The Flood has many fine Independence Day memories — gigs at fairs and festivals, private parties, even once jamming with the Huntington Symphony Orchestra down by the riverside — but the finest was also the earliest.
Forty-six years ago today, as the nation was celebrating its bicentennial, The Flood was invited to take part in a huge Fourth of July community picnic in Huntington’s Ritter Park.
The community party was sponsored by the Huntington Publishing Co., where the Bowens and the Peytons had cast their journalistic fates. It was the brain child of the Huntington newspapers’ new publisher, N.S. “Buddy” Hayden, who asked Dave and Charlie if they had any musical friends who might like to take part. Uh, yeah, they said with a grin, they probably could scrounge up a picker or two.
Joe Dobbs had been playing with us for less than a year at this point and this would be his first public performance with the fledging Flood. (It’s hard to imagine it now, but the Family Flood’s first tribal elder was only 40 years old when he was reeled in; he would stay with us for the next 40 years.)
Joining David, Joe and Charlie for that strolling gig was fellow Floodster Stew Schneider. Stewart had been hanging with The Flood since its earliest days, having been a regular at the “Bowen Bash” music parties in the early 1970s, at which the band was the born in the smoke and beer of late-night jam sessions.
As seen in the photo above, taken near the arched entrance to Ritter Park, Stew played bass in the early days of his Floodishness, though by the end of the decade he had switched to harmonica when Bill Hoke came on board with his string bass. (Incidentally, the headwear in this picture was supplied by the picnic organizers; as surprising as it might be, The Flood did not — and still does not — have a store of straw hats.)
Meanwhile, also near the Flood zone on that Independence Day 1976 was a future Floodster.
Tenor banjoist Chuck Romine was leading his local dixieland contingent, The Lucky Jazz Band, on stage in another part of the park.
We didn’t get to hear Chuck that day nor did he hear us — in fact, it would be 25 years before we all hooked up — but it was Chuck’s deep dixieland roots that inspired our nickname for him when he was drawn into The Flood in the early 21st century: Doctor Jazz.
Our Second and Third 4th
The community picnic was a success, with thousands of people coming to the park that day. In fact, a reporter friend who had started with all of us but gone on to bigger and brighter things at The Washington Post commented, "The Post had been looking all over the country for great local celebrations. I could have just come home!"
The community picnics continued for another couple of years, and the founding Floodsters volunteered their services each year, something bringing along friends to jam with them under the trees in the park.