For about 25 years (beginning around 1990), I led a bluegrass band called Lighthouse. We got started playing at Community Covenant Church on Palm Sunday, which always featured bluegrass music. I don’t remember why this became a tradition, but it did. Rick Kirby and I both were members of that church, and we had played together previously in a band called Pacific-ly Bluegrass. So we called up our old bass player Peter Varhola, along with two guys who had previously played in a local band called Blue Skies — mandolin player Noel Taggart and Dobro player Kim Weeks. We rehearsed a few times and liked how we all sounded together so we decided to form a new band called Lighthouse.
By the mid-nineties, I was attending Shadow Mountain Community Church and when pastor David Jeremiah found out that I had a bluegrass band, he invited us to play at a men’s breakfast. He liked us so well that he invited us to play at a church service a few weeks later. Just recently I found a copy of the VHS recording of that service and had it converted to a digital file (since I no longer own a video cassette player). On watching the video, it reminded me that we were a pretty darn good bluegrass band. And it reminded me that I do miss playing music with those guys!
