Sundays at Harry’s Hardware
They say, “oldtime music is better than it sounds.”
Cabot is a village of about 240 people in north-central Vermont. Situated on route 215, (between route 2 and route 15) Cabot is not on the way to anywhere in unless, of course, it’s your destination.
If you’re here, it might be for village-related errands. There’s the Post Office, the Village Store, Mike’s Garage, the Cabot School, the Willey Building (town offices, auditorium and library), the United Church, and then there’s Harry’s Hardware. Harry’s Hardware is an old storefront building with a gas pump out front and an apartment upstairs. The hardware store downstairs is much as it was a hundred years ago and stocked with just about anything you’d expect to need for home and garden (take that Home Depot!).
A half-dozen years ago new owners took over Harry’s and in an effort to lively things up a bit they installed a couple of beer taps. Folks seemed to appreciate being able to come to the hardware store, get a bag of chicken feed or plumbing supplies, then have a beer and visit with a friend. Next thing you know there are bands playing on Saturday nights. In September of 2017 I asked the owners if I could host a weekly oldtime jam session on Sunday afternoons. Thus a tradition was born.
They say, “oldtime music is better than it sounds.” There is truth to that. Oldtime music by nature is participatory and communal. Contrary to Bluegrass music oldtime is not performance oriented, but rather, is intended to be played on the porch or around the kitchen table. At Harry’s, oft times the banjos are out of tune, guitars aren’t always on the beat, and the fiddles scratch and scrape between the notes. Nevertheless, it’s magic. More than anything it’s the touchstone of the week. It’s a place for fellowship, sanity, laughter, bad puns, and a place for friends to catch up with what’s going on.
Musically, the session is where amateur and professional musicians have the opportunity to exercise their repertoire and keep their chops fresh. Often someone will share knowledge about the source of a tune, where they learned it and the path it travelled to be here. It’s always lovely when musicians come from afar to visit the session. There’s some basic etiquette to participating, but if I do say so myself, we’re a pretty inclusive bunch. Here’s a link to more information about the session.
As for myself, one of my great joys on any given Sunday, is seeing faces light up as folks come into the store who weren’t expecting anything (surprised by the wall of sound all those instruments can make!). Most Sundays a mix of locals and visitors from out of town come out to Harry’s, many with children in tow. Days like that are the best. Harry’s Hardware is reminiscent of what you might find in a pub in Ireland: all ages, happy faces, music, and food. There’s that wonderful sense of a community taking itself completely for granted and very much in the moment.
I think the key to the success of the oldtime session at Harry’s Hardware is that it happens every single Sunday without fail. Folks can count on it. That sort of reliability is important in a community. It’s like a sweet drink of water every Sunday that’s there whether you need it or not
Author’s Website: https://www.robinsongs.com
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