Friday, I had been ashore at Oriental, NC for the Ol’ Front Porch Music Festival. The fest is just amazing. A small town in rural North Carolina with a population of less than a thousand, puts on two day free music festival every October. What began as jam sessions on the porch of the Ol’ Store was resurrected as a festival in the early 2000s. Music happens on the main stage at Riverfront Park and on select porches all over town. Somehow, they manage to bring in a wide variety of music; bluegrass, gospel, country, rock, folk, and more. A few years ago at the festival, I discovered Damn Tall Buildings, a folk-bluegrass band from Brooklyn, New York. They are exceptional musicians and songwriters. I also got the chance to see Christie Lenee, the 2019 Acoustic Guitarist of the Year. She plays finger-style guitar and writes thoughtful, ethereal songs.
This time, I only wandered around town a little because it was really hot that day. The couple choices I had made from the website weren’t as enjoyable as I had hoped, so I went back to Riverfront Park and found some shade to sit in. I had seen Farayi, an amazing singer songwriter based in Boston on the main stage earlier. Caleb Caudle was coming up. He’s a North Carolina songwriter who cut his teeth in the punk scene, but has settled into a solid place on the bluegrass end of Americana music. I really came to see Robbie Fulks, a 90s Alt Country hero that I’ve been listening to for quite a long time. He was the headliner for Friday night.
After Caleb Caudle’s wonderful set, I took a walk over to the river and checked on Mollynogger. She was about a couple hundred yards back to the west, out in the river, and was doing fine. I then went over to the Prime Time Pamlico booth for some black beans and rice. Prime Time is a sponsor of activities and events for the 50+ crowd in the county. I had had their beans and rice three years ago when I was here. Just like before, it was an inexpensive splurge and a delicious plant-based option.
Robbie Fulks played a set with just him on guitar and a fiddle player. His latest album is called Bluegrass Vacation and he leaned into that fresh music. He was born in Pennsylvania and raised in North Carolina and Virginia. After a short stint at Columbia University, he ended up in Chicago during the Alt Country heyday of the 1990s. Besides the new stuff, of course, he snuck in some older songs too. Fulks had a strong family background in Appalachian music and has an uncanny knack for twisting Country Music tropes with his natural humor in songs like “Tear Only Run One Way,” “She Took A Lot of Pills (and Died),” “Let’s Kill Saturday Night,” and “I Told Her Lies.”
After his set he invited people - “if anyone still buys physical music” - to stop by his merch table. I was intrigued by his mention of a songbook. When I made it to the table, I teased that I had hoped to hear his song “Roots Rock Weirdos” but he demurred that the song had too many words to remember. We chatted and I asked if he remembered Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan. I had remembered that Elderly was a favorite guitar store of the 90s Midwest Alt Country crowd.
“Hell yeah, I remember Elderly,” he exclaimed.
“Well, when I was in Junior High, I took guitar lessons at their original location in a basement store in East Lansing,” I told him.
I tried to buy a Bluegrass Vacation t shirt and the songbook, but his phone could not read the chip on my card. After a couple tries, I let the other people go ahead of me. I wandered around nearby, but I could not get enough cell signal to secure any other options for payment. I told him I was stuck and that I would just order online later, but he wanted to try one more time.
Still no luck.
Then he said, “Well, pick one of the two and I’ll just give it to you.”
I was flummoxed. To have such a personal encounter with someone I’d been listening to for years was one thing, but such generous kindness was more than enough to fog my brain. I just stood there for a second.
“Well, I really wanted the songbook,” I stammered, “gosh, thank you so much.”
“See, my luggage will be just a bit lighter on the trip home,” he said with a smile. I think the fiddle player standing behind him was as surprised as I was.
I stuffed the book into my backpack, shouldered it and the bag chair I’d been lounging in, and headed back to the dinghy. My head was kind of spinning. Later, going though the book – it’s a treasure. It not only contains the words and chords to forty of Fulk’s songs, each song has suggested chord voicings, picking patterns, and commentary. At the back of the book is a section with a vignette for each song describing the inspiration, the time frame, what album it is on, who had played on the track, and other music trivia facts.
I walked past the venerable Bean Coffee Shop, the Oriental harbor, and around the corner where the Inland Waterway Provisions Company stands. All the way at the end of Water Street was the Oriental Dinghy Dock. I loaded up, pushed off, and shipped the oars.
I rowed out past the Oriental Village Marina, through the harbor, around the jetty, and into the river. The wind had picked up a bit and I could see that the river was choppier than it had been. Certainly, I’d been through worse anyway.
I had just rounded the jetty and sighted Molly to head her way, when there was a metallic jangle sound and the left oar slipped. Looking down toward the sound, the oarlock had come apart so that the oar was no longer attached. That’s interesting, I thought.
The oarlocks that I had installed on new oars about two weeks before had a bolt above and below the oar pulling two “C” shaped brackets into a hug. The nut on the top bolt had come off but the bottom bolt had held. I tested the oar and if I stroked carefully, I could lean it into the bottom of the bracket and carry on. It was way less efficient but I could make some way. With the increase in the wind, the river had become pretty choppy. My little pram dinghy handles beautifully in part because of the camber. There is a nice “ship-like” curve to the pram. The bow and transom each rise above the deepest part which is about two thirds back toward the transom. However, in the chop of the Neuse that night, we were hobby-horsing along with the bow dipping and rising dramatically in the waves. I was struggling a little. I was confused at how that nut had just come loose, but I was persevering. As I rowed carefully, we galloped like a fish with an injured fin. I couldn’t stop rowing or pause for long, without losing a lot of ground. It was critical that the jetty kept getting further away and the boat got closer. I wasn’t too concerned yet but I was really having to work at it.
And then the other oarlock fell apart.
It was almost inexplicable that any oarlock would just fall apart. To have two come apart on the same trip, the same night, was simply the height of bad luck. What was happening?!? My mind began to jump and run with offbeat possibilities. Did someone sabotage me? I even checked for leaks, then checked my backpack and chair, but everything else seemed OK.
We were losing ground back toward the jetty. That would not be a smooth landing as there was no spot on the outside; just waves crashing against the rocks of the rip rap. I tested the other oar, but the bottom bolt had come loose on that one. There was just no way to lean on that oar in the same way. As I drifted toward the rocks, my oars were unusable.
I stowed one oar and turned around to kneel in the boat looking forward. My only chance was to act like I was in a kayak, but without a double paddle just an oar. I dug deep with the oar to the left, swung it to the right switching hands, and dug a deep stroke on the right. The pram’s bow waggled back and forth as we went. Rather than crawling in a straight line, we were crab-walking and hobby horsing along in the clumsiest way possible. Once I banged the oar on the pram’s gunwale as I switched sides and my next stroke was delayed by just a moment. I could feel our forward motion evaporate. I went back to my long, deep strokes and concentrated carefully as I switched sides. We slowly lolled our way toward the mother ship. Deep dig. Careful swing to the other side. Deep dig. Careful swing. Deep dig.
For the longest time, I did not think we were getting any closer to Molly. It was dusky and while rolling through the waves and digging at the water with one oar, the distance was hard to judge. Also, I am not a young man anymore. It hurts to say so, but I have never been ‘fit’ exactly and the river was testing me; sapping my strength and draining my resolve. Kneeling with my knees on the plywood bottom of the boat was not ideal. I don’t ever sit that way. The strenuous rowing was affecting my arms and shoulders of course, but my quadriceps were beginning to ache. When I bent into each deep stroke it was my arms, my back, and my core working, but the action, the fulcrum, ended in the front of my thighs. I was panting and stroking and panting and pulling and my mouth was so dry. It was probably more dangerous than I thought at the time, but I could not stop moving, could not stop to think. Deep Dig. Careful swing. Deep dig.
Water was splashing over the bow and dampening my clothes but my feet were soaked. The knealing also put pressure on my toes which were bent over inside my shoes. Deep Dig. Careful Swing. Deep Dig.
Finally, Mollynogger seemed to be closer than before. I could see her dancing patiently in the waves. All I wanted was to be able to reach out and grab her rail. I wanted to stop pulling at the waves. I wanted to rest. And I desperately.needed.a.drink.of.water. Deep dig. Careful swing. Deep dig.
Suddenly, Molly seemed to be only ten feet away. I paused to look at my home in the fading light. In the next moment, we were much further away again. I went back to digging at the waves, got back to ten feet. I spit trying in vain to clear my dry mouth. Digging and digging. Five feet. Deep Dig. Deep Dig.
Dig.
I reached for the gunwale and managed to touch her. I held on for dear life, dropped the oar into the pram, and pulled us, hand over hand, toward the ladder.
Finally. I knew we were going to be all right.
It was a struggle to tie the painter to a stanchion. The pram and the boat were bouncing in the waves, but did not dance together. I had to hang on with one hand and try to set up a bowline with the other. Finally, I managed to hold on to the loop with two hands while finishing the knot and we were actually attached.
I sat down in the dinghy for a moment. The next obstacle was the ladder, so I stood cautiously. As we bounced just out of sync, climbing aboard was going to be like switching horses in the middle of a stampede. Before that though each oar needed to be put aboard Molly; then the bag and the chair.
Finally, with a hand on each side of the lifeline gate, I stepped one foot onto the thwart and the other into the ladder. My legs shook with exhaustion and I struggled to gain the strength to make the next small steps up onto the boat. One shaky step, then another, then an uncomfortable twist and I sat down on the cabin top.
I had made it. All the way. My lungs gulped selfishly at the air even though the work had ended. As I sat, my thighs were whimpering and my shoulders were numb.
After a few moments, as my heart rate slowed, I stood cautiously on the side deck and grabbed the backpack and the chair to toss them loosely into the cockpit. And then made my own way aft. Luckily, after all that action, somehow I still had the key in the pocket of my shorts. The padlock fell open and I pushed the companionway back. With some difficuly, I lifted the dropboard out of the way and made my way down below. Molly is a bachelor pad right now, adequately clean but lived in. Still, the cabin just then was a sight for sore eyes and an exhausted body. I tore off my sweaty shirt, grabbed a water out of the fridge, and flopped into the port settee. What a night.
I hadn’t eaten anything since the black beans and rice that afternoon, but this pirate was going to hit the bunk. I was done.
My luck did not improve much the next day. Overnight the forecast for Saturday had changed. It was likely to rain before the music fest was through. The wind was going to be stronger and steady as well. But I took too long deciding if I was going to go ashore again and the wind made my decision for me. As I mentioned, the outside anchorage is exposed to all the wind and waves of the Neuse River. It was soon too rocky for me to haul the anchor and escape. From mid afternoon Saturday until about 2:00 AM Sunday morning, Mollynogger was hobby horsing almost as much as the pram had the night before. Sleep is not really possible with the boat moving that much. Further, I was basically on Anchor Watch to make sure that the anchor was holding and we were all OK.
I finally slept into late Sunday morning. The weather had moderated and the forecast was the first thing I checked. There was a window to escape, but the wind was going to return by evening. Coffee was brewed quickly and I hauled the anchor. We motored a couple hours to the east and found a spot to hide in Broad Creek. I was going to sleep well that night.
Ironically, there was a gale warning last night and I am back in Broad Creek again.
… but that’s getting way ahead of my story. More sailing, next time.
