A Video Trip to the Past at the Hay Creek Festival

Photo from Evan Brandt video

A. Paul Lamoreaux of Old Time Country Music plays an old tyme ditty on the banjo during the Hay Creek Festival last weekend.

So not only am I a science geek, but I'm a history geek as well.

I know, I know, double geekdom, with probably a few more thrown in as well.

As a result of my history fetish, I have a real weakness for historic festivals. Some of you (Hi Mom!) may have seen my video homage to the Goschenhoppen Folk Festival posted on The Mercury web site last year.

This year, we visited the Hay Creek Festival just outside Morgantown, which we have not been to in several years.

I have already posted a video on The Mercury site, which some of you may have seen, but I was so enthusiastic in my shooting that I had lots of left over.

So now you get to watch it. It's like being at your neighbors or in-laws and being forced to watch the slide show of their vacation to East Nowherestan, except that this is video.

And that makes all the difference in the world right? RIGHT?

Anyway, the thing I find the most fascinating about Hay Creek is the huge collection of "hit and miss engines," whose random whistling, popping, shloshing and throbbing makes for a busy audio backdrop to the event.

So here is a special video I put together just about the machines and technology from the turn of the century on display at the festival.



I hope you enjoyed that.

Because this is Pennsylvania, I know no festival is a festival unless it features vehicles.

Now, like the "hit and miss" folks, the heavy thunderstorm that blew through Saturday had scared away many of the folks who did not want to put their vintage vehicles at risk.

But there was still a pretty good assortment.



And then of course there is the music.

When I was much younger my as-yet-to-be-wife and I attended a concert in the Hudson Valley by a guy named Walt Michael. He played historical instruments and, what's more, played historical music.

No classical music, which has been played continuously since it was composed, but historic music. The music of the common folk.

He said he had studied it in college but realized one day he had never heard it played out loud. His life changed from that point forward and so did mine as I realized songs he played were what Washington's troops listened to ... the top 40 of the day.

Since then, I have always taken an interest in the music played at historic festivals. Sadly, the limited recording capacity of my trusty Mercury-issued flip cam was nearing its limits, so I did not get as much as I might have liked.

But this video at least gives you a taste, with some eye candy to go along with it.




I hope you liked watching these videos as much as I did shooting them and making them.

As a parting gift, I am also embedding the composite video I made for The Mercury. You can see what got used and what got left out....