When March Meant Martha and Marina

#186 / Flood Time Capsule: 1997-2002

For a half dozen years at the turn of the 21st Century, The Flood’s original three amigos — David, Joe and Charlie — had a weird, wonderful way to celebrate the coming of spring.

Each March, starting in 1997, the trio hit the road for a long evening's drive into the mountains to entertain visiting students from Marquette University who were spending their Spring Break helping out around the tiny West Virginia town of Rhodell in Raleigh County.

Meeting Marina

The idea for the band’s yearly trek actually was born at the end of 1996, when The Flood played for a New Year’s Eve party at the home of Herald-Dispatch newspaper editor Bob Gabordi.

At the party, one of the attendees was then-new reporter Marina Mathews, who told the guys she thought their brand of rowdy folk music would really appeal to her mother. In the weeks after the party, the more Marina talked, the more Dave and Charlie realized that this particular mom — an old-style activist and community organizer named Martha Thaxton — sounded like a force of nature whom they just had to meet.

Meeting Martha

It turns out that Marina’s mom, Martha, was largely responsible for Rhodell — a bedroom community of Sophia (home of the late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd), itself a bedroom community of Beckley, WV — becoming a great little nest of lefties tucked away in the foothills of Tams Mountain.

And it was also because of Martha Thaxton that each spring these Marquette students volunteered to come to West Virginia to work around a little health clinic, painting and fixing up. And the only entertainment these sweet altruistic students got for their week’s work in West Virginia was the night The Flood roared into the town.

As Marina would write of her mom in a column in The Herald-Dispatch a few years later, “It's a good program, as it teaches young kids the importance of giving back and helping other people. The students are housed through Appalachian Health Cooperatives and stay at the clinic next door to my mother. The doctor who runs the clinic, Joanna Roberts, has been our family doctor and good friend for years.”

“My mother usually prepares a big dinner of every mouth-watering dish you can think of,” Marina wrote in her column. “She particularly tries to compose a menu of Appalachian influence, including cornbread, fried chicken, brown beans, apple pie, sweet potato pie and some nice cold Kool-Aid to wash it down, (though I am told there's usually a jug of wine hidden in the kitchen).”

For The Flood’s first trip to Rhodell in March 1997, it was two and half hours of driving in the rain, with Dave behind the wheel on dark and narrow, winding roads.

But it was worth it. Martha had a fire going when they got there, and, as Charlie told his mom in an email the next morning, the eight wide-eyed students "were blown away by Joe's fiddling and by The Flood's peculiar, jolly jug band music. Martha fed us some fantastic mountain soul food, and we played until 10. It was well after midnight when I got home, so I'm a little red-eyed this morning, but I’m still smilin’.”

Sometimes Sunshine, Sometimes Snow…

Weather always tried — and failed — to be a spoiler for this annual five-hour trip to and from Rhodell. The band mates were sometimes to see a gorgeous sunset over the mountains. More often, though, they dealt with rain or with snow.

In March 1999, for instance, it was a little worse than usual. “While it was still dry as a bone in Huntington and Charleston,” Charlie wrote his mom the next morning, “it started snowing as soon as we reached the mountains around Paint Creek, it snowed all the way there for the next hour or so. Fortunately, Dave was driving his four-wheel drive car, and I don't think we slipped once the whole time.”

"We got to Martha's about 7:30,” he went on. “She greeted us at the door. What a big, jolly lady she is, with a twinkle in her eye and a sweet, high, squeaky voice! She brought us in from the cold, fed us and poured us full of hot coffee, and then sat us down on straight-back chairs in the living room so we could play our music.

“The kids this year were a quieter group than in years past. Part of the reason might have been that this was the first year in which there were boys there as well as girls. The previous two years, it was all girls in the group, and they tended to be rowdier. This time, though, they seemed to be a little more reserved, perhaps wanting to make a good impression on each other.

"But a few little jug band tunes warmed 'em up,” Charlie noted, “and they applauded after every song. Hey, we're not accustomed to applause. We could get spoiled. Kinda wish we’d thrown down a hat and earned a few dimes to pay the toll booths on the way home...

“Joe was in particularly fine form. He played fiddle more last night than he has been lately. With good reason. As we were setting up, one of the young ladies took an interest in the fiddle and indicated she played a little. Joe, always the gentleman, handed her the fiddle and picked up his mandolin as we launched into a tune. Well, she was … uh, bless her heart, terrible. Joe looked at us; we exchanged a few meaningful glances and switched tunes. Then very smoothly, Joe said to her, ‘Oops, I'll need the fiddle for that one!’ When he got it back, he never let go of it again all evening.”

The band, as usual, played for about two hours straight. Then after a round of photos, hugs and handshakes, the guys said their goodbyes, promised to be back next year and hit the road. One side of Tam Mountain was pretty seriously slick by then, but Dave again navigated it beautifully, and the old boys skied all the way down from Beckley to Huntington without mishap.

Martha’s Song

Sadly, we have no recordings of those wonderful half dozen evenings at Martha Thaxton’s house, but there is a song that we still always associate with our Tams Mountain friends.

Being old folkie herself, Martha loved the songs of Tom Paxton that were so central to her life in the 1960s.

“Do you guys do ‘I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound’?” she often asked.

“Just for you, Martha,” we’d say, and then play it for her.

As it turned out it really was just for Martha. After the annual Rhodell trips ended in 2002, the song drifted out of The Flood’s repertoire. Then seven years ago, it popped back into Charlie’s head and, well … click the button below to let him tell the story: