I was delighted to be part of such a great gathering of music and good people - many thanks for including me on the bill....what a treat ! all the best, - Ed Miller

Three days of nonstop music, smiling, beautiful faces, warmth, old friends, art, food, beer/wine, campfires, and more music and abundant laughter and Texas sunshine and stars. We meet new friends that become a part of the circle of love for Rice Harrington. We miss you our old friend. The hole hurts and we are try to be patient with our healing.  We missed our most Rice-like musician, our friend Tim O’Brien. We hope he’ll be back in 2008, He taught us,  “People don’t leave you, they never fade. Their seeds explode all around you and their good parts live on.”  Sarah played through and kept you with us in the “Blue Night” (Sarah Jarosz). Yet we still need, “Time to Learn.” (Tim O’Brien)

 We had an early start with Ponty Bone cause “Nows the Time” (Ponty Bone)  to cheer the gang and light those twinkling lights in that old Hall. The breeze came through and kept us cool with perfect melodies. We feel you in your art – it’s bold humor and wit, bright colors that make us feel your warmth and fun and remember your hair that looks lit up like sunshine. Your smile and warmth spans all the way to Atlanta,TX.

 As welcomed many were drawn by the mesmerizing genius of Guy Clark and Verlon Thompson. Guy’s penetrating warmth, soulful sound and wit kept us spellbound. Guy, your technique of back scratchin’ gave us grins as we played that funny little game at the end of the set. Verlon took us on his tour and helped us return to “Fischer Hall, Y’all” Now, as winter knocks, were desperate for your “Home Grown Tomatoes.” (Guy Clark).

 Stars, fire dancing, wood cracklin’ with music, tequila and laughter. Old flames and new ones all gathered round to keep the cows awake. We learned to play the spoons, thanks to “Hillbilly” Steve. Soaked in the ear the depth of charm of that rendition of “Northeast Texas Women.” Come on Willis, pretty please get the 2^nd Green Album out!  We met our new friends Bob who invited us to Cowboy Church, Bill who gave the best “Moon River” we ever heard and reminded us to take care of our friends. And who could forget the Sonnets including Bill’s, “Ode to the Paper Clip.”  We sent well wishes to those who could be there only in spirit. 

 We danced “A Long Time Gone” (Darrell Scott)  with our F.O.R.’s (Friends Of Rice) and couldn’t stop the beat and energy of Darrell Scott’s set. With our hearts full we set on the road to leave our Fischer, TX home. So Rice, “Here You Are” (Greencards) with the Greencards swaying with us.

We get our tickets early so we won’t miss the twinkling lights in the old barn at Fischer Hall as the sunsets and rises to those first light morning rays.  To the tune of L.A. Freeway (Guy Clark) “Just get me off this Southwest Airlines flight and into family’s loving arms….”  - Diana Malkemus Elliott (F.O.R. ’75- forever)  Native Austinite, Temporary Bostonite

I just wanted to drop you a line to let you know your festival this year, combined with the friends and location and weather and beautiful countryside and the parks and I could go on and on, made for one of the most enjoyable weekends I’ve spent anywhere, anytime.  It was simply magical.  I hope it was a financial success so you guys can keep on keeping on with this wonderful, beautiful tribute to Rice.

Thanks again for putting it all together; it was a weekend I’ll remember fondly for the rest of my life, and I look forward to attending next year’s and beyond.

Best regards, - Dave Hensley

well, damn, you sure know how to put on a party! we had a most  excellent time playing your festival. thanks again for having us! i always love the reaction people have the first time they experience it. i talked to a couple of people (performers) who had no idea what  to expect, and were blown away by the hall, the event, the vibe! 
thanks for doing what you're doing and also thanks to all the  volunteers who help make it happen. -  Francie White
 

Man, I had so much fun in TX

I want to move there for part of the year.

I'm serious - I need to find a way for me to live there for two or three months out of the year preferably in january, february, and march to get away from the Canadian prairie winter I really appreciate all that you and the CABIN 10 guys did. The festival in fischer hall was a great way for me to cap the week. Thanks for the accoms and the grub

We were treated so well.....no different than the headliners hell...I felt like a guy clark or a slaid cleaves

Thanks so much

You have no idea how much that week energized me. - John Wort Hannam
 

 Thank you for sponsoring another epic event! - dz
 

For those who didn’t attend Rice’s memorial service, and those who did and have asked for a copy of the words that West Warren spoke - Here ya go.

I first met Rice when I was 15 and he was 20. Me and Jeff were working in the kitchen at Camp Flaming Arrow and Rice had some lofty title like "Assistant Camp Director" or something like that and I thought he was pretty cool. He went to college and played the guitar and sang with Dixie and Jeff. He had long blond hair and even though he wasn’t tall he was stout; broad in the shoulders and strong. He played a gritty game of one on one and what he lacked in ability he made up for with elbows. He was smart, way smart to me, and he had wit and a sense of humor. Camp was my first visit out of my parents house and I was looking for friends and looking for people to follow. Rice was my friend and I followed him. So did Jeff. We followed him then and we will follow him now and he has never led us astray. Not long after I met Rice that first summer he beat me up after finding out I had been swimming nekkid with his wife. This was not as bad as it sounds. I mean, everybody was swimming nekkid at camp at night, including Rice, but I was in the group that included his wife and apparently word got out that I had enjoyed the moonlight view a bit too much. Anyway, Rice took me to task on the issue, my answers were insufficient, and a brief but effective beating ensued. Later, Rice contemplated the events leading up to my beating and decided that an apology was in order and delivered it to me with the sincerest that would mark our friendship and his entire life. For my part, I was elevated by the experience, obviously from the absolute moon shot thrill of swimming nekkid with a group of youngsters that included the opposite sex, but also from what came next. I mean, just to be worth the whuppin was worth something in a kinda backhanded way, and then to have Rice come and put his arm around me and say he was sorry really made me feel like I was important. He has given me that same feeling many times since. Rice was a humble man, not overly impressed with himself. He could and did take a compliment with a sincere "thank you" but if you got carried away he'd more than likely respond with some self depreciating humor that closed the subject. But, tonight I will pray again that Rice knows just how important he was to all of us, to me, to Jeff, to his wife Cathy, his family, his students, all of us. That he knows just how significant his life and his example was and will continue to be. I have a huge hole in my heart right now that is the same size as Rice. He fits perfectly there and no one else ever will.

I lost touch with Rice for several years after I graduated high school and we didn’t see each other much. I never lost touch with Jeff though, and Jeff never lost touch with Rice and because of Jeff, we ended up reconnecting a few years later. Though there are people who would dispute this, some semblance of maturity set in on both of us during the ensuing years. As men, we related to each other like brothers, though it took me awhile to stop looking at him like a big brother. As a brother, we were very close. At first, we marveled at our friendship as we dwelled on how different we were. My hair was short, his long. I declared myself a conservative, he a liberal. I leaned right, he left. I favored business, he the union. I believe in our right to bear arms, he believed in gun control. I hunted passionately, he did not and held much of the "sport" in contempt. I believed in less government, he believed that the people of color who are now our friends and contemporaries would still be our property if we had restricted the power of government. I sought God in my Church, he in his Garden. And on and on. I so enjoyed my time with Rice as we blew our theories of right and wrong, justice and injustice, fair and foul, sin and salvation in each other faces. And in the end, I learned that we were, in the core of our persons and in our souls, in fact very similar. From Rice I learned much about respect and sincerest. That people who think differently than you about solutions may appreciate the gravity of the problem as well as you do. There may be two solutions, or, just possibly, they may be right and you wrong.

I always loved to hear Rice play his guitar. I am blessed with no musical ability and to hear Rice play by himself or with his soul brother Jeff is a sweet pleasure many of us will miss for the rest of our lives. Like many wannabee, I coerced Jeff into teaching me three cords as a teenager and when Rice and I reconnected it was his misfortune to have me join into the impromptu sessions. He endured my music with the same grim determination that he used to endured my politics and offered only encouragement and never a critical word. Very soon I learned to conveniently forget my guitar when we would have the opportunity to play so as not to ruin the show by having Rice insist that I join in. A guitar will forever be a touchstone that will keep Rice alive in my heart. "Little Darling", "Southwestern Pilgrimage", "Poncho & Lefty", "The Bottom Line". Rice's musical influence was infinitely more successful on Jeff than on me and Jeff will never play without Rice present in spirit and form. Whenever I hear good music that moves my emotions or makes me think or snap my fingers or clap my hands and dance, I will remember Rice and he will be with me in those moments. Rice sent me a Tim O’Brien tape last year called The Crossing. It was a collection of songs by Tim about the experience of Irish American immigrants and my youngest son Michael and I listened to it until we literally wore it out. We talked about the fact that we, like Tim, were descendent of Irish immigrants. We memorized the words to the songs and sang them together. Badly.
We talked about "coffin ships" and what it was like for a little kid to be separated from his parents for a month long crossing before telephones and email, we talked about why the Irishmen left and what they expected to find, the irony of them fighting as soldiers in the US Army against the Native Americans, and on and on. Uncle Rice touched me with his gifts of music and he has touched his brothers sons.

Rice was an extremely generous man. He saved stuff and he saved money and he took care of it. Waste not, want not. More often than I would like to admit, Rice financed our travels out of his wallet from his teachers salary. Even when I suspected my income exceeded his, I always seemed capable of achieving and maintaining a state of abject poverty, while Rice remained solvent. Like the biblical loaves and fishes, he would open his wallet and there was enough. We would plan fishing trips and he would spare no expense to be well equipped and I would depend on him. You could always depend on Rice. Dinners at his and Cathy's table, beers from his fridge, lures from his tackle box, miles on his truck, gas in his tank, tapes for your deck, you could always depend on Rice. Now my friend, you can depend on me. On a whim one day he gave my oldest son a boat, one of three that was collecting rain up by his barn. I saw no value in it, but to Rice, it was worth something and he had saved it. And he gave it to me with a trailer to give to my oldest boy and together we fixed it up. It has since carried my son on beautiful November mornings to the duck marsh where he hunts, and on fishing trips to the lake and to the coast where he is exploring the world and his own independence. The entire experience has been invaluable, like so many other gifts from Rice, like the privilege and gift we have shared of being his friend.
I'm not sure what I'm doing as I write this. I don’t know if other people will hear these thoughts and I am hurting too bad right now to speak these words out loud. Perhaps that’s why I'm writing. But I know, at least for my own comfort, that I want to say something about eternity. I know Rice would wish me the comfort of my faith. I am a Christian; a sinner saved by Grace, invited to God's company by Christ Jesus whom I worship as Lord and Savior. Out of respect I will be careful with the words I say for Rice since he is not here, and much of what I know of his faith is not found in church pews. But I will confidently tell anyone that cares that Rice lived and died a spiritual man, aware of the presence of God in all things. In fact, Rice described himself as a Pantheist, a person who sees God in all things. If asked identify himself with a formal religion Rice would declare himself a "Gardener". I am not a Gardener but Rice, like you, I am also a Pantheist. I see God in the love and devotion you gave to Cathy, in the steadfast friendship you offered to so many, in the mentoring and care of so many students, in the creativity that flowed from your hands in your artwork and music, and in the love and care you gave to your animals and your garden, which are also His Creation. You confessed your fear to me in the days before your surgery and asked that I pray for you and told me you were praying daily. You shared your faith with me many times, that, though he may have many names, there was one God, one Creator, one Almighty. I prayed with you then and I am praying now for comfort for those you have left behind. In eternity I will learn why you had to leave us so soon. I've seen the garden signs that say something like ..."A place of magic, life, death, and rebirth. A man is closer to God in his garden, than anyplace else on this earth". Buddy, you lived your life close to God and I know you are with Him now. I will see you soon.

I'm really pleased to be a part of Rice festival, awed by the response from the crowd, respectful that it all happens because Rice was such a generous person, humbled that what I do was something he saw fit to push on others. It's quite the love fest and I am proud to be there every year. As I get older, this kind of event (there aren't very many, if any) means more and more to me. I'll take all I can get. - Tim O'Brien

We had the most wonderful time, thank you for having us.
Lori has just been RAVING about what an excellent time, vibe, experience, you have established. I just have to say, it really comes through.
We met, as I am sure you did, people from across Texas, and across the country(!) who were just having the best of times, and that word will spread. No question. - John Webb

I "happened" on Fischer Hall last year as I was heading back from a friends house down Fischer Store Rd. . I was literally taking the last curve before the bowling alley when I heard on KUT that Tim O'Brien was playing. I pulled in, walked up, was greeted with a beer and there was Tim on stage. I felt like I was in Telluride or some other cozy mountain town where I first saw him play. That was years ago, so you could imagine how I felt when he started playing right there a mile from my home- out of the blue- In Fischer Hall. - Jason Lawson

"Rice was obviously one of those truly special teachers that really does make a difference in people's lives. Art educators are rare birds; the passion of a craft mixed with the compassion of sharing knowledge is not something we often run into. It should be celebrated and in Rice, will be truly missed".
- anonymos ricetivarian

"Maybe it was the old building, maybe it was the music..or maybe it was the rain that from time to time tapped the top of the hall. Maybe it was Rice. Whatever it was, it was there...some sort of magic" - Cary Swinney