February 19, 2024

Good morning friends,

        As Julie and our daughters Rose and Grace head to Mexico for a girl vacation on the sunny Cancun coast, I lie here pondering my life is a bachelor. I read the news. I do a lot of thinking…and pondering and it’s dangerous…sometimes.

    Why doesn’t anybody returning from overseas, after serving in the Peace Corps, get a hero’s welcome? Not even a banner on a light post in a small town. It just doesn’t happen. War is glorified and peace isn’t very popular. I have never heard a waitress at a restaurant say, "My gosh… you served our country in the Peace Corps… dessert is on us!". It just doesn’t happen. There are no blockbuster movies about peace. I’m not pointing out any one country.…we are a warlike and dangerous species. But peace is something most people will say they desire…the problem is it just doesn’t pay as well as war….across the world countries are spending more and more money on warfare in the name of defense. Companies that produce weapons are among the wealthiest and busiest in the world. It’s a sad and sobering thought and one that I thought would take me down a dark, dark place. But I snapped out of it. And how did that happen? Well, a great banjo walked through the door at the store while I was sitting there with Sam Snyder. There’s nothing that snaps me out of a dark mood, than seeing a beautiful, 1930s vintage banjo, from the family of the original owner. Something that needs restoration, but will be a great player when done. I looked up at Sam and I said "Tom, my friend Tom…..that’s who wants this banjo, that’s where it belongs!" And then I told him the story that I’ve told a few times, in other places. So I’ll retell it here because it always takes me out of a dark place:

     "In the late 1970s my banjo buying habit had grown but I also had commitments. I had two young children at home, a mortgage, car payments, credit card debt and meager teacher’s salary of about $9,500 a year! My mortgage payment was $200 a month and the day came that I wasn’t sure how I was going to make the payment. Now I was still doing the side business of buying and selling banjos. I had put out a few mailing lists, and I advertised banjos and related projects that I had for sale in Banjo Newsletter. So it was that I went to the mailbox on a Friday afternoon and saw a tag from the Post Office. A registered letter had come for me and no one was there to sign for it. I had to pick it up at the local Penfield Post Office. I went there signed for the letter. The envelope, as I remember, had green printing on it with some vines and an Irish design. Inside was a letter was from a man by the name of Tom who said he had read my advertisements in Banjo Newsletter. He was looking for some banjos to work on and be able to resell in Ireland. He went on to say that if I could put together some parts for him,  some old projects pieces and send them to him in Ireland, I could keep the enclosed….. and at that moment six one hundred dollar bills fell out of the letter… it was like money from heaven! That was three months mortgage payment!  The letter went on to say that a woman had come to him at a festival, and wanted to buy his concertina, but she only had American money to pay for it and he didn’t see any use in converting it into Irish money. He figured he would send it to me and I would put a good honest package together for him. He was a teacher like I was, with a bunch of kids and he loved banjos. He was making them on the side. His first banjos were made from a maple tree that he cut in his backyard. Of course, I’m speaking of the great Tom Cussen, the founder of Clareen Banjos in Galway and banjo player with the group, Shaskeen. Tom and I go way, way back as it is, and we had a great chat on the phone talking about where we were and what we have become. His son now runs the business that makes the most singularly sought after Irish banjos…. but Tom still likes to fix up an old banjo or two. This reconnection made two old guys really happy. I said to him Tom we’ve been doing this over the most of our life and we become successful because we’re in the business of peddling something that makes people happy…. it’s the best weapon in the world!

With peace,

John Bernunzio

This Saturday, Dan Palmer will be on board for an old-time jam in the back room at Bernunzio’s. Come on down and join us, one and all.

Ireland’s finest…

The bachelor life will afford for some wandering around the Finger Lakes for the next few days… tomorrow I’m going to visit my old buddy, Jim Spampanato, and take him out for his very special birthday….