FAREWELL TO SDC
After so many years of singing and storytelling at Silver Dollar City I feel like I should say a few words about how I feel about leaving:
First, I want to say I owe the Herschend Family my musical heart and soul for without their dream of SDC and what it should be to its guests is exactly why I stayed with it so long here. The Christian atmosphere is not just a family attitude, but a corporate family requirement in presenting an experience to patrons of the park and all other business holdings for the Herschends. I never thought in my pursuit of a musical career I would find a place to play my songs that would fit me so completely. I love this Herschend family like they were my own blood. They helped me raise my kids, pay for my homes, find life-long friends and families that will forever be in my life, and they allowed me to try to present my songs about me and my raising to people of America like I could never have any other way or any other place.
Second, I need to say that when, after being the "Travelin' Minstrel of the Ozarks" since 1985 as a single act on the stages of SDC, I was asked in 1993 to come and be a McHaffie Homestead family member and I was so excited to play music with the famous Fiddlin' Vern Berry. We sat on the old porch of that ancient cabin and had such good times doing what we loved to do and that is to "love people with our music and doing our best to share the joy we found in it". Grandpa Vern named the "Homestead Pickers" in 1994 and I found musical energy in every day I have spent on that same porch even after Grandpa passed in 1996 and the group started to grow in both members and music. Mike Micham (Ezra) came to play guitar and add a flair of comedy that bordered on 'mayhem'. Greg Becker added an old-time type of salsa and Greg Bailey added a bluegrass bib overall slant and later John Walter Morrison came in and made us all play tighter and added some newer songs that made us old-timers renew our love for rhythms and lyrics that we all found long ago that first seeded our love for this life in music. I will be forever grateful to those men for allowing me to have so much joy in what I chose as my life's profession.