For Generations Within the Alleghenies Long Before There Were Festivals Here People Have

For generations within the Alleghenies – long before there were “festivals” here – people have been gathering around this time of year to celebrate the harvest.

Generations ago, they’d arrive at someone’s farm, bringing covered dishes and desserts to share: casseroles and side dishes, garden vegetables and salads, fresh-baked breads, apple and berry pies, jugs of just-squeezed apple cider or perhaps something harder.

Those were day-long events, enabling people to relax and catch up with neighbors and friends after the hectic harvest. They’d sit on chairs and porch steps and stumps, bask in the lingering warmth of an early autumn sun, chat and eat and often listen to some music.

Music was as common as corn on the cob. For along with food and jugs, people would bring their fiddles, guitars, banjos, dulcimers, mandolins, accordions and other, more- makeshift instruments.

Musicians took turns leading songs; others joined in as they could. Spectators gathered around the players, sitting or standing, listening to the tunes and occasionally singing along.

Today, our abundance of fall festivals are largely an outgrowth of that tradition. Of course contemporary festivals are more elaborate with some offering hundreds of vendors, multiple stages and dozens of food choices that draw thousands of people.

But that also means our festival experiences can be marred by parking frustrations, long lines, inconsiderate strangers and significant expense. Too bad those simpler gatherings are a thing of the past – or are they?

Not in the little community of Twin Rocks, a onetime coal patch that sits along PA 271 in central Cambria County, where, on the last Saturday in September, a yellow-and-white tent was set up on a dirt parking lot adjacent to Malcotti’s Tavern.

Underneath the tent, the traditional-Irish band Aran was performing a sailors’ shanty:

One for the Morning Glory/ Two for the early dew/ Three for the man who will stand his round/ And four for the love of you. An audience of more than 50 – mostly middle-aged or older – were scattered about the parking lot or sitting at tables topped by plastic tablecloths and centerpieces of pumpkins and gourds. Many were listening, but others were gathered in small clusters, talking and drinking domestic beers from cans.

Just outside Malcotti’s, a deep-fryer was handling donated fish and French fries. Inside, two walls of one room were lined with tables bearing homemade foods: ham barbecue, hot dogs with sauerkraut, stuffed banana peppers, baked beans, haluski with dough noodles, various salads and a variety of cookies, cakes and pies.

The tavern calls this “Harvest Fest” and has been holding the event for four years now around the end of September or early October. A marketing ploy to make a lot of money? Hardly.

“It’s all free,” co-owner Justine Malcotti-Coll told me. “The musicians play for free. It’s all potluck.”

Originally, this began as a community fish fry. Then Robert Gordon of nearby Belsano – a violin-maker and fiddler – began to bring in his network of traditional musicians and turned this into a true throwback folk gathering.

Robert and his wife, Sally, who perform as “Gordon Glen,” also host a traditional music circle at Malcotti’s on the third Friday of each month from October through April. Musicians sit in the circle and take turns leading on songs – or pass if they aren’t comfortable leading a piece. That way less-experienced players can play along on bluegrass, Americana (a.k.a. “old-timey”) and folk music with others.

After the Harvest Fest ended around dusk, musicians who’d stuck around formed a music circle inside. Before long, people were singing “Bring back my Bonnie to me,” accompanied by the mandolin, banjo, guitars, accordion and stand-up bass.

Festivals can be wonderful. But isn’t it heartening to know that simpler gatherings still celebrate the harvest here within the Alleghenies?