The Midway Bluegrass Festival was held last weekend; this weekend the music moves to Greenwood. This often means a seasonal bonus for the citizens of both Greenwood and Midway. After the Midway event is over some musicians remain in the village and camp at Riverfront Park. Others move on to set up early in the Barbara Diane Collin Ball Field in Greenwood.
Since the Greenwood festival doesn’t start until Friday, you will often hear two or three musicians practicing together in an impromptu street concert. Good musicians they are too; very much worth the listen.
Greenwood is the final bluegrass festival of the season in the Interior. For a $5 day pass this weekend you can be entertained for hours. Bring your lawn chair.
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There once was a fellow named Operknockity. He was a very famous man, renowned for his expertize as a piano tuner.
Word of his abilities had spread far-and-wide and he had become the most sought after of all piano tuners in the whole world.
Glenn Gould used his services, as did Liberace. No job was too difficult for him. He could handle them all, big or small. It was even said that Lawrence Welk called upon him to dyno-tune his accordion before one of his really big gigs.
There was only one hitch—he would only tune any specific instrument once. After that he considered that particular beast conquered and refused to ever touch it again.
This once-around-the-block rule sent the career of one of the most promising concert pianists of the 20th century to an early end when the poor fellow was booked for the most important performance of his young career.
One of the main reasons this pianist had made it to the big time in the first place was that he’d always performed on the same instrument in a small concert hall in Poughkeepsie. And this piano had, at the beginning of this young man’s career, been tuned by the famous Operknockity himself.
The pianist was so good that he’d never had to perform anywhere else. Audiences from around the world came flocking to hear him. But there came a time when the protocol of the art world required he perform live at Carnegie
Hall. Unfortunately he refused to play on any other instrument than his old ivory friend from Poughkeepsie. But in moving the piano to the Carnegie it fell out of tune.
When the young man called for the piano tuner his career came to a crashing halt.
Oh, the tuner came and consulted but he refused to do the work. On his way out the door he simply said, “Operknockity tunes but once.”
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Speaking of an opportunity that might be missed, the Phoenix Foundation of the Boundary Communities is sponsoring an update of the Boundary Communities Vital Signs (see story page A1).
A survey will be available—but only until next Monday— either online or at the Rock Creek General Store, The Spot or Deadwood Junction.
It would be a mistake for West Boundary residents to not take the 25 to 30 minutes needed to fill in a survey.
There are 11 sections to the survey and at the end of each you will be asked to identify your top priority for improving life in the Boundary.
The payback comes over the next decade or so, because when the Phoenix Foundation is considering grants to organizations across the Boundary, the grass-roots priorities identified through this survey will be considered.
Take time to make sure input from the west end communities is included in the new report.