Hoping the music of Telephone Hill can carry on

(City and Borough of Juneau photo)

The memories and ghosts that inhabit Telephone Hill are hard to hear above the noise and clamor of cruise ships and tour buses, but on an early morning, in the shade of trees and homes that still stand, you might still hear them.

The sound of Joe Twan’s peg leg, pounding out time on the floorboards of the first courthouse built on the hill; calling out the moves for the dancers…as he and Dick Willoughby played twin fiddles through the night. Laughter and music to push back the long, dark curtains of winter darkness.

The shuffle of cards and laughter as the old timers of Cassiar played cards in China Joe’s log cabin with Juneau’s first brick-oven bakery built right into the home…coffee and cards and fresh ginger cake!

Today, in the state museum you can still see Joe’s bamboo, erhu fiddle. Dick Willoughby’s homemade banjo is still in the museum somewhere; instruments of music, locked away in glass cases.

We forget, before the internet, before YouTube and Spotify, long before AI, there was a time when music came from parlors and homes of people. At the turn of the century, families would gather around a piano and a family member skilled at reading sheet music, or playing songs from memory, would gather the family to sing. Music and songs were a shared thing.

In our time, Telephone Hill was the focal point of the last singers and players of Folk Festival’s final night, making music till dawn, when celebrants would leave Jeff Brown’s “Institute of White Noise”…his magical, musical home on the Hill.

Or you might still hear John Ingall’s in his garage workshop working away on a new flute design. Most folks don’t know John has flutes that sit in the Smithsonian Institute, and recently he was granted a patent for a new flute that is a wonder to hold and play. Again…musical magic on the Hill.

Visitors often ask, where is the best food in Juneau, the best music?

We who live here know the truth, the best food and music is in the homes of its people, and you are more than fortunate if you are invited to share in that.

So the members of our city Assembly, who are poised to bulldoze the homes and green heart of our city, they need to sit on a bench on Telephone Hill and listen long and hard, for they have forgotten the words and the melody of the song we call “community.” They have forgotten the song and treasure we share in our homes is more valuable than gold. There is still a ghost of a chance they might sit up and listen, and let the Hill be.

• Mark Whitman is a Douglas resident.