thought that Todd and I had buried the prankster hatchet this summer when his appearance at Close To The Ground passed without incident. We even shook hands and declared a truce. I now know that was all a part of his plan to lure me into a false sense of security.

This week found me driving along on my route thinking about Elvis. One of my earliest memories is of August 16 1977 - the day Elvis Presley died.

My memory wasn’t cemented because I was a big fan. I was five years old at the time, and Elvis didn’t seem nearly as cool to me as the rest of the guys he resided with in my parent's record collection. I think it was the jumper suit that threw me off.

Wilf Carter seemed way cooler because he had a cowboy hat, cowboy shirt and a great big guitar on the cover of his album. Harry Hibbs had an accordion and Winston “Scotty” had a cool hat with a feather on the side. Even Don Messer seemed more impressive to five year old me with his shirt and tie and fiddle tucked under his chin No, I wasn’t at all taken with the look of the “seventies”, Elvis and I certainly wouldn’t have remembered the day he died but for one thing.

My nephew "Twistin’" Tristan Wood is not quite two years old and he has already discovered the joys of climbing trees. It occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t too many rungs down the evolutionary ladder since we were all swinging in the branches.

But then again, it could just be that I watched “Planet Of The Apes” this week and my imagination is getting away from me again. Either way, it is fair to say that Tristan is not the only one in our family who enjoyed “going out on a limb.”

It’s ironic that my concert series is called Close To The Ground as there was a time when I was young that my poor parents couldn’t convince me and my buddies to quit scaling the heights. We did have a few falls, but luckily I don’t recall any of us being seriously hurt.

I do, however, remember one incident that resulted in a few minutes of terror for my old buddy Shep and a lifetime of laughs for the rest of us.

My nephew "Twistin’" Tristan Wood is not quite two years old and he has already discovered the joys of climbing trees. It occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t too many rungs down the evolutionary ladder since we were all swinging in the branches. But then again, it could just be that I watched “Planet Of The Apes” this week and my imagination is getting away from me again. Either way, it is fair to say that Tristan is not the only one in our family who enjoyed “going out on a limb.” It’s ironic that my concert series is called Close To The Ground as there was a time when I was young that my poor parents couldn’t convince me and my buddies to quit scaling the heights. We did have a few falls, but luckily I don’t recall any of us being seriously hurt. I do, however, remember one incident that resulted in a few minutes of terror for my old buddy Shep and a lifetime of laughs for the rest of us.

Fiddlers’ Sons played the Tignish Irish Festival last weekend and I was happy that my parents wanted to come along for the drive.
My mom, Edna Maye - the famous fudge maker, told me how she and Dad had not been “ up west “ since the seventies.

They had made the trip back then to attend the wedding of one of the Pitre boys who worked in the woods with Dad.

As Mom recounted her memories of her trip up west, little landmarks along the Western Road were triggering some of my own memories from the many times I had trekked west in different bands over the years. I had two thoughts about that.

The first was that were many trips back home down the Western Road that I had no recollection of what so ever. Lucky for me, one of the “ Outlaws “ crew, either “Bent” Kent Dunville or Jody “The Roady”“ VanDerAa, would have been driving while I flaked out.

I thought Fiddlers’ Sons were invited to play at The Crapaud Exhibition Youth Talent Search last week because Garth, John B and I are so youthful. Believe it or not, that wasn’t entirely the reason they asked us to play.

Ok, so maybe that wasn’t the reason at all, but that’s what I was telling myself as I pulled into the Crapaud Actiplex to set up. I wasn’t completely surprised to find out that we were there to open the show and entertain between age classes while the judges made their extremely difficult decisions.

I was also recruited for the duty of stage hand by my buddy, John Bulman, who was providing sound for the event. And by the time I heard the level of talent from the young singer, musicians and dancers on stage that night, I was thinking that stage hand may be the only job I can get in the entertainment business in a few years!