June 26, 2025

To Battleground!

I’ve gotten behind on posting, and its becoming a problem, as notable stuff keeps happening. So, in the interest of breaking the drought, I’m only going to discuss recent goings-on in the briefest of terms..

Since coming back from Lanesboro, I’ve attended workshops, played my first contradance, and jammed with numerous folks. Opportunities to play are opening up left and right, and this weekend I’ll be headed out to Battleground, Indiana for the Indiana Fiddlers’ Gathering.

It’s been two years since the last Gathering – last year it was canceled for reasons I am not privy to – and so much has changed for me in the intervening time. In the Spring of 2023, in between grading assignments in my office in Springfield, I decided to search the internet to see if Tatiana Hargreaves, one of my favorite fiddle players, would be coming to the Midwest that summer, and it turned out she was to play the Indiana Fiddlers’ Gathering, which I had never heard of before, with her band Hard Drive. After looking into it, I arranged to attend the Gathering with my cousin Justin and my two little ones. My partner was on a Ladies’ Canoe Trip in Minnesota that weekend, and it would be my first time taking the kids camping without her (she is a much more experienced camper than I am).

That Friday, I packed up the car with all the camping gear and whatnot, put the kids in the back, and headed out. About half-an-hour later, the car stalled out on the highway, and I only just barely managed to get it over to a nearby gas station. Trying not to panic, I called my partner, who was on the road north at that point. She made some phone calls, arranged to have an Ottawa-based garage tow the car from where we were and have someone from a car rental place in Morris (just down the road a ways) pick us up, and put together a rental for the weekend. A couple of hours later, we were back on the road (what can I say? I married well).

My 7-year-old was delighted, because the rental was a gigantic SUV (he would ask for weeks afterward if we could get one, to which answer was “absolutely not”). Pulling into the parking area later that afternoon, I was surprised by the modesty of the operation. It had the vibe of a festival, but was a good deal smaller than festivals I had attended in the past. When I got to the check-in area, it turned out I hadn’t needed to purchase a ticket for my 7-year-old, as kids under 10 (I think?) got in free. It was fine, as the tickets weren’t all that expensive in the first place.

After finding my cousin, we went to set up our tent next to his. I took the tent out of the bag, and realized I was missing the tent poles. I went back to my car to see if I’d left them there, but it turned out I’d left them at home. I was on the verge of working out sleeping arrangements in the gigantic SUV when my cousin offered us his tent, as he could easily sleep in the back seat of his car. Once again saved by family, we got our things into the tent and went to check out the Gathering.

There were people jamming everywhere. Hundreds of people, arranged in circles, playing fiddles, guitars, banjos, mandolins, and the occasional upright bass. I’d never been to an old-time event before and I hadn’t expected to see so many people playing music. It seemed like a lot of people weren’t there for the performances at all, but just to hang out and play (looking back now, its clear that was, in fact, the case).

In any event, we rolled over to check out the stage area and see if we couldn’t find a bite to eat. We ended up getting pizza from the place cranking out cracker thin “tavern-style” pies from these little ovens – they were piping hot and tasted all the more delicious coming after the day’s comedy of errors. Afterwards, the kids wanted ice cream from the Lion’s Club stand selling soft serve – but they only took cash, and I didn’t have any on me at that moment. I wasn’t quite ready to wander into town, so I began explaining to my kids that I didn’t have any cash to buy them ice cream. Some guy overheard me, and, handing me a $20 bill, said, “hey, no worries man, this is Fiddlers’ Gathering – go get those kids some ice cream.”

At that point it seemed clear to me that the universe had decided I needed to be there. The kids got their ice cream, and shortly thereafter the 7 year-old informed me that he was going to go hang out with the group of kids playing in the area adjacent to the stage. I don’t normally let my kids just wander off to hang out with strangers, but somehow it seemed fine. There were maybe a few hundred people there, and the park wasn’t all that big. Everyone seemed friendly. And I suppose that’s also how things go terribly wrong – you think everything is all hunky dory and let down your guard – but I said, “OK,” and off he went. At one point he went to find a bathroom and I got a little worried trying to find him, but ultimately it was fine. He would run around with other kids sporadically through the next couple of days without incident.

The next day I was able to take out the mandolin and do a little jamming during the afternoon when my little one went down for a nap. Mostly I was just strumming chords and enjoying the tunes. I recall there was a young (middle school age?) fiddler chatting with an older fellow, who asked, “oh, didn’t I see you at [some other fiddle event]?” The kid nodded and they laughed. I began to get the sense that this was just one of many gatherings, and these folks did this on a regular basis (how little I knew, then). During the jam I ended up singing “Dooley,” a favorite bluegrass song, to the delight of the guy leading the jam. Being a complete and total newbie to the scene, it was nice to be noticed.

Later on we saw Hard Drive. Twice, actually – they played two sets. I had thought I’d miss the later one, but after a difficult time putting the little one to sleep the previous night, I figured I’d just keep her up as long as she’d go. The second set began just as dusk was settling over the park, and as Tatiana Hargreaves came on she began to explain the slight surreality of the day, having been picked up in a limousine at the Indianapolis airport late the previous night. But they all felt privileged to be there, participating in such a long running and well-regarded festival. She mentioned later in the show that they had encountered some really wonderful shape note singers around the gathering earlier that day, and it was kind of amazing to me that they all had been just hanging out with everyone else.

Hard Drive is a funny kind of a band. They describe themselves as old-time bluegrass – the statement by itself feels like a way to start a brawl – but on top of that, they have no mandolin player. I mean, I have to wonder, how can a group claim to be a traditional bluegrass group without the instrument played by the inventor of bluegrass? Not that it detracts from the sound any – they can go toe-to-toe with any Nashville group. But they’re something a little different from your standard bluegrass fare.

In any event, both sets they played that day were phenomenal. The second set in particular, just brought the joy out in my little one that night. She danced and frolicked more or less non-stop that night, until nearly the very end of the set, when she set her little head on my shoulder, closed her eyes, and went to sleep. It was a perfect end to the night.

The following morning we hung around for awhile chatting with out camping neighbors, who were all friendly, of course. I saw that there was a session on kids music that morning with a lady who had done a children’s show the day before, and figured it might be worth our while to check that out. She had this really beautiful old parlor guitar that she said she’d found in an attic. So the kids and I went and checked that out, and I think I ended up leading a song, and singing along with a few others. She gave us all a little songbook she’d put together, which I’m pretty sure is still somewhere in my house. And she mentioned that she’d be putting on a fiddle camp later that summer, the first Indiana Fiddlers’ Frolic.

Well, friends, that lady was Allie Jean, and I did end up going to the Frolic later that summer, after my partner encouraged me to go and check it out. That’s really where I started playing old-time music. I hope I run into her this weekend. As it is, I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of folks there. And introducing them to my partner and our kids, as this time, we’re all going. Because making friends is part of playing old-time music – and I don’t want to say its my favorite part, necessarily, but it sure is fun.