Day 17 June 13

Dear Followers of Happy Trails,

I got feeling that the blog for yesterday might have been too detailed (boring), but I wanted to give all of you a sense of what this camp is like. Now that you know the routine, I’ll move it along a bit.

First thing after breakfast, there was a beautiful informal singing on the porch of Pradat House Lodge. The singing is from the Lloyd Book (an old book of traditional hymns that I had never heard of). I stopped by and noticed that the singing was usually led (sitting down) by older people (yes, even older than me!) with beautiful harmonies.

Then we studied more rudiments then had our picture taken after lunch. We then learned about the tradition of Memorial Lessons (usually in memory of someone more or less recently deceased). Following this, we actually had a memorial. This was very moving, with songs sung which were favorites of the deceased.

I learned that roommate Eliza’s father raised tobacco in South Carolina and was originally from one of the islands off the coast of South Carolina where the inhabitants speak Gullah. I’ve always wanted to learn more about these folks and their dialect, and by coincidence am currently reading a book set near there which has characters who speak Gullah.

Happy Trails Soon,

Linda