17 July 2009
 
Shades of Country

(The lobby at Donks Theater, Mathews, Virginia)
 
The President was supposed to be low key at the Hilton Hotel last night in Manhattan. He was there to address the one hundredth anniversary dinner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the organization whose name evokes the ethos of Booker T. Washington.
 
Mr. Washington thought that hard work and dignity would solve the inequities of race in America, and of course he was wrong. The first African-American president has had a bit of an awkward relationship with the holders of the Civil Rights legacy, since he has no blood ties to those who bore the shackles in America, vaulting right from Africa into suburbia, via his mother and father.
 
The White House did not want to bally-hoo the address too much, but the President chose to depart from the prepared remarks, and as the Invisible Girlfriend observed to me this morning, “He sounded a lot like Dr. King. He talked about self-reliance and responsibility.”
 
I don’t know about that- I saw some quotes that emphasized putting down the xBox and taking up the textbook- but the Intern and I were watching a DVD of season four of Weeds, which of course is the tale of a white-bread suburban mom who winds up mired in the wild collision of mainstream suburbia and the ethnic quirks of the drug trade.
 
We like it. We are off network television for the summer, and that is why we missed not only the President, but the hotel bombings in Djakarta. I am still trying to puzzle that one out, and why no one has done that here since 9/11.
 
It isn’t like it was, after all, when the cops could identify potential threats by the amount of melanin in the skin. Of course, if they were wrong in the old da ys, it didn’t matter.
 
The audience at Donk’s was a trip across the divide from cosmopolitan Northern Virginia. My pal gave me the commentary as the house lights dimmed.
 
“The House Band is the Shades of Country. Uncle Jimmy added them to the show thirty years ago, and the line up has changed a little, but the format is about the same. Uncle Jimmy gets up and tells a couple jokes, and then he reads the names of the first timers, and then they do a set with The Shades on some seasonal theme.”
 
“What is it tonight?” I asked.
 
“Well, the 4th of July was last week, so they are doing a patriotic riff. Then they break and come back with a feature act. Tonight it is a cute couple named Jim and Joell Kepka- they are both Donk’s regulars who got married a few years ago after Jim proposed on stage.”
 
“Sounds exciting,” I said dubiously, trying to get in the mood. “How long does it last?”
 
“With intermission, about three hours.”
 
With that, the house lights came down, and the audience collectively leaned forward to hear the soft voice of Uncle Jimmy, the Oprey Impresario.
 
Jimmy is a long way down the road from he young idealist who started this show. His blood is in the stage, and the music is clearly in his.
 
He bios of he performers show that they are nurses and teachers and skilled tradesmen. They all have day-jobs while hoping for lightning to strike and carry them off to Nashville, though some have obviously been waiting a few decades too long for the storm to pass by.
 
Most record their own CDs, and they are available for sale if you ask them at intermission.
 
Jimmy’s Oshkosh Bib overalls are trimmed in sequins that flashed in the spotlights. His jokes were lame, but comforting in a way, like old soft shoes.
 
“I don’t have any cash, but if you keep doing that, I’ll write you a check!” was the punch line to the first, and the second, about a duck taken to the movies concealed in his overalls, was too cute for words.
 
“The man next to me has exposed himself, and it is eating my popcorn.”
 
I took a munch of mine, and settled in. We are across eh divide now, into humor that was just a little blue for the radio networks, which was the attraction to attend a show in person. It was the Wonderbread of entertainment, all white and comfy as a cu shion.
 
Uncle Jimmy read the names of the people who had come form he little down of the Neck, and all the way to Northern Virginia. He peered into the audience to ensure that people stood when he called their names, and then, as part of the theme, asked everyone who had worn the uniform of their country to stand for a round of applause.
 
It should come as no surprise that most of the audience rose.
 
The music that followed was lively and good, and you could imagine yourself in a time and place when this little corner of the middle peninsula of Virginia was the center of America: literally and spiritually.
 
“’Bout twenty minutes too long,” said my pal. “Otherwise a good show.”
 
“I enjoyed it,” I said, thinking to myself it was the most remarkable thing I had seen in a long time.
 
“You will enjoy the drive back over to the farm tomorrow. You can take Route 3 all the way. You can start at King Carter’s tomb, the man who owned all this and every non-freeman on his land. You will pass the birthplace of George Washington’s mom, and George himself, and the Boyhood Home of General Lee, and James Madison. As you cross I-95 you will be on the Frederickburg battlefield, and then Chancelorsville and the Wilderness before you hit Brandy Station and the farm. Cedar Mountain is just beyond your place, and that is where the Second Manassas campaign started."
 
I gave a low whistle. “That is America pretty much in a nutshell,” I said.
 
“Well, at least part of it. Nothing much happened around here after Richmond fell.”

Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com