I pulled out of Rockville around 04:00 Friday morning. According to the
Student Booklet that Ginger sent me, the arrival window at Fur Peace was
09:00 - 12:00, and the AAA routing estimated a 7-hour trip to Pomeroy.
The trip was basically a straight shot across Maryland and West
Virginia. Pomeroy is just over the Ohio - West Virginia border.
The trip itself was really peaceful. Nothing but country music on the
radio from Frederick MD to Parkersburg W.Va., where I picked up a
high-power Rock station out of Athens, Ohio. Cool tunes for the whole
trip!
Lord have mercy, I swear, skunks must be the most suicidal animals on
earth. I think they play chicken on the hiways at night. Pure funk all
across Route 68, and I don't mean on the radio....
I pulled into the Fur Peace parking lot about 09:30. Here's a tip for
future Fur Peace trekkers: DON'T take 681 from 50/7 to Rt. 33! It looks like a
short-cut on the map, but it ain't....
Anyway, mine was the second car in the lot, but I didn't see anybody
around. The student booklet said "somebody will be there to greet you
when you arrive..." so I looked around and finally spotted some guy
leaning over the railing outside the cafeteria, who gave me a wave.
Looks familiar, let's see - black shirt, black pants, black vest, shades,
and yep - that confirms it - white socks! Yeah, that was somebody
alright! I walked over and introduced myself to Jack as one of his
students. He was delighted when I told him I bought one of his basses.
He asked me where I got it, what I paid, how I liked it and so on. At
that point Ginger came up and showed me where my cabin was. As I walked
off with Ginger, Jack waved and said "See you soon! I want to see that
bass!"
The bass classes were scheduled for the A-Frame Studio (lead guitar in
the workshop building, rhythm guitar in the library). I couldn't find
the studio on the "main campus" so I set out to find it. I noticed some
power lines running off the main feed into the woods. I followed them
down a steep trail, and there it was. And there was Jack, setting up for
the first session. He came out on the porch and we talked some more,
mainly about the mods he made to the Epiphone version from the Gibson
original. He said he likes the Epiphone better than the Gibson now. The
version he uses now is the "final release prototype." Mine was the first
"off-the-shelf" JCBass he'd seen! At that point, Jorma arrived in his
pickup, and Jack introduced me to him. I mentioned then that I went to
the same high school they did (Woodrow Wilson in DC - Jorma was class of
'59, Jack was '62, and I was class of '72). When Jorma heard this, he
hollered "Alright! Go Tigers!" and we chatted a bit about DC and High
School. Before I left, he took my edress and promised to send me info
about the WWHS Alumni Association - of which he is a Lifetime member!
At noon came orientation and lunch, followed by free time to wander
around until the first workshop. At the first workshop, Jack asked to
see my bass (there was one other guy there with a JC - I expected to see
more). He took it and played some riffs on it and noticed that I had
changed the strings (to Dean Markley Blues Steels - natch!) and
complimented me on how well it was set up.
He divided the class into beginners and advanced, based on our info
sheets and how we played as he listened to each of us. While it's nice
to be put into the "advanced" category by Jack himself, the downside of
course is that we got less "Jack time" than the beginners. That's of
course how it should be, but still...
Before we had arrived, we had all filled out "goal sheets" listing what
we wanted to accomplish that weekend, and my big thrill came when he
pulled mine out of the pile and read a line from it to the class, where
I said I wanted to learn to play "outside the box." He said that was
exactly what he wanted to teach us all that weekend...
He gave us all some handouts (Xeroxes of the booklet from his video and
some notes he's putting together for a method book - watch for this
one!), and we began.
The first thing he showed us was a blues based on the opening riff to
"Crown of Creation." This was followed by "99 Year Blues." When we got
that down, he looked at his watch and said "Well, we've run 40 minutes
overtime, we better quit now or none of us will get any dinner.."
And I'd better quit now, too. Day 1 part 2 will pick up with dinner and
the evening porch jams...
John
