The Fiddle and the Fire

It is said one cannot choose their family. While this is true I do not feel particularly cheated. True a birth into a family like the Kennedy clan or the Vanderbilt fortune would have provided easier roads, I received the blessing of being born into two families of strong willed, open minded, dirt under the nails characters. I grew up on stories of the families. I found the blood history every bit as interesting as Treasure Island, cowboys and Indians and viewed my lineage as one filled with heroes. I shared just one story with some friends a few months ago about one of my grandfathers. One of the friends told me that if this was just one of a hundred or so stories I needed to start a book. So I decided at least to share that story here as well.

My grandfather Seth Conway Blevins was an agri-businessman, tobacco grower and the lead fiddle and banjo player for a bluegrass group called the Kentucky String Warmers. Apparently they played quite often and all over the region. On Sunday’s around lunch the band had an hour long radio program on a rural radio station wedged squarely between two hours of fire and brimstone gospel.

Although my grandfather died when I was 2 I have vague recollections of him, and have lived on stories of him for years. He apparently was a very quiet intense person. On stage they said he was kind of shy and just played and stared straight ahead. The band called him "Giggles" because of the stone face he wore.

When he and my grandmother were visiting family in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, the family asked him to play after dinner. He sat against the wall where the wood burning stove was and started playing. My grandmother said the family all sang and danced all around the room while Seth sawed out one song after another stomping his foot on the floor to keep time.

The back story is nothing in my grandfather's mind was more important than getting the song right and he would not stop playing once he started a song. The beat he was keeping and the dancing of the family had shook the floor boards enough that the old iron stove hopped a little and the flue came loose from the wall. My family saw what was happening and started to yell at my grandfather who just stared ahead, stomped and played. The flue pipe hit the floor beside him and sparks and flame shot all around the room which was filling with smoke. The curtains nearby caught on fire and by the time the family got some water in from the well the paper on the wall all around my grandfather was beginning to smolder, but he sat there stomping and playing anyway. While they killed the fire all around him, he only played faster. When he was done he was mad water had got on the fiddle. Which eventually swelled from the moisture and came apart, but he had gotten through the song.

This could be the source of my hard minded charge forward while everything is going wrong, a trait which is both a blessing and a curse.

My mom still has that particular fiddle, which is in pieces in its original case. If you open the case you can still smell a hint of the coal smoke.