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Final and end of story...........

Guess I went to the creek about 4 years to listen to ole' Kelly play and sing..and it got to like it was a date set between him and me...bout 3 days a week and the same days of the week...I got to i'd even take me something to eat and drink, like I was going to an outside concert and in a way I was..wish I could take some of my friends alone to hear,but knew this was for me, ole Kelly and the heavens....

once i saw him puttin a fiddle together, he was making his own fiddle..man he was such a smart man..saw him pullin hair out of the tail of his old horse, then sat down at that creek bottom and put that thing together... then in a couple days,he was playin it....man ...if only I could be that smart...didn't get to see him finish making it...wish I could have been right beside him, him a showing me...but again I felt it best to keep quite....

Never will there ever be music like this man poured out into the skies....shame no one else got to hear it..

One Sunday evening we all piled into Pa's old blue truck to go to church and we kids learned real quick to watch the front. If pa was a dippin, and he leaned to his left, we'd all lean into the right...

I was sittin close to the back with my frinds. We like to sit back there and make fun of the others in front of us..

I could tell on the preachers face something wasn't right..So I got real quite and hit my friend next to me to shut up for a second...

The preacher stood there and said, I've got some sad news today, Ole man Kelly of Cutters Creek has passed away...

I sat there for a second , those words ringin in my head..then out of conscience I yelled. Man that can't be..I just heard him sing last week...ma and pa and everyone else looked at me like I was crazy..and I jumped over that last pew, felt my head swimin and my heart was pounding so hard,thought it for sure would come right outta my chest...I could feel my feet hitting that road so hard as I was runnig...had to get to that creek, had to find him...oh God, this just can't be....he needs me and I need him....I never got to tell him....Lord, I never got to tell him.

I hit that slope so hard thought my tail bone was breaking and I sled on down into the middle of that creek..dug my hands into that muddy water as far down as I could , saying, I'm Here Kelly I'm here..............

Don't know how long I sat there..didn't even care if night time came, didn't even care if that ole king snake of the creek came a swimmin...all I could think of was he's gone.....and what was I gonna do now. I felt i'd lost a piece of my heart that day..but I knew I'd always carry apiece of Ole' man Kelly of Cutter's Creek in my heart...

It was gettin on around dark when I finally made my way on home and I could barely see something sittin on a log there by my house... was an old box...I opened that box and my knees went weak, remembering my knees hitting the ground..and I began to pray...Lord somehow, someday i'll make Ole' Man Kelly proud of me...

in that box was a note scribble, could just barely make it out and it was signed with his mark, I reckon...by an X.

It said , boy I wanted you to know that I knew....

and I'm leaving you this fiddle and my songs...
and all my worldly goods down to my last dime
you go to school to learn to teach others like you ,
with that hungar of music in their eyes
teach them the music of the stars boy, teach them the music of the stars.....

I reached in and got that ole fiddle out, it was held together with tape and glue and sewn with the hair taken from a horses tail.....and his songs were written but with words hard to read and understand..guess he didn't have much schoolin...but these were my hidden treasure i'd been lookin for all my life..

In a glass case in the front hallway of the college I proudly show, right up in front is that fiddle..i've named it
"Ole' Kelly of Cutter's Creek...the music of the Stars"
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