The Field Trip and the Dulcimer
I went on many field trips during my childhood when I attended a private Christian school in the area. One of the most influential field trips I went on was a trip to Virginia's Explore Park.
Explore Park is a recreational park with hiking and biking trails and old pioneer houses. When I was growing up, not that long ago, it used to be a living history museum, complete with reenactments of period food, chores, and music. This part of the park just didn't have the funds to operate anymore, so it closed in 2007. The buildings are still there to look at, but lack the workers who added so much character to the attraction.
It was early October of 2002. I was seven years old at the time. We took an old school bus to the park. I was excited to wear shorts that day, which were normally out of dress code. Many moms had decided to meet the bus at Explore Park so they could walk with us, mine included. She came with my sister, who was in a stroller at the time.
We unloaded from the bus and walked with our tour guide to a Native American reconstructed village. The period actor cooked a pancake on a rock and told us about the Native Americans and how they lived. We sat in a wigwam on top of bear skins.
Our next stop on the trail was a log cabin. "How'd you like to have dirt floors?" the actor asked us. Of course, my answer was no. He explained early pioneer life to us. A lady nearby was making soap from lye in a large kettle. As we walked out of the house to our next stop, he played "Yankee Doodle" on the fife. I seemed to march to the music as I hiked.
The highlight of the day was stopping at a large family homestead cabin. The lady at this house was dressed in a flowery pioneer dress and wore a wide-brimmed straw hat. She explained to us that in the pioneer days "people didn't have radios or electronic devices to play music, so they had to make their own music." She then proceeded to take down the nearby mountain dulcimer from the wall and play it. Man, it sounded so good. Having grown up in the mountains of Virginia, I had known what a dulcimer was before I knew how to read, and this was the first time I had heard one played by a skilled musician. Oh, how good that dulcimer sounded that day. It almost gave me chills, even at the age of seven.
The last stop of the day was watching a man reenact boating on the Roanoke River. We then hiked back to the parking lot and went into the gift shop, which is still there to this day. When all the kids were boarding the bus, my mother asked me if I wanted to go straight home with her rather than ride the bus to the school and have her pick me up afterwards. "We are closer to home than to school!" she said. Of course I wanted to get out of school early, so I went home with my mother.
When we got home, my mother was still ecstatic about "the lady with the hat who played the dulcimer." I went downstairs for the rest of the afternoon and drew a picture of the dulcimer with my Crayola 3D puffy paint pens. I told my father all about the trip and the dulcimer when he arrived home that evening.
The sound of that dulcimer continued to play in my mind for another seven years before I myself ordered a mountain dulcimer on eBay and taught myself how to play. Who knew that a performer in living history would influence a little girl to grow up and play the dulcimer herself!
Here I am in the center with the braids!
It was early October of 2002. I was seven years old at the time. We took an old school bus to the park. I was excited to wear shorts that day, which were normally out of dress code. Many moms had decided to meet the bus at Explore Park so they could walk with us, mine included. She came with my sister, who was in a stroller at the time.
We unloaded from the bus and walked with our tour guide to a Native American reconstructed village. The period actor cooked a pancake on a rock and told us about the Native Americans and how they lived. We sat in a wigwam on top of bear skins.
Our next stop on the trail was a log cabin. "How'd you like to have dirt floors?" the actor asked us. Of course, my answer was no. He explained early pioneer life to us. A lady nearby was making soap from lye in a large kettle. As we walked out of the house to our next stop, he played "Yankee Doodle" on the fife. I seemed to march to the music as I hiked.
The highlight of the day was stopping at a large family homestead cabin. The lady at this house was dressed in a flowery pioneer dress and wore a wide-brimmed straw hat. She explained to us that in the pioneer days "people didn't have radios or electronic devices to play music, so they had to make their own music." She then proceeded to take down the nearby mountain dulcimer from the wall and play it. Man, it sounded so good. Having grown up in the mountains of Virginia, I had known what a dulcimer was before I knew how to read, and this was the first time I had heard one played by a skilled musician. Oh, how good that dulcimer sounded that day. It almost gave me chills, even at the age of seven.
The last stop of the day was watching a man reenact boating on the Roanoke River. We then hiked back to the parking lot and went into the gift shop, which is still there to this day. When all the kids were boarding the bus, my mother asked me if I wanted to go straight home with her rather than ride the bus to the school and have her pick me up afterwards. "We are closer to home than to school!" she said. Of course I wanted to get out of school early, so I went home with my mother.
When we got home, my mother was still ecstatic about "the lady with the hat who played the dulcimer." I went downstairs for the rest of the afternoon and drew a picture of the dulcimer with my Crayola 3D puffy paint pens. I told my father all about the trip and the dulcimer when he arrived home that evening.
The sound of that dulcimer continued to play in my mind for another seven years before I myself ordered a mountain dulcimer on eBay and taught myself how to play. Who knew that a performer in living history would influence a little girl to grow up and play the dulcimer herself!
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