Jack’s next few posts are a bit personal – – –

People often ask how Wendy and I met and ended up married. I mean – age difference, from different sides of the Atlantic, she’s a storyteller and I’m a singer, etc. (Although I will say she’s become a great singer and my song introductions have turned into full-blown stories!)

Our meeting is quite a story and I’ll tell as much of it as possible over the next few weeks in the lead up to our 25^th Anniversary.

In July 1995 with my musical buddy George, I was playing a Celtic festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee and staying with friends nearby who had helped arrange the booking. Recently divorced, the last thing on my mind was to get into another relationship. But there she stood on the other side of the square with two small children in tow that I recognized as the very young son and daughter of the friends I was staying with. They asked her to come for an evening get-together with a few other friends and said I had lots of stories. It turned out that she was a storyteller!

She arrived with a cassette recorder and proceeded to capture the whole evening on tape. During the soiree it was obvious to everyone else that I was smitten, despite all my attempts to hide it (there was much hilarity at various points much to my embarrassment).

There was some talk of us all going to visit her at the cabin she was staying in out in the woods. George and I had various other gigs in the area so we were staying with our friends for another few days. But as the days passed I wondered when I would see this beautiful kindred spirit again. Every day I gently (I thought, anyway) brought up the subject but couldn’t get any sign it was happening until the very last day (of course everyone else was enjoying the drama as I grew more and more insistent!). We sat on her porch and chatted amiably then she served us a great lasagna! I wrote out the words of a song she liked and all around the edge I wrote my contact details.

George and I headed off the next day to Maine for more gigs and when we got there the first thing I did was send her a postcard. Meanwhile our friends explained that they usually phoned me to make sure I’d arrived back safely to my home in Scotland. When my phone rang it was Wendy who’d been urged to take on the task. I was so surprised I hung up on her – but luckily she called again.

Next week – the saga continues, to Newfoundland – – –

Many of you know I took on a side gig as a Folkways Reporter for the program Inside Appalachia. We had our first “radio school” retreat last month to learn how to use the equipment and deal with problem soundscapes (being outside, rooms with air conditioners, etc.). Sound is different from print, y’all. Books is easier.

Daunted but determined, I set out last weekend to the Knoxville Farmer’s Market, there to meet my informant, the indomitable Femeika Elliott. Meika won a Foodways Practitioner Fellowship and I planned to do a feature story on her work with nutrition education and self-sustainability in East Knoxville. I planned to cover her class leading newbies through the Farmers Market teaching them to navigate its mysteries.

I set the equipment up just like they taught us radio school. Donning my headphones and taking up my microphone complete with that big fuzzy wind barrier you see reporters use outdoors (it’s called a dead cat and I have nothing to say about this) we traversed the market.

You tend get your best tape at the beginning and end of an interview, when the subject is on top form, or too tired to mince words. So when Femeika paused early on before some purple cauliflower and began an elegant soliloquy on wide ranges of produce being part of a just and healthy landscape, I kept the mic in her smile zone and stood back. She was nailing it—

–and a small child darted beneath the mic and began to play a clapping game.

They didn’t cover this in radio school.

Ok, I would recreate that information with a voiceover, let’s keep walking. Femeika was already moving on. They talked meats, dairy, veggies. She began discussing the kinds of vegetables different body types could benefit from—

–and a bee landed on the dead cat. Apparently, she liked it there, because as Meika droned on, the bee began humming a cheerful little bee song to herself while attending to some self-care about the feet and antennae.

I am allergic to bees. She rode the length of the market’s bread section with us. Fortunately, not a lot of meaningful moments came from the carb section. In desperation, I finally gave the microphone a surreptitious shake. The bee shot me a reproachful look and flew away. Her feet looked great.

A timpani band played hymns in the background, mostly of a Scots-Irish background, and the fusion music was, well, cute ambiance. With the music behind her voice, Femeika said, “Most importantly you—“

–and the guy next to the timpani band blew his shofar. Tents in the market sucked in with contracted air. Mothers clutched their children. Dogs howled—at least their mouths opened; no one could hear anything else. A cop grabbed his radio.

They didn’t cover shofars in radio school, either.

I dunno guys, at least when you’re writing books, you can keep typing while the shofar blows.

As I shook hands with Femeika, dismantled my mic, and exited the market, a bee flew in front of me. She gave me the finger.