Fwd: [Harp-L] Any West Virginians?

[Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx>]

> Yes, he was born in Oak Hill.
>
> > i think his parents divorced, one moved to miami...so charley grew  
> > up in miami,
>
> He moved to Fla before he started playing harp. I think he was 6  
> 1/2. Then he started playing at 9? Maybe he started in W. Va. Maybe  
> Fla. Who knows for sure? He WAS splitting his time between the two  
> parents.

> Don't anyone get all excited. I was only tossing that in to get a  
> plug for Fla. He IS definitely a West Virginian (at heart).   :)
> He and the missus have a condo down here in Ft. Myers at "The  
> Landings". It is an exclusive raquet and yacht club, where they  
> spend some of their cold weather time.
>
> > on his 'harpin the blues' album he
> > does a brief recitation about hearing that lonesome train whistle  
> > back in
> > west virginia....
>
> I had a similar experience. Way back when I was a little boy in the  
> dirty mill town suburb of Pittsburgh (known as Sharpsburg), we  
> lived about 60 feet from the railroad tracks. Every night as I lay  
> in my crib, I would listen to the coke trains coming down from the  
> ovens upriver. When they got to the edge of our town (about a mile  
> away), they would blow their steam whistles to let the mills down  
> river know to: 'Get ready, here comes the coke'.
>
> Eventually, my father started to be posted to Europe with the state  
> dept. (he was in the immigration & deportation services), and I got  
> to travel. But I will always remember the trains and that's the  
> reason I play harp today. The sound of those whistles (NOTHING is  
> like a true steam whistle), is STILL the most laconic, morose, sad,  
> lonely, sound I have yet to hear.

I LOVE it.
> Jo-Jo