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Baroque Bur Oak

June 5, 2021

Not far from the hamlet of McBaine (population 10), and just one-half mile from the Missouri River banks, stands what local citizens call “The Big Tree.” This sprawling bur oak is co-holder of the National Championship for the largest tree of its species along with a similar tree in Kentucky. The Big Tree sprouted sometime in the 1600s and is estimated to be 350-400 years old. It is located near the historic Lewis and Clark Trail, and these explorers probably gazed upon its lofty silhouette two centuries ago.

The roadside Big Tree resides on farmland owned by a sixth-generation Show-Me family. This towering oak has survived storms, lightning strikes, 6 foot deep floodwaters from Big Muddy, droughts, vandalism, and spray-painted political graffiti. Bicyclists from the nearby Katy Tail picnic under its leafy shade, and it is not unknown for clergy to contemplatively stroll beneath the mighty skyward reaching branches. Last autumn, after thieves stole its copper grounding cables, a lightning strike set the ancient tree ablaze.

The Boone County Fire Department promptly extinguished the blaze but not before the fire had burned out the core of the tree. Missourians wondered all winter whether enough of the outer nourishing cambium layer of the massive bur oak had been preserved in order to afford its survival. Copper grounding cables were reinstalled as seen below just behind the banjo.

Earlier this spring, the tree`s branches issued tiny delicate buds which soon handsomely leafed out to everyone’s joy and relief. Arborists from the University report that the ancient bur oak has been in decline for a long time but will probably outlive us all. To honor this magnificent and durable Missouri treasure, which has thrived in Heartland soil long before our nation was founded, the local Bur Oak Brewing Company produces a “Big Tree IPA.”

For the Members Only summertime exhibit at the local art league, the BRC craftsman fashioned a ” Baroque Bur Oak” banjo to celebrate the survival of the champion tree.

 

 

 

 

Amidst 90 entries of oil and watercolor paintings, sculptures, multi-media, and woodworks, the Baroque Bur Oak banjo hangs on a central gallery pillar as a learning opportunity for youngsters.

Last Sunday, the local newspaper celebrated the survival of The Big Tree on the front page.

From the BRC: Preserve our precious environment.

Jamming

Storm`s A`Comin`

May 22, 2021

After a bleak winter of dreary weather punctuated by a bitter polar vortex, the Rock Island McPickers eagerly made springtime plans last month to reinstate their weekly outdoor Wednesday afternoon jam sessions at the municipal park pavilion. Despite dark clouds gathering in the weather forecast on the eve of the jam, the BRC banjoist resolved to journey to the Ozark picking session rain or shine. The next morning, menacing thunderstorms darkened the online weather radar screen, and overnight torrential rains had submerged the municipal park terrain under water.  At the last minute, the jam venue was hurriedly relocated to a nearby church basement.  En route to the newly designated picking place, the BRC craftsman’s windshield was briefly pelleted twice by clusters of mini hail. A McPicker mandolinist urgently communicated that high winds were coming soon, while another observer claimed that the sun was coming out again at the churchyard. The temperature began dropping precipitously in mid Missouri, and a worried clogger cautioned that dime-sized hail had peppered her home earlier in the day. By early afternoon, a tornado warning was issued in a neighboring county despite a local observation that the sun had reemerged near the alternate jam venue. Several musicians, not without some trepidation, slowly filtered into the church basement and proceeded to pick and sing while the storm washed over the building`s steeple and moved-on. Mark Twain is said to have advised, “If you don’t like the weather in Missouri, wait five minutes.” Although still overcast later for the post-jam car ride home to the BRC domicile, the gray skies by late afternoon had quieted. Two nights later, record low temperatures visited the Heartland followed by a snowfall.

A few weeks thereafter, the pickers again planned to reinstitute their weekly Wednesday outdoor jam, but the weather prediction indicated thunderstorms all day. The musicians chose to retreat once more to the church basement while ominous cloud banks roiled overhead. The jam session concluded in the late afternoon during which only a single thunderclap was heard. When the pickers got safely home, monsoon-like rains abruptly fell upon the Heartland obscuring the landscape, and a tornado warning was issued south of the Ozarks. By morning, the spillway at the end of the BRC lake was cascading overflow like a hydroelectric plant to bring the brimming water level down. Such is springtime in Missouri.

From the BRC: Like the four guys above have all ready done, get the vax.

Art Shows

In Retrospect

May 8, 2021

For its springtime “Hindsight is 20/20” exhibit, the local art league challenged its members to submit works offering “..artists the opportunity to reflect on all that we’ve been through over the last year, together and alone; both the triumphs and the tragedies, that which we’ve lost and that which we’ve gained. What has 2020 taught you? The BRC craftsman cultivated an idea to submit a banjo that metaphorically represented the unpredictable and confusing climate of a global pandemic. Over the ages, the study of astrology has been used as a compass heading to plot, understand, or predict the course of human events. Because the novel Covid-19 virus and its mutations have regularly mystified mankind over the last year, the BRC founder fashioned a 5 stringer entitled “Not in the Stars.”

 

 

The instrument was designed on a minimalist format with some of its standard guidepost features conspicuously absent to signify our lack of understanding or control of the events around us during the last 13 or more months. The peg head and fingerboard feature zodiac signs which guided some peoples ancient and modern but are of scant utility in the post millennium era of the coronavirus infestation.

 

On the lower fretboard, a conventional inlay is absent from the 5th fret space (red arrow) which usually serves as a traditional guidepost to orient the musician to that location.

 

In the upper fingerboard, a bold landmark inlay uniformly at 12th fret space indicating the location of the octave is absent (red arrow). Only small pearly dots along the side of the fretboard identify the significant musical scale intervals for the banjoist. The 22nd (and final) fret space at the neck-pot junction is also left blank, as 2020 could be called the Year of the Information Gap.

For the eyes only of the musician, the heel of the neck (red arrow) is a routine location for a signature BRC inlay, but this personalized emblem is missing. The number 83 indicates this instrument is the 83rd banjo repaired, restored, or built in the BRC workshop. What has 2020 taught you?

A gallery visitor studied “Not in the Stars” and remarked, “Hindsight is always 20/20 in the rearview mirror.”

From the BRC: It is said that after the Plague comes the Renaissance.

Jamming

A Month of Sundays & More

April 24, 2021

It has been one year and one month since Gainor & Friends last performed its weekly Sunday afternoon gig at the brewpub to benefit the Children’s Hospital. A mid week picking session at a nearby rural burger shop is in abeyance, and a pre-weekend evening jam session once convened in the basement of a hardware store has been quieted. The world has been overcast with the cloud of a global pandemic that has left no one untouched. While patiently hoping for better days somewhere ahead, the G&F musicians confined themselves last autumn (seen below) to jamming on weekends behind the BRC workshop to the occasional applause of lakeside neighbors.

Lately, a flicker of light blinks at the end of the coronavirus tunnel suggesting that perhaps some kind of end or new normal might be just around the corner. Maybe, this sub microscopic organism is beginning to loosen its grip on us? 

Embracing a cautious sense of optimism, the G&F band patiently polishes its repertoire on the BRC front patio in hopefulness of resuming brewpub performances on Sunday afternoons before socially-distanced customers. After 13 months of community tumult and uncertainty, spring flowers are a floral prelude to sunnier days that await our music and future audiences. 

From the G&F musicians: Get in tune, get picking, get the vax.

BRC Activities

Shipwrecked Banjo

April 10, 2021

Having plied the lake waters behind his workshop with a sailboat and windsurfer, the BRC craftsman is a reader of  historical fiction and eye witness accounts of adventures and mishaps on the high seas. One such astonishing narrative, the “Endurance: Shackleton`s Incredible Voyage” involved a banjo. During the ill-fated 1914 Antarctic expedition, explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton`s three-masted ship the Endurance became fatally trapped in crushing ice.  As the crew abandoned ship, each sailor was allowed to bring only 2 pounds of personal possessions to face the brutal survivalist ordeal ahead.

The only exception to this injunction pertained to  the ship`s meteorologist Leonard Hussey (below) and his 12 pound Windsor zither banjo. Knowing cruel  trials would be faced by all in the hostile ice cap environment, Shackelton pointedly advised the banjo owner to bring the instrument along as, “It`s vital mental medicine, and we shall need it.”

While the marooned shipmates struggled for months to survive in harsh glacial environs not dissimilar to a year-round polar vortex,  Hussey entertained them with his banjo and morale-raising sing alongs.  Crew members keeping journals recorded, the “…banjo does, as Sir Ernest said, supply brain food,” and another grateful shipmate praised “…Hussey`s indispensable banjo.”  One mirthful wag reported, “Hussey is at present tormenting (us) with his six known tunes on his banjo.” With Shackelton`s determined and indefatigable leadership, the stuff of legends, the entire crew was eventually and miraculously rescued.

Located  in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, the Windsor banjo factory manufactured thousands of banjos over its lifetime until it was destroyed during World War II by an air raid in 1940. Hussey eventually donated his banjo, signed by all the crew,  to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. In 2013, with the help of a Kickstarter campaign, the Great British Banjo Company was founded and launched its commemorative “Shackleton Banjo” model which became a runaway best seller.

From the BRC: Be safe, be well, be vaccinated.