September 9th, 2024

Good mornings folks,

      I’ve been enjoying my role at the store as the "Godfather of the Banjo". I’m there to consult. I hang out. I give my two cents now and then. I buy a few things and catalog them in and I meet and greet customers. I’m usually there… sometimes Thursday, sometimes Friday, and always on Saturday. It was this past Friday that some interesting folks stopped by. They casually looked at a few instruments, but the one young man asked me about banjos. And of course, I had to open my mouth. I asked him if he’d wanted to see the rarest banjo in existence….the Gibson All American original five string? It turned out he knew all about this banjo. He had been reading about it on Banjo HangOut and Bluegrass Today. He was actually quite accomplished as a banjo player and quite knowledgeable with all the terms that make banjo players hearts throb: "fat boy rim", "one piece flange" "high profile flathead tone ring"…. he knew all the lingo. He was a pretty good player indeed, and he enjoyed tinkering around on the All American. But the story gets much more interesting.

     It turns out that he and his brother and mom and dad were in town visiting relatives. Specifically they were visiting his dad’s father who is 95 years old and in a local nursing home. As the story progressed, I came to find out that the mom and dad (Jon and Marina Lindblom) were students at our local, Eastman School of Music, in the late 80s and early 90s. Their story is one that is so unique that I want to share it here. They are classically trained musicians at this esteemed conservatory, he, a trumpet player, and she, a violinist. They fell in love and were married and both got jobs with the Symphony Orchestra in Savannah Georgia. They were both content to follow their passions and had three children and had built a house and had relatively secure future, when the orchestra declared bankruptcy. They were out of work, and, not wanting to uproot their children and move away from the community they had embraced, they decided to improvise a bit. Marina taught violin, while Jon learned the trade of tuning and rebuilding pianos. At some point, as the family expanded, they took a vacation to North Carolina. There, they were exposed to Bluegrass music and they said, "We can do this!"   They created a family band now with nine children and several variations of bands and a piano repair and moving business, they are well rooted fixtures in the Savannah area. 

   We were so privileged that they came back on Saturday and participated in our backroom bluegrass jam with all the other folks who stopped by to visit. Their website can be viewed in the following link. They are genuinely wonderful folks and accomplished musicians who turned the life of classical music into something that they could share with greater audience. I am very pleased to have made new friends.

    https://headinhomebluegrass.com/ 

With peace,

John Bernunzio

Finger Lakes rambling

The way home

we finished off the week with a dinner from the garden…fried green tomatoes, and crispy fried eggplant with pesto sauce and all the fixings….all adorned with beautiful dahlias from Julie’s flower garden.