John C. Campbell Folk School

John C. Campbell, born in Indiana in 1867, and raised in Wisconsin, studied education and theology in New England. Like many other idealistic young people of his generation, he felt a calling to humanitarian work.

At the turn of the century, the Southern Appalachian region was viewed as a fertile field for educational and social missions. With his new bride, Olive Dame of Massachusetts, John undertook a fact-finding survey of social conditions in the mountains in 1908-1909. The Campbells outfitted a wagon as a traveling home and studied mountain life from Georgia to West Virginia.

While John interviewed farmers about their agricultural practices, Olive collected ancient Appalachian ballads and studied the handicrafts of the mountain people. Both were hopeful that the quality of life could be improved by education, and in turn, wanted to preserve and share with the rest of the world the wonderful crafts, techniques and tools that mountain people used in every day life.

The folkehojskole (folk school) had long been a force in the rural life of Denmark. These schools for life helped transform the Danish countryside into a vibrant, creative force. The Campbells talked of establishing such a school in the rural southern United States as an alternative to the higher-education facilities that drew young people away from the family farm.

After John died in 1919, Olive and her friend Marguerite Butler traveled to Europe and studied folk schools in Denmark, Sweden and other countries. They returned to the U.S. full of purposeful energy and a determination to start such a school in Appalachia. They realized, more than many reformers of the day, that they could not impose their ideas on the mountain people. They would need to develop a genuine collaboration.

Several locations were under consideration for the experimental school. On an exploratory trip, Miss Butler discussed the idea with Fred O. Scroggs, Brasstown's local storekeeper, saying that she would be back in a few weeks to determine if area residents had any interest in the idea. When she returned, it was to a meeting of over 200 people at the local church. The people of far west North Carolina enthusiastically pledged labor, building materials and other support.

In 1925, the Folk School began its work. Instruction at the Folk School has always been noncompetitive; there are no credits and no grades. Today, the Folk School offers a unique combination of rich history, beautiful mountain surroundings, and an atmosphere of living and learning together.

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From Basketry to Writing, you can choose from over 830 weeklong and weekend classes each year in a broad variety of areas. Your creative learning vacation is enhanced by knowledgeable instructors and small classes. Whether you are a novice or an expert, you will find the class that's right for you. Come explore your creative side in our non-competitive, hands-on learning environment!

You’re welcome to explore our beautiful campus during daylight hours in a free and self-directed tour. On most weekdays and several weekends year-round, people like you are learning craft, art, music, dance, cooking, gardening, nature studies, photography, and writing in small classes scattered across campus. Class times are typically 9am-Noon and 1:30-4:30pm. You will likely be able to peek into studios at the classes being held there.

The Folk School offers numerous nature trails open to the public during daylight hours. You'll find many interesting points on the scenic paths: the Rainbow Bridge, the Herb Garden and the Corn Maiden just to name a few.

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Identified by Rand McNally Atlas as a "Best of the Road" destination, the Folk School is only two hours from Asheville, Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Knoxville, and is just a day's drive for half of the residents of the U.S.

We're located in westernmost North Carolina, seven miles east of Murphy, NC, off U.S. Highway 64, just north of Georgia's state line.

Documentary on the School: Sing Behind the Plow-John C. Campbell Folk School, can be viewed on UNC-TV at http://www.unctv.org/folkschool/.

Follow the link below to see the many different classes you can take. They also have a wonderful craft shop.

John C. Campbell Folk School







Special Thanks to John C. Campbell Folk School for allowing use of their text and graphics.

Kudzilla

Picture compliments of:

Jan Davidson, Director of the Folk School

(Write-up on the John C. Campbell Folk School coming shortly)

Vidalia Onion Pie

No - it is not a dessert. It is, however, a fabulous dish that can be served as a vegie side or a stand alone meal. YUM!

When the Gladiator and I bought our first home in Gwinnett County in metro-Atlanta, home of the worst traffic on earth, we were blessed with wonderful neighbors. When we had our boys, they were never short of meals to bring over for us time and again. Our immediate across the street neighbors were retired and orginally born and raised in Alabama...............meaning..........she was an excellent down home cook! Every spring when the Vidalia onions were ready for the world, she would bake Vidalia pie and bring us a couple of slices. The first time she called to bring over a slice, I thought, "Who in the world eats onion pie?"

It only took one bite and I was hooked!

It wasn't too long after that, that I had her convinced to bake a whole pie for us every Spring. Bless her heart. I begged and pleaded for the recipe; but she said it was secret and she had never written it down. So I remained content for our Spring delight to be delivered from across the street.

Then the day came that they were planning to sell their house and move back home to Alabama. My dilemma was two-fold: I was losing one of the greatest neighbors of all time and how on earth would I ever again get to eat Vidalia pie.

I cried.

Literally the day the moving truck was loading up their furniture and all their memories, that precious neighbor walked across the street and knocked on the front door. When I opened the door, she held out her hand and gave me the secret recipe she had finally written down. I hugged her and cried. Not just for the recipe, but for the years of friendship and neighborship, for keeping our babies at a moment's notice, for helping me round up lost dogs, for listening to me complain and for sharing her woes as well, for the most beautiful Christmas cookies you've ever seen or eaten, for bringing me cuttings from shrubs in her yard to share the beauty and for just being Terri.

There isn't a time that I make this recipe that I don't think about her.

Since I consider you, my neighbor at large, I'm sharing this wonderful and delightful recipe - but be forewarned: It's a Secret! Shhhhhh! If you tell anyone, I'll send Bubba to see you!


VIDALIA ONION PIE
Ingredients:

* 2lbs. of Vidalia onions, peeled and thinly sliced (there is only one Vidalia onion and that is the onion grown in Vidalia, Georgia. In the wintertime, when I get desperate - I'll use Texas sweet onions.....but don't tell anybody.

* 1/2 Cup Butter
* 3 eggs, beaten
* 1/4 teaspoon of salt
* 1 Cup of Sour Cream
* Dash of Tabasco
* 1/4 Cup of grated Parmessan cheese
* 1 9inch pie crust (un-baked)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Heat butter in a large skillet. Add onions an saute` until tender. In a separate bowl combine eggs and sour cream. Add cooked onions. Stir in salt and Tabasco. Pour into pie shell and sprinkle the Parmessan cheese evenly on top.

Bake at 450 degree for 15 minutes, then reduce to 325 dgree for 20 more minutes and lightly brown on top. Serve warm.

Eat and enjoy!

PRONUNCIATION NOTE: Let's talk about dialect and the word "Vidalia". It is pronounced "Vie" (like pie, very loooonng "I") - "Day" - "Yuh"; you do not hear the "L" so it's "vie-day-yuh": Vidalia.

So now you know!

Harriette K. Jacobs
SouthoftheGnatLine.com
Copyright 2007
All Rights Reserved.

Hotter Than the 4th of July

I guess y'all know tomorrow is the official first day of summer, dontcha? You could've fooled this little old country gal. Seems I've lost track of the day of the week or even the MONTH since the great southern summer sauna of '07 began right after the late freeze in April. It's a wonder there's a tomato to be found anywhere but by golly I've got some. BabyGirl said it was a tasty one!Anyways...I'm sittin' here nekkid with the box fan blowing dreaming of fall. Now, Yanks can't even begin to imagine that kind of thing. Their summer doesn't start 'til it meets itself coming and going so they don't know a whole lot about beating the heat except for wearin' shorts and tank tops for a few days. South of the Mason Dixon, we sweat our butts off and attempt to look good doing it. This means minimal makeup and a short haircut, at the very least. Ain't nothing looks worse than a gal with her favorite shade of medium beige foundation smeared all over the sleeves of her outfit du jour. Bosses frown on it and potential boyfriends just plain run from the whole mess.

I read here yesterday about how to make jelly from kudzu "blooms" and I must say that I've lived in the south all of my life and have Never EVER seen any kind of flower on a kudzu pile. It will choke to death an innocent dogwood tree and cover up the dead, but dang if I've seen a flower. The blooms must be a delicacy in the far east from whence this prolific vine came. Their revenge for Hiroshima, I suppose. The Bible tells about all that tit for tat stuff and we sure do know how to listen up when it comes to the wrath of God and all.

We got your lightning bugs..and we got your cicadas with plenty of ticks and fleas on the side. All right here on the eve of the official first day of summer OH seven in Tennessee. Anybody got one of those paper funeral home fans they can pass me? I think I'm gonna need it this year. I'd prefer one with a picture of Jesus or Elvis on it.

Kudzu Jelly

Kudzu Jelly

4 cups kudzu blossoms
4 cups boiling water
1 tablespoon lemon juice One (1-3/4 ounce) package
powdered pectin
5 cups sugar

1.Wash kudzu blossoms with cold water and place them in a large
bowl. Pour 4 cups boiling water over blossoms and refrigerate for 8
hours or overnight.
2.Pour blossoms and liquid through a colander into a Dutch oven,
discarding blossoms.
3.Add lemon juice and pectin; bring to a full rolling boil over high heat,
stirring constantly. Stir in sugar; return to a full rolling boil, and boil,
stirring constantly, 1 minute. Remove from heat; skim off foam with
a spoon.
4.Quickly pour jelly into hot, sterilized jars, filling to 1/4 inch from top.
Wipe jar rims. Cover at once with lids and screw bands.

5.Process in boiling water bath for 5 minutes. Cool on wire racks. Makes 6 half-pint jars.

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Recipe contributed by Jane- Ann Heitmueller

God Bless Kudzu

Down here in the south, summer means a lot of things and a whole lot of them have to do with food. The growin' season begins in April and carries on 'til Thanksgiving or so. Yankees would just die from the heat and humidity, and I'm certain that many of them did during the war of Northern aggression in betweeen raiding farmhouses for food and scaring the crap out of southern belles and their young 'uns.

Right at this very moment I am surrounded by the fruits of the earth, so to speak. There's green 'maters on the vine just beggin' to be fried up in corn meal. The corn is taller than me and all tassled up for a July 4th pickin'. Down the road a piece, the cotton is thriving during long hot days. And the kudzu? Lawd..y'all. It's taking OVER the place.

All of this rambling brings me to the subject of chiggers and snakes. Last year I went out to the peaches'n'cream corn patch to pull a few ears. Johnson grass grows pretty high in between the rows and I'll be dang if I didn't end up with a huge chigger festival all over my fluffy yet sexy body. Sometimes I ain't too bright in the country gal department, if you know what I mean. Take snakes, for instance. One crosses my path and *boom* I'm a big old pile of quivering fear lookin' for a man to kill it and save me from certain death with the venom and the fangs and all. That don't count the ones I ran over with the lawnmower or the car by accident. They're just roadkill like possums and squirrels.

I read on the internets that DEET keeps the chiggers off when a girl is out in the wild collecting food. Just so happens that we have a can of it stashed from last summer and it's sittin' right here beside me just itching to get all up in that corn and back to the riverbed where the blackberries are. We failed to plant any purple hull peas this year but Dusty did, so it's all good.

Tiger lilies are about to bust wide open with black flecked orange blooms that insist on being adored. Since the peonies and tulips are long gone, there's that autumn clematis growing like wild in anticipation of the early fall season when all the other flowers have given up the ghost. That's when the cotton and soybeans get harvested. I love the way God arranges all of that at just the right time for us Southerners. Especially the kudzu.

The Wonder That is Grits

Today, I am going to blog about the wonder that is grits.

What is a grit, you people-other-than-southerners would say? grits.com says, "Grits are small broken grains of corn. They were first produced by Native Americans centuries ago. They made both "corn" grits and "hominy" grits."

According to wikipedia, "The word "grits" comes from Old English grytta meaning a coarse meal of any kind. Yellow grits include the whole kernel, while white grits use hulled kernels. Grits is prepared by simply boiling into a porridge; normally it is boiled until enough water evaporates to leave it semi-solid. It is traditionally served during breakfast, but can be used at any meal."

Some grits trivia...

1. Three-quarters of grits sold in the United States is sold in the "grits belt" stretching from Louisiana to North Carolina (wikipedia)

2. South Carolina declared grits its state food in 1973, writing, "Whereas, throughout its history, the South has relished its grits, making them a symbol of its diet, its customs, its humor, and its hospitality, and whereas, every community in the State of South Carolina used to be the site of a grist mill and every local economy in the State used to be dependent on its product; and whereas, grits has been a part of the life of every South Carolinian of whatever race, background, gender, and income; and whereas, grits could very well play a vital role in the future of not only this State, but also the world, if as The Charleston News and Courier proclaimed in 1952: 'An inexpensive, simple, and thoroughly digestible food, [grits] should be made popular throughout the world. Given enough of it, the inhabitants of planet Earth would have nothing to fight about. A man full of [grits] is a man of peace.'" (wikipedia)

3. Grits are made from the milling of corn kernels. The first step in the process is to clean the kernels; then, the grains are steamed for a short time to loosen the tough outer hull. The grain kernel is split, which removes the hull and germ, leaving the broken endosperm. Heavy steel rollers break up the endosperm into granules, which are separated by a screening process. The large-size granules are the grits; the smaller ones become cornmeal and corn flour. (quakergrits.com)

4. St. George, SC is the home to the World's Grits Festival in April.

5. Bands have had the word "grits" in their name... Harmony Grits Bluegrass Band, and the 70's -80's Grits, from Washington DC.

6. Warwick, GA has a National Grits Festival also in April. Plus they even have their own grits theme song.

7. Of course we can't forget G.R.I.T.S. - Girls Raised in the South...Deborah Ford's books are a hoot and not only southern women will enjoy her southern brand of humor.

I could go on and on, but basically there are a ton of uses for grits as well as tons of recipes. Grits are thought to be a southern staple, but studies show that grits are crossing the Mason Dixon line and are used in a variety of ways. So, this Sunday I give thanks for grits - instant and regular. How good they are.

Dana

www.southerngalgoesnorth.blogspot.com

My First Fish

For my first fishing trip, Daddy woke me up about 4:30, gave me something (leftover biscuits?) for breakfast, put me in the back seat of the car, and drove to Panola Shoals, near Atlanta. This was a stretch of river which flowed over sheets of rock; the water was fast and dangerous and I was never permitted to fish there. Daddy fished there. He never caught anything, but I recall his standing in the water up to his waist, leaning into the current with a cane pole stretched downstream, bent by its force. He was fishing for channel catfish.

He had found a small branch stream which fed into the river and parked me there with strict instructions not to go anywhere else and to wait until he came for me.

(I now think he was mostly out in the woods, shooting craps with his buddies and that’s why he never caught any fish. I provided the alibi for my mother to explain his going away for a whole day.)

The place he left me was dark. Small trees bent over the water and made a kind of dim cathedral. The water was black; the bank was muddy, for there was too little sun for anything to grow. The water barely moved. But, underneath the water – ah, that was different! It was populated by millions of immense fish, just waiting for me to give them a worm and drag them out!

Instead, my cork began moving -- BOUNCE! jiggle….jiggle…jiggle.. jiggle. jigglejigglejiggle PLOP! ……… and then BOUNCE! jiggle….jiggle… jiggle.. jiggle.jiggle PLOP! ………JERK! Rebait…..

In the late afternoon, Daddy came for me and dragged me protesting from my fishing hole and took me home, tired, hungry and with a headache from not having drunk any water all day.

When I was nine or ten my willingness to sit and watch a fishing cork bobbing was limited only by the hours of daylight . And my ability to understand that the fish causing all the ruckus were too small to be caught was overcome by confidence. Confidence that someday …SOMEDAY! I was filled with hope, which in a young boy is almost limitless.

The second time he took me, I baited my hook, and started the jiggling routine. Over and over, something ate my worms and forced me to rebait. As time passed, I began playing games with the cork. Instead of waiting for something to pull it under with the PLOP sound, I began jerking when it was jiggling. And sometimes when it wasn’t jiggling – but it was about to jiggle. Boredom? Needing something new to do? Who knows. But, finally, as I jerked, something jerked back!

Out of the water I pulled the most beautiful fish ever seen by mortals! Green! Glistening eyes! A yellow belly! And I had caught it! It was mine! I caught it all by myself! Nobody helped! And it was lovely.

Carefully poking a small stick in its gills and pushing it up to a fork in the stick, I laid my treasure on the bank and eagerly returned to the water to repeat my triumph. Now, how had I caught it? On the first jiggle, or the second jiggle, or by waiting until it PLOPPED! Or just before the jiggling started. I couldn’t remember, so I did them all. And I caught another fish! Two real fish!

This time, when Daddy came to get me, I was ready to go home and show everyone my fish. All the waiting had been worth it. Now, I had proved I could fish and not only fish, but catch fish, And Daddy was proud of me!

My mother was somewhat less enthusiastic, only worrying about whether she would have to cook the fish. I couldn’t understand that. Surely my fish were worth cooking – so she did, frying them in bacon grease, coated with cornmeal. I ate them both, except for a taste for one brother.

What a meal! Marvelous, crispy little bites! Bones, fins – everything but the innards and heads!

My fish, Including the heads, might have been at least two inches long.

© Larry Hamby 3/18/2007

Southern Summer Sunday

Southern summer Sunday...when the gospel flows melodiously from ruby throated choir members, and dewdrops are brilliantly transposed into glistening, gleaming shafts of shooting stars.

When vibrant hues of the lazy, meandering morning glory visually proclaim the dawning of a new day with a resounding hallelujah chorus!

When a skyscape of incandescent silence lounges placidly 'midst a vast ocean of blue, as the warmth of awakening sunshine comfortingly permeates the earth's every crevice.

When the wind languishes in his nightly slumber and both mammoth trees and miniscule grass blades stand erect with a serene posture of freshness and anticipation.

God's masterpiece on display...
this southern summer Sunday.

***
Jane- Ann Heitmueller

The Stillness Of A Place Out Of Time

Submitted by:
Harry Boswell
http://www.kudzufiles.com
Mississippi, USA

If you drive southwest from Clinton, Mississippi, along the Natchez Trace, an hour's drive will bring you to the town of Port Gibson, near the Mississippi River. Leave the Trace and drive a few miles further west, and you'll stumble on a reminder of another time. Had you been here in 1861, this is what you would have seen:

This was the Windsor mansion, built in 1859 and 1860 by a landowner who, ironically, died just a few weeks after it was completed, only 34 years old. For 30 years, Windsor was visible on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River (the river moved west over the next century, which confuses people who try today to envision the view from Windsor). But in 1890, a fire destroyed the home, leaving the ghostly visage that greets visitors today who venture a bit off the beaten path.


Only the columns remain at the place known by locals as the Ruins of Windsor. I was there last on a bleak, lonely, overcast December day a few years ago. For about an hour, I wandered the site, alone except for the hints of ghosts that seem to pervade it on a winter's day. It has the stillness of a place frozen in time, the past clinging to the air around the stark columns. You feel like an intruder; after a few minutes, you find yourself looking behind you, unable to shake the feeling that someone is watching. It's also one of those places that has a power - "I once meant something" - that makes you want to stay silent. It's a rare treasure, a side trip worth the taking, even if it does leave you with a feeling of sadness that may take an hour or two to shake. The columns will eventually crumble and fall, and be swallowed by the kudzu that has devoured so much of this part of Mississippi. Maybe then the spirit of the place can finally rest.

Summer

We usually didn’t lack for anything to do in the summertime when school was out. The tobacco fields, corn fields, garden and hauling those infernal rocks pretty well took up most of our time, but with the longer days we usually found fun and games to occupy our time. It is hard nowadays to imagine life without television, X-box, Play station or video games, but we survived somehow. We used our imagination and what limited resources we had to have a great time.

We had swings of all descriptions. We’d take an old rubber tire and hang it with a rope from a big limb on the oak tree. If we didn’t have a tire, we’d tie the ends of the rope together and put a sawmill slab for a seat and swing from that, splinters and all. My favorite was the grapevine swing .Big, long lengths of strong limbs that were pliable enough to swing you across the branch (most of the time) to the other side. We’d mark who could go the farthest, so we’d all take a runnin’ jump to get up the most momentum. Anything to do with water, we were all for that. We’d wade in the branch and look for crawdads. We’d try not to step on one ‘cause granny told us if they grabbed aholt of you, they wouldn’t turn you loose ‘til it thundered.. The branch ran into the creek, which of course lent more opportunities to play in the water. We would take rocks (the ones we had carried in proliferation out of the field) and make a dam across the creek so the water would back up, then we could pretend swim in the deeper water. We’d make mud pies and bake them on the hot rocks for “pretend” biscuits. The only pollution we had to worry about was to make sure we built the “swimming hole” above where the cows came down to stand and drink. We’d put a fallen sapling or tree limb that was big enough to hold us, across the creek and see who could walk across without falling in. There was always someone who loved to jiggle the limb and make sure you didn’t get to the other side without being dunked. Uncle Travis had made a big pond that he used for irrigation. It was deep enough to swim in, but we didn’t go in there much. He told us there were water moccasins in there and we believed him. Going up the logging road to the Hog Cove, there was a tiny little waterfall coming across a rock cliff that was barely big enough to stand under, but we loved to do that when it was real hot. Just stand there and let that cold mountain water raise chill bumps on your arms.

We loved to play hide and seek (or whoopy hide)... We played cowboys and Indians, with a tree branch for a gun or a rifle, a tobacco stick for a horse and ride the range all day. All our games were outside games (no playing in the house). When it was raining, we played in the barn, climbing and hiding. We’d play “button, button, who’s got the button”, with one person trying to guess which hand of all the others the button was in. When we would play “tag”, we would count “one potato, two potato, three potato, four, five potato, six potato, seven potato ore…you…are…it…you…old…dirty…dish…rag…you….with “you” being “it. All the rest would run away from “it” and “it” would try to catch you and “tag” you and then you would become “it.

Uncle Travis would sometimes come up to us and say “don’t you younguns have anything to do?”, “if you don’t I can find you something”…we’d always answer with something like “oh, yeah, granny has had us busy all morning and we’re wore out, we were just resting a minute before we get back to what she had us doing (did that fool him for a minute?). It didn’t take us long to figure out that “nothin’ to do” was better to be done out of sight of the house.

We played “Ring around the Rosie”, “Red Rover, Red Rover” and “Hopscotch”. Hopscotch was considered a “girlie” game so we didn’t have many boys participate in that. We would play a game of “Jacks”. We had a little rubber ball and 10 metal “jacks”. You’d throw the ball in the air and pick up a “jack”, then throw it again and pick up 2 “jacks”, and on until you had all 10. If you missed one, you gave up your turn. I have spent many an hour playing marbles. How I wish I still had my old “shooter”. The “shooter” was a bigger marble than the rest. We made a circle about 2 feet in diameter. Each one would put their marbles in the circle and the one who shot first would try to knock the others’ marbles out of the circle. If you did, your turn kept on, if you didn’t, you gave up your turn. Sometimes we would play “keepsies”. You got to keep the marbles you knocked out of the circle. My cousin Edward was an expert at that, so we tried not to play “keepsies” with him or we would end up without any marbles. (Is that how I lost my marbles?)

On one of our trips to Marshall, they had a shiny, red Pedal Car in the window of the Home Electric. I can still remember wishing for that Pedal Car. I put it on each and every list available to me until I was too big to fit into it, but never got one. I see them for sale now on the internet and the wazoo prices folks are getting for them.

From my other articles, you got to know my Uncle Ed, the practical joker. Uncle Ed was the one that sent me on my first (and only) snipe hunt. He played it up for months, long enough to get me to begging him to let me go. He even had me practicing the “snipe call”; until he was assured I had gotten it right. The night came when he said I was ready. He gave me a burlap sack (we called them toe sacks) and a stick and showed me where to go down in the woods next to the creek. He said he would go the other direction and run them my way and for me to catch them in the sack. I asked him what they looked like and he said “you’ll know them when you see them coming”. I went down there in the black pitch dark and began my practiced “snipe” call. I was so scared. I heard the screech owls and was more scared. I saw every ghost and goblin from 100 years coming down that path in my direction, but never saw a snipe. When I got so scared I thought I was going to pass out, I began running to the house only to find Uncle Ed, and others who had joined in the fun, laughing and having a great old time at my expense.

We have come a long way since those days of care free abandon. It is sad that children cannot experience the wonderful world of games as we had them. When we talk about our “games”, they think we are “old f….s”, and I suppose I am proud to be one.

Written by: Judy Ricker

bikers and bad karyokee

Is it just me or did we skip right over spring into August here in the south? These extremes in temperature just make me ill. What the heck happened to the four seasons and all that jazz? Must be the global warming thing. With the price of gas and all I don't travel too far from home, except up to the kudzu bar when I'm feelin' frisky or just plain bored. It's the coolest little place you ever saw. Sometimes ladies dance on the bar and get dollar bills stuck up in their jeans. I never did that, but I could have back in the day before I got old and fat.

Thursday is ladies night up there. Beer sodies are only a buck so we're cheap dates then. I got a t-shirt just because the owners like me. Friday nights is bad karyokee all around except when Bev sings. Then it's all good, because she has a voice outta this world from singing in church as a kid. We sang a duet a time or two but she always leads. Bikers just flock to her place. Could be because her hubby has one and loves every dang minute of driving that thang ninety to nothing when the day jobs allow time for traveling.