Hometown by Anny Scoones

Author:Anny Scoones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRAVEL / Canada / Western Provinces (AB, BC), TRAVEL / General, ART / General
ISBN: 978-1-77151-001-1
Publisher: Touchwood Editions
Published: 2013-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

Everyone was kind to him, as if he was a fixture in the neighbourhood, and perhaps that is one way to look at a neighbourhood, to see how their local eccentrics are accepted and treated and embraced. We live in a crazy world with lots of problems, but I like to think that our tolerance for people who are different is improving, and that we are more empathetic toward the bullied ones who march to a different drummer. I think, in Fernwood anyway, that we are in a more compassionate world.

One evening I dropped in to the Fernwood Inn. I sat in the back room in a cozy booth with a glass of wine and admired the beautiful wildlife photographs, framed in rustic wooden frames, hanging on the yellowed walls. Then an extraordinary event began to take place all around me. First, people, mostly older and alone, very nicely dressed, began to arrive and set up music stands throughout the room. Then a band appeared on the little wooden stage. Two of the band members were women and one wore a black T-shirt that said, in big, crazy, white letters, THE MIGHTY UKE.

The woman began to strum and sing “I’d Like to Teach the World to Strum” and everyone joined in, accompanied by a rosy-cheeked, smiling man wearing a pink and yellow Hawaiian shirt, who coolly strummed the bass at the back of the stage.

The two women reminded me of an eastern maritime party—they were full of fun and humour and began playing maritime songs such as “Farewell to Nova Scotia” (all we needed was a step dancer!). They belted out the songs with gusto, stomping their feet and playing their ukuleles. And soon the whole room was singing and playing ukuleles as well. I was in the middle of the monthly ukulele strum-a-long hosted by Diamond Tooth Molly & the Mighty Little Uke Band!

They played a wide selection of Canadian songs, from Gordon Lightfoot to Anne Murray. I couldn’t believe that you could play such a variety of songs on the ukulele. In the break, some members oiled and polished their ukuleles; others tuned and tightened their strings and asked the woman on the stage to listen for the right sound, while others discussed the date of the next practice at the Legion across town. One lady admired the new leather carrying case that her friend had purchased from an online ukulele store. A smiling, plump man with ruddy cheeks, wearing big jeans and red suspenders, plucked away at the tiniest ukulele I have ever seen—his thick pink fingers elegantly touched the strings as the little instrument rested on his stomach.

After the break and another couple of tunes, Diamond Tooth Molly belted out to the audience, “Okay, folks, it’s time for the Uke Salute!” and everyone energetically held up their ukuleles by their necks. “I’m counting twenty-two tonight,” she yelled with delight before launching into “Makin’ Love Ukulele Style.” (The second time I attended, she counted forty-eight ukes, and the third time, fifty-four.

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