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5.0 out of 5 stars
Local History Done Right, July 27, 2006
This review is from: Musical Service: The Life And Times of the Franklin Silver Cornet Band (Paperback)
Local histories walk a very fine line - they have to be location specific, but not parochial; they can't focus on inside jokes or assume that their readers know anything about the area that their writing about, even if the readers have lived their all of their lives. In Musical Service, The Life and Times of the Franklin Silver Coronet Band, Peter Greene shows in that he understands the concept of these dual natures.
As a resident of the area, I can tell you that local history is a broken record and has been for years (currently espoused by local historian Neil McElwee)- the robber barons were super, the workers were all happy, the drunks were all loveable, there were no Bolsheviks, anarchists or communist, even Pithole, the wickedest town in the East has been reduced to a one note joke - no whores or opium addicts here; it's a friendly sort of wicked.
Greene dodges the whitewash by focusing on the lives of these musicians - these aren't famous people, they're workers in the community. The same people who you see in your schools, at the mall, or at gym. He makes the point that the band, like the small town of Franklin, is made up of the individual, idiosyncratic, members. While he could have focused just on the band leaders, he also brings in the members of the Clown Band - an off shoot made of members who ". . . were expected to dress silly, act silly, and on more than one occasion, drink until they were silly" (314). Greene also avoids the pitfall of delving too far into national events. I don't care about national history it's all too broad, the only history is local history, but Greene does his topic right with his assiduous research, for example tying in the upheaval of the 60s and 70s with how it was felt in a small town:
There's no question that at the age of 115 the band's concerts were a very old fashioned sort of activity, but they could still raise a small controversy or two. A continuing concern in the city had been "hippies" hanging out in the parks and just sitting on the grass. That summer, this item ran on the News Herald:
Two city patrolmen reported being stopped Thursday at 9 p.m. by two "hippies" who complained about the old people sitting on the grass in the city park.
Police said two "hippies" stopped them and wanted to know why old people could sit on the grass in the park and they couldn't.
Police said they stated they were run out of the West Park for doing the same thing, just having their own concert.
Apparently the young people referred to the concert last night by the Silver Coronet band (315).
In this short section, Greene shows off the strengths of the book - clear writing, diligent research and an appeal not just to small town life but, as he does in his other books, Venango Tales and Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, how the small town life digests and reflects the tumultuous world that rages outside its (forcibly created) peaceful façade.
A final encouraging note is that Greene is an educator and, at least, 18 years ago, when I was his student, he teaches his students the same skills in writing. Our class had an assignment to research and write about a time period in our small town of Franklin. My project partner was my best friend, Mark McClusky. Today, McClusky is an editor at Wired and I make my living writing and teaching others to write. The guy must be doing something right.
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