As the holidays approach, I start to think of friends and family and I think about our annual end-of-summer Hootenanny.   “What is a hootenanny?” you might ask. Well… don’t bother to look it up in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary.  I heard last year that they’ve decided to omit it from their dictionary.  A hootenanny is a music-making event, sort of a jam session for bluegrass, folk, country and gospel music.  My husband Ross and I started hosting hootenannies in our back yard about 25 years ago.  The first one started pretty spontaneously when a couple of our friends wanted to come over and play some music with us.  Ross plays the guitar and dulcimer.  I play guitar, harmonica, violin and a little mandolin.  We have friends who play banjo, guitar, accordion, ukulele and we thought it would be fun to have a barbecue and play some music.  Our daughter Elisabeth was a toddler when we hosted our first “hoot.”  Ross put some bales of straw in our backyard, folks brought lawn chairs and food.  We played music, ate, drank, and sang well into the night, and that was the beginning of this Brewer tradition. 

My mom, Dee Burchyett, was a gospel/jazz singer and she loved coming to our hootenannies and getting everyone to join in with her.  I swear, she knew the words to every song and had the kind of charm that made everyone want to sing along with her.  Over the years, we’ve become more high tech, and now have microphones and amps, gut buckets (metal wash tubs turned upside down with a broom handle and string attached so they can be played like basses – my mom gave us our first one, by the way!), wash boards and thimbles for playing, harmonicas for the children and even Hootenanny Song Books!  We may have had 30 friends at the first hoot, but the past few years, we’ve had anywhere from 100 – 125 folks in our back yard.  Ross spends at least a week getting the yard ready.  He strings yellow lights from the trees, sets up the amps and microphones, sets out tables and chairs, bales of straw and gets all the flower gardens trimmed and weeded.  My brothers, Steve and Jeff Burchyett come in from Hillsboro, Illinois and Denver, Colorado and help with the barbecuing.  They grill bratwursts, pork steaks and hot dogs.  Our friends bring side dishes and our 80-something next-door-neighbor Archie D’Amico supplies a keg of beer.  My mom is no longer with us, so my daughter Elisabeth and niece Sarah Burchyett Cowan help me lead the singing.  We usually have three to five guitarists, a fiddle player, mandolin player, kids on percussion instruments and harmonicas … it truly is a HOOT!   I’ve watched kids my daughter’s age who have been coming with their parents over the years who now bring their children.  One little guy told me this summer that he didn’t think he’d like this party his parents brought him to, but he really had a good time … and he got to play harmonica with the “band” all night.  I let him take the harmonica home so that he could practice up before next year’s party.

One of the things we’ve done the past few years is to raise money for a local group here in Lebanon, Illinois, which sponsors a tutoring program for 5th-8th graders.  But this summer we turned our thoughts to our neighbors in Joplin, Missouri, who experienced a devastating tornado in May 2011, which killed 116 people and destroyed many of their homes and schools.  We know the devastation of tornados first hand, even here in our little town.  We had one in 1983 that destroyed our high school, and one in 2006 that did minor damage around town, but nothing like what we saw in Joplin. We wanted to raise as much money as possible, and so my sister-in-law, Mary Burchyett, offered to make one of her famous king-size hand made quilts to raffle at the party.   I donated some of my CDs, and other friends brought items for a silent auction.   After the bidding and raffle was over, we had raised $1,300 for the American Red Cross, specifically for the Joplin tornado relief. 

We are so blessed with friends and family… making music with them is a highlight for me.  I grew up in a family that sang and played music, something that draws the family together, I think.  So as this holiday season approaches, I am thankful for these good friends and family, and for our traditions that include making music and helping our neighbors!