I don’t exactly know how we all ended up here in Cecil County and surrounding DE, PA…My Mother told me my Mammaw and Papaw came up here from Ashe and Wilkes County NC from the news of the air dropped leaflets telling them there was good steady pay and work for the war effort at the powder and munitions plants in Elkton. We’re all from Rising Sun area. It’s a blessing to be a person like me……I was the very youngest of the youngest paternal and maternal children of my prior generation. My dad passed years ago and my dear mother is still hanging on. So I me and my wife look like a bunch of lost young whipper snappers with our campsite at these local Bluegrass Festivals. It’s strange how far it reaches out. Even into New Jersey we go to the Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival. This year DEL McCOURY is on the roster. I can’t wait to see him out there. Danny Paisley is gonna be there again. That’s near his stompin grounds just across the bridge. It’s good to see that Del and Danny both had their boys grow up playing in their bands. It’s kind of neat that Ryan Paisley and Ronnie McCoury both play mandolin with such clarity and precision. Ronnie is currently one of the greatest and Ryan is simply a gifted professional on the tiny frets. Thank you for finding time to pull Del aside for that recollection interview. He’s one of the last giants in my opinion, along with Larry Sparks, I wish Larry would keep a larger band like Del’s to get the harmonies he needs. I guess it helps to have family and sons that do what their dad does for a living. I live near the New River Ranch. It’s right up the Octorara Creek. I’m so glad that Del has such a good memory. He recalled perfectly the reason for New River Ranch closing. He said in 72 a hurricane came through. That’s exactly right! I was born in 78 and remember my mom n dad and all the locals would still talk about Hurricane Agnes coming through and wiping out a lot of the area. My Dad always talked of how he’d never saw Port flooded so bad after the Conowingo Dam was at its peak and let all the gates loose. I can imagine New River Ranch on that creek bend there getting wiped out. As a matter of fact, when I was a young boy they used the old NRR location for our local Turkey shoot aside from Pilot Town in N. Conowingo and dad showed me all the big, weathered tree stumps and logs that were still piled up 10 years after the flood. It’s a shame, but just like Sunset, it too would probably be gone to development and “progress” ha! . I can still hear the old guy running the ballon pop booth at Sunset in between shows and intermission….”3-6-9! Pop a Balloon, Win a Prize!” It was becoming old, shacky and worn down as my childhood turned into young teen years in the late 80’s. Sunset Park was laughed at by locals and my “uppity” schoolmates. Mainstream Country was laughed at and ridiculed….nonetheless “Bluegrass”. I secretly loved it and now, that I’m reaching to be an old man, I’m proud to be the last son of the last son of holler living North “Caliner” Grandparents who always had their Stanley Brothers Gospel Records playing on repeat on their wooden console furniture style record player after church on a Sunday evening (If they weren’t sitting in an unfolding lawn chair on the bench seating at Sunset Park on a West Grove Pennsylvania Summer afternoon. I miss that place and the High Tenor Harmonies coming from that rickety stage with the old backstage painting of a sunset and hills with the unskilled attempts of lollipop looking trees in the scene. Goodness I remember the strangest things. Maybe because I was a half-skilled young critical artist when I was a kid?? I have some boxes of old photos my mom handed down to me. I noticed some of the old Polaroids were of Kitty Wells on the Sunset Park stage….then there was a newer 1987 photo of Randy Travis there. That was their record attendance breaking show of all the years The Waltman Family owned it. Again, thanks so much for the Del Interview. It meant a lot to me.
