FOR NEARLY 20 years, I’ve played bluegrass music with friends from southern Maine. In the early 1990s, we formed a band, Basic Bluegrass, which has toured internationally (we played in Canada once). Basic Bluegrass includes my friends, Walt on banjo, Munzie and Roy on guitars, Warren on Dobro and Barnie thumping the stand-up bass.

One of the band’s most memorable weekends occurred in March, 1999, when we played to a sellout crowd at the Noshobe Sportsmen’s Club’s annual Spaghetti Feed and Bluegrass Show in Brandon, Vermont. I think there were more folks there for the spaghetti than for the music. There were a lot of “big” fans there, if you know what I mean.

The show ended at eleven o’clock and it was pushing midnight by the time we tore down and packed up. Barnie and I were back at the Honey Dew Motel and Miniature Golf Resort at 12:30. The rest of the band and entourage hadn’t returned by 1:30 AM and we were so worried we decided to drink another beer and wait up for them.

Finally, at 1:45, they arrived and told us the story of what has come to be known as “The Great Brandon Fire of 1999”.

This story is mostly true with hardly any exaggeration . . . honest. It seems that, after leaving the Noshobe Sportsmen’s Club, Munzie astutely noticed a small house with smoke billowing from its large, center chimney. He pulled over and flagged down Warren, who was following him and had a cellular phone.

Munzie, an excitable guy, spoke faster than the guy on the Viagra commercials—you know, the one who lists all the dreadful, potential side effects.

“Slow down Munzie,” Warren pleaded. “I can’t hear that fast.”

Munzie said he would, but didn’t. “That house is on fire; smoke pourin’ out the top and there’s people in there just drinkin’ coffee like they don’t even know their house is burnin’. Call 911! Glo just ran down to warn the people inside.”

Walt grabbed the phone and was on the line with Chief Frank Stevens of the Brandon Volunteer Fire Department within seconds. “I want to report a fire,” Walt said.

“Sir, where is the fire?” Chief Stevens asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Well, I mean I’m not from around here and I don’t know where I am, but there’s a house afire. It’s in Brandon and there’s a big blue house just up the road.”

“Sir, I’m going to need more information than that.”

“Warren, drive up the road a piece and see if we come to a crossroads,” Walt suggested.

“Good thinking,” Frank replied.

“We’re comin’ up to an intersection. We’re on Old County Road and the crossroad is Meadow Road.”

“Okay sir, I know about where you are,” Frank responded. “I’ll get our trucks right out there. Go back to the scene so you can flag us down.”

Meanwhile, Glo, Munzie’s girlfriend, had tried to run down the hill to the house, but had slipped on the glare ice and slid on her backside until her feet slammed against the door with a thud loud enough to get the attention of the folks inside, one of whom answered the door. Glo scrambled like a three-legged dog playing fetch on a frozen lake, trying to right herself and issued her frantic warning.

“There’s smoke pourin’ out the top or your house,” she exclaimed, already imagining the picture of her accepting the Mayor’s Award for Valor on the front page of the Brandon News. “It’s supposed to be like that . . but thanks,” the lady at the door replied, calmly sipping her coffee.

The conversation was interrupted by the wailing sirens and flashing red lights of fire trucks and an ambulance, which were only slightly more distracting than the screaming and arm flailing antics of Bobby Jo and Pammy, Walt and Warren’s women.

I’m happy to report there were no serious injuries suffered as result of the “Big Fire”; only mild concussion suffered by Chief Stevens, upon his arrival at the scene, as a result repeatedly banging his head against the steering wheel of his truck while laughing and yelling, “A sugar house, I can’t believe it—a maple sugar house!”

Basic Bluegrass has played in Brandon, Vermont several times since “The Great Fire”, but for some reason we (or any other southern Maine band, for that matter) have never been invited for a repeat performance in February or March.

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