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Chapter 2

Susan

Apalachicola, Florida, September 2009

Susan stood glued to the floor at the entrance of a storefront. It couldn’t be. But it is. It is like his ghost! Banjo music was floating out the doorway, and it was coming from a white ponytail with holey blue jeans. He was playing Willson’s Cove songs the unique way Grandpa always played, and the sound was exactly the same. And it was Grandpa’s voice. Almost makes me believe in channeling. Once she got over the shock of the sound, she ventured inside.

Mac, having been in another store, came and stood beside her and handed her a glazed doughnut. “We need to go across the street and make reservations for this evening’s dinner. You come with me?”

“No. I need to talk to this fellow. He has given me a jolt!”

“Jolt?”

“I’ll explain later.”

Susan approached the man as soon as he took a break from playing. “Hey. Where did you get your banjo? Who taught you to sing that way, those versions? What is your name?”

“Whoa! One question at a time. I am Harry Harvey from St. Petersburg, Florida. And you are?”

“Susan Re—I mean, Susan McBride from North Carolina.”

“Well, Susan McBride, my dad taught me, and he learned from his mom. She, in turn, learned from my grandfather. The banjo was one he gave Dad when he was a little boy back in the 1920s.”

“May I see your banjo?”

Harry grasped the neck and held it out to her.

Susan grasped it with one hand supporting the head and the other hand on the neck, like it was going to get away from her. She peered inside, scrutinizing all around inside. She hoped to see if there were any markings that would tell who had made the instrument. Could this be one?

Susan had been looking for one of Grandpa Willson’s banjos for more than twenty years, but they were illusive as the fogs on Grandfather Mountain’s nose on a sunny day.

She gasped. There it was: “lw-1919.”

“May I play it?”

He jerked his neck back, somewhat surprised, but with that much interest, perhaps this person did know how to play. “Sure. Try it out.”

Susan sat on a stool and played the banjo. Her fingering was good, but her intonation was off since it was a fretless banjo. She played “Sourwood Mountain” almost the same as Harry had played it moments before.

Meanwhile, Mac had returned from making reservations for dinner and stood, listening to his wife on a borrowed banjo. He hadn’t heard her on the banjo since last year. She had sold hers when her arthritis had gotten too bad to play. This was a much smaller wood-constructed banjo without the heavy resonator on the bluegrass banjo she had played. He didn’t interrupt her.

Once she finished, Harry reached for the instrument. He nodded appreciatively. “I can tell you play, but you aren’t used to this little gem with her unimpeded fingerboard. Where did you learn?”

“Music is in my family. I studied the violin when I was in school, but my, well, I was advised to learn how to fiddle. I pooh-poohed the idea until I realized the advice was right on and took up the banjo. My uncle Roby taught me then. By the way, this is my husband, Mac McBride.

“And you? You say your grandmother was the source of your banjo style and versions of ballads and folk songs?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah. She played on up till about a year before she died. When I was, what? Twelve, I guess. Dad learned from her, and the two would play together, switching off between banjo and fiddle. I don’t play the fiddle, but Dad still does at age eighty-seven. He can’t remember anyone’s name, but he remembers how to play his fiddle.”

“Does he live here?”

“In a retirement home in Tampa now.”

Susan snapped her blue eyes, trying to imagine the old man playing those old tunes perhaps the way her uncles would play when she was a girl. “I’d like to hear him someday, if I ever get to Tampa. So your grandfather, did he play as well?”

“He was out of the picture, I guess, before I was born. But Grandma said she learned from him. That’s all I know.” Harry acted as though he was getting uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation and feigned another appointment. “Nice talking to you, ma’am. I need to get going. Pressing matters.”

As Susan and Mac went their way, she said, “This might be an interesting honeymoon!”