GUESTPOST: Over On the Other Side
'If the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise' | March19.2023
My brother, David Imbrogno, visited me from Ohio in 2013 and 2015, for trips that included journeys to meet Bill Hart at his old place up in the Appalachian hills. We have been inviting FOB’s (Friends of Bills, a much cooler group than SOB’s) to paint portraits of visits with Mister Hart for TheHartoftheMatter site. Here is David’s memoir of his visits. Suggest your own at: douglaseyeATgmailDOTcom ~ Douglas John Imbrogno
Photos & Text by David Imbrogno
WHEN MOST FOLKS SAY I’ll see ya soon "if the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise," it is just an expression. It essentially means, I’ll see you soon "baring unforeseen circumstances." For Bill, the meaning of the phrase is quite literal. Back then, his cabin was hidden deep in the West Virginia hills. My journey to visit him began on blacktop, transitioned to gravel, and then gave way to a gravel/dirt mix. Eventually the road just ended at a creek crossing. To get across to Bill’s house I had to decide whether a visit was worth the risk to my ride. The underwater geography of hidden, jagged rocks and submerged pot holes is always a mystery, getting regularly rearranged every time a new storm passes through.
If the Lord is NOT willing and the creek DOES rise, Bill won’t be going anywhere until the water decides to subside. Anyone visiting Bill during high water would need at least a 4x4 lifted truck. In extreme weather, they might even need a boat. My trusty truck made it across the creek easily; my brother’s Prius didn’t cope as well.
WE ARE WELCOMED TO THE CABIN by a stone Buddha. Each fall, Buddha is graced with a new hat, a bird nest from the previous season.
On his side of the creek Bill hangs out with various critters, including a horse named Major, who followed us around like a humongous dog. Often this "horse dog" tries to clamber up onto the porch for a treat and sometimes lingers, perhaps to enjoy the ongoing porch music.
THE PRIVACY AND ISOLATION help to encourage and inspire Bill to make music. His military electronics training enabled him to convert the entire front room of his cabin into one giant speaker system. At full volume, I would worry that the rickety cabin might be blown apart. Bill tells me he uses the sound system not just for music, but to scare the coyotes away when they get too close.
On the other end of the spectrum, he built a tiny amplifier in a cigar box using a few dollars worth of mail-order Chinese electronics. We laughed at it until he hooked it up to the room-sized sound system. It spewed out sufficient decibels to scare away not only the coyotes, but every squirrel, rabbit, and bird for miles around.
THE MUSICAL GRAND FINALE of a visit with Bill is when he shows the instruments he builds from scratch. Most are guitars, but all are works of art. I am not a musician, but I imagine that just holding a piece of instrumental art like these would be almost as satisfying as playing it.
Bill’s musical art ranges from the spectacular ….
. . . to the subtle and sublime, such as the slices of an actual walnut shell embedded in some of the instruments.
EVENTUALLY, THE LORD WAS WILLING, the creek didn’t rise and the evening shadows were long. It was time to head back across the creek. I paused mid-stream. On one side of the creek was the path back to the blacktop. On the other side, Bill had created a haven of front porch music, creativity, art, horse dogs and more.
It seems that such places require some sort of passageway to get there. Bill’s passageway was that creek. There is no doubt he will continue to explore new passages and crossings in his inspired and multi-dimensional life.
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I have Harts in my family lineage who came from the east and settled in Henderson County Kentucky in 1803. Their names were Benjamin and Ann (Nancy) Morgan Hart. Nancy was quite a character and is historically significant in stories concerning the American Revolution. I wonder if Bill also shares this lineage?