achoo...Gesundheit

So after Richard Dreyfuss showed up, I thought I would be done for the day.  But another guy came in about 3:30 as I was hoping to close up.  He turned out to b e a guy I had met briefly at the farm open house the previous week.  We ended up hanging out the rest of the afternoon and I had a solid partner for reggae night.  (Which is lucky because Cynthia never called, and I was not about to go to reggae night in Hillsboro, West Virginia by myself)  As it turns out, Tyler is from Geauga County, Ohio.  For those of you who don’t know where that is, it’s the county I grew up in in Ohio.  We grew up about 30 miles from each other and now we’re both in Hillsboro, WV.  What the hell are the chances?!  

I’ll get to the story that you are all expecting and the reason you read the blog today: reggae night.  HO.LEE.CRAP.  I really had no idea what to expect.  But now I can inform you of what to expect night time you are invited to a reggae night in WV: stoned white kids in dreads.   By kids, of course I don’t mean children.  But the band consisted of six dudes: 3 with dreads, 6 stoned, 6 who hadn’t bathed in a while.  The band took several breaks to…well what else do you think a reggae band would take breaks for?  But in all seriousness, having never seen a reggae band before and having absolutely no expectations, I thought the band was pretty good and I had a really good time.  Played some covers of Bob Marley of course, but I think a lot of them were original songs.  iVibes.  Pretty lame name but all in all a good band. Here's a YouTube video for you.  Not many people showed up because there were 2 other social functions that same evening.  One of them was a white rap group at a bar called the Eager Beaver…the other was a hipster gathering of epic proportions.  There’s an old school house in Mill Point that a hipster lady owns and she opens it every so often to have hipster parties, meaning kids dressed in weird clothes stand around drinking terrible beer and listen to bands they think are so great because no one has ever heard of them.  I actually went for a couple minutes and it was a really cool building and a lot of people had shown up and I had a good time there, although of course I didn’t want to.  Some guy told me I was a closeted hipster.  I proceeded to punch him in the face.  Just kidding.  But seriously, I’m gonna keep an eye out for that guy.  

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of/seen the movie Patch Adams.  I case you didn’t know, he’s a real person and he started the Gesundheit Institute, located in none other than Pocahontas County, WV.  Not only that, but Tyler is one of the architects working on a new building there.  I spent Monday evening at the institute and got to meet Patch’s brother, who goes by the name Wildman.  He’s in his 60’s and looks like the quintessential hippie.  He has a 32 year old wife from Italy and a 6 year old daughter who is….active (aka high maintenance crazy).  They were super welcoming and I got to tour some of the buildings and I even had dinner with them.  It is a really bizarre place.  But awesome, none the less.  I hope to go back again soon and I’ll get some pics for yall.  

PSBB is hosting a croquet tournament in July and tonight is out second meeting that I’ll attend.  I think it will be a really cool event and fundraiser.  Afterwards I’m supposed to meet up with some people at a place called Granny’s(I’ve learned that WV loves to name things as weirdly as possible) to see some bluegrass.  So I’m meeting more and more people and feeling much better about my social life.  

I started another Pearl book, Sons which is the sequel of The Good Earth.  I cannot encourage you enough to read some Pearl Buck.  Her books are awesome.  Her life was awesome.  Pearl was awesome.  

Who’s coming to visit next?  Any takers?