When My Love For Music Began

By Larry and Carol Smith

This blog is going to be a little different than any of our others. It is taken from a short story that I wrote some years back. It takes place when I was a small boy living with my grandparents, on their farm, while my dad was away working construction. It is a story about my early musical influences, but more than that it is a glimpse at a of way life that is now far distant to the world today. Most importantly, it is a tribute to my beautiful and wonderful grandparents whose lives reflected a spirit of goodness and optimism that is so rare in the world we live in now. They were strong, but gentle at the same time, and embodied the qualities that made America a great nation.

The story contains one colloquialism that I need to mention up front: The phrase “make eggs” used by my grandmother was her way of saying “hurry up.” At the end of the blog post, I am also including a recording of my song, “Golden Memories,” which was inspired by those early days on the farm with my grandparents.

Carol and I are working on some other blog episodes and hopefully will be posting new ones again soon. In the mean time, I hope you enjoy reading about how my love for music began and listening to my song.

When My Love For Music Began

The sun was setting as I walked barefoot through the wood, past the cotton field and across the pasture where home lay just beyond. I stopped on top of the little hill, leaned against the largest tree in the little clump of Sassafras, and watched the sun as it disappeared behind the trees. It was almost dark, but the last traces of sunset illuminated the outline of the woods in a hundred shades of brilliant fiery color. The scene was glorious, and I wanted to stay and watch it all, but I heard my Grandmother’s voice calling me to supper so I moved on toward home. After crossing the little creek, I ran through the barnyard as fast as I could and soon arrived at the white frame house where my Grandparents lived.

Grandmother met me at the back door. “Son, you better get in here and eat with the rest of us. I don’t know why you wanted to walk home instead of ride the truck. It’s might near a mile and a half’s walk from the field. Well, never mind. Just go on in and wash your hands son. Make eggs now, make eggs!” I hurried on in to find my grandfather, uncle and brother already seated in front of the kitchen table. So I plopped down at my place next to Granddaddy, and together our family shared the delicious meal.

It was an early fall night, and the house was still hot from the heat of the day. So right after supper the whole family went to sit on the front porch. A gentle, cool breeze was blowing and, tired from a days work in the cotton field, we all sat silently and enjoyed the chance to rest and cool off.

Granddaddy finally broke the silence. He was sitting on the front porch swing next to Grandmother, and then all of a sudden he sat up and snapped his fingers. “My goodness,” he said. “I almost forgot.” He turned to Grandmother. “Ethel,” he asked. “Where did you put that tater bug I found the other day?”

Grandmother scrunched up her eyebrows, as she sometimes did while trying to remember something. “I think I hung it in the smokehouse Newtie (her pet name for my Grandfather whose name was Newton).”

“What kind of bug are you talking about, Granddaddy,” I said, moving over to the swing to sit in his lap.

Granddaddy and Grandmother both laughed. “It’s not a real bug,” he said. “It’s my old mandolin; my old Gibson “Tater Bug” mandolin. The same one that I use to serenade your grandmother with before we was married.”  In the pale moonlight I could barely see his face, but his eyes were shining and his expression had become thoughtful. “Such a long time ago, Ethel,” he said fondly. “But I still remember, don’t you?” Grandmother nodded to confirm that she remembered too and placed her arm gently around his shoulders.

Granddaddy was still for a moment and then sat upright in the swing, as if waking up from a dream. “Come on boys,” he said to my brother and I. “Let’s go out back and see if we can find that old mandolin.”

My brother and I followed him through the house and out the back door to the old smokehouse that also doubled as storage shed. From the wall he took the little stringed instrument. It looked similar to a guitar but much smaller, with doubled strings and a fat round back. Granddaddy turned it over so that the round back was pointing upward and gently traced the shape with his hand. “Kind of looks like a big bug when you turn it that way, don’t it boys? Guess that’s why they called it a ‘tater bug’.”

Back on the porch, my brother and I listened eagerly as Granddaddy carefully tuned the old rusty strings and then launched into a lively rendition of “Under the Double Eagle”.

That’s the first time I remember hearing my Grandfather play or even knowing that he was a musician. In the days to follow, my brother and I found out that Granddaddy could also play the guitar and the harmonica. Not only that, he liked to tap out rhythms on his knee with a pair of old spoons from my Grandmother’s kitchen too. When I was a little older, he told me that as a young man he often played with other musicians at little dances and get-togethers near the farm where he grew up.

My brother and I both fell in love with music that evening. And from that night on we encouraged Granddaddy to play for us on those magical nights when we sat together as a family out on the front porch.

It was on that same porch that Granddaddy taught me how to play a few chords on the guitar. It was there that I began my lifelong journey in the pursuit of playing and writing music.

Granddaddy didn’t play all that often, but when he did those sweet musical sounds rang out softly into the night and seemed to become one with nature. During those times I really believe that our family were one with each other.  We certainly were one in the love we shared.

And when we gathered out on that front porch, I believe that nature sensed our oneness with each other and, in those brief gatherings, opened up itself to us and allowed us to become one with it: living, breathing, feeling and sensing in our hearts that there was no separation between us and the night and the moon and the stars and the crickets chirping.

On those nights, as it rang out through the mystical ether, Granddaddy’s music was alive and spoke in a strange and wonderful language that did not disturb nature. Rather, it became a part of nature and translated for our understanding the answers to greater truths and mysteries that can’t be told in words but must be felt and held in the heart.

Many years have passed since then, and Granddaddy, Grandmother and my uncle are gone on ahead, having traveled farther on in the journey of existence to a place that my brother and I cannot yet go.

That old front porch is still there. But things are different now and nature has moved out of reach, still visible but not trusting those, who like myself, grew selfish and violated the sacred trust we were given by ignoring the sanctity of natural things and consuming and destroying in order to fulfill materialistic desires.

And I, so far, far away from where I started, long desperately for just one more night on that porch listening to the music of the soul. Though dimmed by the distance of time, a remnant of it still remains in my memory, sweet and precious. It is still with me, deep, deep inside. It is close enough to hear and see at times, and the sights and sounds and sensations can be experienced faintly. Yet they remain out of reach.

Perhaps someday my own journey will lead me back through the field, across the pasture and over the fence, guided by those pure, sweet, beautiful musical sounds to the white frame house where I will run with joy toward the voice of my grandmother calling me to join the family for an evening on the front porch.

In the meantime, I will continue to remember that carefree time and retrace the paths of life through my own music, trying my best to follow grandfather’s footsteps, communicating love and life to those who will listen.

© 2023 by Larry and Carol Smith

My advice to you is to remember your Creator, God, while you are young: before life gets hard and the injustice of old age comes upon you—before the years arrive when pleasure feels far out of reach—  before the sun and light and the moon and stars fade to darkness and before cloud-covered skies return after the rain.  Remember Him before the arms and legs of the keeper of the house begin to tremble—before the strong grow uneasy and bent over with age—before toothless gums aren’t able to chew food and eyes grow dim.  Remember Him before the doors are shut in the streets and hearing fails and everyday sounds fade away—before the slightest sound of a bird’s chirp awakens the sleeping but the song itself has fallen silent (Ecclesiastes 12:1-4 VOICE).

Grandchildren are the crowning glory and ultimate delight of old age (Proverbs 17:6 VOICE).

And when you are old, I will still be there, carrying you. When your limbs grow tired, your eyes are weak, and your hair a silvery gray, I will carry you as I always have.I will carry you and save you (Isaiah 46:4 VOICE).

Those planted in the house of the Eternal will thrive in the courts of our God. They will bear fruit into old age; even in winter, they will be green and full of sap (Psalm 92:13-14 VOICE).