I received his email from a friend:
I went to the Saratoga guitar show and played an instrument that i can't get out of my mind.  It was the best sounding and playing guitar i ever laid my ears/hands on.  I was going to ask you if you've heard or tried,  but no matter what your opinion is,  i LOVED it.  Now i need to justify that i deserve such a fine guitar.now i bet you're wondering who/what.   Kim Griffin from Washingon county,  greenwich, i believe.  I found a review on the web and it was 10 stars in every category.  He custom makes no more than 6 guitars each year.  The one i am dreaming of was 3 grand, but he said he'd knock of a few hundred,  heh.  I'm thinking that folks spend that much for a factory made instrument .  This is out of character for me.....I just bought a hundred dollar chinese epiphone and was proud that i could spend so little.    Well,  i wrote to you because you have some very good sounding , unique guitars.   I'm guessing that these should increase in value just as an old Martin or Gibson,  am i right.  Is this a good investment aside from my desire factor? 

My reply -

I know well the phenomena of which you speak. My first insight happened when in high school and I played a far better quality sax than I ever owned. "Was this me playing? Wow! I sounded good." And I was playing better too. A fine instrument can do that - basically give you - and the listener - far more pleasure.  Obviously, not everyone feels that way. There are some good players out there with not-that-good instruments, but I am seeing a slow trend with the better players having far better instruments. Those old days are disappearing. A good example of this is Leadbelly. He played a Stella 12 string, for which he is famous. Stella was sort of a Montgomery Wards kind of brand; mostly all very low end instruments with very few high end ones. My bet is that, if he could have afforded it and if handmade instruments were available to him, Leadbelly would have played as fine a guitar as he could get.

    It has been said that we are in the golden age of guitars. That may be true. More than ever, luthiers are experimenting and pushing the boundaries as they learn more about their craft. Forums  (try "The 13th Fret" or "Acoustic Guitar")  and guitar shows allow them to meet others and see what boundaries others are pushing. There are fine, fine tonewoods out there now and it is generally acknowledged that the supply is going to rapidly diminish. And there are just some incredibly skilled folks out there. Not all of them are the same. One guitar that tempted me was the second one made by a DuPont employee. Darned fine guitar. But I didn't buy it. Here's why.

    The less well-known the maker is, the lower resale it may have or, at least, the harder it may be to sell, if you ever had to do that. It is the "Holiday Inn Syndrome". People tend to buy what they are familiar with, even through better alternatives may exist. I had the Martin thing for a while. They make good instruments (as does Taylor, Gibson and also Guild). And people know they are good. They don't know what a Griffin is, for example, so they will tend to discount them, even when they hear and play them. Sad fact, but still a fact.

    There are 4 tiers of guitars, as I see it. At the bottom are the factory-made lower end instruments, serviceable and inexpensive. They are your biggest bang for the buck. Some, not most, Martins are in this category, cheap but still decent. That is one reason I don't consider them for purchases any longer. I think that in their attempt to reach a broader customer base, they have really cheapened the brand. Martin still sells high end instruments, but I feel they are significantly overpriced. The second tier are the brands listed in the above paragraph, solid quality that you can count on. A third tier are what I call "boutique guitars", finely made, by small firms such as Goodall (I own two of these), Huss and Dalton, Larrivee, Santa Cruz, Collings.... You can go to certain stores and find them. There is one in the Capital District, Cathedral Music, over in Troy; others are where you find them, scattered far apart. These guitars sell for thousands, but may be cheaper than the finest of the Name Brands, when comparing quality. The last tier are luthier-made guitars. By this, I am referring basically to shops so small that one man (or woman) oversees the entire building of each instrument, doing most if not every step himself. Guitars made by these people are normally made on order only and each is one of a kind. The buyer gets to select the body style, the woods, the appointments, exactly how he wants them and the build is a collaborative process between luthier and buyer. A good builder will know what kind of music his customer plays and how he plays it. My most recent build saw the luthier ask for a CD of my playing so he could voice it to my attack and to my style. Once in a while luthiers will make one on spec, especially when he has ideas on the build process that he wants to try, ones for which no one has ever ordered.

    It is a real high to finally receive a guitar that you ordered years ago, one that was created only for you, and was made just the way you proscribed. After all this time, you get to hold it, to play it, to hear it. And, yes, you also get to see if your trust in the builder was warranted. Normally, the owners are delighted and have done the homework ahead of time to assure their trust was not misplaced. Sometimes, though, they would have been better off to go to a boutique and first play the one they are going to buy. When you order, there is always a chance you will not be satisfied, because you can't play or see them until they are made. If you play enough by a particular maker, here and there, you begin to get ideas about what you like or what you don't. You may also forget what the ones you saw earlier were like.

    Let me give an example of that. In 1978, I went to my first visit to the Martin factory. They have a neat little museum there and a guitar out that you can play. Of course, it is one of which they are especially proud and the acoustics in the museum are great. Naturally, I took hold of the one they had out. Omigod, I had to have one like it! I had no idea I could sound so good. So, that started a 3 month search. I was traveling around the US at that time and every single music store that I could find got a visit from me, looking for a herringbone-braced Martin. I played a lot of them and what you might have expected happened. I kind of lost an exact memory of what the one in the museum felt and sounded like. So, I could never be sure when I had one in my hands if it was as good. I eventually bought one, but by then, I was forced to acknowledge that my scientific comparison was completely flawed. The next search came many years later and this time, I went to higher-end stores where i could play a bunch of fine instruments, put one down, then pick it up again. I went to Cathedral Music, Mandolin Brothers in Staten Island, Melody Music in Bryn Mawr, Pa, to mention a few. That was very helpful and I began to make some useful comparisons. I talked to other high end stores, all over the US, and read what I could on the internet, also useful.

    What did I end up with? A radical departure for me.  I ended up buying a Goodall - sight unseen, from Buffalo Brothers in California. Not a totally dumb move, I could have returned it if I was not happy - but I was happy. It is a truly great guitar. By the time I was ready to commit, I had made up my mind that a Goodall was going to be a contender, so buying one that I had never even seen was not quite so dumb as it might have sounded. That's only half the story. Another guitar came out of this search. At Cathedral, I played a used Kinnaird, one which had been made specifically for a fellow who later sold it. I loved that thing, but I didn't like its looks (too ornate). Curious, I went to Kinnaird's web site and learned that I could have one made specifically for me for the same price I had considered paying for a used one. So was it a Goodall right away or a wait for a Kinnaird?  I did something totally out of character - I bought the Goodall AND ordered the Kinnaird, taking care to get different voicings on each. At home, the Goodall is used for faster pieces, as it is brighter-toned. The Kinnaird is used for more introspective pieces, as it has a slower decay and a more subtle and nuanced intonation. The Kinnaird is the one you heard me play at the Moon & River, the one you liked the sound of so much.

    To get a special instrument, there is another direction one can go - the vintage route. As a guitar is played, the vibrations in the wood as supposed to work on the resins and stuff therein and allow it to "open up". I am in a skeptical minority about this. But, more importantly, vintage instruments may have been built with better woods than they are today. With cheaper labor back then, more care may have been taken in the build and a better low or middle end (just maybe, maybe, even high end) instrument resulted. With a vintage instrument, you get all the mojo you could ever ask for and you don't have to worry about the first dings and blemishes; they were done for you decades ago. But, they come with their own worries - bending tops, curving necks, glue coming loose, body cracks, crappy tuners... And the vintage market can be very biased toward certain brands or models. For example Gibson banjos sell for top dollar. They are well-made, definitely yes, but yet they were not always thought to be a "top" brand when they were new.

    Now, having said so much of a general nature, let me be more specific. If it rings your bell, that's all you need to know. Are you happy with the looks, the workmanship, and the sound and playability?  If so, what more can be asked? I have played a Griffin once and they are fine. The one I played wasn't what I particularly wanted, but that's OK. I have talked to a couple of Griffin owners and they were well satisfied. One fellow was trying to sell his. He had to drop the price several times before it sold. I have the same problem right now with my Moreira classical guitar. If you are really into classical guitars and their makers, you will know who Moreira is. But most people don't. I couldn't get squat for it on eBay. I tried. It is now consigned in North Carolina at Dream Guitars, who have other Moreiras. I have been trying to sell it for a while and had previously consigned it at a small classical-only shop in Philly, then at Cathedral and, later, at Mohawk Valley Guitars ( on Jay St. in Schenectady - they also sell some of their own handmade instruments). I am re-making the same point I made earlier about re-selling them. But if you are happy, you will not be selling it, so it doesn't matter as much as my writing might make it seem. "Are you truly happy with it?" is the big question, the one besides which every other concern pales.

    In general, reviews on the web seem to be positive, not matter what you are buying. That's why internet firms have them on their web sites. They provide useful knowledge, especially when you can read many of them. Then certain trends will become apparent. I like to form a judgment of where the reviewer is coming from and what his experience is. Read a review for, say a Dean or a Johnson, and I'll bet they are good too, even thought they are not anywhere near the same category. Most reviews are made when the purchase was new and before things stared to go wrong with it (if they ever do). Incidentally, Harmony Central seem to have the most guitar reviews. It's a good resource, when taken with the usual grain of salt.

    Most of the fine instruments out there are $3 grand - and up. I would be a bit suspicious of a $2000 hand-made instrument and would wonder was it the fact that the luthier wasn't well-enough known to command a higher price, or was he not really as good as you think he is. My observations this summer at the Montreal Guitar Show (recommended!), which featured only hand-made guitars from select luthiers, was that there were a lot more out there above $6000 than there were at $3000-3500. But there were ~$3000 guitars I played there that I liked as well or better than far more expensive ones. Price is not always an indicator of quality or of what you want. For instance, I thought Kinnaird was very reasonable, considering what he was turning out. And the asking price of any given guitar may be far different than what you end up paying. The one I just got, the baritone, was offered to me at a Professional's Discount, which amounted to several thousand dollars. I would have been crazy not to take it. Other luthiers did not make that kind of attractive offer to me and this maker's reputation for quality baritones was second to none. An easy choice to make. Yes, I love it.

    At the Montreal show, I met a luthier with whom I had communicated in the past.  Great guy. Heck, most of them are. I haven't met a luthier who I did not like and who did not really seem to put both his professionalism and his craft on a very high plane. You see this in certain professions once in a while. Anyway, this luthier and I carried on an enjoyable set of conversations on finer points of building in which I was interested. He knew I'd never buy anything from him, yet he wanted to help me. His guitars were priced closer to $10 grand than they were to $6 and I could not see that they were better than many others which were cheaper. He based his price upon two things: his reputation and the fact that folks were buying from him at the prices he asked. Others do too. Once, he suggested that a luthier in Maine ask far higher prices for his instruments (based upon their relative quality, his and the other fellow's), but the other fellow declined, saying that he thought his were expensive enough as it was (I agreed, but then I am a consumer). At $3000, no luthier is getting rich and no wife can quit her job. Maybe not at $6000 either. There is just too much work that goes into a handmade instrument. These guys are meticulous and professional. Each one they sell has to be a perfect as they can make it. They stand behind them, often with lifetime warranties. I joke, whose life, "theirs or mine?"  Remember when they retire, if they do, the company does not continue and service will end for your instrument. You'll have to get any problem taken care of elsewhere, which is not hard to do.

     A rule of thumb is that a used instrument in mint shape will bring 80% of the selling price when new. And, also, list price is greater than selling price (except with luthiers, who are more apt to not do the padding thing). I have seen fairly large price jumps in the time I have been following fine guitars. But that does not carry through to all brands/makers equally. Of course, "past performance is not an indicator of future value", or whatever it is that stockbrokers say. The Griffin or Goodall or Kinnaird that you buy today may or may not edge up in value along with the rte of inflation, and when if becomes vintage it will be like the "unknown makers" of a quality instrument, not highly sought after, but still well-regarded. Let's face it, one buys a fine guitar because you gotta have it, because it speaks to you and says "take me home" (the forums are full of references to "GIS" - Guitar Acquisition Syndrome). Most buyers intend to keep theirs for a very long time, so resale price should not really be much of a factor in one's decision. Let me give an example from the cow world. I asked a dairyman why he had all those expensive and fancy registered cows in his herd, ones that didn't make any extra money for him. He said that when he  got up in the morning, he wanted something special out there in the barn, something to get him excited to start the day. That's my guitars.  I take real pleasure in owning, playing, hearing, just touching and seeing my guitars. And I like knowing that what I have is truly special. Yes, for 1/3 the price, I can get something 75% as good. But I don't want to settle for 75%.

    As an aside, if you buy it, or any other one, be absolutely sure to get a guitar humidifier and to use it during the dry winter weather.

We have a seller who has reduced his price. He had an accident and wishes to unload the property asap. It is always difficult to give advice in situations such as this and is evenmore so in the current economic conditions. Though making a quick buck is nice, usually I prefer to have more time and do the job right, getting as much for the seller as the market will bear. What is my usual advice? I use the words "fire sale price". That makes them stop and think about how urgent their need is and also connotes what may be necessary to get a sale in the time frame that they want.  It is especially frustrating when they want top price AND a quick sale. I am given nothing to work with.

In the current case, the property has been for sale , off and on, mostly on, for quite a while. The price has always been a bit too high. He will ask my recommendation. I will tell him the most that I think he can get for it, in a best-case scenario, and then he will price it a few thousand higher. Meanwhile, he has slowly been working on a complete rehab of the home. Not the way I would want to see it done; he has his own ideas. This is an old home and I prefer to see them restored rather than modernized. The thought here is that nearly everyone likes a properly restored old home but one that's been just remodeled (modernized) will turn off the old home folks. So what was done? First, he removed the back section to the home, saying that it was unfixable. I didn't think so, but, to be fair, I did not study it like he did. The amputation changed the home from larger to modest sized and most of my customers like old homes, and the larger, the better. Secondly, he changed the upstairs from a boring 4 modest-sized rooms circling around a hallway to the same rooms but with cathedral ceilings, hardly appropriate for an eyebrow colonial. They are almost as high as they are wide. With out brutal winters here, cathedral ceilings are not sought-after either among folks who like to cut heating costs. The home has been remodeled in the past, so not too many of the old features were left. What were left are gone now, however.

But it is definitely nicer than it was and although it is not what I would have recomended, it  is a signifacant improvement and will be easier to sell than it was when he bought it.  I have noticed that the people from Romantic backgrounds (Italian, Hispanic, etc.) are more apt to do away with old features and make something old look more modern. Yes, the owner fits in that pattern.  Meanwhile, the seller has had an accident, was seriously injured, and will remain disabled as a result. He lost his job along the way. He wants it gone.  My advice to him is below.

   "Honestly, in this market, I don't know. That is not to say I don't have intelligent guesses. I have been in real estate since 1981 and have seen lots of ups and downs. This one seems very different. The people that I see the most of are expecting to get something either for little or nothing or else they have little or nothing to put down. In the past, when the stock market has been down, I have seen a better quality of customer emerge, folks with money who don't want it in stocks. Not this time.

    In general, a stock answer for a quick sale can be addressed by telling someone to lower the price. that still works and always will. At the 'right' price, there is always a buyer for everything. But determining what is right is the hard part, without going too low and netting the client too little. You have just taken steps to address that, with the lowered price. Will it be enough? My thought is 'yes', but the market will tell us in due time if that is correct. I can't be sure. This round, there have been a few things selling at what we think was fair and encouraging prices. But others, priced cheaper, have languished. In Schoharie County, for which we receive records of all sales, sales have been just 1/3 of normal - that includes the family sales, stuff transferred by wills and all non arm's length transactions as well. Acreage has been the worse of all. Even less is selling and prices are all over the board. All I have sold this year is one piece, priced at $3000/acre - and that was to a neighbor. The general public did not even look at it. The seller has no idea just how lucky he was there. We had another piece that had a few buildings (garage, storage, apartment), a killer location, and was priced at not too much over $1000/acre. That saw a fairly good response. Its only drawback was that there was a large wetland on the land. But there were well over 100 acres, too. The people who wanted it all made lowball offers, all but one guy who refused to follow through on getting the financing. Eventually one of the lowball offers was high enough to tempt the owner and the place sold.

Don't interpret this to mean that your acreage will see the same effect. Yours is different as it is a 'farm', land which supports buildings. The remaining land, should you choose to sell it afterwards, might be treated the same as the examples I gave in the previous paragraph.  Your price of $1600/acre is, coincidentally, exactly the maximum that the Federal Land Bank system will presently loan on land. Your land is not quite in the state of cultivation that the FLB would like to see for their maximum, but it is not that far off either.

So, right now, there is quite an abnormal range of what is being sold (and a much larger range of what isn't). To stand out form the crowd, you need to be priced lower. I think you are. I know very little that is in this price range that compares. that is good for you. But the market will tell us, and that takes some time. Let's re-evaluate things every 30 days.

The other side of the equation, besides price, is condition. You are pecking away at that and have come a very long way. But it is still a work in progress. If it was finished, your  chances would increase dramatically. I understand that you have constraints of time and money to deal with which may prevent that form happening. If so, we will deal with it as we must....  The barns are visibly deteriorating, which would bother me as a buyer, but I don't think it will bother too many others. The guy this weekend didn't seem to notice or to care if he did, and he went all through them....  Where the barn condition may come into play is someone trying to use that as leverage to justify a lower offer.  I have ways of dealing with such things, ways that are never always successful but work well with some buyers."

Now the ball is in our hands. We finally have a price we can work with. The rest will be a test of our marketing ability and my showing skill. There are two major functions at work here - price and marketing skill, coupled with some luck.

I was sent Tom White's CD Voices from Corn Mountain (WizmakW579-40) for review. It is a recording of instrumental music, featuring that hammered dulcimer with a plethora of other instruments, all played by Tom White.You won't hear this live! I have enjoyed it and played it several times now.  I am not sure if  a general answer was desired (which is, yes, I liked it!) or a real critique, so I took the long path.

        I did not care for the graphics - the cover photo of Vrooman's Nose (called "Corn Mountain" by Native Americans) is not in sharp focus; it feels like it was taken at low res by a digital camera. The winter scene gives a cold feeling. Summer or, better yet, fall would have been better. The liner notes were fine. I kind of liked the photo on the CD itself, but wonder if one with Tom playing the hammered dulcimer or something else might not have been better yet.  I am glad the times were entered on each piece. It bugs me when folks don't do that - when  I import it into the computer, without the times, it is hard to tell if whose track 1 (or whatever) I have before me.  I liked it enough to add certain tracks to other music I have which I then burned and lent to our Food Co-op for background music during business hours.

    Some other general comments: there are good transitions between the pieces on the tracks (many tracks feature several tunes, played as a medley) and the tempos at which they are played are well-chosen. The various instruments come and go within the tunes as they should and they sound balanced and correct together. In general, I think folks prefer 7 beat ending notes. That is a rule meant to be broken, but it was broken here more than necessary. I would have liked to hear more tenor banjo. What there was sounded great. There were times, not specific times, when I wished Tom had taken chances and pushed his playing to the edge of what he can do, which can be pretty impressive. Tom White is one of the best improvisational players I will ever play with and I didn't see as much of that here as I might have liked.

    Specifics: I liked the tempo change on Staten Island. You can't do that too often, and he didn't. It works well there and adds interest. By the same token, I liked the Midnights and the other slow ones, for the change in tempo. Faster stuff is the best, but all fast would get boring, so they were well-chosen. Being partial to fingerpicked guitar, I really liked Schaghticoke Shuffle, but objectively and, against my own preferences, I could be forced to admit that, stylistically, it doesn't fit with the others. I think it was aimed here for a close group of tunes to feature Tom's skills on hammered dulcimer and the many other instruments he plays well. But, it is too nice a rendition to lay dormant and not heard by others, too. Billy in the Lowground - nice to hear a C tune. Not many folks play them and it's a good one. The mandolin sounds a bit muffled there. Then I listen again and no longer think so, and back and forth - as often as I want to keep listening. Breakabeen, good name, good tune,  and definitely one of the most interesting on the recording. I like the way  the modal F arrives 2 beats later than I anticipate it. It could use a more inventive accompaniment, as could some of the others. Pretty much the CD seems to have stuck to simple backup instrumentation. An obligatto, different style of rhythm, or bass runs once in awhile would add interest without distracting. That can be overdone, too, not a problem here at all. On Fisher's Hornpipe, there is a disconcerting transition between the hammered dulcimer and the banjo on their breaks, the only such problem of that sort which that I noticed anywhere on the CD. And, lastly, on Corn Mountain, there is a good tune, but the Indian chant stuff at its end seem to come out of nowhere and, to my way of thinking, does not tie in with the rest. Perhaps if it started with this, phased out and then ended with it? It certainly does not fit with the rest of the album - but it does add interest and I certainly would not advise that it be removed.

    That's as pedantic and picky as I can be. Had my opinion not asked for, which got me thinking carefully and critically, I would have just played it and enjoyed it for what it is, a well-done and enjoyable, not ground-breaking, CD of instrumental music from several cultures. If folks take time to read the instrumentation credits, they should be impressed. It's what I have always wanted to do, a recording that one can be proud of, one that is ALL YOU. I like that a lot.

Wizmak Productions, 1369 Clauverwie Rd., Middleburgh,NY 12122   518-827-3181

Since last night, we have had 3" of rain here at Rocky Top. Lasher Creek, which forms a waterfall only a few feet from our deck, is full - no, overflowing. Much of the year it is dry or frozen, not this year of course.

Is it ever ripping today! Anywhere in the house, there is this thunderous background roar. Outside, you can hear rocks moving under the brown water, scraping along the limestone bedrock bottom. If one were daring and foolhardy enough, it could be kayaked; there's enough water. The main waterfall (with no plunge pool) and all the little ones after it might give you some pause. It falls something like 80' in the space of 80 yards, so there are lots of 1 & 2' waterfalls after the main one and the cascade that precedes it. My bridge is built along the upstream edge of the cascade and is 40' long, with fold-up ends. It takes more water than this to make me fold up the ends. They are heavy and it is not done easily by one person. All the summer's detritis, brush, fallen logs and the like have now been swept away to the Mohawk, probably nearing Albany now.

Plus there are 4 "new" streams that were not flowing yesterday, including 2-3 "new" waterfalls. Three of the new streams have not flowed all year, not one day. One of them crosses the lawn on the opposite of the creek, usually as water on top of snow. When this happens, it normally stays channeled and is no more than 2-3' wide. today, it is 10', but flowing clear, unlike the creek. They are all so big that I could not get down to see the lower waterfall, the one that is just feet off my property boundary. Everywhere I went, I got cut off by a stream too wide to cross where normally there would be dry land.

To stand on my bridge watching the water rage 2' beneath you is like standing next to a freight train that is whizzing by. You know - academically - that you are safe, but it certainly makes you nervous.

I decided to consign a classical guitar that I very rarely play. It is going to Dream Guitars, a very high end internet boutique in North Carolina. Last night, I detuned it, put my name and address as well as guitar details inside the case, supported the head inside the case, and then put the case and guitar inside a cardboard box, with bubble-wrap and foam popcorn all around it.  Then I sealed it securely with tape.

Being a comparison shopper, I decided to check the three main carriers. "Three?", you may ask. Yes, good old UPS, Fed Ex and... the Post Office (remember them?). I weighed the entire packeage (19lb), measured it (51X20X7.5"), got the zip code to where it was going. Then I went to the internet.

The answer was not what one may have expected. Fed Ex and UPS were almost identical in costs, between $48-49, with UPS  a few cents less. Both were 2 day delivery. The Post Office site quoted $16.94 for Parcel Post. Two day delivery was $45.15 or $42.43, the cheaper one  being an online price. Did they think I was going to be able to email the guitar? Or do I save $3 just for printing off the postage myself? Wouldn't they check the weight and dimensions anyhow?

Doubting that $16.94 price, I called the Post Office. Now, calling the Post Office is no longer an easy thing to do. They are not listed in the the white pages any longer. All Post Offices now have unlisted numbers. Imagine that! I went to the blue pages and found the dreaded 800 number, went through the telephone maze thing, and finally gave up. It was easier to drive down to the Post Office. They still keep office hours (though are closed for lunch an hour and a half each day).

Figuring on doing some arguing, I printed off the web price. Shawn took my package, measured it, and had their computer do the calculations. His eyebrows raised. Yep, $16.94, same as my figure. I'll be darned. So, I really did save 2/3 of the competitor's price and only had to give up on time in transit. I have wanted to sell this thing for 2 years, so I can readily wait 3 extra days to get it there in order to save $30. Easy.  And, another advantage - when going by Parcel Post, the package is never subjected to too hot or to freezing temperatures. Some firms hesitate to ship during the heat of the summer or the cold of winter to avoid issues with a fine instrument. During those times, you can never be sure of temperature conditons in the back of an 18-wheeler or in the hold of a plane. With the Post Office, that is not a worry. And the local branch is only 3 minutes away from home.

And yes, I insured it, for the exact amount I expected to net after it is sold. That was expensive, but still far cheaper than UPS or Fed Ex was - without insurance.

(joke) Did you hear that Fed Ex and UPS are going to merge? The new company will be called "Fed-Up".

Today was a beautiful day, the start of Indian Summer. I celebrated it with a paint can experience. I got to my appointed job and opened a can of Dutch Boy paint. The paint isn't too good as it doesn't seem to cover well, but I love the can. It is a plastic jug with a screw-on lid. Very wide and with a good grip. Thinking ahead, they put knobs on it so you can tap it with a hammer to loosen or tighten it. And when you wipe your brush, ALL the paint ends up inside. No lip to catch it. So, that part of the day went as well as it could, given the quality of the contents.

Then I opened up a new gallon of trusty Walmart Country White, my cheap, very cheap, old standby. It is decent paint, readily available, and covers well, with little dripping. Walmart in their infinite wisdom now bottles it in plastic cans, ones that look deceptively like regular paint cans. But they don't act like them. First, when you begin to pry off the lid, you immediately discover that you are just bending the upper lip, and nothing is opening, but the lip is beginning to stretch and break. So, to get it off, you pry up a tintsy bit, every half an inch along the circumference and make several rotations. If you haven't gone to sleep at this task, the lid will eventually come off. Working carefully, but quickly, I painted several rooms to hide that crap the tenants had covered the interior with, smeared bloody flies on the ceiling, ambigious marks on the walls - all over - and fly specks in the areas where the smell of garbage had been the worse. The people obviously lived like pigs, but that's another story. That job, though large, didn't take too long as the home was just painted a few months before, just prior to their tenancy. Then I cleaned up everything, running water until the roller and brush were spotless. I hammered the lid on the Country White shut, carefully, as I did not want to splatter any of the paint that had accumulated on the rim. Then I checked it to make sure it was down all the way. Done and satisfied, I put everything back in the car and went slowly home.

I needed to make one stop at Shult's 5 & 10, my mechanics to get some air for tractor tires at home. When I got out the air tank, I found - Oh, the horror of it! - my plastic paint can had tipped over and, you guessed it, the lid was lying along side it, not even partly on.  Cripes, I didn't even drive fast or take any turns and the can had a perfectly flat surface to balance upon. Nothing slides around on the carpet in the back either. How could that have happened?  I didn't spend much time to ponder the question, but asked Shults' for a roll of paper towels. Grabbing them one at a time, I began to mop, putting the sodden towels back in the can, which was now nearly empty. It had a half a gallon in it, quite recently, too. I used up half a roll dealing with the worst of the mess, then figured I'd better beat it home where I could do a better job. The damn stuff was beginning to dry, too. It never dried so fast before. But first, I had to clean up the random Country White asphalt. I got the worst of it off and headed back home, hoping they would not mind too much. I do a lot of business there. The now open can in the back was filled with towels. It didn't tip over. Go figure. It's like that can knew just how much it could push me.

So now I am home, and I can vent my true feelings with some inventive language. I tried it; it helped a little, I think, though nothing looked any cleaner for it. I examined the extent of the spill - it has covered half the carpet in the back. I later discover the carpet is not removable - more cause to use language the clergy does not know. It has spilled on the bumper and the interior trim. It has leaked into the wheel well, soaking a mountaineering rain jacket that I keep in there just in case. It is on the spare tire, my portable seat, an umbrella. More is on my good jacket and there is a big splotch on the fancy hiking boots I bought 3 days ago, ones with cordura and suede sides. Each discovery occasioned a new rain of verbal terror.

What to approach first? I decide to work on the boots, take them into the sink and begin to scrub with warm water and soap. The results were not too good. Oh well, at least it is on the inside where it is not so obvious. Rushing - the paint is drying everywhere - I went to turn on the hose. That's when Janet informed me that the spigot had frozen while I was away last week and the water was turned off. Seeing me totally pissed, she had been keeping quiet and well out of my way, but this she had to mention. I would have been happier had she offered to help. Thinking creatively and quickly, I ran the car over to our outside frost-free spigot, only to find that the hose was missing. She did tell me where to find its hiding place. I attached an end and turned it on. There are hundreds of feet of hose attached and many, many kinks. The water does not come. I fool with it and I fart with it, telling the world what I think of a cheap and misbehaving hose. All the while the paint is drying like it never did before.

Finally the water comes. And I start cleaning in earnest. Two hours later, I am still cleaning in earnest and it doesn't look that much better. The pile of used paper towels is getting quite large. The hose is running full blast, its only speed, and the water runs through the pile, giving me one track of Country White gravel in the drive. I scrub and scrub the car and find the paint just gets everywhere. It's now on my fleece, my brand new watchband, and many new spots on the car. The car, I should interject, is only 6 months old. It didn't need painting. Paint has run under the trim and slowly seeps out to resully the spots I just got cleaned. This happens again and again, too many times to count. It just keeps coming. I feel like the Sorcerer's Apprentice.  My car was blue, now it is partly Country White - and the air is blue.

Another hour and I begin to see progress. I finally can begin on the carpet (it dries slower), my back aching from bending over so much. I am also calmer. You can be at fever pitch only for so long. And Janet has gone in to prepare supper. I have some success using the brush to remove the paint here, occasionally sopping it with a towel, then starting over (and over, and over...). Finally, I give up, having reached clearly dimishing returns. In the drive are three dead rolls of towels, 2.75 more than either of us have ever used at one time in our lives before. The car isn't perfect, but by the time I will be ready to sell it, 150,000 miles in the future, no one will much care.

Now, the lawn is strewn with wet car possessions, but at least they aren't Country White. It's nearly dark, too. I pile stuff back in, rather disorganized, but at least it's off the lawn. It's then discover my hands are too painty to drive it anywhere. I DON'T need a Country While steering wheel! Janet came out to harvest some cabbage for cole slaw and I employed her to drive the soppy mess that used to be our new car into the garage while I clean the last stuff up. I finished just in time for to eat. Supper was good - and uneventful.

Now after reading all this, you are probably curious abut the moral. There are two of them. First, steer clear of plastic gallon paint cans. F*** Country White and Walmart. There are other paints as good and even though they may cost more, you at least get a real metal can whose lids acts in predictable ways. The second moral: if you control your temper and ask nicely, she will probably help and may even have some good ideas on cleaning, having done far more in her life than you ever will. (But on the other hand, there is something vaguely satisfying about cutting loose and giving your vocabulary a good workout. Fortunately for all of us, I don't that opportunity too often.)

Friday night, we went over to Caffe Lena's to hear a couple of guitarists that had me intrigued ahead of time. The opener was a fellow named Dan LaVoie. He was a very earnest young man and plays the harp guitar. What is a harp guitar?, you ask. It looks like a regular guitar, but with this horrible cancerous growth coming out of its upper bout, one that nearly doubles its size. This growth sprouts 6 additional strings, strings with no fingerboard beneath them. They are tuned about an octave lower that the rest of the instrument. He played the melody on the normal fingerboard and would hit the low strings on the upper section  as appropriate. They have a huge resonance, and almost no decay, so sometimes he would have to thumb them to silence them so he could play another string. The music, as one might expect, was slower and contemplative, and incredibly rich with the those wonderful deep bass notes hovering continuously. If you didn't have to look at the instrument, it was better. Seeing it, it just looks weird and distracts you what you are hearing, which was pretty nice.

The featured player was Peppino D'Augustino, and Italian who lives in the Bay area. Like his opener, LaVoie, he did not play the kind of music that I prefer, which we had expected. But, darn, he is good, darn good. Short on melody and rhythm and ever so long on experimenting with the myriad of sounds that a guitar is capable of making. Peppino pushes boundaries and makes wonderful music at the same time. Not usually fast, but rippling, with notes always moving. He caused me to remember the playing of Martin Simpson, with understated virtuosity. Not playing fast music, all of a sudden there is a burst of extremely fast notes, letting you know that this guy could play with the fastest, if he chose to do so.

D'Agustino gets many unusual effects from his instrument, percussive from beating on it with his fingers, harmonics like you never hear them (how does he do that?), a rare yet effective cacophony here, lush sounds there. He uses flamenco and classical techniques at times to complement his own style and techniques he has developed on his own.

This is music you want to watch closely as it is played, a feast for both ears and eyes. If you are a guitarist, you will be continuously saying, "How did he do that? It was over so fast." Sometimes I could figure it out; other times I had no idea. And rarely did I say, "Oh,
I can do that".

All in all, a amazing night. Catch either one if you get the opportunity.

Before I get started telling anecdotes revolving around this tantalizing title, let me explain a little about cows to those of you who don't know. They are intelligent, friendly and gentle beats and would make wonderful pets - were it not for their size and their food supply. What they eat is cheap to supply; it's basically cellulose. But, being cellulose, there is not much nutrient value in a bite, so it takes a lot of bites to support the body. And, since their bodies are so big, that means a LOT more bites. And, as you know, what goes in must come out.  They eat enormous quantities of food that you and I could not even digest and most of it ends up on the ground, not on the back or in the bag (udder). It is no big deal to take a dump if you are a cow; it's something you do many times a day, including every time you stand up.  What I am saying is that if you have cows, you have shit. No big deal, it's mostly cellulose, remember, but there's a lot of it.

So when I show a dairy farm, I expect to get spotted. Maybe it doesn't happen, but I expect it. It washes right out and life goes on. It is fun to watch non-dairy people in the stable. The kids eyes get bigger and bigger when they see one taking a dump. The parents try not to overtly notice and attempt some nonchalance, but they move out of the way pretty quick, too. We hose down our footwear either before we leave or when we arrive to avoid any contamination between farms.

The inspiration for this chapter came from a farm I am now working with and the story of the high schooler who used to work for the owner, a pretty cocky and athletic boy. When it came time to spread manure,  he had gotten into the habit of getting down to the tractor in a rather unusual way. He'd climb out on the barn cleaner ramp, hop down to the sidewall of the spreader, and then sort of tightrope walk over to the tractor which was attached. The spreader sidewall is about 4 inches wide and he'd walk a few feet along it, sort of running the gauntlet, showing off his prowness at keeping his balance. And he had reason to be proud, a reason which abruptly ended when he finally slipped (manure IS slippery) and fell off. Not to the ground where he might have been hurt, but in the other direction where the only thing hurt was pride. Yes, he went in to his neck.  The owner simply walked him over to the front of the barn and turned on the hose.

I learned about manure while in grad school where I worked with dairy farms, taking data on milk weights and other stuff useful to the farmers. I'd work during milking with my clip board and sample bottles parked on a movable desk set in the center of the barn. Once, for some reason, I had my hat off. I went to retrieve it from the desk, and it was no where to be seen. But there was a huge cow flop sitting where it had been. A little investigation found the hat still there, neatly buried.

And then there was Harry Hyde's operation. Harry had been running manure from the barn off into a pit at the its end. It was full to the brim and he now had make time to empty it. His bother had just brought over a few head of animals to be cared for there and while we were were milking, I saw one of the new ones get chased by a boss cow. The little one got freaked out and took off running, not noticing the barbed wire fence separating the barnyard from the manure pit.  She went through it like a shot, with just enough momentum to carry her into the mddle of the manure pit, where she stayed, her just her nose just barely above it all. Naturally, there was a cause for some commotion between Harry and his brother. She could quickly drown there; it's hard to tread manure. Harry crawled out on the barn cleaner ramp and put a noose around her head, and tossed the free end to his brother who hooked it to a tractor and begin to pull. All that was being accomplished was that instead of drowning her, they were strangling her. So they gave that up and tried something else. Fifteen minutes later, she was out and safe. What a sight, a completely brown Holstein heifer. So exhausted she couldn't move, she just stood there mutely, dripping shit. Harry went back to milking while the brother repaired the fence. I hadn't said a word; I was afraid to. But then I caught Harry's eye and we both simultaneously  burst out laughing. It wasn't his heifer either. We stopped laughing when the brother came into the barn, and resumed it when he left.

A cow with diarrhea is an awesme sight. Once, at Franklin Buell's, he ducked into the milkhouse to get something. While he was gone, this little Jersey got the urge and did she ever let go. He came back into the barn and didn't believe me that one little cow could make such a mess. Literally everything was plastered. When a dairyman can't believe his eyes, you know it's bad.

It's not just sick cows that have the trots. When you get them on a lush, early pasture, the "end result" is a soupy green mess caused by all the extra protein that they cannot utilize. On my first farm we were doing some major construction that required us to empty the barn by shovel and wheelbarrows instead of using the barn cleaner like normal.  I made  a wooden ramp from we could dump each load directly into the spreader. My helpers were all teenage girls that summer and I was the only one who had strength enough to wheel the load up the ramp and dump it. So, with one girl shoveling, one shuttling two wheelbarrows, I was kept bus running them up the ramp and dumping them. One load arrived too full. I had to hold it up high to keep from slopping it over. That meant I was not able to use my muscles to good advantage. I couldn't make it up and had to back down. With the load pushing me, I backed down pretty darn fast - only to find another loaded wheelbarrow waiting for me at the bottom of the ramp. It hit me behind the knees and in I went, back first, ruining my last clean clothes.

My son Cory was born on that farm and grew up in the barn. When he was  just old enough to walk, he fell head first into the gutter, right at the corner where the chain makes a right angle bend. That is how I discovered that the chain had worn out the cement there and it was 2' deep instead of the usual 8". I took my eyes off him for a few seconds, turned around, and there were his feet sticking out, but no body. Figuring that the body was probably still attached, I grabbed the feet and lifted. Out he came. He had not made a sound all the while, but once his mouth was out of the manure, how he yelled. I held him out, stiff-armed, and ran him into the shower. No hugs from Dad this time, not until he was clean again. Dang, if I hadn't been right there, he could have drowned in there. How would I have ever explained that to anyone?

Fast forward a couple of years and now I was on another farm, bigger and better. The herd was on lush pasture, but one cow was inside on a hay diet until her innards quieted down. I needed to give her a pill. Have you ever seen a cow pill? They are bigger than your thumb and you have this gadget called a balling gun that you ram down her throat to force the pill down. Cow don't like getting pills any more than kids do, but I had a system. Grabbing her head under my arm, I forced her mouth open, then with the other hand rammed the gun home. And she tossed her head, lifting me off the ground and catching the back of my knees on the pipe to which she was tied. Of course, my knees buckled and I went head-over-teacups behinds her, to land sprawled out on the floor behind her. Being upset, in both senses of the word, she had let go just before this happened and was I ever covered! Disgusted, I walked up to the house, leaving a greenish-brown trail behind me. And who was there waiting for me, but my insurance man. I nodded to him and told him I'd be right with him. That is, right after I dropped my clothes and showered. (I had intended to drop them outside the house, but now was forced to move inside) And, later,  he never mentioned that anything was out of the ordinary when we sat down to talk.  Was the man blind?

This has all been funny so far, but I am reminded of an event that was very far from funny. On a farm in Michigan, there was a manure pit. This was designed to hold many months of manure from the herd, a practice that is required in some states to avoid chances of contaminating water supplies. The manure form these pits also retain more nutrients as the  ammonia (nitrogen) doesn't volatilize. But in certain conditions, the oxygen next to the surface can be depleted and replaced by unbreathable gases. On this farm the owner was near the pit, fell in, and was overcome. Luckily (or unluckily) someone was near and went in to rescue him, only to be overcome in turn. Four men died that day.

Years later, I was waiting along since of the road, wondering when and if my late customer was ever going to show up. Being winter, it was dark and I wanted to get home. I was outside the farm, not wanting to go in any earlier than need be and exacerbate the already tense situation with the tenant there. One of his buddies dropped by from a neighbor's farm. I watched him drive in with his tractor and spreader on the way back from the field. They were probably in there drinking beer. A lot of that was done there, which had something to do with the situation between tenant and owner. So, here I am, engine idling, twiddling my thumbs when the neighbor finally got full, and he comes out, fires up the tractor and backs it out onto the road. And kept on backing, right up to the nose of my truck. I am puzzling this over, when the endgate of the spreader opens and the beaters start turning, shit flying. Hey, it wasn't empty after all! But it soon was, all over my truck. I wasn't getting out to confront him with that going on! When he left, I got the wipers on and got enough cleared away to see and I drove up to his employer's farm, roused the boss out of the house, and irately explained what had happened. I knew this guy had chronic help problems. He was famous for it and I could see why now. He brought me over to the milkhouse, turned on his pressure washer and cleaned off the truck, best we could in the dark. I finished the job at home in the morning. And I am wiling to bet there was never any disciplinary action taken.

Yes, you could say I have been dipped in shit. More than once.

The first thing we need to establish about Amish is that they are not the stable, live-in-one-place-forever people that folks think they are. Quite the opposite. They are quite mobile. It’s easy for them to move; they have few possessions, and are always searching for a better place to live. The grass being greener and with many boys, all of  whom want their own farms, there seems to be communities springing up all over.

Here in the Mohawk Valley, I have seen them come and go, but mostly come. The first was nearby in Ft. Plain. The first “settlers” (my word) arrived about 1979. Now there seem to be hundreds of families. In fact, 5 families are moving away from here to start a new community in  Bombay (Godforsaken country, colder than a titch’s wit) because they cannot find enough land here any longer. Now that’s a change!  They found an area up there that seems to have what they want: land that is not too hilly (remember, they use horses), abundant land with a cheap price, and the likelihood of it remaining this way in the future, so more families can come later on. Amish are like cattle in that respect. There is a herd factor: they do not like living alone, and want to be surrounded by other Amish. It makes sense. To keep their lifestyle as well as their religion, you need a community for support. If you spend all your days working with non-Amish (who they call “English”), pretty soon, you’ll covet their lifestyle and their amenities.  We have an easier (and faster) life.

I have seen, since then, communities spring up in the Richfield Springs to Springfield area (not sure if this is one or two communities), in Glen, and also south of the Mohawk in Ft. Plain. Another one has started north of Little Falls. But that one does not seem to be prospering and growing like the others, which I find interesting as there once was, also in the late ‘70’s, early ‘80’s, one that had prospered in this same area.  But, they disbanded and moved away.

_________________


Therein lies a story. If you asked one one that group why they were leaving, they’d tell you that they did not like having to go steeply up and down hill in their treks to and from town. That’s what Jacob Kurtz told me when I listed his farm. He deeply regretted going, because he knew he’d never be able to buy a farm anywhere as nice or as large in the part of Pennsylvania to which they were all moving, but he would not consider staying behind by himself. The reason he gave me was true enough - remember they go by buggy and when it’s steep, the horses have to walk, not trot. But that is only part of the story. The real reason was one of their leaders, call him Ben Stoltzfus.  I got to meet Ben later on. It was an education.

He listed his farm with me, called me up, and we did everything over the phone or by mail. Ben is an enterprising man. He gave me his Manhattan phone number, where he had  a store to market Amish crafts and goods. That didn’t last. Part way through the process, that phone stopped working, and I had to resort to a letter. He called me back in due time, but I wasn’t in. I called the number he used for that call and got an “Englishman” who took the message. A couple times back and forth, and we finally connected. He had closed the store. And this was how our communications were from then on, which is normal for Amish, at least for the very conservative ones. The Richfield Springs group, which iis more liberal, have their own phones, located near the road in a phone booth, not in the home where you’d expect it. They are supposed to use them only for business, not for pleasure and figure that if they were in the house, they’d be tempted to use them for pleasure.

Ben once told me that if I needed assurances on his financial status, to call his financial adviser. He gave me the number of that firm. He had his hands in a number of pies: the store, the stock market, dairy farming, land speculation (we later sold a piece for him that was completely isolated from any Amish community), and a dairy processing plant.  That much I knew about.  I also learned from a variety of other parties that he was in BIG trouble with the IRS and, secondly, that when he built the dairy plant (which he also listed with me), he was in continual trouble with the Town for ignoring building codes, and with inspectors, for ignoring sanitation codes. To get his attorney to work on his case was like pulling teeth, because the attorney seemed convinced that he wouldn’t get paid. It seems that was also in his history.  Actually, the attorney took the job but pretty much refused to do anything other than get it started. But he had a legal assistant who was not so hard-nosed and I learned to work with him instead and, that way, using a carrot and a stick, was able to pry each needed piece of the legal puzzle loose as it became necessary.

You see, Amish do not fight. They strongly felt that the way Ben was living, burning the candle at many ends, was not a proper way to live and they did not want to be associated with it. Since Ben was a founder of the community, he would be the last to leave. The rest left, rather than fight with Ben over the way he was living and the way non-Amish had begun to think about the rest of them there. Actually, Ben was not the very last to leave. One family said that they had worked here too hard to abandon everything, and they were going to stay,come Hell or high water. They did, for a few years, then moved away one night, leaving the buildings abandoned. A few years passed, and they were quietly sold.

Anyway, back to Ben. In due time, I found a buyer. It was not easy. Yes we had a new , large home, a good barn and a machine shed. But the machine shed had been built too close to the barn to get modern machinery in it. Amish do not use modern machinery. The old stuff they use is much smaller.  People liked the new home, that is, until they thought more about it: no electricity, slightly garishly painted rooms (odd colors, all glossy paint), no modern kitchen, no bathrooms, and no closets.  This led to a standing joke with me - know what an “Amish closet” is? Then I’d show them a row of coat hooks on the wall.

But for every property there is a buyer and we found one in Don Mast. Don was an older man with a very unusual past. He had been born in the Depression, of Amish parents. But he was not raised Amish. His father had been forced to work in a non-approved job to support his family then,  a job not approved by the Amish community fathers, and they ended up shunning the family. I not sure that would happen today.  So Don was raised with one foot on both sides of the aisle. It was a darn good thing for Ben that I found Don. He was the only man I have ever seen who would put up with and understand the stuff Ben was doing.

It was a closing fraught with difficulties. I have mentioned the lawyer. Time after time, I caught Ben in an apparent lie, only to discover when I dug into it, that it really wasn’t a lie. There was an explanation once I knew more facts.  At another time, I discovered to my horror that Ben had listed more land for sale that he apparently owned. This was serious. So we did the phone tag thing. What did I learn? There was another piece of land he had contracted to sell to a neighbor, one he had forgotten to mention. This too came out of the farm, making an already too small parcel even smaller,  and just compounded my difficulties. Ben explained that he thought there was more land there than the Town Fathers thought and, finally, he agreed to come up to “prove” it to me. Now nothing was surveyed here. Most of  what I  handle isn’t. It is very expensive to survey large properties and with our low prices, it is rarely worth it.,  But, it would have been worth it here, but no way was Ben going to pay someone to do that for him! Amish are careful with the bottom line, especially the expense side of it

With characteristic lack of communication, he came up, did his survey thing, and left, letting me know about it after he had returned. I went up and found his marks on the road and elsewhere. Now to make sense of them. With enough time, and a few more calls and letters, I eventually did and - what do you know? - it would appear that Ben was right. He did own more land than the tax maps had him down for. That never happens, except in textbooks. Then, I had to convince his attorney, who had,once again stopped all work.

But throughout the whole messy process, Don kept cool and patient and remained understanding. He may have been the only person on Earth who would have been that way. He was also doing his own legal work (I never recommend this) and kept uncovering one problem after another in Ben’s spider web of enterprise. Headache after headache that we had to work through. The last straw came two days before the closing. Don went up for a final inspection. Normally in those days, folks never did that, but in this case, it was prudent. What were we going to find now? We went through the buildings. Everything was fine. I breathed easier. We walked the fields. They were OK, too. Another weight off my mind. Then we went into the woods - and it hit. That @#$&#% was logging it! You can’t do that. You can’t log contracted property! Hurriedly, I called Ben. This time, it was only hours, not days before he called back. Yes, he had sold logs to a fellow, back in the Fall, way before it was listed.  But he thought that guy was all done when he listed it with me. He gave me the logger’s number. I called him immediately. Here’s the story: what Ben had said was true. He had just  started logging in the fall, then broke his leg. By the time it was healed, it was spring and too wet in the woods to work. Then he got doing other stuff and he was now just getting around to finishing the logging. I explained about the sale and he said - to my surprise - that he had already paid Ben $5000 for the logs (inwardly, I groaned), but he would eat that as it was not Ben’s fault that he had broken his leg and then not done the work. I brightened up. Was I really hearing this? This is really a logger saying this? Would the buyer allow him to remove the logs he had already cut (one day’s worth) and then he’d pull everything out? I wasn’t sure about this - how much patience did Don have, after all? So, I called him, and, yes,  he agreed.

After all this, the closing was anticlimactic. Thank God, I’d had far more than enough excitement over this deal. And finally, I got to meet Ben and his wife. They looked pretty normal and everything went according to Hoyle. The lawyer looked relieved when Ben wrote him his check. God knows what he was charged. I was careful not to look.

________________

Another time, I listed Simon Yoder’s farm. He had found a new place, closer to the others and not on a main road. Amish prefer to have very private places when they can find them and Simon’s new place was way off a rarely traveled road, all the privacy one could wish for. I suspect this wish for privacy is partly for the same reasons everyone else wants it, and also because they do probably not like getting stared at because they are unusual. They really just want to live their lifestyle and not be bothered with others any more than necessary.  Not that they wish us gone, but they’d be perfectly happy if us English never existed and all they ever had to deal with was other Amish. Anyway, Simon thought he had a buyer some months ago and had been waiting for him all this time to close the deal. Finally, it began to look like his buyer was not going to make it happen and he made the decision to employ me to find someone else. He asked to make an exception in case his buyer did come though. I get these requests from time to time and always accommodate them, simply writing in a clause in the listing that allows the seller to sell to a certain party and not owe us any commission.

We were busy with it and we were there regularly to show it. Simon was very helpful and was great to work with. As fate would have it, our activity spurred his buyer to greater efforts and after a couple of months, Simon called to let me know that his guy was going to buy it after all. OK, no problem, and I pulled the sign and stopped the advertising and showing.  But by now, we’d come to be friends, Simon and I, and I continued to visit him once in a while. He asked me what he owed me for the work I did and I explained, nothing, that we’d made the arrangement so he wouldn’t have to pay us if his buyer came through, as he did. But he thought he needed to do something for me anyhow and finally told me that if I ever needed help doing something that involved labor, to give him a call and he’d help.

Normally, I would never ask anyone to help me, but shortly after he offered, we got a new hot tub and had to move the old one out, uphill, and put the new one in. They are heavy and there were too many trees in the way to have my tractor do much of the work. So, I went over and spoke to him about that. He had no idea what a hot tub was, but was willing to try. We set up a time when his son would be home from school and I went back and picked them up and drove over here. Simon immediately sized up what we had to do. He was in his element. From my years at farming, I am pretty good about knowing how to make physically hard jobs easier, but I was no match for Simon. He taught me many new tricks that afternoon.  When we were all done, he mentioned to me that he was glad to help pay me back for my help to him but that he thought he still owed me a bit of labor. Secretly, this amused me. If he was thinking hour for hour, he was still only a fraction of the time I had spent in his behalf. He had no idea of how much effort I had made in his behalf. Still, I had expected nothing in return and was glad to get this.

Since then, there have been many times the Amish, not just Simon, have assisted me in different small ways without asking for pay. And I have reciprocated, doing some free real estate work, running almost-late tax payments to the Post Office, and even getting them hamburgers from MacDonald’s once (the family was jammed up with work and did  not have time to cook that night, so they  gave me some money and asked me to get them  “Whopper Burgers” from MacDonalds. The MacDonald’s folks did not find that as funny as I did.

________________

We also show farms to Amish from time to time. It is always fun to spend a day with them and hear their input and ideas on various things. Once the thaw comes, you can joke and carry on with them and have a good time. They usually come up in a van driven by some “English” neighbor, representatives from several families. Once I met a fellow at a motel in Amsterdam. He was not like the others, not at all, and had arrived by train. Amish prefer to travel by train when they can, but normally, that is not an option. I think they prefer to ride on steel and not air (seriously). The man this time was not a normal Amishman, not at least from my experience. I later referred to him as “Yuppie Amish”. He got in late on the train, he and his young son, and they put on their in-line skates and roller-bladed to the motel. He was looking for a weekend retreat, not a farm! He worked for some farm equipment manufacturing firm in Pennsylvania and had traveled all over the world on vacations.  Within the confines of his religion, he was living the good life and was about as modern as he could be and still keep his religion.

You see, not all Amish live the same way. Beliefs and practices are determined by their own community and their own bishops. The Ft. Plain North ones milk small dairy herds by hand, rarely use tractors, and have only wood-sided homes. The Ft. Plain South ones use generators to handle the cattle in their well-improved and very modern barns. Their homes have vinyl siding and they live more like the rest of us, though definitely plainer and without electric in the home. Heck, I even saw a printed T shirt on one of their lines. How modern can you get? These two groups have as little to do with each other as possible and do not want their young folks associating and possibly - Oh the horror of  it! - marrying. I am told there is not much love lost between them. The South folks regard the North ones as backward and the North folks are angry that the South ones paid so much for their land, which subsequently raised the ante for everyone. They do not like their young folks seeing and coveting the easy life the South group lives. But you’ll never hear any of them saying these things.

One unforgettable couple were former Amish. Maybe I have seen them all now. There are not many former Amish. They almost never take in a convert and rarely lose one to the outside world. But this couple was famous in Amish circles. It seems as a young man, he had gone to work for a “English” farmer and had an affair with his wife, who was now sitting in the car with us. A common enough story, but not among the Amish. She divorced the farmer and they married, but this was not the end of the story. They were consequently shunned by the Amish for such immoral behavior, damned to find another religion to practice (which they did - they were quite a religious couple) and forever prohibited to associate with other Amish. If you do not know the Amish, you can never fully realize just how traumatic this can be. They are a group that reveres family and friendship. I have never associated with people as socially oriented as they are. I invited one of my Amish friends over to see our pictures of Hawaii and they came over, dressed up, expecting to spend the entire day, not just a couple of hours.

Another time, Andy, one of my Amish employees, lost his wife (they never even told me she was sick!). I only learned about her death when they said they would not be coming back to work at all that week and I inquired why. I asked what I could do for him. They allowed that it would be OK to attend the viewing, but not the funeral. That was OK by me; I just wanted to show Andy that I cared and supported him. Folks were very friendly to me at the viewing and I learned that when one of them dies, someone from the community will be in their house for days, always awake, so whenever the survivor’s grief surfaces, there will be someone right there for them. 

So, being shunned is a big, big deal, a hurt that never heals. And it was so obvious, talking with this couple. They longed to be near the Amish, but knew they could never be part of them or even be on the same terms with them that I was. Much of our conversation that day centered around questions about the local Amish. Later on, talking with my Amish builder friends (they were working on our home at that time), it was the reverse. They were full of questions about the couple. They knew all about them beforehand, what they had done, where they now lived, and even that they were coming out with me! That did not come from me. When he had called, he did not present himself to me as Amish or former-Amish, just as another dairyman who wanted a modest family farm (though the accent and the name did make me wonder). The Amish grapevine is very well developed and travels at what rivals dial-up speeds.

Another time, Schoharie County had got the notion that having Amish settle there would be a good thing - sell some farm property and drive the values up, and provide a reason for folks to visit the county , to see the Amish settlement. So they hired professionals and went to courting them. The folks they hired knew about promotion, but not about Amish. Nice brochures and all, but they forgot to think about topography. Most of the county is rolling land and it approaches mountainous in the southern sections. Not land you’d want to work with draft horses, not roads to drive buggies on.  Anyway, they managed to lure a bunch of them out to investigate Schoharie County. The county arranged with another agent and me to show them property. The other fellow had them first and concentrated on the central and southern areas. I met them at the appointed time and place and, by gosh, there were several van loads of them. They followed behind me and I stopped at the first place. When we halted, they got out and went in every direction the compass has. It was like herding cats. How could I give my spiel and tell them what each place had to offer? How could I answer questions and tell them about the area?  How could I even round them up for the next place?  A couple of the men realized we had a problem this way and after the first place or two, rode with me so we could talk. At the place with the nicest home, I got feedback from the women. They did not like that one at all. I puzzled this over for many months and, finally, I had it. It was the wallpaper and modern kitchen that they didn’t like!

Now, many agents do not like the Amish. We had a fellow in our firm who worked an area near Pennsylvania until he retired and he positively hated them. He said that once they come into an area, they spread out like flies on shit and canvas every landowner who might ever want to sell in the future and get them to agree to sell to them once the time comes. In time, I discovered that he was largely right. You can’t make money on them - you make 2 sales and lose 20 that way. Now, there are several huge black holes in my territory where I cannot get sales or even listings. They buy them all. I have lost literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of what would have been income.

Let me give an example. A group from western Pennsylvania came up to look. During the course of conversation, they expressed concern about their image with the “English”. They wanted to do things right and start off on the right foot with us. They didn’t, not as far as I was concerned. After they acknowledged that they were not always well liked among real estate agents, I explained the various problems agents had complained about and we discussed ways to address them. Then what happens? I showed them a place that was for sale and a week later, a brother comes in, on his own, to try to buy it - without our help or knowledge. The owner is delighted of course, not knowing our connection, and thinking that he could save the cost of the commission. Luckily for all of us, they did not offer enough to get the owner to say “Yes” and a possibly unpleasant situation was avoided, one that would have cost all of us money, all of us, that is, except the Amish and any lawyers involved. There is a difference between unlawful and unethical. They don’t break laws, but ethics are something that is subject to interpretation, theirs and ours. Once they are established in an area, they have no more use for us and quickly cast us aside. Their many friends and relatives make an effort to learn what property will be coming on the market and if it is one they can use, they buy without the help of an agent. They can be pretty blunt to the landowners about not wanting an agent involved. When it comes time to sell, they all want to try it on their own first and only when they can’t sell it (after exhausting anyone locally as a possible buyer), are they are reluctantly willing to list it, but still not at a commission worth our while. I will be competitive, but will not take something on knowing I will lose money on it. But there are agents who do not know their bottom-line and they’ll take on losing propositions, especially if they are afraid another firm will get it if they don’t.

____________________


So what it boils down to is this. I really like the Amish personally and enjoy being around them. I consider many among my best local friends. Once they know you as a friend and not someone just out to gawk at their lifestyle, they will be as genuinely friendly back as you might like, six days a week. (Never on Sunday.) They take a different approach to life, some of which is positively refreshing  and value-affirming. They are fun to talk to and to joke with. You need to exercise some good judgment in what you say and how you say it, but you do that to some degree with anyone. They are innocent in many ways and you want to protect that.  A few of the things they do make you want to shake them and tell them about the better way, yet, when you ask for the reasons, they usually have good ones. The only time they got stumped was when I asked Andy why the Amish (like me) have beards but not mustaches. For me, it bothers my upper lip. Andy thought a while and finally said, “I guess it’s  just our custom.” That’s good enough.

I will defend them from attacks on their way of living, from upset “Englishmen “ who complain about  horse manure on the roads, on property tax issues, on outhouses and shallow water sources, to hitching posts outside local places of business. I watch out for them on the roads, pass their buggies cautiously to avoid spooking the horses. I do not buy into claims that they mistreat their horses. Yes, they use them. Horses are critical to their lives, not something fun to do for recreation. You don’t mistreat something critical to your life, especially if it is a living thing. I like seeing them around and I am so happy to see land properly used and cared for, to see small farms continue to flourish. I take vicarious pride in watching their community grow and I enjoy see their buildings erected and improved.

It's different as a farm real estate agent. I am increasingly less happy to deal with them as I know many, maybe most, of them will quickly go behind my back if they get the opportunity. They do not particularly want to see ME flourish (if they even think of that). Though they have nothing against me personally, there is obviously no love in their community for agents. They use them only when they cannot avoid it and still accomplish their goals. Still, my job is to sell property for those that engage my services and if I need to deal with Amish and all that entails in order to get a place sold, that’s what I will do Even when I know that by so doing, I am pissing in my own soup, hating something that I also enjoy.

At a concert, I bought a copy of Frank Wakefield’s new CD “Ownself Blues”. I almost didn’t do that, but my wife liked one of the cuts so much (“The Old Cat Sneezed”) from his live performance that, feeling generous, I opened my wallet. Folks, this is a bluegrass album that is decidedly different.

I have listened to this CD three times now and on the first round it became my favorite of the many compilations that Frank has put out over the years.  I didn’t expect that, not at all. It is an all-instrumental recording. You need to know that to avoid a surprise. But, heck, who buys Frank Wakefield recordings for his singing - you buy them for his amazing ability on the mandolin. And here it is featured, front and center. The final cut is only mandolin, no backup, and another has only guitar.

The backup musicians deserve some praise for a job very well done, specifically Michael Cleveland on fiddle, Mike Munford on banjo,  and Jordan Tice on lead guitar. There are others  as well, but those are the ones who have particularly shining solos.

Oddly, the title cut, “Ownself Blues”, did not set me on fire. But others did. I especially like “Saratoga Ride”, “This is for Bill”, and “Sabbatical”. Better yet were the classical pieces: Beethoven’s Theme and Variations in D (well done, well done!), Bach’s Bouree (the only classical piece I have attempted on guitar - the one where I learned just how hard classical guitar is to play, the one with simultaneous runs going up on the bass strings and down in the high register, the piece that caused me to give  up on classical guitar), and Frank’s a cappella solo, “Mandolin Solo #2”. I don’t think he has ever recorded these before, though he plays them live in a regular rotation. It is about time that a wider audience can fully appreciate the depth and complexity of Frank’s music. A simple man in many ways, but his music is not simple and goes way beyond the dazzling fast runs that wow audiences.

Other than the classical pieces, my other big favorites from the CD are “The Old Cat Sneezed” (of course), “The Runaway Train” (well-named), and “Rockville Special”. Maybe I like that last one so much because it reminds me of my own compositions, with its strong melodic line. Frank knows how to do this well and I think his early music featured melody over ornamentation, vice versa for his more recent creations.

There are two other things that I need to mention. Since we are on the subject of the cuts featured here, let me say that, once again, “New Camptown Races” has been recorded by Frank. Easily his best-known composition, it makes about half of his albums and all of his shows. Maybe it’s his favorite? The other thing to mention is quite different: the liner notes. I am that rare person who reads these things and I really enjoyed it this time. Most of Frank’s recordings have very little in the way of liner notes. Here, it is different, we have a short biography, which filled in some gaps in my knowledge of his life. For those that do not know his music, you will find it helpful reading to fully understand what it is that you are hearing.

All in all,  the recording “Ownself Blues” is still down to earth bluegrass instrumental music, with blazing and complex virtuosic solos. How does a 75 year old man manage to sound so good? The answer comes from tens of thousands of hours of practice, coupled with unusual ability, and a fresh and innovative musical approach. Look deeper and you will find unusual but appropriate juxtaposition of chords, his signature rhythmic breaks, harmony playing on the mandolin, and complex theme development. Frank Wakefield’s music is like an onion, you can peel off tasty layer after tasty layer and there is always another layer underneath. It’s music you can listen to and get more from the more you listen. “Ownself Blues” is a long-overdue album, the kind of music you have heard for years in concert, but never in your home or car.