ColumbiaMagazine.com
Printed from:

Welcome to Columbia Magazine  
 





































 
Tom Chaney No. 239: Heavenly Music

Of Writers and Their Books, 31 January 2010 essay Heavenly Music
The next earlier Tom Chaney essay: Fare Thee Well, Robert Parker

By Tom Chaney
Email: Tom Chaney bookstore@scrtc.com

Heavenly Music

Every now and again I slither over into matters theological and eschatological. This is one of those times. It is like the proverbial slippery slope that politicians accuse their opponents of sliding down.

A couple of Thursday nights ago I braved thunderous wind and rain to go over Main to the Thomas House for "Picking on the Porch" which, of course, was not on the porch but inside.



For several third Thursdays Dave Foster of the Horse Cave Underground has put together this musical event on behalf of the Horse Cave Cultural District.

I thunk me the thought that sitting there listening to old time music is just about what heaven will have to be for me to put up with it -- if I can get there.

I have already decided that harp music is out. A little Celtic harp is fine, but one of those big things will cause irreversible trauma -- and for eternity?

Nope!

Just give me what we had the other night at the Thomas House -- two or three guitars, a fiddle or two, a Dobro no less, a mandolin, one of those big bass things -- and eternity would be just about long enough.

Of course we must consider ambrosia, said to be heavenly fare.

At all the church suppers, down at the salad end, there was always a dish full of marshmallows, canned fruit cocktail, and shredded coconut that folks called ambrosia. I generally noticed that a lot of it got carried back home.

Baptists, I reckon, don't fancy too much practice for the hereafter, if that's what they think ambrosia really is.

Ambrosia to my mind was further down the table.

Ambrosia is essentially a Greek term. It is what the gods eat. In the most arcane and ancient texts there is a recipe from the chief cook at Parnassus.

It seems he keeps a little pen out back where the divine fowl flutter about. When he is ready to fix ambrosia for Zeus after a rough day of checking about with Venus and her crowd, the cook has Hephaestus stoke up the brazier and heat up the olive oil while one of the kids catches a fair fowl.

Hephaestus plucks it, singes the pin feathers off. The cook then cuts it asunder and drops it in celestial flour.

When the oil is hot, he plunges the pieces in and lets them fry good and brown while he makes biscuits and gravy.

Now it takes about the same time to fry chicken as it does to play a set of music. And that's it -- for eternity -- fiddle music, guitar and mandolin, the occasional Dobro with ambrosia in the break.

And I'm aiming to be there.

If I can't get a front row seat, maybe I can wrangle a job in the kitchen where I can hear the music. Surely I can slip a gizzard or two out of the skillet from time to time.

If not, then it's off to the other place -- toasted marshmallows, singed fruit cocktail, and blackened coconut -- nothing but banjo music while eternity drags along.

But -- until that time -- Uncle Dave aims to keep up the Thursday night sessions at the Thomas House. He has talked of a weekly gathering instead of a monthly one.

This may be as close to heaven as many of us will get.

Don't waste it.


Tom Chaney can be found telling stories, planning his next meal, and occasionally selling books at:
The BOOKSTORE in Horse Cave, KY
Box 73 / 111 Water Street
Horse Cave, Kentucky 42749
(270) 786-3084
Email: Tom Chaney bookstore@scrtc.com

To read other Tom Chaney book reviews and essays, enter "Tom Chaney" in the searchbox."Dobro" is a registered TradeMark.


This story was posted on 2010-01-31 06:39:45
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know.



 

































 
 
Quick Links to Popular Features


Looking for a story or picture?
Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com.

 

Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728.
Phone: 270.403.0017


Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.