Gatorbone, Greens and Goodness

Every two years or so, our dear, dear friends, Lon and Lis Williamson (aka Big Lou and Maxine) have a party.
This is not a regular party. This is a four day festival fiesta, with camping on the property and food and porta- potties in the yard and more music than you can possibly imagine.
It's the kind of party where four-hundred best friends might show up to pick and visit and eat and drink. The kind of party where musicians from the never-known to the well-known show up with their instruments. The kind of party where on one porch a group of musicians made up of everyone from a seventy year old plumber who plays guitar and writes songs to a seventeen year old gal on mandolin might be playing Wildwood Flower while on a deck about fifty yards away some rock guy might be playing stand-up base with a woman on flute, a woman on violin and a former Eagle.
You just never know.
And Maxine? She never ever stops. There she is in her petticoats and crocheted sweater, her guitar in her hand, singing notes the birds stop to listen to. And Big Lou is right there too, nodding and being gracious and maybe, if you're lucky, showing you the mandolins he's building.
I stand in awe and amazement as these two people open their home and their property and their hearts to all the folks who show up. They risk their yearly income, all their belongings and their septic tank for this one weekend.
And me? I go because I love my Lis and I love Lon, too. I love a lot of people who show up at this party every year but you know me- I'm not exactly a party animal.
And I don't play music.
So here's what I do: I bring over a huge pot of greens from our garden for Friday night and twenty pounds of angel biscuit dough which I roll out and bake on Sunday morning.



I am becoming famous for my angel biscuits and it is not unusual for those biscuits not to make it all the way from the kitchen to the place where they are served, right down the path through the woods. Not bragging. Just saying. And I might cook a huge amount of corned beef and cabbage and a half dozen loaves of Irish Soda bread, too. I just might.
But if you think I camp there, you would be wrong, wrong, wrong.
Luckily there is a state park right down the road and I reserve a cabin eleven months before the event because I love those cabins. They were built by the CCC back in the thirties and I look forward to staying in one of them with all my heart. They're all built of wood and have stone fireplaces and a tiny porch overlooking a pond of a lake and have little kitchens and we have to put the mattress on the floor because otherwise Mr. Moon's legs would hang off the bed about fifteen yards and they're cozy and just all you need in life.
I take my old enamel coffee pot and bacon and eggs and snatch a little of the angel biscuit dough to make us a breakfast on Saturday mornings and it's such a relief for me to have that cabin to go to every evening when the musicians are just getting all warmed up and I'm getting all wound down.
It's sort of the perfect combination of socialization and isolation for a woman like me.
So we've packed the ice chest with oysters to take and I've got the greens and biscuit dough ready to take and HoneyLuna will take her mandolin and perhaps her guitar and tent because she stays up all night to pick, and we'll be heading over tomorrow.
I'll cook and visit and try to spend every second with Lis that I can. I follow her around with lipstick and rum and one time a guy asked me if I was her handmaiden.
"I guess," I said, and that's okay with me.
Lord knows I can't play a guitar.
Sometimes, though, I might sing a little, if the spirit takes me and the song's in my key.
So here we go, off to Gatorbone where the dogwoods are blooming and the music will be floating through the air and the tables will groan with food and the people will all be smiling because Lon and Lis have created a little piece of heaven that they invite all their friends to enjoy on a weekend in March. The kids will be swimming although it's too cold and playing frisbee and the babies will be passed hip to hip and the bottle will be passed lip to lip and you can sing Will The Circle Be Unbroken if someone plays it.
I hope someone does.
I surely do.
See you when I get home.