Pound, Virgina

My wife does not like cold weather. We live in Maryland, and every winter I see it coming about the first week of December. "Let's go to Florida....let's go to Yuma, Arizona...." every winter.

About five years ago (I'm guessing it was 1998), she was getting to the frantic stage, so we packed the car and headed for Florida. Down to her favorite place, Key Colony, next to Marathon. We got nice and sunburned, stayed for ten days, and then began our leisurely drive back north. She wanted to go to Cypress Gardens to see the beautiful gardens, so we were heading that direction.

I decided to stop for something to eat, so I pulled into a small roadside restaurant. We went in, and the woman by the door said, "Howdy - make yourselves at home and I'll be right with you folks." Her accent and relaxed manner immediately impressed me. I said, "Where are you from?" She said, "Honey, I'm from Pound, Virginia."

I told her that twenty years before, I used to go visit a man named Boggs who lived in Pound, Virginia. She said, "Honey, everybody in Pound, Virginia is a Boggs. My name is Dreama Boggs, and that lady over there is my sister, Loretta Boggs." I asked her how she was related to Dock Boggs. She said, "He was our uncle." I asked Dreama if she had ever heard Dock play the banjo when she was growing up. She said that both she and Loretta knew that Dock had played the banjo in the past, but actually, neither she nor her sister ever heard him play, but everybody around Pound knew that once he had been pretty well known with his banjo. They had both left Pound as soon as they were old enough and had not gone back.

I asked her if she knew that in the early 1960s, Dock had got his banjo back and started playing it again. Then a LP record was made of him, so he got to be pretty well known. She was totally surprised. "Well, I'll be ........"

There was a beautiful yellow Cadillac parked outside the restaurant. I asked her if that was by any chance HER car. She beamed and said that it was. I figured that it probably had a cassette player, so I said, "I'll tell you what....I will go home and make a cassette of my Dock Boggs record and send it to you. That way you can listen to Uncle Dock when you are driving to and from work." She thought that was a lovely idea. I made the cassette and sent it to Dreama and Loretta Boggs. They wrote me back a thank-you letter which I cherish. Two Boggs girls living in Southern Florida....who could have imagined it.

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