From DPN Vol. 12 No. 4 (Fall 1986).
By Maddie MacNeil
Dear Readers,
I wish you were here with me. Oh, it would be lovely to play some tunes and talk music. But you probably wouldn’t want to be here if you saw all of the work to be done. I’m typesetting this letter on August 18, late at night. I’ve been off and on (mainly on) the road for weeks, as those of you who tried to call discovered. I’ve thought extensively about the fall DPN, but now the work really calls— the typesetting and the layout. On top of all this, Seth and I got a telephone call this afternoon stating that the house we’ve been holding our breaths for will be ours. Next week. The closing happens August 27th. Wednesday I leave for two days playing in the Philadelphia area. Early on August 30th Seth and I leave to play music in Colorado. Somehow, in the midst of all of this, the Dulcimer Players News will be prepared for the printer and mailed on August 29th. If there’s an upside-down page, you can blame the printer. If there’s a crude drawing of a cute house in the woods in the middle of a page, you’ll know everything finally got to me.
I think you’d love our new house. It’s between the towns of Strasburg and Toms Brook in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley in an area called Deer Rapids, approximately 30 miles from Winchester. We’ll be close to the Shenandoah River, but not close enough to make us nervous when it rains a lot. Actually, since we’ll cross the river via a low water bridge, we probably will worry a little about being on one side of the river when we want to be on the other. My office will have a skylight; Seth’s office will have a lovely view of the mountains.
The telephone number will change, although I don’t have the new one for you right now. The address will remain the same. You probably didn’t realize that we live (lived) about 30 miles from Winchester in the village of Hillsboro, near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. P.O. Box 2164 is a permanent address.
If a group of you were with me in this room right now, some of you would be sorting and organizing DPN material; others would be cutting the layout paper and getting artwork and border tapes together; still others would be organizing and laying out ads. Someone would be typesetting and a few more would be packing music, dishes and pretty pictures from the walls. I’ll just pretend you’re with me and all of the above will go easier.
The most exciting news for this issue is the columns. Three fine musicians and teachers begin their columns now and join Sam Rizzetta; more will follow. My intent is to have more people involved with the DPN in addition to having regular features for dulcimer club members and players of all skill levels. I have more ideas and will tell you about them as the months pass. Your letters, articles, arrangements and questions are always welcome.
Dulcimerrily,
Madeline MacNeil, Editor
Dulcimer Players News
From DPN Vol. 12 No. 4 (Fall 1986).