Melinda

I was riding in the rear of a Union Pacific business car between Denver and Minneapolis, enjoying the scenery and playing my dulcimer, when a crazy little Jewish woman named Leslie asked me a pretty good question. What was my dulcimer's name? I didn't have an answer.

Most dulcimer players I knew, after their first student dulcimer, had picked out a special dulcimer for a long term relationship and soon given it a name. I should have said, given her a name, because I've only heard women's names given to dulcimers. It may be the majority of dulcimer players I've met are men.

Of course, I say majority are men but there are many, many women dulcimer players. They might even actually be the majority. It's just that I haven't asked their dulcimer's name. My bad.

In fact, it was a 13 year girl, named Cathy Morrison, that got me into dulcimers. I had attended a couple of Friday night music get togethers at Lonnie Lee's house in Fox, Arkansas. I was 16 years old and played guitar and mandolin, trying to keep up with the old-timers. The first time I saw her, she had a dulcimer in her lap, playing Barbara Allen along with the everyone else. I was just trying to keep up with the right chord changes and not doing a bang-up job of it. Cathy was wearing a colorful patchwork quilt dress that went down to her ankles and a white long-sleeve blouse with just a minimum of lace at the neckline. I thought I was in love.

She was married off to a 40 year old local farmer, who had quite a bit of acreage, before I got back to my parents' cabin in Fox the next summer. I didn't have a shot at all.

It did get me interested in playing dulcimer and a few years later I owned my first one. I have been playing ever since. In fact, I turned on a couple of my high school buddies to dulcimers and they are still playing to this day. I didn't name my first dulcimer either.

About 12 years ago I was in McSpadden's Dulcimer Shop in Mountain View, looking at dulcimers. Nothing caught my fancy. I wasn't really in the market for one and I really didn't have the money either. One of the clerks saw me monkeying with several instruments. I guess I was frowning at the results of my strumming. He came over and asked if I'd like to try out one of the dulcimers from behind the counter.

It felt like I was like buying a Rolex watch just off of Times Square. He looked around before he pulled one out and said, "Why don't you try out this baby for size." The way he talked about it in hushed tones, I got the impression he didn't show these to just any tourist walking into the store. They probably didn't. The ones on the display wall were pretty beat up. Tourists! They're messing it up for everybody. Especially the Yankee ones.

The moment I touched her, before I even strummed the first chord, I knew I had to have her. She was of matched dark walnut construction of the box, shapely and lovely in the classic hourglass design. She had a rosewood fretboard and rounded edge brass frets, a small ivory bridge and mother of pearl inlaid markers in the traditional style. Her polished chrome keys where like a woman's earrings and had matching pairs of heart shaped sound holes at lower waist and upper body. What was not to love at first sight?

The first note she produced for me was not a disappointment despite my anticipation. It was sweet nectar to the ear. The easiest touch of the strings to frets solidly held the notes. My hands and fingertips glided easily up and down her body. The harmonics came with just the lightest brush of her strings at just the right points.

I had to take her with me. I had no emotional detachment in which to negotiate a price. She was $430 before tax, retail. I paid it quickly in case the sales clerk saw my anxiousness and raised the price. Which I knew would have payed, whatever it was.

So, it comes back to this: I really didn't have an answer for why I hadn't named her. After all this time it seemed pointless. If a name doesn't come to you in the first week or so, it's not gonna happen. Or, so I thought.

I showed Leslie a little bit of music on the dulcimer. She sang a few tunes to which I roughly accompanied her. She has a most beautiful voice. However, I was getting a drowsy from the gentle rocking of the train and drifted off while Leslie strummed a few tunes herself on my dulcimer.

I was asleep only a few minutes but, I'd had an awfully long and detailed dream. I woke and announced that my dulcimer's name was Melinda. And, that she asked me why I'd never asked her what her name was? Apparently we had been acquainted for quite some time before I acquired her at McSpadden's. Leslie just looked at me with astonished face with her mouth wide open, "All that in a 5 minute nap?"

Out of that dream came some answers. Also, the entire story of our long relationship. A melody and words rushed around in my mind. I had this entire song, except for a few minor details, as soon as I woke. I wrote the words down and worked out the music that night with Melinda.

Here it is:


Melinda

I had a dream; I was about ten years old.
When it all happened, I really don’t know.
I met a girl, such a girl and we became friends.

She skipped off, with her daddy in tow.
Glanced over her shoulder and then dropped her bow.
I’m in heaven, in heaven, that she’d even look at me.

Chorus:
She smiles at me and I can’t see –
anyone else. It’s love to me.
Her voice is so sweet: I don’t hear the words.
Her voice is so sweet: I can't hear the words.

I grew old, had fights with the kin.
Died in battle and paid for my sins.
I was lost. I was lost and wasted much of my soul.

A hundred years later I had a blood on my face.
She was a nurse, took me in - kept me safe.
I was evil, almost evil. ‘though married, she made me well.

Chorus

Then I was a horse, seventeen high.
She was my mistress and together we’d ride.
Everyday. Everyday. All of that redemptive life.

Chorus

As a tree she grew, for a very long time.
A musician cut her down, to make a very fine –
dulcimer for someone. For someone like me.

Chorus

She in my lap on the back of a train.
“My name’s Melinda. Why have you never asked my name?”
Melinda, oh Melinda, it’s your voice, your sweet voice,
not your words, that have kept me sane (and)

Chorus

She smiles at me and I can’t see –
anyone else. It’s love to me.
Her voice is so sweet: I don’t hear the words.
Her voice is so sweet.

Eye of Hurricane Ike Winks Over FHH

Early this morning at about 4:10 am the eye of the mighty Hurricane Ike passed over FHH. The sudden calm after the storm of high winds and advancing rain bands that knocked out electricity in most of Rugburn and Van Halen Counties, was like the surrender of Germany after Eisenhower's assault on Europe in WWII. Hopefully, as with Germany, economic aid will be coming shortly that will revitalize the area into a one known for its exceptionally well crafted automobiles.

Damage was widespread and seemed to effect everyone in the community. "I was horrified," said longtime resident Martha Delante'. "I didn't know what was going to happen to me. The lights went out. I couldn't get out of my bed and the blinds blew off the window, the rain pouring in on me. It was horrible."

Her neighbor Jamie Pulnap ran next door as soon as the storm subsided, "I knew Mrs.Delante' was trapped. She has gained a little weight in the past decade and hasn't been able to move from her bed in over 6 years."

The FHH Fire Department responded quickly, pulling some of it's volunteers from a three car pile-up on Dan Creek Parkway. "They was stupid enough to be joy-riding roller-coaster hill with a 65 mph cross-wind: we can take our time cutting them out," said FHH Fire Chief Skip "Short Order" Chef. "Anyway, we just picked up the blinds off the floor and closed the window. It took six of us to help Mrs. Pulnap change the sheets. Whew, that weren't no pretty sight but, we got 'er done."

Rain poured in sideways and the wind whipped the trees like an illegitimate stepson. Everyone had damage. "They was limbs and leaves everywhere. It took me over an hour to clean off my deck. It's really hard to get them acorns out of the cracks in the deck," said Jimmie Joe Johnson. "I'd had it done sooner but, all I had was a little pink kitchen broom from the Dollar General store."

Power is still out in some areas of FHH. Mike "Big" Johnson (no relation to Jimmie Joe) with Jean Petty Power and Light said it may be this afternoon before all power is back online. "One of our boys, a new guy who started two days ago, got a little over eager and was trying to do a little preventive trimming of large branches near the main transformer. He successfully cut out a large limb that was right over our main power line into FHH. However, the limb took out the line and the power grid spiked. It cut off electricity all the way to the other side of Hillery."

No deaths were reported in the area. The three teenagers in the pile-up at the bottom of roller-coaster hill were examined by 17 local EMTs. They were released to go home and explain the lack of family vehicles to their parents.

The mayor's office is writing a contractor bid sheet to have the branches and leafs removed from the city hall parking lot. "We expect the city to be up and running by the end of next week," said Mayor Adolf Sharing, "FHH is a resilient town. It takes more than a hurricane to knock off our feet."

Hurricane Ike as seen from the top of Sugarbread Mountain.

From the Fairhaven Harbor Harbinger and Highlights (FHHHH), Sept. 14, 2008, page 1, reporter Joe Mamasophat.

Arkansas Constitutional Amendment on November ballot