Edna and John Bell in 1932				Allegheny Moon Is the biography of Cynthia’s grandmother, Edna Schrader Bell. Edna was born and raised in a house overlooking the rail line where, as a small child, she would lie in her big feather bed and listening to the coal trains roll by throughout the night. Her father was a coal miner and then worked for the rail road. Edna’s family became the foster home for four year old John Bell when his father died of TB. He and Edna fell in love and married and moved north to a succession of homes just outside Morgantown, West Virginia. They raised four children on John’s coalminers pay.			The Schrader house in Independence, West Virginia
He eventually was diagnosed with black lung and for a while the family lived off his 90 dollar a month black lung payment from the United Mine Workers Union and by share cropping on a small farm up Peddlers Run from Core, West Virginia. While this is Edna’s story it is typical of so many of the women of the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia. Lyrics to Allegheny Moon
The Santa Elena Canyon on the Rio Grande River photos courtesy of Alex Lieban					Santa Elena Is a song about lost love and the indomitable spirit of both mankind and the river. The idea for the song came from two sources. One was an experience when I was filming a TV Mini-Documentary. In spite of a good deal of emotional pain I was feeling at the time I found that being in that beautiful space put everything into perspective. The 1500 foot limestone walls and the cry of the almost extinct Peregrine Falcons was salve for the soul. The strange dichotomy of the river was pointed out in a Tish Hinijosa song I heard about that same time. So many people rely on the river for their sustenance and yet we have poisoned the river and thus many of the people who can’t see the poison from the agricultural and industrial waste. What struck me; However, was that while we have poisoned the river, she is still can clean herself up as she tumbles her way through the 5 canyons that guide the river through the Big Bend of Texas. Her song was of the desperation of the Rio Grande Valley below the canyons and mine of the pollution from New Mexico and the twin plants along the Texas border near El Paso up stream from the canyons. The lyrics to Santa Elena
			The approach to the Santa Elena. The first of 5 canyons along the Big Bend of the Rio Grande.
			The rock slide as seen from 750 feet up. You either run the class 4 rapids or portage your canoe over the slide.
Charlie at the Ken Lance Sports Arena in Ada, Oklahoma 1972		One Step In 1972 I was filming a rodeo in Ada, Oklahoma (the oldest rodeo in the state I might add). Quail Dobbs was the rodeo clown. He came up to me and noticed I was wearing boots. He gave me a bit of life saving advice. He said, “son, the bull is meaner than you and he’s faster than you. However, there’s one thing that you know that he doesn’t that will keep you alive. First get some tennis shoes on so you can run. Then when the bull comes after you begin to run for the fence at a comfortable jog (remember that no matter how fast you are HE”S FASTER). As you run put your free hand behind you. When you feel his breath on your hand slap his nose with your open hand. When he feels the contact he will stop, plant his front feet and hook his head. You on the other hand will keep running and you will get a few steps on the bull. He will catch up but you will repeat the slap on the nose till I come and distract the bull or you get to the fence. Either way all you need is one step. The bull isn’t your enemy because you can always keep that one step ahead. You’re only enemy is your fear. That is what will trip you.”
That advice got me through more than just filming rodeos. Quail went on to be one of the most successful and famous of all rodeo clowns. The next year (1973) I got to try out his advice at that very rodeo and it worked. I didn’t see Quail after 1976 but his advice has worked. I have always thought it would make a good song but it took a total of 26 years to get around to writing it. The lyrics to One Step
Ring ‘Round the Moon My mother was a writer and teller of stories. Growing up she would make up stories and then tell them to my brother and sister and I. As she traveled the world she wrote some of those stories down and read them to the school kids that came to her library in the various schools where she worked over the years. She eventually was published although most of those stories were non fiction and dealt with her travels and life experiences with Dad and our family. She wrote just a few poems but one in particular was very special. It was written not to long before she suffered a massive heart attack that would eventually silence her pen. It was about being awakened by the
	light of the full moon as she slept next to her lover and life’s companion (my dad Jim Stacey). She wrote in the poem of this gift of time to just lay there and listen to his breath and savor the warmth and the moment. Unfortunately the poem was not in rhyming verse so I couldn’t just take the words and add music. Instead I took the idea and went from my experience with my partner in crime and life and came up with the song. I had the opportunity to play it for mom at the song’s premiere at a concert in Tahlequah at Ford’s Alley.
Moonlight Oh. It’s only moonlight. No longer startled, I smile. How nice to be awakened By moonlight. I puff-up my pillow move gently closer to my sleeping husband. Away from the soft light I’m held aware relishing my happiness; thankful for the moonlight’s interruption of my sleep. Dorothy A. Stacey						The lyrics to Ring ‘Round the Moon