My friends - I was asked yesterday by one of our subscribers when we might see another of the delightful little essays written by Dr. Gordon Wilson. So, today, to perhaps take our minds away, for a brief moment, from the tragedy of the past two weeks, I am sending along another of Dr. Wilson's narratives. This one is entitled, "Parties", and is taken from his little book called, "Fidelity Folks", which was written about his childhood and teenage years spent in the village of Fidelity in Calloway County, better known to us as New Concord. He was the son of Dr. Marquis Pillow Wilson, a physician of Calloway County. Gordon Wilson was an educator who taught for a short time in Calloway, Hickman and Fulton counties, before moving on to Western KY University. He earned his Ph.D in English and became the beloved head of the Department of English at WKU. He died in 1970. -B =========================================================================== PARTIES -Dr. A. Gordon Wilson -Fidelity Folks "In spite of severe opposition from some quarters the young people of Fidelity had parties - and a good many of them. Square dancing had practically gone out before I could remember and was looked upon as the most immoral thing in the world, unless that honor was saved for gambling. But there were still play-parties in some parts of the area, and there was clog-dancing at the loafers' j'int [joint] and elsewhere. The fiddlers still knew their old wicked tunes and played them just for fun, though the only obvious response was the patting of feet, or the clapping of hands. Occasionally on the fringe of Fidelity somebody would secretly give a square dance, in spite of parents and the Sunday School. Play-parties were and are very little different from square dances. The two most typical forms of these folk games or dances are the circle and the double line, with partners facing each other. "Shoot the Buffalo" or "Pig in the Parlor" represents the circular dance; "Virginia Reel" the double line, or contradance. I have seen many variations of the two types, especially the Virginia Reel. Some of the dances were "called" just as was the square dance; some had sung directions; some were just played to the words and tune of some old ballad. A few of our people drew the line at having a fiddle play for us; that suggested the wicked square dance. But young people, like love, will find a way. Into our village in my earliest days came an itinerant music teacher, who left his stamp permanently upon us. We called him 'Doodle' Daniel; to this day I do not know how he signed his name. He organized a string band and taught the men and boys numerous breakdowns, sentimental airs, patriotic airs, and trick numbers. Our postmaster was first violinist, the "general" played second fiddle, and there were mandolins, guitars, banjos, washboards, French harps, jew's-harps, and 'bones' (castanets). It was a severe trial on all of us to sit still and listen to the seductive string band, unable to rise and shine as dancers. Often we had solos, I suppose you would call them. A fiddler did his tricks or played seriously, or a banjo picker would accompany his own rendition of some mournful ballad. The jew's-harp or the French harp almost has to be played as a solo in order for the hearers to get the delicate tones and shading. I do not recall any vocal solos with string band accompaniment, but we often sang as a group. All the music I have mentioned may have been given at a picnic or at a private home when people had come in to sit till bedtime. Sometimes we had genuine parties after the fashion of people everywhere, as the one that our postmaster gave for the twentieth birthday of his oldest son. This was a moonlight party, with the spacious yard decorated and lighted with Japanese lanterns. There were tubfuls of lemonade and a make-believe spring of ice water with ferns planted around it. Along in the evening, after we had played Social until every boy had met every girl and sometimes got stuck with an uninteresting partner, the postmaster entertained us with numerous records on his gramhophone, the only one in Fidelity. Everybody present regarded the party as the greatest social event in the life of Fidelity. It seems in retrospect that our lives were shut off from planned and supervised social life. That we did as well as we did is a tribute to good average human nature." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++