We have seen a number of our friends here and elsewhere leave us due to cancer. This is dedicated to them as well as to my friend Wolf.
I knew Wolf for several years before I found out what his legal name was. That's the way we were.
Wolf used to follow our band around back in the old days. We got to know him quite well. At his house one night after a gig, he asked me to play a song I had written. He recorded it and later played it for friends when they came to visit. One young lady wanted "to meet the guy who wrote that song" and Wolf brought her to a gig next time we were in town. At 5:47 into the video, there is a picture of the 3 of us..... Me and Kim, the young lady who became my wife a few years later and of course Wolf.
He moved to the hills near Fancy Gap Virginia and met a bunch of folk who were into bluegrass music. Galax Va, just up the road a ways holds a big BG fest there every year. He had a nice Gibson Hummingbird at the time and later picked up, and learned to play a mandolin. He seemed to enjoy the mandolin quite a bit and became quite proficient on it.
Every year, around Wolf's birthday, he would host what became known as "Beano Hills BlueGrass Music Festival" on his property. Several hundred of his closest friends would show up for a weekend of partying, playing in the creek, sweating in the sweat lodge and then running and jumping into the icy waters of that creek, catching up with distant friends, music, and fun.
He was diagnosed with in-operable lung cancer and after a few rounds of chemo and radiation, they declared him cancer free. Unfortunately, the cancer was the kind that often returns and when it does, it is more aggressive the second time round. A follow up about a year later indicated it had in fact returned and was quite wide spread.
I had the opportunity to see Wolf a few times near the end, since to cover the cost of his treatments, he had to sell his beloved mountain home and the 11 or so acres on the stream at Beano Hills and move back closer to his family and essentially, 20 minutes or so from where I live.
He knew the end was soon to be, and I have to say that he had a great attitude up to the end. He simply enjoyed life and music and his friends and never let the cancer get him down in the dumps. When he passed, many people shed many tears for him.
I was honored by him, as he asked me to speak at his funeral.
Someone posted this video of Wolf preforming with the Kill-Bassa-Bill Road show. It will give another look at his personality. The band preformed quite a few songs like this as well as some serious BG music.
https://www.youtube.com/w...ture=player_embedded#! My wish for you, would be that you would have a friend in your life like Wolf.