OUR MEETING WITH UNCLE CHARLIE OSBORNE
(AND A DOSE OF COUNTRY HUMOR AT OUR EXPENSE)
William A. Wisdom

One Friday evening my wife and I were at Warrior's Path camp ground near Kingsport, Tennessee, just across the state line from Hiltons, Virginia, where we meant to visit the Carter Fold for one of their weekly performances of old-time music on the next night. While we sat outside our camper playing fiddle and banjo, two local fellows who were camping nearby came over to listen and chat. "That's mighty fine music," the more sober of them said. "But if you like old-time fiddle music, you really should meet Uncle Charlie Osborne." Now we knew who Uncle Charlie was, because we owned and enjoyed his record, Relics and Treasure. But we never thought that we would meet him, since we knew that he would be close to 100 years old if he was still alive--and we had no idea where he lived.

Well, we got rough directions from the fellow, who claimed to be an actual nephew of some sort. "Past Hiltons to Mendota, left over Clinch Mountain on the dirt road, right at the paved road, and Charlie's place is just down that road a piece." He kept assuring us that it didn't matter if his directions seemed a little vague to us, because once we got close to Uncle Charlie's house, anyone could tell us exactly how to get there. So on Saturday morning we headed toward Uncle Charlie's place. We got to what was supposed to be his road, and we drove up and down, back and forth, but couldn't find his house. We figured we had to be pretty close, but we were stumped.

Fortunately there was a farmer standing outside his barn by the side of the road, so we stopped to ask for help. He was a sight! Dirty bib overalls, and the stump of a hand-rolled cigarette dangling from the corner of a mouth equipped with just one yellow tooth. I approached him, and asked if he could tell us where Charlie Osborne lived. Exaggerating my pronunciation, he muttered: " 'OZ-BORN', y'say. 'OZ-BORN.' Nope. Sorry. No Charlie OZ-BORN around here." I told him that I was surprised, since we'd been told that everyone in these parts knew where Charlie Osborne lived. "Well, maybe my son has heard of this OZ-BORN feller. Zeke!" he called; "C'mon over here. These Yankee tourists are a-lookin' for one Charlie OZ-BORN s'posed to live around here. Do you know of anyone in these parts with such a name?" "No, Paw, I surely don't. [Long pause.] Wait a second. D'ya think they might mean Charlie Osb'n?" "How about it?" the farmer asked; "Could it be Charlie Osb'n you're a-lookin' for?" Heaving what I hope was an imperceptible sigh, I said that I suppose it was. "Oh, that's his house over there just beyond those trees."

We'd been had. But he wasn't finished with us. "Now if you're gonna visit Uncle Charlie", he said, "there are two things about him that you have to know first. On the one hand, he's v-e-r-y old. And on the other hand, he's V E-R-Y ugly. But I don't want you to think that he's ugly because he's old. Oh, no. He was ugly long before he was old!"
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Well, we went up to Uncle Charlie's house, but found no one at home. So we left a note saying that we were very eager to make his acquaintance, and that we'd try again the next day. We arrived in the late morning of a warm Sunday, and the door stood open to let the breezes through. When we rang the bell, we could see through the screen door a man slowly sit up and then rise from the couch in the living room and make his way to the door. When we identified ourselves as the ones who'd left the note the day before, he let us in, profusely apologizing for having been resting when we arrived. He explained that he had gone with some friends to a fiddle festival over in Kentucky the day before, and they hadn't gotten back until about midnight. Mind you: this man is 100 years old, and he's apologizing to some strangers for taking a rest. (Incidentally, he had carried a bullet in his head for the last 80 of those 100 years, the result of a youthful misunderstanding.)

We were eager to hear him play. But he insisted that we play some of our tunes for him, which of course we did. After a couple of tunes, he picked up his fiddle--which he played left-handed without restringing--and showed us how he played some of the tunes we played. Then he played a few of his personal favorites. He was amazing! Then we played a number of tunes together, which was thoroughly delightful.

When we left, we explained that we got in that general part of the country once a year, and asked if we might visit again next year. He seemed genuinely to relish the idea, and urged us to plan to come again. The following spring we made preliminary arrangements with his daughter, Margaret Meade, and arrived as scheduled. But Uncle Charlie had died five days earlier. Margaret, who has become our dear friend, said that she didn't call to tell us because she wanted to make sure that we would come visit and play for the family some of the tunes that Charlie loved so much.

The world has lost a great fiddler and story-teller, and a fine gentleman. But not entirely lost. His great-grandson, Todd Meade, the teen-age son of Margaret's son John, feels the debt to Uncle Charlie, and is developing into a first-rate mountain fiddler himself. Carry it on!


Copyright © 2002, William A. Wisdom