Tipper – Lake Logan Boat House
Recently we’ve had a renewed interest in our cover of the old Ian Tyson song “Summer Wages.”
We uploaded the song to our Blind Pig and The Acorn YouTube Channel in September of 2011.
Although I had heard Tony Rice sing the song I hadn’t really paid attention to the lyrics until Paul taught me to play along with him and Pap when they sung it on Sunday evenings.
The song compares lost love with the loss of summer wages.
I was working for summer wages when I first met The Deer Hunter. I worked at Lake Logan in Haywood County NC. At that time Champion International owned the lake and the facilities that surround it. They used the location for meetings and to wine and dine anyone they needed to.
I worked in the boat house where visitors could fish after their meetings or before if they were really serious about it.
We started work sometime in late April and worked till sometime in October. The lake was closed each winter.
It was a fantastic job. The scenery out the boat house windows would take your breath away. Not to mention the beauty of the lake when viewed from a boat or the river as it flowed into the lake. All my meals were free from the dining hall, the pay was good and there was even over-time available for anyone who wanted it. There was lots of down time to read, talk, or listen to music. The boat house crew was a great bunch to work with—oh the fun we had! But honestly back then I was too young and inexperienced to recognize any of those things. I whined and complained a lot about that job.
Even though I didn’t realize the jewel of job I had, I did learn a lot working at Lake Logan.
The early shift started at 6:30 a.m. so that helped strengthen my work ethic. I learned the skill of cleaning fish which still serves me till today. I learned much about working with the public and customer service as I helped a variety of people who were guests with their licenses and fishing needs. And best of all during that time I learned about true love and caught the biggest fish of all: The Deer Hunter.
I hope you enjoyed the song. I love the words, I love the tune, I love the way Paul plays it, and I love the wonderful harmony between Pap and Paul. But I guess most of all I love the memories it bubbles up in my mind from the days of working at Lake Logan and courting The Deer Hunter as well as picking and grinning with Pap and Paul of a Sunday evening.
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I worked for summer wages at a local, historic amusement park – The Sylvan Beach Amusement Park on Oneida Lake in CNY. The view from the top of the Super Slide was SUPER. You felt like you were on top of the world & because the sun set on the opposite side of the lake you would get breathtaking views every evening. Had a lot of fun with all of the teenage coworkers & all of us did our best to antagonize the “old” supervisors. Looking back now, those supervisors were only in their early to mid 20s, but they seemed like old squares, who sole responsibility was to wreck our fun. The best was working in Kiddie Land. You got paid to make little kids have fun all day long. & in between? We really goofed off! Oh the stories I could tell. We could work 60 hr.s a week & I made quite a good chunk of change for a poor farm girl. Made a lot of friendships that would last for the season. I think about those girls often & all the laughs & drama.
Nothing like sweet, young summer love that turns into forever!
Tipper enjoyed this and it takes me back to your post about the big pictures of the logging job. My grandfather came from West Virginia to run a “shay” engine on the logging job there. My father worked there also. One of my relatives attended a meeting there when Champion owned and was sure they found granddad in one or more of the pictures
Love the song, and the last two summers my nephew worked at the Lake Logan boat house for summer wages!
I spend one whole summer on Lake Rabun in Rabun County, Georgia. It was 1971, I think. I was helping Tobe Crisp and Thurman Breedlove build a lake house for an Atlanta lawyer and his family. There was a road to the the site but it could only be traveled under the very best conditions. Luckily for us the landowner had a boat and already had a covered dock to park it in and he gave it to us to use. Most of the supplies was trucked in when the road was passable but often things were changed or missed and somebody had to go to Clayton to get them. I was the least experienced member of the crew so it fell on me to be the gofer. I did not protest! The trip entailed crossing the lake in the boat, driving the boss’s truck into town, waiting at the building supply, driving back to the marina and back across the lake with whatever I had gone for. Sometimes it took 2 or 3 hours to get back. That was when I had to hurry and couldn’t be distracted by sights and sounds along the way. Sometimes the distractions were too strong to be overcome.
At the time I had never heard of the Foxfire Books. They had their beginnings right around that same time and around that same place. We drove right through Mountain City where Foxfire began and is centered. A little bit of history there that I could have been distracted by even more had I known.
Love that song…also Ian & Sylvia’s “Four Strong Winds”
“The scenery out the boat house windows would take your breath away.”
From that photo I’d say the scenery INSIDE the boat house would also take a fella’s breath away! I’m sure Matt thought so!
Blessings to all . . .
My parents were firm believers in instilling in me a strong work ethic & scene of responsibility. When I ‘graduated 7th grade (I was either 12 or 13) I was told that from that time on I either went to summer school or got some type of job. No more summer breaks. From that time until I graduated high school I only went to summer school 1 time. Each summer I chose a new job experience. My summer jobs consisted of helping my father in his business (the hardest job I ever had to date), had my own lawn service, left the Appalachian foothills to be a deck hand on a fishing trawler (we ported out of Cape May NJ) and worked in home construction. Those were some great times!!
Always loved Ian & Sylvia Tyson. When I was touring Canada in 1974 they had a very popular TV show. Summer Wages is one of my favorite songs as is Four Strong Winds. Bobby Bare heard an unknown Waylon Jennings do Winds at a club in Phoenix…went back to Nashville and told his producer, a fellow just know as “Chet at RCA”, “Hey, I found me a hit song and I found you a new artist.” You know the rest of the story. Would love to hear you guys do Four Strong Winds”..hint..hint..and one more…ever heard a Gordon Lightfoot song called Bitter Green???Great harmony song.. forgive me for writing a Ben Hur.
I have always loved the Song Summer Wages and Tony Rice is the only one I have ever listen to. Like you I am a upright bass player. I mostly do not play now days but listen. My late husband was a fiddle player and we played together. with him gone it is not the same. Enjoy your stories. Have a blessed day.
Beautiful singing as usual and I think we all can go back in time to those first jobs.
I was almost ready to get on my way to church when I noticed you had a post entitled “On Heaven’s Bright Shore,” posted on March 18, 2018. That song I knew and when I clicked on it I saw two videos of Katie and Corrie. The second one they were younger. Don’t know how I missed them years ago, but I clicked on the one with Katie and Corrie at a younger age and oh my goodness what beautiful harmony I heard. I could see Pap’s face showing he loved it too! Katie held a mandolin (didn’t play it) and I don’t know if she had played it before; if so, I didn’t know it. I know this comment isn’t related to today’s post BUT it is related to Great Singing that lifts the spirit and I’m going to be driving to church singing that wonderful old hymn of the Church.
Another beautiful song! Love the way you and the Deer Hunter met. Those sweet memories you will never forget. All you girls in your family as just as pretty as a picture!! Have a blessed Sunday everyone!
I’m really enjoying those harmonies they sang!
Wonderful song for a Sunday morning…or any time, really. You might also consider writing the story of yourself and Matt from the time you met. Younger people need to know how it was back then…although your “back then” isn’t nearly as “back then” as for many of us. People who are the age of our grandchildren need to learn to appreciate the pure drama, romance and adventure of those days. and The Blind Pig presents the perfect forum for it.
Ray, I like that idea. I think I would qualify for the back, back then time. Everything seemed so much more innocent
( maybe not the correct word but I can’t think of anything else) the music, the way we dressed, especially the girls just everything. Speaking of music, I found a song a couple of days ago from the 60’s I had been thinking of for a long time, but couldn’t think of the name or who sang it. It was I ‘m Leaving It Up ToYou by Dale and Grace. There was never anyone else but Janice for me, with her by my side, I felt like I had the world by the tail. Tipper is going to kick me off if I don’t stop making so many comments.
Loved the song!!!! I’m sitting here trying to get woke up from our gigs we played the last 3 evenings at German Park in Indianapolis for the 2022 Oktoberfest. Fun times for sure!
Thinking about the lyrics made me remember some of the jobs I had as a kid during the summer breaks. Derouging corn, detassling corn and what I considered the bane of my existence during my teenage years…. babysitting. Love kids, don’t like to babysit them though.
Glad to see your back up and running again, have a wonderful blessed day!!
Tipper, from what I have learned about the Deer Hunter from reading your blog, I would think you caught a good un. Lucky he was not a trash fish – carp or sucker. Dealing with the public is a job in itself, my wife would come home somedays almost in tears , while other customers would let nobody but her wait on them. I would not last long in a job dealing with public. I would soon be on some of the ill, gripy one’s heads or something slightly below their waist. I feel like I will get treated just as good as I treat the person I am dealing with. This has been proven true many times over the years just recently while in the hospital , no way I could have been treated any better.
And yet another treasure of a song and post. You have not changed one bit, shorter hair, but beautiful both ways. Have Blessed Sunday and such a memorial day on a Sunday.
My first summer job was as a corn de-tasseled in the fields of the big seed corn companies like Pioneer and Dekalb. As soon as a kid was 5’ tall, he could work in the summer during the three or four week de-tassel time. This was before the days of migrant farm workers in that part of the country. I reached my goal height by the summer after 6th. grade. The pay was 25 cents an hour if you were riding a tractor driven rig where you balanced on narrow planks suspended from a framework. It seems to me that there were four planks on each side of the tractor so eight kids could process eight rows of corn. The rig put us at tassel height. If rain had made the fields too muddy for the rig, we walked the rows and made 35 cents an hour. I had to really reach and bend the plants some to reach the tassels and every few feet had to stop to clean the accumulated mud off my shoes. I made enough money to pay for my back to school clothes that fall of 1958 and was most proud of the school shoes I bought – avocado green suede saddle oxfords with little buckles on the heels. (Yes, they WERE in style at the time.)
I loved reading this (and everything else you write). It is fun to hear how you met the Deer Hunter. I love hearing Paul and Pap sing and play, so I look forward to it. I’m in CA, so it’s still early out here as I write this, and I don’t want to wake up my kiddos by turning up the volume! Tipper, since I found your YouTube channel and then your blog, I cannot tell you how much joy they have brought me. You are a gift.
Every time I hear a clip of your father and brother singing and playing together, I’m impressed and enjoy their good music. On a video recently, Corie mentioned that you and Matt were celebrating your 28th wedding anniversary. Congratulations, and I wish y’all many more years of happiness.
Glad you are back up and running. We miss being able to drop by and say, “Hi!” and see what you are in to.
Yes, life and its experiences give us another perspective on our past. Guess we all go through a “newbie” stage, rather green and maybe brash while the new is getting tempered and refined.
Along with it goes an inability to appreciate our present. That’s a skill we grow into and get better at. The saving grace though is that we remember when we were green and can be kind to those who are growing through it. Usually the wisest thing is to not let them know that though. They’ll figure it out by and by.
If I could meet now the fella I was about 1975 or so I don’t know whether I would get aggravated, sad or tickled at him; probably all three by turns. Some of who I was then has gone like Summer Wages.
“caught the biggest fish of all” reminded me of the old saying; The girls let the guys chase them until they (the fellows) are caught.
Jackie, my first girlfriend was named Jackie 6th grade, lasted a couple of weeks, but we remain very close friends through the rest of our school years. Now if the girl slows down I will slow down too! If y’all have read my story about my wife, you will know I am joking when I say this. Never anyone else but her, even though she passed away, I would feel like I was cheating on her if I every acted like I was interested in anyone else. I can not do it, she was too precious to me.
I am glad to see you are back this morning, hope you have got the problems straightened out. If technology goes beyond a sandpile and chalkboard, I’m lost. I also like the song. I started cutting my church’s grass and the church cemetery whenI was 14 years old and did this for 3 years and then worked during one summer at a company called Her Majesty at Mauldin, SC. They made children’s clothes. Just as soon as I had saved enough money from the first summer of cutting grass, I got my parents to take me to Sears and I bought myself a $75 set of craftsman tools that I added a lot more too over the years. I thought they had to be craftsman. You know lifetime guarantee no questions asked, a cheater pipe done some of them in, I ignored my advice about abuse. In 1969 that was a pretty nice set of tools, I still have and use all of the tools from the original set. Use but don’t abuse. I think the Deer Hunter would give me an Amen on that statement. Tipper, it sounds like you had dream for summer job.
What a great pic, Tipper; thanks for sharing the wonderful storyline behind it. Pap and Paul’s acoustic version of “Summer Wages” is outstanding and will stir lot’s of memories for many of your readers. Am also a fan of Ian Tyson; in particular, his phraseology – kinda unique like Willie’s. Thanks again for sharing this little story…….
Well ,now I ‘m crying . Hearing Pap and Paul singing brings back memories of my Daddy. He didn’t play a guitar or even sing very much but he loved music. Music touched his heart in a way nothing else could. My youngest sister has a beautiful voice but she didn’t start singing publicly until she was well into her forties.We didn’t even know she could sing so we were all surprised when she finally conquered her fears and began to use her God given talent. Daddy was so happy to hear her and I’m so thankful that he got to enjoy her singing before he passed.
Keep up the good work you are doing. Your posts lift us up. Thank you ❤
Tipper that does sound like a perfect job, then to meet your husband there was the chrrry on top.
Tipper, I always wondered how you and the Deer Hunter met and today you answered that. You share such great memories and wonderful videos of Pap and Paul with many others singing. I know you are so thankful and cherish all these wonderful videos featuring your dad.
Now you need to tell us in a post how you came up with the name Blind pig and the acorn. I’ve been wondering about that too.
Why is it that humans so often don’t recognize the precious gems of life until they’re gone? Love your stories, Tipper, and
thank you for sharing this memory.
I’ll swan! ALL the ladies in your family look so much alike. I can see your mama and you and the twins in each other’s photos. Lovely ladies all. And the men’s harmony was so sweet.
No kidding. Tipper looks just like Chitter and Chatter in this picture. I love that you said, I swan. That was something my granny would say.
I haven’t thought of “I swan” in many, many years. My grandmother used that expression. Sometimes it came out “Well, I swannee!” Another of her exclamations was “Aw pshaw!”
Love this blog, music, your YouTube channel and the girls YouTube. I’m curious (nosy) — did the Deer Hunter also work at the lake?
Janice-thank you! He didn’t work at the lake 🙂
Paul is remarkable in whatever he does. The same is true with any song he performs. He has the ability to take on the mood of the words and melody, make them his own, and yet convey the feelings originally intended by whoever wrote the song. Your Dad and Paul are two of the greatest musicians to my eyes and ears. Your Dad, the Wilson Brothers, The Pressley Girls, and Paul – all of their music – is so rich with a sound that cannot be heard from anyone else. You are so lucky. Tipper, to have had the gift of listening to them all your life. I was thinking this song was written maybe back in the 1930s give or take. I was surprised to see on my quick google search, that it was written in 1967, by Canadian Ian Tyson. I enjoyed hearing your Dad and Paul sing it!
Donna. : )
Memories like your describing get better with age.
First jobs help shape your future work ethics
Beautiful song, well done, as usual! Look at all that long curly hair, Tip, it’s beautiful. You and the Deer Hunter were meant for each other. That was obvious the first time I met you that summer. I drove to Waynesville and you two drive from Lake Logan. I knew from that day that the two of you were meant for each other and I was very pleased about it. Young love if a wonderful thing!