Banjo. Guitar. Dobro. Violin. Mandolin. Bass. The band, my band, our band. The sunken eyes, the crisp autumn air, the impending night steals the blue out of the sky. The sunset reflection in our glasses, of the steel entangling of the dobro guitar. A long day of picking is almost through. We’ve been out for hours, by the short lived life of a fall day, given birth to a summer who sacrificed its beautiful green to the orange of what’s to come, those cool days. In them, hours of playing “Sabra Girl”, “Future Man”, “Macedonia”, “Black-Eyed Susie”, “Crossville”, and “Soldier’s Joy” from our favorites, Ricky Skaggs, Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, The Punch Brothers, Sam Bush, April Verch, and all the others. Hours, months, days, spent picking and strumming, bowing and plucking. Never in tune, always on beat. I would throw down my mandolin and pick up a pair of spoons for the southern sound. Tanner would grab a log or a rock to tap out that Quebecois footwork that never stopped in our hearts. We’d all sing, shout, shout, scream, for an invisible audience that never applauded, yet never demeaned our amateur game of bluegrass.

Banjo. Guitar. Dobro. Violin. Mandolin. Bass. And that’s all we ever needed.